Digital Life

Discover the best articles, videos, and resources on life in the digital era. Digital tools, screen time, social media, digital communications. Follow along on Refind to get the most relevant new links picked for you.
9 Best Articles in 2021
The New York Times
Stop Trying to Be ProductiveThe New York Times
7 min read · 2020-04-01 · The internet wants you to believe you aren’t doing enough with all that “extra time” you have now. But staying inside and attending to basic needs is plenty.
productivity
mental health
better living
Most highlighted
“I’m trying to be more OK with just being.”
This urge to overachieve, even in times of global crisis, is reflective of America’s always-on work culture.
medium.com
How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist — Mediummedium.com
~16 min read · From 2016 · When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want you to show you where it might do the opposite.
technology
digital life
startups
Guardian Tech
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopiaGuardian Tech
20+ min read · From 2017 · The Google, Apple and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race…
addiction
fbchange
digital life
The Pudding
How Bad Is Your Spotify?The Pudding
2020-12-22 · Our sophisticated A.I. judges your awful taste in music.
music
digital life
spotify
Vox
Dark patterns, the tricks websites use to make you say yes, explainedVox
10 min read · Apr 1st · How design can manipulate and coerce you into doing what websites want.
digital life
visual design
design
Most highlighted
The big pop-up window urging you to sign up for a website’s newsletter with a big red “Sign Me Up” button, while the opt-out button is much smaller and passive-aggressively implies that anyone who clicks is a bad person who doesn’t care about saving money or staying informed
“Regulation works,” Brignull said. “It can really turn the internet into somewhere that’s nice to be instead of like a complete Wild West environment. And we need it.”
The Verge
NFTs, explainedThe Verge
8 min read · Mar 3rd
art
digital life
technology
Most highlighted
A lot of the conversation is about NFTs as an evolution of fine art collecting, only with digital art.
Ness Labs
From FOMO to JOMO: the joy of missing outNess Labs
6 min read · 2019-09-07 · JOMO—the joy of missing out—is a way to live an intentional life. It’s realising that FOMO is distracting you from your life’s purpose.
attention economy
self
mindfulness
Most highlighted
Associated with a fear of regret, FOMO is the apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which you are absent.
In essence, JOMO is a way to live an intentional life. It’s realising that FOMO is distracting you from your life’s purpose, and that you don’t need more time.
Fast Company
The 26 best new productivity apps for 2021Fast Company
8 min read · Jul 12th · These great apps will help you organize your digital life, avoid unwanted distractions, and more.
productivity
digital life
apps
Most highlighted
As an answer to all the cruft that Google’s email service has built up over the past 17 years, Simplify Gmail is a revelation.
Instead of making you sign up for newsletters with a dedicated email address, Meco locates the newsletters you’re already getting in Gmail, then lets you transfer them to its own reader app.
The New York Times
What Happens When Our Faces Are Tracked Everywhere We Go?The New York Times
20+ min read · Mar 18th · When a secretive start-up scraped the internet to build a facial-recognition tool, it tested a legal and ethical limit — and blew the future of privacy in America wide open.
technology
digital life
privacy
Most highlighted
The more society-changing aspect of facial recognition in the United States may be how private companies deploy it.  And imagine what you would do with a face-identifying app on your phone: a Shazam for people. You would never forget someone’s name at a party again.
And anonymity could be eradicated in day-to-day life.
New this week
How Local Media Spreads Misinformation From Vaccine Skeptics
The New York Times
Opinion | This Is Our Chance to Pull Teenagers Out of the Smartphone Trap
The New York Times
Covid Is Pulling the Plug on Beloved Japanese Arcades
WIRED
Let’s Keep the Vaccine Misinformation Problem in Perspective
WIRED
Why it’s good for you if I protect my privacy
The Boston Globe
The Privacy Battle That Apple Isn’t Fighting
WIRED
Signal: How To Ethically Boost Your Revenues
growth.design
Digital Nomad History
nomadicnotes.com
How to use Focus modes for notifications on iOS 15
The Verge
Got a pile of random Lego? This amazing app tells you what you can build
Fast Company
Take a deep dive
NFT — Beyond the Hype
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The New York Times
Opinion | Why We Crave Internet JusticeThe New York Times
5 min read · Jul 17th · On social media, we are all hammers seeking nails.
digital life
social media
Most highlighted
Something fundamental has changed since then. I don’t enjoy most social media anymore. I’ve felt this way for a while, but I’m loath to admit it.
In real life, we are fearful Davids staring down seemingly omnipotent Goliaths: a Supreme Court poised to undermine abortion and civil rights; a patch of sea on fire from a gas leak; an incoherent but surprisingly effective attack on teaching children America’s real history; the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act; a man whom dozens of women have accused of sexual assault walking free on a technicality. At least online, we can tell ourselves that the power imbalances between us flatten. Suddenly, we are all Goliaths in the Valley of Elah.
Every
The Blurred Lines of Parasocial RelationshipsEvery
~19 min read · Jul 15th · The disappearing divide between “followers” and “friends”
relationships
digital life
creator economy
Most highlighted
For online creators and internet influencers, sharing intimate details about their lives is now part of the job description.
In time, the devotee – the ‘fan’ – comes to believe that he ‘knows’ the persona more intimately and profoundly than others do; that he ‘understands’ his character and appreciates his values and motives.
The Atlantic
How Spotify Has Changed Music Libraries ForeverThe Atlantic
5 min read · Jul 19th · If your entire collection is on a streaming service, good luck accessing it in 10 or 20 years.
music
digital life
BBC News (World)
The YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plotBBC News (World)
6 min read · Jul 24th · A mysterious marketing agency secretly offered to pay social media stars to spread disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines
digital life
media
WIRED
The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to RepairWIRED
2 min read · Jul 21st · The move follows an executive order issued last week by the White House urging the agency to secure consumers' rights to fix their own gadgets.
digital life
The Verge
Microsoft’s new 3D emoji include Clippy coming back to life in OfficeThe Verge
3 min read · Jul 15th · Microsoft is overhauling its emoji in Windows and Office.
digital life
WIRED
The Privacy Battle That Apple Isn’t FightingWIRED
5 min read · Jul 30th · California has begun enforcing a browser-level privacy setting, but you still can’t find that option in Safari or iOS.
digital life
privacy
Fast Company
Got a pile of random Lego? This amazing app tells you what you can buildFast Company
3 min read · Jul 6th · This fan-made app beats any digital experience Lego has built to date.
gadgets
digital life
lego
WIRED
Is Social Media Making Us … Better People?WIRED
2 min read · Jul 14th · One painful interaction at a time, we’re mastering the gateway virtue of the networked world: tact.
digital life
social media
Internet Archive
Reflections as the Internet Archive turns 25Internet Archive
4 min read · Jul 22nd · As a young man, I wanted to help make a new medium that would be a step forward from Gutenberg's invention. By building a Library of Everything in the digital age, I thought the opportunity was not…
digital life
history
Digital Life

9 Best Articles in 2021

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