The Best Articles in Social Media
The most useful articles and videos in Social Media from around the web, curated by thought leaders and our community.
Refind focuses on timeless pieces and updates the list whenever new, must-read articles or videos are discovered.
Top 5 Social Media Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Social Media by Refind users in 2024 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
3 ways to defend your mind against social media distortions
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Everything is a Remix (Complete Updated 2023 Edition)
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What Is Digital Modesty?
Watch the full episode here - https://youtu.be/vJ9LjAYZ-cM?si=mkhOKAY6pOatd34B-Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on...
Reddit CEO calls unpaid moderators' concerns "noise"
👉 https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/13/reddit-ceo-blackouts-no-revenue-impact/👉 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1668346845142339585https://youtu.be/U06...
How to have better conversations on social media
How would you describe your feelings about social media? Do words like “entertaining” and “connecting” come to mind — but also words like “exhausting” and “polarized”? You’re not alone if you find …
What is ...?
New to Social Media? These articles make an excellent introduction.
How to ...?
How to talk to conspiracy theorists—and still be kind
Experts and r/ChangeMyView subreddit moderators offer 10 tips to debunk conspiracy theories convincingly—and kindly.
How to see who viewed your TikTok profile
Only you can see who viewed your profile, but if you turn on the feature, then you're also consenting to let other people see that you've viewed their profile.
How to Dox Yourself on the Internet
A step-by-step guide to finding and removing your personal information from the internet.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Social Media on Refind.
Let’s not make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media
Social media’s unregulated evolution over the past decade holds a lot of lessons that apply directly to AI companies and technologies.
«The expansive role of these technologies in our daily lives gives for-profit corporations opportunities to exert control over more aspects of society, and that exposes us to the risks arising from their incentives and decisions.»
Persistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time
Long conversations online consistently exhibit higher toxicity, yet toxic language does not invariably discourage people from participating in a conversation, and toxicity does not necessarily escalate as discussions evolve.
Photographer steps inside Vietnam’s shadowy ‘click farms’
The images offer a rare glimpse inside murky enterprises that artificially generate social media likes, comments and shares for less than a cent a click.
POV: Is it the designer’s responsibility if an app is addictive?
Habit-forming features on social media apps are sparking class-action lawsuits. But does moral responsibility lie with product designers?
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Social Media—all under 10 minutes.
Information That Would Get Your Attention
I’ve always thought Twitter makes you twice as informed but half as productive. On net it’s probably a wash. A lot of media works that way. Everyone has access to an astronomical amount of data…
An Apocalyptic Meditation on Doomscrolling
The next time you catch yourself doomscrolling, take it as an invitation to own your own horror.
«Compulsion is key to doomscrolling, which means that, whatever else is going on, we enjoy it.»
What's the Best Digital Detox? Experts Share an Unlikely Suggestion
Before you take a break from social media, psychologists suggest assessing your existing online habits and what benefits you get from them.
How TikTok profits off dangerous health trends
On TikTok Shop, influencers are profiting by promoting sketchy health trends in order to sell products.
Paying Attention
Sherlock Holmes says in the book, The Study of Scarlet: I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes…
«Be willing to read anything that looks even a little interesting, but abandon it quickly and without mercy if it’s not working for you.»
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Social Media.
Everyone is on their phones. But is it really phone addiction we’re experiencing?
There is no standard diagnosis for ‘phone addiction’, and a debate rages about whether there should be. But will medicalizing a behavior help or harm those suffering from it?
«In its simplest form, addiction is the tipping point at which compulsion turns into dependency,»
Reconstructing Our Attention in the Era of Infinite Digital Rabbit Holes
I’m going to tell you a few things you already know. Every time you open your phone or your computer, your brain is walking onto a battleground. The aggressors are the architects of your digital wo…
The complicated lives and deaths of TikTok’s illness influencers
A ‘day in the life’ at the end of a life
My awakening moment about how smartphones fragment our attention span
The constant inflow of information from my smartphone, always readily available in my pocket to capture any free moment of attention, had fragmented my attention span.
«James Williams, an ex-Googler who wrote a book on attention: Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy»
What is External Validation And When It Becomes Unhealthy
Learn more about external validation. Why we crave it. Why it can be a good. And how to heal from constantly needing external validation.
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Social Media, including:
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Social Media?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Social Media, including Benedict Evans, zeynep tufekci, danah boyd, Neil Patel, Adrienne Fichter.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
450k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
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Keep Learning
Learn something new, guided by experts. Deep Dives are carefully hand-curated series of time-tested articles and videos from around the web.
Get the big picture on your favorite topics.