Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson
age delightful kids screens split time
The things kids can do on screens can be really delightful - if they are age appropriate. But no, they shouldn't spend all their time on a screen; they should split up their time doing multiple, different things.
computer consumers files requiring tiny
Software is now so complex - requiring so many gazillions of tiny files all over your computer - that most consumers don't want to bother to know what's really going on.
compare people public
There is something about the ability to externalize our thoughts and compare them with other people in a public way that is really transformative for the average person.
mostly narcotic online
Why are online games so addictive? It's mostly the narcotic appeal of 'leveling.'
funny animal appreciate
That's the old ecological tale that explains humans' inability to fully appreciate global warming. To wit: if you drop a frog in a pan of hot water, it jumps out. If you drop it in a pan of cold water, then turn the heat up slowly, you can roast it to death.
thinking opposites data
PowerPoint presentations, the cesspool of data visualization that Microsoft has visited upon the earth. PowerPoint, indeed, is a cautionary tale in our emerging data literacy. It shows that tools matter: Good ones help us think well and bad ones do the opposite. Ever since it was first released in 1990, PowerPoint has become an omnipresent tool for showing charts and info during corporate presentations.
book reading serendipity
When you broadcast your book reading voluntarily, it creates moments of fascinating serendipity.
type pencils
Type as quickly as you can and always carry a pencil.
people tools computer
More than any other modern tool, computers are a total mystery to their users. Most people never open them up to fix them or to see how they work.
character world way
The humanitarian developers behind World of Warcraft have also discovered a way to bribe gamers into turning off their computers and going outside. If you log off for a few days, your character will be more rested when you resume playing, a mode that temporarily speeds up your leveling.
powerful thinking talking
A huge amount of our everyday thinking - powerful, creative, and resonant stuff - is done socially: talking to other people, arguing with them, relying on them to recall information for us.
book people online
As Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman document in their book Networked, people who are heavily socially active online tend to be also heavily socially active offline; they’re just, well, social people.
memories computer social
Memory has always been social. Now we're using search engines and computers to augment our memories, too.
thinking knowing people
Ambient awareness is the experience of knowing what's going on in the lives of other people - what they're thinking about, what they're doing, what they're looking at - by paying attention to the small stray status messages that people are putting online. We're now able to stitch together these fantastic details and mental maps of what is going on in other people's lives.