Printed books, electronic books, and co-reading
In the wake of my recent dinner where I watched a toddler use her mother's hand as a stylus when reading an ebook on mom's iPad, I've been
New study: Multitasking may harm teenage girls’ social/emotion development, but real interaction cures it
Clifford Nass, Roy Pea, and the rest of the circle in the Stanford communications and education programs do some really interesting work on multitasking, our attitudes to computers,
WSJ on anxiety
It's easy to make fun of, but this Wall Street Journal article on anxiety and performance is right on: a little anxiety may be just what you need
Does “self-plagiarism” exist? On Jonah Lehrer and my own blogging / writing
I've been reading the back and forth about claims that Jonah Lehrer jump-started his New Yorker blog (and can we just take a minute to recognize how the
The rent-seeking model of attention capture; or, what could possibly go wrong with Skype Conversations Ads?
When I saw this article my jaw Hit. The. Floor. Skype calls to feature ads big enough to interrupt any conversation Skype to serve up personalized ads, hoping
Why advertising agencies develop Zenware
One of the interesting things I discovered when writing the contemplative computing book is that several of the most popular pieces of Zenware were created not by software
A few thoughts on d.compress and calming technologies
Last night I went to a presentation on calming technologies at Stanford's d.school. Neema Moraveji, who I interviewed last year for my contemplative computing book, is teaching at
The enabling / distracting / alienating use of smart phones in public spaces
The Atlantic reports on new research exploring how smart phones affect the way people perceive and act in public space. Smart phones, the piece argues, "combine numerous spheres:
Quote of the day
From Rob Horning's essay in New Inquiry:The attack on unrecorded sociality, on its existance as an ephemeral, oral phenomenon, is an effort to subsume social behavior as a
On the interactive nature of reading
A few days ago I was out having a beer with some HCI friends who had just sent their proposals off to CSCW. They were in a mood