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TED talks on happiness

What do the Super Bowl Ads tells us about American society and culture? An essay that looks at how media reflects society.

"When Marsha Richins started researching materialism in the early 1990s, it was a subject that had mostly been left to philosophers and religious thinkers. One focus of Richins's research has been how that pursuit begins in childhood, and in particular accelerates in middle school. That's the time when kids, on average, give the most materialistic responses to the question of what makes them happy. In a paper published last year, Richins described how the social dynamics of middle school can lead children to place more importance on owning and having things. (Movies, TV, the internet, media, advertising, and parents' own habits, of course, can have similar effects.)"

"Maybe you are. How exactly would you know? The digital police aren't going to flag you when you've met your technology threshold. On the other hand, constant use has become normalized. The toddler tinkering with a tablet, the teen locked away in their room tied to their computer, and to the adult buried in their phone at a social engagement are just a few examples of ordinary use. In our present day, the increase in popularity and integration of technology in our daily lives prompts one to ponder the potential of developing an addiction to technology. At what point are we at risk for crossing the fine line from general use to problematic use?"

"We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines aren't even the real threat. What we need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us -- and what we can do in response."

"In reality, Google's goal (and our goal, as Google marketers) is to separate you from as much of your money as possible every time you aren't thinking clearly -and we do so through ads. Micro-moments are so important to Google's bottom line that, since a May 2016 keynote, Google has taught us marketers how to best leverage them against you. We do this by serving the ad best suited to your flavor of impulse, and by making sure we're there for each of those impulses. In a perfect world, marketers would be trained to help you use Google well when you are of an impressionable mind. Instead, we're taught to exploit your befuddlement. Whether you're aware of it or not, you have micro-moments about 150 times per day. You will see ads during most of them. These ads speak to what you seek; play on emotions that are unlike you; and fit your age, income, gender, location, and browsing history"

Is this a form of Culture Jamming? "Swastikas appeared last week in Comcast searches on Google. Google fixed the problem on Thursday, but swastikas inserted into Comcast brand images have been a recurring problem for the nation's largest cable-TV company because of a two-year-old anti-Comcast Reddit page that crowdsourced legions of the company's critics to click on an image of the symbol of Nazi Germany with an embedded Comcast logo. Because tens of thousands of people clicked on the image - more than 60,000, according to the Reddit page - the Google algorithm thinks it's popular and returns it in search results."

"Social media is awash with glossy images of our friends having fun - but how does that impact our wallets?"

"How a group of teenagers pivoted from Vine to venture capital"

"The Internet meme is a force to be reckoned with. Whether it takes the form of a dancing cat or a college protest, the Internet meme is capable of changing the world. Until now, the meme has largely been derided as a procrastination tool for slacker college kids, but those very college students are working hard to challenge such unfounded stereotypes. Internet memes can take the form of videos, pictures, hashtags, or even simple words and phrases. Memes have been a part of society for a long time, but their influence has only increased with the rise of the Internet. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr allow users to share all kinds of content. Sometimes, a video or a picture will catch on with a small group of young Internet users. These users, often enrolled in college, recommend the content to others. Once in a while, this will spiral out of control, at which point the content officially reaches meme status. Memes range from silly to spectacular, but all share one thing in common: a remarkable impact on the culture of students in high school and college. The attitudes and behaviors of many students have been shaped by prominent Internet memes. Memes are typically humorous or satirical but there are many examples of more serious Internet memes."

"Retail and Alexa are just the start of the path toward total domination"

"The platform's youngest stars owe their fame to their parents' intense work behind the scenes."

"At least half of Happy Meals listed on menus in the United States will not exceed 600 calories and will have other other dietary restrictions, like limits on saturated fat and sodium percentages. In order to accomplish that, McDonald's is taking cheeseburgers off the Happy Meal menu (they are still available upon request), decreasing the amount of fries that come with the six-piece Chicken McNuggets meal, cutting the amount of added sugar in chocolate milk and adding bottled water onto the children's menu, according to the release."

A page from The Altantic, and sponsored Walmart, that looks at what shopping my be like in the future.

"People tell themselves all sorts of stories-some true and some less so-about whether owning visibly luxurious things (like cars, watches, or electronics) will serve them well. "Ugh, I'm so busy": A status symbol for our time One story that's true: Acquiring something luxurious can temporarily increase one's self-esteem. One story that's not: Acquiring something luxurious can impress potential friends."

"Plastic surgery, private jets, toddlers in designer clothes, magnums of champagne - Lauren Greenfield's 500-page photo collection, Generation Wealth, shows all of that. But this book isn't just about people who are wealthy, it's about people who want to be wealthy."

"How a children's toy can be an identity marker for adults"

"Object Lessons is an essay and book series about the hidden lives of ordinary things, from faiths to intentions, saiths to teenagers."