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"Mindfulness teaches individuals to be present in and embrace the moments of life, rather than be suffocated by the constant self-criticism and anxiety that so often plagues our minds. 12 Mindfulness Hacks in 24 Hours Practicing mindfulness isn't just for the Zen Buddhists, sitting in lotus flower positions on the tops of snow-capped mountains. In fact, you can practice numerous mindfulness techniques in a single day."

"When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want to show you where it might do the opposite. Where does technology exploit our minds' weaknesses? I learned to think this way when I was a magician. Magicians start by looking for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people's perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realizing it. Once you know how to push people's buttons, you can play them like a piano. And this is exactly what product designers do to your mind. They play your psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously) against you in the race to grab your attention. I want to show you how they do it."

"There's a popular suspicion, for example, that Tinder and other dating apps might make people pickier or more reluctant to settle on a single monogamous partner, a theory that the comedian Aziz Ansari spends a lot of time on in his 2015 book, Modern Romance, written with the sociologist Eric Klinenberg. Eli Finkel, however, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and the author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage, rejects that notion. "Very smart people have expressed concern that having such easy access makes us commitment-phobic," he says, "but I'm not actually that worried about it." Research has shown that people who find a partner they're really into quickly become less interested in alternatives. Finkel believes that dating apps haven't changed happy relationships much-but he does think they've lowered the threshold of when to leave an unhappy one. In the past, there was a step in which you'd have to go to the trouble of "getting dolled up and going to a bar," Finkel says, and you'd have to look at yourself and say, "What am I doing right now? I'm going out to meet a guy. I'm going out to meet a girl," even though you were in a relationship already. Now, he says, "you can just tinker around, just for a sort of a goof; swipe a little just 'cause it's fun and playful. And then it's like, oh-[suddenly] you're on a date." The other subtle ways in which people believe dating is different now that Tinder is a thing are, quite frankly, innumerable. Some believe that dating apps' visual-heavy format encourages people to choose their partners more superficially (and with racial or sexual stereotypes in mind); others argue that humans choose their partners with physical attraction in mind even without the help of Tinder. There are equally compelling arguments that dating apps have made dating both more awkward and less awkward by allowing matches to get to know each other remotely before they ever meet face-to-faceâ€

"n the terrifying dystopia of 1984, Orwell writes of a world where everything from the past to the future can be rewritten in every form. "If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then?" If your newspapers, television programs, websites, and books can be written and rewritten, who can ascertain the truth? Some of these questions are philosophical, not fully answerable by the greatest thinkers in history. However, they are not entirely without merit. Over the past few years we have seen the evolution of the "post-truth era" wherein people are not only content with being lied to, they expect it. Social media and the democratization of the Internet has played an integral role in the heralding of this new age. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 68% of Americans check social media for news updates, with one-fifth of them stating they use platforms for this purpose regularly."

"If you find yourself watching the hit Fox sitcom 'New Girl' tonight, don't feel bad if your mind wanders to your smartphone or tablet during the show. Fox actually wants it that way. Instead of trying to capture your full attention the old-fashioned way, Fox Broadcasting has created a series of aps to provide extra content on your smartphone or tablet, to allow you to follow along during their broadcast shows. And on the sitcom "New Girl," the network is even trying to sell you stuff. David Wertheimer is the president of digital at Fox Broadcasting, and he explains that, for example, Cece (one of the characters on the show) will be wearing a set of bracelets, and they'll show up for sale on your second screen."

"An introductory assignment may ask students to think about representations of different social groups in the fictional TV shows, films and books that have shaped their lives. For example, at the beginning of the semester, I will give students an assignment titled "The Stories in Your Life" with the following list, and ask them to think of characters from these social groups that are represented in their favorite stories (this list of groups corresponds with the chapters in the textbook Diversity in U.S. Mass Media): African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, teenagers, elderly people, people with disabilities, wealthy people, impoverished people, LGBTQ, and women. When we come together as a class and discuss their lists, the students have typically made some startling yet obvious discoveries: there may be no characters in a certain group, or the characters might be one-dimensional stereotypes. They quickly have those lightbulb moments that will open their minds to deeper discussions about underrepresentation and misrepresentation in entertainment media. They often realize that more often than not, the stories in their lives ask them to identify with white males. This introductory step in media literacy education gives students the reflective and analytical tools to examine what media tells them about themselves and others."

the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), currently making its way through the House of Representatives, and its sister legislation in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are supposedly intended to combat copyright violations on the Internet. Unfortunately, these bills are written so broadly so as to not only eliminate Internet piracy but replace the innovative and democratic aspects of the Internet with a tangled bureaucratic mess regulated by the government and corporations.While holding companies accountable for their role in copyright infringement is important, this legislation threatens to turn the whole Internet on its head, disrupting innovation in business and technology and muting democratic dialogue, by allowing copyright holders to unilaterally impose sanctions on companies accused of copyright infringement without due process. Based solely on an accusation (not a conviction, mind you) of a copyright violation, the U.S. Attorney General, and sometimes the copyright holding companies themselves, will be able to block access to and business transactions with websites accused of such violations. Financial institutions will be forced to stop transferring legal funds to accused websites, search engines will be forced to block accused websites, and advertisers will be forced to stop placing ads on accused websites. Moreover, the bill is written so broadly as to override the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to operate freely. Unfortunately, under SOPA, if a user on YouTube or Facebook were to mistakenly or unintentionally upload copyrighted material to the sites, those websites could also be shut down

If you think this heralds hypocrisy, you aren't the only one shaking your head. Last year, Seventeen magazine launched a campaign on positive body image in conjunction with Dove. They've also included a "Body Peace Expert" who answers teens' body image-related questions. How can Seventeen follow its own body-positive philosophy and campaign goals when the magazine pushes the very thing it denounces?

From childhood, we learn to associate symbols and icons with specific feelings or ideas. This is the same with branding, as logos come to embody the brand's personality in the mind of the consumer. Brands take tremendous effort in creating emotional connections with the consumer, and logos are just one of the many ways they can communicate who they are. Some logos are so prevalent in society that they are instantly recognizable.Below is a collection of 30 of the most recognizable logos. Some have seen multiple generations, and some are very new, but all are easily recognizable and might even evoke some feelings toward that brand.

What's the first word that should come to mind when you or your students see a news story or get a news/rumor text?  We think it should be a skeptical "REALLY?" To reinforce the importance of becoming an educated news consumer, RTNDF is launching a news literacy project called REALLY? The campaign is designed to help everyone -- students, teachers, professionals and the general public -- separate fact from fiction. You will want to your student producers and editors to join you for this webinar - or see the archived version.

"LESSON PLAN: UNDERSTANDING NEWS LITERACY July 24, 2013 To seek truth and report it lies at the heart of any journalist's mission. But what is "truth?" And will we know it when we see it?  Deciphering credible, accurate information from an abundance of perspectives is harder today than ever before. These lesson plans, developed by Megan Fromm and made possible through a grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, will help you discover how teaching news literacy in your program develops critical minds, encourages active citizenship, meets Common Core state standards, and strengthens your publications' public reputation and perception."

"Pop Secret and Deutsch Los Angeles have for the last year been coming up with innovative digital ways to change your popcorn-eating experience, via Pop Secret Labs. There was Pop Search, a browser add-on that searched the web to find the best place to watch a movie online; a Rotten Tomatoes partnership to help viewers find like-minded critics; and an app to prevent your popcorn from ever burning again. But this might top them all. Pop Dongle is a mobile phone attachment that emits the sweet-and-salty smell of popcorn as you play the brand's mobile game, Poptopia, available for iPhone and iPod Touch."

"Hobbs approached the educators at the Holocaust Museum about acquiring the same "Mind Over Media" title and expanding the content. She was successful and has created a new resource where she invites educators, students and others to contribute examples of contemporary propaganda. (Full disclosure, I reviewed the site prior to its unveiling and contributed examples.) In an introductory video posted on the website the narrator says "in a world saturated by media messages, propaganda can be found in information, news, advertising or entertainment." The website uses crowdsourcing to create a gallery of propaganda examples. Users upload content they've located, share their own interpretations, and then evaluate the impact of the images, web pages or videos. "

"What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. "

"Hollywood tends to trot these stories out right around awards season, but really, how true are they? How true should they be? Asked what goes through her mind when she hears the phrase "Based on a true story," the response by Ann Hornaday, chief film critic for the Washington Post, was, "Hang on to your hat! "Generally if you see 'based on,' you tend to assume that the filmmaker is sending the signal that everything happened," she told Teichner. "When you see 'inspired by,' you get the signal that some more liberties are going to be taken.""

"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"

"Snowballing shareholder lawsuits. Email fights with reporters, a possible libel suit in the offing, a brow-furrowing interview with The New York Times. Yes, you could say Tesla's Elon Musk has had quite the summer. And despite Thursday night's multi-hour, congenial, blunt-smoking, and far-ranging conversation on Joe Rogan's podcast-covering AI, the Boring Company's tunnels, the nature of evil, Instagram, and Musk's new idea for an electric, vertical takeoff and landing supersonic airplane-there's no reason to think those worried about Musk's state of mind have been eased. The CEO has won legions of fans for his refusal to do public company-ing like everyone else. Tesla has long refused to spend money on marketing, and it has no reason to: Musk's gleeful, whimsical, sometimes downright bizarre public persona makes plenty of news, at no charge. But after a wild few months, observers have been pushed to ask: At what point does that personality become too much? At what point does Tesla the company decide it's better off without the man who has led it for the past decade?"

" EMERGING TECH These haunting anatomical images turn vertebrates inside out Courtesy of the University of Kansas and W. Leo Smith A thin line separates science from art. It's often blurred. When scientists employ an artist's creativity, imaginatively theorize the unimaginable - as Newton, Einstein, and Hawking were able to do - they've been known to make discoveries worth hanging on gallery walls. When artists apply methodological rigor to their work, they have a chance to illuminate the seemingly inaccessible aspects of science. Da Vinci, Dalí, Stelarc - each was an artist with a scientific frame of mind. Two new imaging techniques developed by researchers at the University of Kansas (KU) blend science and art in a hauntingly captivating way. The techniques allow for photos to be taken of 50-plus-year-old vertebrate specimens, depicting the intricacies of their anatomy. Among the specimens imaged were a shrew, python, and viperfish."

"How can parents get children the support they might need while keeping in mind that adolescence is, by definition, a time of identity exploration?"

"ast September, Apple proudly rolled out a Screen Time feature that was designed to help people manage how much they use their devices, and even get away from them altogether with a related Downtime setting. This was a canny marketing move from the maker of the most attractive and addictive screen ever invented. And it came against the backdrop of Apple's unusually public campaign against Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Screen Time's promotional materials prominently featured both Facebook and Instagram, as if suggesting these two apps in particular might be a waste of your time. Never mind that Facebook's very real privacy liabilities aren't connected to how often you use the product. Apple had an opportunity to position itself on the higher ground of the branding battlefield, and it took it."