"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"

"As internet-connected devices and appliances accumulate, one academic foresees "the monetization of every move you make.""

"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€

"If it's easy to ignore the ceaseless drone of ethical violations from the social network, turn your attention instead to the companies who happily shared in the harvesting of your personal data to bolster their own products - without clear disclosures or any consent whatsoever. Facebook is a problem, but the online economy that trades on your data is a bigger one."

"in recent years, it's taken more effort to distinguish where advertising stops and reality begins. In many ways, ads are reflective of a world attempting to hide its problems from itself. This is true both in the way they portray imperfect products and in their silencing effect on the platforms that shape the way we see things - platforms that rely on ad dollars to survive. The result is a sanitized, "ad-friendly" world, one that conceals injustices and real issues to evoke a false, temporary state of comfort. Is the world we exist in - a world in which products and services are seemingly gifted to us by short, perfect vignettes we might even relate to on some level - the real world? Advertising is present in the vast majority of our media. It's so normal that pointing out problems with ads is sometimes met with annoyance or even argument. On one of my YouTube series, Adversaries, we've received more than a few hostile comments because we're "critiquing something that doesn't even matter, which is kind of a weird thing to get angry about.""

"In our almost complete transition to a digital culture, we are changing in ways we never realized. There is as much reason for excitement, and for caution, if we turn our attention to the specific changes in the evolving reading brain that are happening now and that may happen in different ways in a few short years. This is because the transition from a literacy-based culture to a digital one differs radically from previous transitions from one form of communication to another. Unlike in the past, we possess both the science and technology to identify potential changes in how we read - and thus how we think - before such changes are fully entrenched in the population and accepted without our comprehension of the consequences."

"Back when I was in university, a friend of mine called his parents every single night. That's sweet, you might think. But no, it was a ritualistic, mandatory process that he was required to complete. Before the dawn of the mobile phone, the university send-off would be the start of some semblance of independence for parents' children. That's not so true any more, with our technologically connected world. Arkangel is a Black Mirror episode that conveys the cold, hard reality of helicopter parenting: a term describing over-involved parents that make decisions for their children, solving their problems and shielding them from making mistakes."

"'Black Mirror' is a satirical anthology series that examines the dark aspects of modern society, particularly as it relates to our relationship with technology. Each standalone episode presents a picture of a world that's futuristic, yet believable; cool, yet horrifying. Each of these study guides will touch on some of the themes the episode explores."

"Yassiry Gonzalez goes to bed early. But often she wakes up around 1 or 2 in the morning. And from then on, sometimes all the way through dawn, the New York City high school student is on her phone - on FaceTime with close friends, or looking through Instagram. "Sometimes, I'm so tired that I'll just fall asleep in school." She estimates the all-nighters happen once or twice a week. And on the weekends? "There's no sleep. No sleep." Looking back, 2018 may be the year that a critical mass of people started wondering: Am I spending too much time on my phone? The World Health Organization officially designated "Internet Gaming Disorder," as a diagnosis similar to gambling addiction. And after Apple shareholders asked the company to address compulsive use of the iPhone, CEO Tim Cook announced new tools to track your use. Cook told NPR's Steve Inskeep in June: "I think there are cases in life where anything good, used to the extreme, becomes not good. I can eat healthy food all day, but if I eat too much it's no longer good anymore.""

". Social media turned mobile phones into personal televisions, not just because Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and even Twitter provided more and more videos, but because they created a highly emotive space where sensationalism would win over rationality. Think about how these platforms shamelessly optimize their content to encourage more engagement, how they push users to do live personal broadcasts and visual personal diaries - their "Stories" - and display them in the form of traditional television with names like Instagram Television (IGTV). That's in addition to YouTube TV and Facebook Watch, which feature professionally produced video or live television feeds. Now there are fewer and fewer people watching traditional television, but more and more are spending their time on social media. The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2017 that "YouTube viewers worldwide are now watching more than 1 billion hours of videos a day, threatening to eclipse U.S. television viewership." I think of this as neo-television, because much of the internet today has become something you watch instead of read."

"Let's put something to rest: Facebook isn't spying through your phone's microphone to serve you ads for sweatshirts and seltzer water. It probably couldn't even if it wanted to. But if the social network isn't listening to you, that doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't watching. Advertisements in the real world are becoming more technologically sophisticated, integrating facial recognition, location data, artificial intelligence, and other powerful tools that are more commonly associated with your mobile phone. Welcome to the new age of digital marketing. During this year's Fashion Week in New York, a digital billboard ad for New Balance used A.I. technology to detect and highlight pedestrians wearing "exceptional" outfits. A billboard advertisement for the Chevy Malibu recently targeted drivers on Interstate 88 in Chicago by identifying the brand of vehicle they were driving, then serving ads touting its own features in comparison. And Bidooh, a Manchester-based startup that admits it was inspired by Minority Report, is using facial recognition to serve ads through its billboards in the U.K. and other parts of Europe as well as South Korea. According to its website, Bidooh allows advertisers to target people based on criteria like age, gender, ethnicity, hair color, clothing color, height, body shape, perceived emotion, and the presence of glasses, sunglasses, beards, or mustaches. We've been on the path here since at least a decade ago when the New York Times reported that some digital billboards were equipped with small cameras that could analyze a pedestrian's facial features to serve targeted ads based on gender and approximate age. "

"We define digital nutrition as two distinct but complementary behaviors. The first is the healthful consumption of digital assets, or any positive, purposeful content designed to alleviate emotional distress or maximize human potential, health, and happiness. The second behavior is smarter decision-making, aided by greater transparency around the composition and behavioral consequences of specific types of digital content. People already use music, film, TV, video games, and various digital devices to relax and escape or to avoid painful and unpleasant feelings or decisions. But in this increasingly wireless world, we need a more realistic strategy. Digital material can-and, in our view, should-be leveraged for preventative purposes (to maintain mood and avoid regular descents into depression), for palliative purposes (to ease acute anxiety and other unpleasant feelings), and for regulatory purposes (to track volume of personal exposure to digital asset types known to produce negative outcomes)."

"According to findings from the Creative Artists Agency and shift7, a company started by the former United States chief technology officer Megan Smith, the top movies from 2014 to 2017 starring women earned more than male-led films, whether they were made for less than $10 million or for $100 million or more. The research also found that films that passed the Bechdel test - which measures whether two female characters have a conversation about something other than a man - outperformed those that flunked it. "The perception that it's not good business to have female leads is not true," said Christy Haubegger, a C.A.A. agent who was part of the research team. "They're a marketing asset." "

"Oryx and Crake is speculative fiction at its finest. Part dystopian satire, part post-apocalyptic nightmare, the novel examines the flaws of contemporary society through the lens of an imagined future that could all too easily come to pass. But examines isn't the right word for what Atwood accomplishes here; eviscerates is more fitting. As in The Handmaid's Tale (1985), her classic takedown of totalitarian theocratic misogyny, the author's satiric wit is razor-sharp and unsparing. Oryx and Crake isn't a book for the faint of heart or the easily offended. Potential outrages include a narcissistic, self-pitying protagonist who treats women poorly, unflinching depictions of child pornography and sex slavery, all manner of unfettered consumerist debauchery, and (spoiler alert) the deliberate annihilation of the human race by a brilliant scientist. Oh, and corporations control the world, social and economic inequality are endemic, catastrophic climate change is a given, and science and technology, especially genetic engineering, are exploited purely for profit by said all-powerful corporations without regard for human consequences. If some of these details sound uncomfortably like the present, well, that's the point. Oryx and Crake isn't about the future; it's about the present. The book is about us. Whatever future ultimately comes to pass-dystopian, post-apocalyptic, or otherwise-we are responsible for it. This story is our story. "

"In yet another work of speculative fiction by Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake holds its own particular significance. She takes her audience for a rather eye-opening journey deep into the apocalyptic dystopia of a deteriorating humanity. As the tragic chronicle of Snowman, her protagonist's life unfolds, the audience catches a jarring glimpse into his past and is repeatedly presented with a slew of perplexing issues. These fantastical problems presented by Atwood cause a profound speculation for her contemporary reader and perhaps even poses the true question as to whether these seemingly far-fetched predicaments are really so far from the realities of today. In a glorious attempt to awaken a possibly apathetic generation, Atwood's vision outlines the legitimate concerns we may have about the sterility of a much too structured, much too controlled society and how it could be the unintended downfall of our species."

"en years ago, Margaret Atwood ended the world, and in rather spectacular fashion. Oryx and Crake was a revelation: a harrowing vision of society gone terribly wrong, and a reminder that Atwood, author of the classic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, is one of the best speculative-fiction writers alive. The first volume in a trilogy, it was followed by The Year of the Flood, which, in a bit of remarkable narrative showing-off, offered a completely different story that unfolded concurrently with Oryx and Crake. With the publication of MaddAddam next week, she concludes her epic account of what happens in the wake of the end, after her "waterless flood" has scrubbed the planet clean, leaving behind only a handful of people - or, at least, only a handful we know of - to survive in a landscape populated by fearsome pigoons (angry pigs genetically altered to grow human organs). The trilogy is one of the most impressive achievements in contemporary literature, and stands as a grand document of humanity's greatest failings but also a moving celebration of our greatest possibilities. They are frank and ugly books but also funny and beautiful. And for all their SF fireworks, all the world-building pyrotechnics, they are quietly realistic stories that recognize that any future the world can hope to have will be one of adaptation and synthesis, of our learning to live better with those around us to make the most of the diminished circumstances in which we're likely to find ourselves."

"Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel drew on real-life politics but has never been more prescient, writes Jennifer Keishin Armstrong."

"As a psychologist, I worry that location tracking can confuse the question of who is mainly responsible for the safety of the roaming adolescent - the parent or the teenager? Teenagers are rarely apart from their phones, making it easy for parents to use apps that track their locations. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images Image"

"US psychologist Jean Twenge, who has claimed that social media is having a malign affect on the young, answers critics who accuse her of crying wolf"

"To determine TIME's annual list, we consider accolades across numerous fields, global impact through social media and overall ability to drive news. In the past, we've recognized everyone from singer Lorde to Olympic champion Simone Biles to political activist Joshua Wong. Here's who made this year's cut (ordered from youngest to oldest):"