You’ve read it a thousand times: Social media apps can wreak havoc on our mental health. Many of us (if not all) have heard that distant “ding” that resonates off the kitchen counter and experienced the sudden surge of curiosity — only to discover it’s a spam message, or worse,…
The story of your cute profile picture begins with the dinosaurs, specifically with the giant meteor that wiped them out and enabled mammals to start filling the population void. Before the giant lizards disappeared, mammals had to live underground or adapt to a nocturnal lifestyle for hundreds of millions of…
Your shoulders are hunched and your breathing is shallow, thumb propelling you through a dismal newsfeed with expert strokes. Each headline spells disaster for another city, species, or group of people, and we sink a little deeper into the tarpit known as doomscrolling. It’s a familiar scene: Whatever you name…
The other day I was watching an Instagram video of a woman’s nose job. (On Instagram, I’m always watching either cosmetic surgery before-and-afters or slow pans around dollhouse interiors.) The woman was adorable. Then she did this time-lapse thing with bandages on her nose and dark circles under her eyes….
Cyberbullying has become increasingly common in recent years, with 59% of American teens facing some sort of online harassment during 2018. Despite this, around 15% of parents still haven’t heard of cyberbullying, and some of those who have don’t really understand what it entails. With this in mind, we’ll share…
Social media has gotten a bad rap lately: it’s been blamed for growing feelings of low self-esteem, loneliness, and bouts of depression. And not without warrant. Not only have users of the platforms reported these negative effects, but studies have shown that social media is, indeed, a likely culprit of…
Instagram—a beloved social media platform, which allows people to share their favorite memories with their friends, from pictures of their most recent whereabouts to pictures of the immaculate ice cream cone they’re trying right now. This picture-based design certainly sets it apart from other platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter,…
When we think about kids and social media, our minds sometimes go to Facebook almost instantly. I’ve talked to a lot of parents in recent years who consider Facebook to be the face of social media, so their strategy for regulating it for their kids usually hinges on whether or…