Category: Social Media

  • Listen to me on this week’s “Laugh Your Cry Out” podcast!

    I’m delighted to share that I’m the guest on this week’s episode of “Laugh Your Cry Out with Joey Dumont,” a podcast about (and I’m quoting here) men’s mental health and masculinity [seen] through the lens of fatherhood, politics, and the world of business. Our enjoyable conversation has a mediocre book as its point of…

  • Will Twitter decide the 2020 presidential election?

    Is Mayor Pete Buttigieg really surging? Is Senator Elizabeth Warren really the new frontrunner? Can any of the Democratic candidates match Trump’s social media presence?  Most Americans, regardless of party, will agree that Donald Trump has been an unusual President of the United States, including his use of Twitter. Between his personal Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump)…

  • Should you look at your kid’s smartphone? Digital parenting tips #2

    (This is the second in a series of practical tips about parenting in the digital age.) My last column described conversations that parents should have before giving a kid that first smartphone. I held back talking about one important topic because it needs its own discussion: should you look at your kid’s phone? The short answer…

  • Beware the “Words with Friends” scammers

    New predators are stalking older women via chat in online games. Here’s how to protect yourself and your family. My mother is nobody’s fool. She is also such a fan of the online Scrabble knockoff “Words with Friends” (WWF) that I might use the word addiction to describe her relationship with the game and only be…

  • Facebook needs a Surgeon General’s warning

    It’s hard to decide whether Facebook is more like beer, doughnuts or tobacco, but whichever comparison you prefer, there’s no doubt that Facebook is bad for you: recent research shows convincingly that as your Facebook use goes up your mental and physical health go down. (I’ll did into the research on this a little later.)…

  • The New Skype for iPhone app SUUUUCKS

    Oh the frustration! I stupidly updated the Skype app on my iPhone 6, and now I’m trapped in a half-baked, “I want to be like Snapchat” social media hellhole where I can’t do the basic productivity things I used to be able to do on Skype effortlessly. Ability to see which of my contacts are…

  • The Real Problem with Facebook Live

    This morning’s Wall Street Journal has a smart look back at Facebook Live after about a year of the service being available, although it misses the real Achilles heel of the service. Here is a relevant snippet from WSJ: Nearly a year later, many publishers say Facebook Live viewership is lackluster. Facebook is still tinkering with ways for…

  • SHORT: Don’t Miss REDEF Original on Truth in Advertising

    From the “too long for a tweet” department: I just finished Adam Wray‘s powerful Fashion REDEFined original article “With Great Power: Seth Matlins on how Advertising can Shift Culture for the Better.” It’s about Seth Matlins‘ efforts to change how advertisements featuring too-skinny and Photoshopped models body shame girls and women (men too, by the way).…

  • Don’t Call Them “Consumers”

    What you call people matters.  It tells them what you really think about them. Here’s an example: years ago my friend Jules shared how her Mom would call for her Dad in a never-changing escalation of urgency and decline of affection: “Sweetheart!” she’d trill, followed by, “Honey?” and then ending with “Bill!!”  The equation worked…

  • The FOMO Myth

    In my last post I wrote about how Facebook’s business need to have more people doing more things on its platform more of the time is in tension with how human satisfaction works. In today’s post, I’m going to dig a little deeper into the satisfaction math (for those of you with a “Math, ewww”…