The way we use social media looks suspiciously like a bubble, with overheated investment in likes, upvotes and retweets in things that have no value.
- Professor of Formal Philosophy / Director of Center for Information and Bubble Studies, University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen has been left reeling from a series of violent attacks on February 14 and 15. A young man armed with an automatic weapon and other guns killed two civilians and injured five police officers…
Any verbal exchange – whether a scientific panel discussion, lovers quarrelling in a hallway, or the political hard-talk of a live interview – is a very sophisticated human activity. Besides the intricate…
Science, like any other field that attracts investment, is prone to bubbles. Overly optimistic investments in scientific fields, research methods and technologies generate episodes comparable to those…
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that as we spend more time communicating via social media, we are disappearing into bubbles. We receive information from the same sources and witness the views of the…
If you’re going to fall, injure yourself and need help, where is a good place to do it? Should you choose a busy thoroughfare or a deserted backstreet? Statistics and experiments in social psychology will…
A couple of months ago my 13-year-old son came to me with a true story. One of his acquaintances had given him control of an Instagram profile with roughly 3,500 followers as a gift. A few days later…
Tell us what you think about police brutality, organ donation, Obamacare, private schools, zoos, breast implants and stew. Tweet your instant reaction, share your perspective on anything on Formspring…
In the age of information, we no longer need to leave the house to shape democracy. We’re heading towards a world in which the traditional sites of protest are sitting alongside online forums, which are…
Humans, as a species, are around 200,000 years old. Compared to the age of the universe we’re clearly infants but compared to the internet, we’re pretty old and compared to social media, which is still…
Yahoo has launched a new app aimed at making reading the news easier. News Digest is the latest invention from Nick D’Aloisio, Yahoo’s 18-year-old recruit who found fame with Summly, another app that takes…
Here is a question: how can it be that everyone has free and independent choice and yet we largely converge on exactly the same things? That’s neither original nor independent. Despite economic growth…
Amanda Todd was a 15-year-old Canadian girl who took her own life in October 2012. Prior to her death, she had been the victim of extensive and prolonged cyber-bullying on Facebook, YouTube and other social…
The “like” is the predominant gesture on social media, whether you’re sticking to Facebook or shifting to Instagram. It may even be the most common gesture among humans nowadays. Some of us probably “like…
On the morning of 22 January 2013 a story started to develop on Twitter about the imminent and unexpected resignation of Jens Weidmann, the CEO of Deutsche Bundesbank. The first documented tweet came at…
The term “bubble” is now part of everyday conversation, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008. But bubbles are not just a problem in the world of banking. They can affect the choices you make…
Human beings have long been easily influenced by the opinions of others but the social media networks that have come to dominate our lives may be making this “social proof” a problem. A recent study in…
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