Tag: social media

Smartphones are one of the best tools in modern history. We have a second brain in the palm of our hands, ready to help us answer and solve the many problems we cannot fix on our own. The Internet itself is a modern marvel and having access to it anywhere and everywhere opens up a […]

Image description: Pepe the Frog. Like quite a lot of people, I’m not really about Facebook. I’m on it, sure, and I am worryingly reliant on Messenger, and find it useful for events. I don’t intend to bestow upon myself the kind of fashionably late aloof social credo that comes with deleting the whole thing […]

Image description: Several people on mobile phones. The recent call for age restrictions on likes and streaks on Facebook and Snapchat is long overdue, but does not go far enough. Restrictions should not discriminate; people of all ages should be protected from the psychological damage caused by likes, streaks and other online ‘reward’ mechanisms used by […]

Yes, Facebook is back in our news feeds. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published its long awaited 111-page Final Report on disinformation and ‘fake news’, and it’s fair to say that Facebook would give it an angry react. The work of over 18 months of a committee that has worked with 8 […]

Image credit: Paul Hudson. Description: B from Superorganism performing live on microphone. Ahead of their headline show at the O2 Academy Oxford at the end of the month, we catch up with B from Superorganism on the phone to discuss technology, band politics and performing live. “There’s something so affecting in the reflections on my […]

Image Credit: Sevda (CC0) With Love Island upping its average viewership to 3.3 million this year, as opposed to last year’s 1.1 million, I know I am not alone in obsessing over this most dramatic of TV shows. My viewing ritual is simple but effective, watching the show live whenever possible and on demand otherwise, […]

An anonymous artist has erected a range of social media-themed signs across Oxford this week. The individual, who goes by the name of A34 on social media platform Twitter, previously hit the headlines when he changed road signs in Didcot to include fictional locations such as Gotham City, Middle Earth, and Narnia earlier this year. […]

It’s a normal Wednesday evening and I’m eating a meal with friends. “Are you coming out tonight?” one of them asks between mouthfuls. Unable to remember if we had discussed going out that evening, I shrug my shoulders, confused. “Oh it’s the quiz down the bar, remember?” I shake my head. I don’t. “There was […]

2018 has gotten off to a shaky start for the world’s tech giants. The major players in Silicon Valley have come under synchronised public scrutiny; for once, not about the quality of their products, but rather for their addictive nature. Last month, Apple’s biggest investors put pressure on the company to address increasing iPhone usage […]

Christian Dior’s s/s ’18 show in Paris opened with a model wearing a long sleeve Breton shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’. The quote comes directly from Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay about the limitations and difficulties that women who are artists face within society. (I would just like […]

The author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote of his time in a Soviet gulag, “All history is one continuous pestilence. There is no truth and no illusion. There is nowhere to appeal and nowhere to go.” While this expression was borne out of suffering the likes of which most of us will never understand, little could […]

Millennials today occupy a unique position of power. We straddle the social media revolution, and many of technology’s most rapid advances are within our living memory. We have witnessed the rise and fall of the mighty Bebo, hold fond nostalgia for MSN, and recall life before and after Facebook took up residence in our joint […]

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign violated every norm and principle that we have come to take as law over the past century in politics. While commentators have spoken for decades about the Republicans’ need to form a broad-church in their electoral base, Trump went out of his way to mock, insult and offend the vast majority […]

“I’m not going to give you a question – you are fake news.” With that, Donald Trump turned away from CNN reporter Jim Acosta and pointedly ignored him for the rest of the press conference. Acosta had been asking for clarification on an unverified Buzzfeed report which claims that Russia has links with, and holds […]

The former UKIP leadership candidate Raheem Kassam has faced criticism for a bizarre series of attacks aimed at Oxford students on social media. Mr Kassam, who previously served as an aide to Nigel Farage and now works as a commentator for Breitbart, hurled abuse at students on the Open Oxford Facebook page, calling some “inbred” […]

The press and social media have been buzzing since the release in early January on Instagram of a few shots of Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2016 campaign. The actor-rapper Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, is the new face of the designer’s womenswear collection. Alongside women models that include Jean Campbell, Rianne […]

After atrocities have been committed, the sense of helplessness we feel is sometimes hard to bear, and social media platforms seem a natural way to expressing support for those affected. While I in no way condemn these messages, I would hope that my Facebook friends know me well enough to know that Paris and Parisians […]

This idea of showing solidarity isn’t malicious – just misguided. No one should be arguing that showing solidarity for one event means that they are not caring about the others. I do wonder, though – what role is solidarity meant to play in solving the issue? Is it to bring comfort, or it just a […]