By making so much information so accessible, social media has drastically changed the way we consume information and form opinions in the modern era. The danger, however, is that social media creates an “echo chamber” that filters the information people receive so that it largely supports their existing opinions.
A recent study published in PNAS examines this phenomenon and finds that social-media users show marked focus in the types of news that interests them. These social-media participants tend to develop strong and well-defined communities around the news outlets they support, and they tend to make connections with like-minded people regardless of the geographic distance between them.
Specifically, the number of Americans engaged in R&D has jumped by more than twentyfold since 1930 while their collective productivity has dropped by a factor of 41. “It’s getting harder and harder to make new ideas, and the economy is more or less compensating for that,” Bloom said. “The only way we’ve been able to…
Few saw the Chromebook coming. When it launched half a decade ago, the category was broadly maligned for its limited feature set, middling hardware specs and operation that required an always-on internet connection to work properly. But things change in five years. In 2015, the category overtook MacBooks in the U.S. for the first time ever, selling…
It wasn’t Nineteen Eighty-Four that had the most to say about the America of the 1980s, but rather Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. “In Huxley’s vision,” Postman noted, “no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history.” Instead: “People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that…
One San Jose private school has come up with a unique solution: The Harker School, self-described as “one of the nation’s top college prep schools,” is putting teams of sixth grade applicants through a virtual escape room. Over a Zoom call, the 11-year-olds work together to solve a series of Harker-themed puzzles, and admissions officers observe their…
Over the past decade as many school budgets have remained stagnant, spending in educational technology has climbed to record levels, with no signs of slowing. As schools around the country consider investing in technology as a way to improve student outcomes, particularly for those students deemed “at-risk,” it’s imperative that district leaders understand the methods…
This can’t be great news for the owners of the ACT and the SAT college admissions exams, but the list of colleges and universities that no longer require scores from those tests to be submitted with a student application keeps growing. The list of test-optional schools maintained by the nonprofit National Center for Fair and…
