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DL 198

We've Got This All Wrong

Published: 2019-05-18 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 198. We've got this all wrong.

Hi all, welcome to Digitally Literate. My name is Ian O'Byrne. I research, teach, & write about technology in our lives. I try to synthesize what happened this week in tech...so you can be the expert as well.

I posted a couple of other things this week:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

Measles Outbreak and Vaccine Misinformation

Fake news is playing a huge role in the measles outbreak that's broken a 25-year-old record for measles cases in 2019. This video from Al Jazeera+ interviews members of the Hasidic community in New York to see how they have been affected.

The measles outbreak demonstrates misinformation's concrete public health consequences—not abstract harm but children hospitalized with preventable disease. The Hasidic community focus is significant: tight-knit communities with internal information networks are particularly vulnerable when misinformation enters trusted channels. The anti-vaccine movement exploits community trust structures, spreading faster through personal relationships than public health messaging can counter. Al Jazeera's coverage provides perspective mainstream American outlets often miss, examining how misinformation affects specific communities rather than treating it as general phenomenon. The 25-year record breaking reveals erosion of herd immunity built over decades, undone rapidly by targeted disinformation.

📚 Read

Excellent new report from the Pew Research Center on the topic of misinformation in our news and social feeds.

The research documents the risks and benefits identified by adults in 11 emerging countries as they engage with digital media and networked spaces. The results suggest these tools and spaces allow for connection and empowerment, but also higher risk of manipulation.

Succinctly put, the prevailing view in the surveyed countries is that mobile phones, the internet and social media have collectively amplified politics in both positive and negative directions—simultaneously making people more empowered politically and potentially more exposed to harm.

Pew's emerging economies focus matters: these aren't populations saturated with technology for decades but communities experiencing rapid digital transformation. The simultaneous empowerment and exposure finding captures digital technology's fundamental ambiguity—same tools enable organizing and manipulation, connection and exploitation. The political amplification framing is precise: technology doesn't create political dynamics but intensifies existing ones. Countries with weak democratic institutions and high social tension experience amplified risk; countries with stronger civic infrastructure get amplified participation. The finding complicates both techno-utopianism (just connect everyone and democracy flourishes) and techno-pessimism (social media destroys society).

In a separate piece of research, Mozilla surveyed nearly 60,000 people globally about online misinformation. The raw data is available at the bottom of the post linked above.

Here's the top points they've identified from the findings:

The 86% education finding deserves attention: people experiencing misinformation don't want censorship or algorithmic fixes but skills to evaluate information themselves. This aligns with media literacy advocacy while challenging platform-centric solutions. The platform responsibility finding creates interesting tension—people want platforms to fix it but also want education to handle it themselves. Perhaps the synthesis: platforms should enable education rather than filter content. The "fake news" vs "disinformation" terminology gap matters; "fake news" became politicized while "disinformation" retains analytical precision. Mozilla's sample size (60,000) and global scope make findings robust, though self-selected online survey participants may overrepresent digitally engaged populations.

Great post by Laura Pasquini examining the challenges around privacy and identity in digital spaces. Pasquini indicates that this post is a continuation of her thinking around surveillance capitalism and her control of her data. This post is also a response after her reading of Shoshana Zuboff's latest book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

I appreciate Laura's documentation of her thinking about data, identity, and privacy. The post also shares a number of resources (readings, podcasts) that I'll dive in to over the summer to think more deeply about this topic.

Pasquini's public thinking-through models intellectual engagement with difficult concepts. Zuboff's "surveillance capitalism" framework names what was previously diffuse concern: behavioral extraction as business model, prediction products sold to advertisers, experience rendered as raw material. The personal reflection approach—how does this affect my data, my identity, my choices—grounds abstract theory in lived experience. Documenting the thinking process rather than presenting finished conclusions invites readers into intellectual journey. The resource sharing creates community of inquiry around these questions. This is what public intellectualism looks like in digital spaces: reading deeply, thinking publicly, connecting others to sources.

Because of You is an anti-bullying campaign by the Ad Council that encourages teenagers to use compassion, self-reflection, and mindfulness when interacting with people. They get the message across by using various videos of teens sharing their experiences, from those who get bullied, to the ones that help them.

This is a great resource to share with others. It is also an example of ways to build a network across multiple social media networks...as well as online and offline.

The campaign's emphasis on compassion and self-reflection rather than punishment distinguishes it from zero-tolerance approaches. Featuring teen voices—both bullied and helpers—centers lived experience over adult prescriptions. The cross-platform architecture demonstrates effective digital campaign design: meeting audiences where they are rather than expecting them to visit dedicated sites. The online/offline bridging is crucial; bullying happens in both spaces and interventions must address both. The Ad Council's involvement shows established advertising infrastructure can serve public interest, not just commercial messaging.

Five cups of coffee per day.

The 347,077-person study provides statistical power most health research lacks. The threshold finding—benefits until five cups, then risks increase—offers actionable guidance rather than vague moderation advice. However, coffee research consistently produces contradictory findings depending on study design, population, and funding sources. The headline-friendly number (five cups!) obscures individual variation in caffeine metabolism, coffee preparation methods, and what people add to their coffee. Still, for those anxious about coffee consumption, research generally supports moderate intake as neutral-to-beneficial for cardiovascular and cognitive health.

🔨 Do

Values Alignment Reflection

Some points for reflection from the Tiny Buddha blog:

What sacrifices do you make? Why do you make them?

The framework distinguishes intrinsic evaluation (does this align with my values?) from extrinsic comparison (how does this look relative to others?). The "question sacrifices only when comparing" point is diagnostic: if contentment vanishes only when seeing others' apparent success, the issue is comparison rather than genuine misalignment. The happiness today vs. tomorrow tension challenges deferred-life planning where present suffering supposedly purchases future flourishing—a trade that often fails to pay off. The meaning-seeking frame connects to broader cultural criticism: instrumentalizing life toward achievement goals misses meaning available in present engagement.

🤔 Consider

"Awareness requires a rupture with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience are called into question and revised." — Shoshana Zuboff

Zuboff's observation frames why surveillance capitalism remained invisible so long: it operated within taken-for-granted assumptions about free services and convenient personalization. The "rupture" required to see extraction happening demands questioning categories we learned to accept. This issue's misinformation research shows similar rupture occurring globally—people becoming aware of manipulation.

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Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.