TLDR 181

Building Your Best Self

Published: 2019-01-19 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 181. Building your best self.

Hi all, welcome to TL;DR. My name is Ian O'Byrne. I research, teach, & write about technology in our lives. In TLDR, I try to synthesize what happened this week in tech...so you can be the expert as well. Enjoy. :)

This week I posted the following:

Semi-Permeable Membranes in Digital Learning Spaces - This post talks about learning, making mistakes, and anonymity online.
Digital Dependence and the Screentime Debate - I discuss some of the research talk about addiction and our use of digital devices.
Hoopla & other free digital services from your local library - I absolutely love using Hoopla to read graphic novels on my tablet. The service (and others) is free from my local library. Check it out...and start using it for yourself.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Dual-Purpose Meme: 10-year challenge likely serves both training facial recognition on age progression and strengthening user bonds through nostalgia simultaneously revealing nothing random in platform spaces.
Massive Breach Reality: 773 million-record breach with plaintext passwords confirms security breaches inevitable requiring proactive password management and monitoring through services like Have I Been Pwned.
Geography Still Matters: Facebook research mapping county-level friend connections reveals geography's enduring influence even in digital era supposedly erasing distance and bridging communities globally.
Authentic Social Media: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's social media success stems from being yourself using platform as conversation not press conference rejecting performative robot communication.
Screen-Sharing Socializing: Squad app capitalizing on behavior of capturing and sharing screens from Instagram Pinterest demonstrates new social practices emerging around visual communication.

📺 Watch

Netflix Competes with Fortnite for Screen Time

In a quarterly report released this week, Netflix claimed that it competes for screen time with Fortnite more than it does HBO.

"We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors."

Think about that for a minute, and consider the growing place of gaming in our lives as screens fight for our attention.

Netflix's framing reveals attention economy's real landscape: competition isn't between similar services (streaming vs streaming) but between all activities competing for eyeballs. Fortnite, YouTube, TikTok, reading, sleep, conversation—all competitors in zero-sum attention market. Gaming's prominence signals shift from passive consumption to interactive engagement. When entertainment giant acknowledges game as primary competitor, it confirms what young people already know: gaming isn't just entertainment but primary social space.

📚 Read

What Facebook's 10-Year Challenge Is Really About

If you use social media, this week you've probably noticed a trend across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter of people posting their then-and-now profile pictures, mostly from 10 years ago and this year.

Kate O'Neill in Wired expands on a question about whether all of this data could be mined to train facial recognition algorithms on age progression & age recognition.

I'm torn between two possibilities on this debate.

One, Facebook (and other companies) is getting us to share/label photos for learning possibilities. I think this could definitely be used to help the machines learn.

Second, Facebook (and other companies) are getting us to play "remember when" as user (and employee) attitudes are changing about the social network. They're hoping to have users emote and connect to strengthen bonds as they're fraying.

I think these two possibilities could exist contemporaneously. I don't think it's random. Nothing is in these spaces.

The genius of 10-year challenge is it serves multiple purposes simultaneously. Training data for age-progression algorithms? Absolutely—perfectly labeled temporal pairs. Nostalgia play to re-engage users losing faith in platform? Also yes. The beauty from Facebook's perspective is users enthusiastically generate both outcomes. Nothing on platforms is random. Every viral trend serves platform interests whether users recognize it or not. Assuming benign intent with surveillance capitalists is dangerous naivety.

Monster 773 Million-Record Breach List Contains Plaintext Passwords

As users of the Internet and communication technologies, we need to understand that security breaches are going to happen. Your accounts, passwords, and other identifying data will get out there online.

According to Have I Been Pwned founder Troy Hunt in a post published Wednesday, a monster list of login credentials is available online.

Here's what you need to do. First, go to Have I Been Pwned and enter your email address to see if your data is out there. If it is...change your passwords for those accounts.

The "Collection #1" breach demonstrates why password reuse is catastrophic. One breach at obscure forum from 2012 exposes credentials reused across banking, email, social media. Plaintext passwords mean no decryption needed—credentials ready for immediate use. This isn't hypothetical risk but actual credentials circulating in criminal marketplaces. Security isn't about preventing all breaches (impossible) but limiting damage through unique passwords, two-factor authentication, and breach monitoring. Have I Been Pwned makes monitoring accessible. Use it.

A new study by researchers at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and New York University takes every county in the United States and measures how many friend connections Facebook users in that county have to users in every other county in the United States, normalized by total population of each county.

The resulting maps paint a fascinating and powerful portrait of the enduring influence geography has even in the digital era that was supposed to erase its impact and bridge communities & cultures across the world.

Social media doesn't eliminate geography—it replicates and amplifies it. People connect with those geographically proximate, attended same colleges, share regional culture. Digital connections follow physical infrastructure, economic patterns, migration flows. The promise that internet would create borderless global community ignores how human connection works: we bond with those we share context with. Platforms don't transcend geography; they make existing geographic patterns visible and quantifiable. This has profound implications for echo chambers, polarization, and information flow.

Regardless of your viewpoint on Ocasio-Cortez and her ideological stance, her use of social media is viewed as fresh and authentic. Some of her guidance:

On being yourself:

"Don't try to be anybody who you're not."
"If you're an older woman, talk like an older woman talks."

On internet etiquette and literacy:

"If you don't know what a meme is, don't post a meme."
"Sometimes the culture here is to fit in and keep your heads low." But "we don't want to separate ourselves" from constituents on social media.
"Mute people but try not to block them."

On acting like a human, not a robot:

"Social media is not a press release. It's not a press conference."
"It's not the kitchen that's popular, or the cooking that's popular, it's that I'm engaging people doing something I'm already doing."

AOC's social media effectiveness comes from rejecting performative professionalism for actual personality. Most politicians use social media as broadcast channel—polished statements, press releases, managed messaging. She uses it as conversation—cooking while talking policy, responding to constituents, admitting mistakes, showing process. Authenticity isn't strategy but refusal to separate public and private personas. The lesson: platforms designed for social connection work better when you're actually social not when you're performing being social.

I do a lot of screensharing & screencasting from my computer, but primarily for teaching/writing purposes. I've noticed that my Wife frequently grabs screencaptures from Instagram, Pinterest, and elsewhere to share them with friends on social media. I've always thought this was a bit odd, but it appears that Squad (and other copycat apps) are jumping on this behavior.

Screen-sharing as social practice reveals how visual communication dominates. Rather than describe what you're seeing, just share the screen. Rather than link to content, capture and send it. Squad formalizes this emergent behavior into platform. The shift from text ("check out this post") to visual ("here's the screen") mirrors broader movement toward image-based communication. For generation raised on FaceTime, Snapchat, Instagram Stories, screen-sharing isn't odd but natural extension of visual-first communication preferences.

🔨 Do

Remove.BG - Remove Photo Backgrounds

Richard Byrne pointed out Remove.BG, a site that can be used to remove backgrounds on photos for free. He suggests this is a great opportunity to play with digital images and place yourself anywhere.

This is a great tool that you should have in your back pocket.

Background removal democratizes image manipulation previously requiring Photoshop expertise. AI-powered tools make sophisticated editing accessible, enabling creative play and also sophisticated deception. Same technology lets students create fun self-portraits and propagandists create convincing composites. The educational opportunity is teaching both creative possibilities and critical evaluation: how to make images and how to question them.

🤔 Consider

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." — George Lorimer

Building your best self requires daily determination not one-time transformation. 10-year challenge shows we build selves over time through accumulated choices not sudden changes. Security breaches demand determined password hygiene not one-time fixes. Geographic connection patterns reveal we build networks through sustained proximity and shared experience. AOC's authentic social media comes from determined consistency not performed persona. Squad's screen-sharing formalizes practices built through repeated behavior. Satisfaction comes not from achievements but from determined daily practice of becoming. Morning determination builds evening satisfaction through accumulated small choices.

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🌱 Connected Concepts:

10 Year Challenge Facial Recognition — Kate O'Neill questioning whether viral meme serves dual purpose training age-progression algorithms while strengthening user bonds through nostalgia in Surveillance Capitalism.
773 Million Breach — Collection 1 breach containing plaintext passwords demonstrates why password reuse catastrophic requiring unique passwords and breach monitoring through Have I Been Pwned in Cybersecurity.
Social Connectedness Geography — Facebook research mapping county friend connections reveals geography's enduring influence in digital era replicating rather than eliminating physical proximity patterns in Social Networks.
AOC Social Media Authenticity — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez social media effectiveness from rejecting performative professionalism for actual personality treating platforms as conversation not broadcast in Political Communication.
Squad Screen-Sharing — App formalizing emergent behavior of capturing and sharing screens reflects shift toward visual-first communication preferences over text-based description in Digital Communication.

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