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TLDR 89

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 89

Published: 2017-03-17 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to TL;DR Newsletter #89. Each week I identify the things you need to know about what happened in education, technology, and in-between.

This week's issue is about escaping addictions.

I'm excited to announce that I'm scheduling my first webinar as part of my development in The Next School. The free webinar will be held on March 30th, 2017 at 8:00 PM (ET). You can sign up for the webinar here. The webinar will discuss three steps to become a digitally agile educator.

This week I shared the following:

Feel free to share this with someone that you believe would benefit. Please subscribe to this newsletter if you haven't already. Thanks!!! :)

Send me feedback or questions at hello@wiobyrne.com. You can review archives of the newsletter or on Medium. I also share the quotes at the bottom of the newsletter on Instagram.

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

This short film by animator Matthias Hoegg is part of the "Power of Privacy" series for The Guardian. This animated short unpacks whether or not privacy can still exist in a world where we are constantly online.

📚 Read

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been discussing the challenges of being a healthy skeptic as we consume information online. This post from Ariel Leve in The Guardian provides strategies to stay resilient in the face of information and abuse that distorts your personal truth.

Leve uses the recent news around President Trump and supposed "gaslighting" of American citizens. She provides the following strategies to help when "truth" may not connect with your framing of truth:

This piece by Ryan Avent in The Economist 1843 discusses the growing connections between failing job markets and video games. Specifically, Avent makes the argument that young men are dropping out of the job market, and instead are spending their time in alternate reality and games.

The piece asks prescient questions about quality of life. Is it better to live a minimal life and enjoy the therapy of video games...or should young men get out into the grind and debt of the workforce. A fascinating, haunting read.

On a related note, please read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. You won't regret it.

Matt Richtel in The New York Times asking the question about adolescents possibly being addicted to their devices. Over the past month, I've seen a lot of posts in which technology has been compared to opioids, heroin, and other drugs. In these pieces, the authors are trying to suggest that our children are addicted to technology and devices like someone addicted to heroin.

I think there is something to be said for possible overuse, over reliance, and possible addiction to devices. I'm definitely guilty of this. But, comparing this to opiate addiction and dependence I think may be going too far. This is especially true given the challenges many people around the globe have as they struggle with addiction. I also have problems with pointing the finger at children and adolescents to indicate that they have a problem.

In a related story, this piece in Scientific American discusses recent trends that identify a potential hypocrisy as adults may spend more time on digital devices than they think.

Sian Cain in The Guardian showing the continual decline of ebook sales in the UK, while printed book sales continue to climb. Of specific interest in this discussion is the reliance on printed versions of children's books and picture books. They also indicate the growing popularity of adult coloring books.

Interesting look at potentials for disruption through the integration of the blockchain, and distributed ledger technologies in non-monetary initiatives.

Specifically, Ravi Kumar in CoinDesk indicates the following spaces with potential for change:

🔨 Do

If you're at all interested in learning more about open badges, you need to sign up for this latest offering from the great team at the We Are Open Co-op.

I'm intrigued by this online course to see potential for building and expanding my understanding of badges and alternative credentials. I'm also interested to see how they outline and scale up this online class.

🤔 Consider

"The mind is everything. What you think you become." — Buddha

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