If You Can’t Text Something Positive …
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 75% of all U.S. teens have a cell phone. When you drop the age to 12 years old, it’s still a whopping 58% with a ring-tone piping out of their pocket. 90% of all those kids are texting each other at any given moment—to a tally […]
Park Well, My Brother
NEW TECH ALERT—woo-woo-woo In case you haven’t heard, Google has created a new Android app for all you frustrated city folk who endlessly round the block looking for someplace to jam your ride. It’s called “Open Spot.” With it you can open a little map of your area decorated with bubble markers that indicate an […]
Your Tweet is My Command
Did you hear about David Perez and his recent adventure? If not, let me fill you in. This 29-year-old advertising guy wanted to attend a weeklong fete at the Cannes Lion’s International Advertising Festival in France. (Yeah, I had no idea that advertising guys threw big shindigs in France, either. But there it is.) Anyway, […]
The Twilight of Addiction
This is the age of addiction. Think about it. People are pointing to new addictions just about every day. The Internet, now, there’s a real life-stealer. Reality TV shows, wow, just can’t get enough of those dancing stars of yesteryear. Movies. Music. iPads. Videogames. Seems that everybody is up-ending their lives to mainline something or […]
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Online
I just saw a New York Times article that I had to comment on. The piece, by Tara Parker-Pope, asked the question: “Is the Internet making teenagers do more dumb things than ever?” Now, it’s easy to rationalize that teens are gonna do stupid stuff no matter what. So why blame the Internet? After all, […]
MTV’s Muddled Movie Awards
If you missed Sunday night’s presentation of this year’s MTV Movie Awards and you’re still wondering who won, the answer is, well, nobody. Nobody who tuned in anyway. This crude presentation didn’t do any favors for the films it cheered (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) or the soon-to-be-released flicks it advertised (Grown Ups). Shackled with […]
M-E-O-W My Homies
For those who no longer feel that special zing when following the tweets of Justin Bieber or [fill in current celebrity obsession here], the gang at Sony Computer Science Laboratories want to offer something that will really give your empty day a boost: A tweet from your cat. No, I’m not just pulling your chain, […]
M-Rated Games Through E-Rated Glasses
I recently read a Time article called “A Brief History: Video Game Violence.” And at 298 words, it was brief indeed. In essence, the story skimmed over a few violent titles (such as Mortal Kombat and the little known vampire killer called Night Trap) and focused on the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court would […]
The Human Nature of iHobo
Hobo. This now politically incorrect term—once commonly used to refer to the homeless—hasn’t seen much daylight since back when my grandfather was dropping coins into some guy’s tin cup. But as the saying goes, everything old is new again. And that renewal sometimes raises interesting, and in some ways unintentional, questions. A new iPhone app […]
Twittering Tween Tantwums
I’m not sure if it’s been caused by the overabundance of hormones in their McDonald’s burgers, the excessive sugar in their school cafeteria soft drinks or the invasive radiation constantly emanating from their cell phones, but tween and teen girls have truly gone jump-the-shark wiggie. And it all seems to somehow be connected to this […]