I am going through a personal crisis. I used to love reading. I am writing this blog in my office, surrounded by 27 tall bookcases laden with 5,000 books. Over the years I have read them, marked them up, and recorded the annotations in a computer database for potential references in my writing. To a Read more
Social media is a lazy and ineffective way for politicians to communicate with voters says Tino Mahowa, a student at St Bernard’s College in Lower Hutt. “If any politician were to use social media as a way to communicate, it would be to their detriment. It’s a terrible means of conveying detailed information.” “Candidates could Read more
German head of state President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has spoken out about the way social media is being used to promote anti-Semitism through “hate tirades” in Germany and across Europe. Speaking after a ceremony celebrating the centenary of a synagogue in the southern German town of Augsburg that survived the Nazi regime, Steinmeier said: “The social Read more
The word “addiction” brings to mind alcohol and drugs. Yet, over the past 20 years, a new type of addiction has emerged: addiction to social media. It may not cause physical harms, such as those caused by tobacco and alcohol, but it has the potential to cause long-term damage to our emotions, behaviour and relationships. Read more
Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed. ~ Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn (2011) The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer suggests that Hoffman’s tongue-in-cheek comment from five years ago may contain more than a kernel of truth. Using Dante’s Inferno as Read more
Sindr, an app using GPS technology to get you to Mass and Reconciliation, is now official. It has just been launched at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Next time you’re looking for somewhere to go to Mass or Reconciliation, it may come to your aid. If you’re in Scotland, that is. It will tell you Read more
The Vatican’s top communications experts say tweeting and other social media is the way to go. Bishop Paul Tighe, a Vatican culture secretary, says they are finding people on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and other all-inclusive, non-denominational digital houses of worship. Tighe has been in Lisbon for Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference. Before he left Read more
Facebook and similar communications’ technologies could be used to alleviate poverty, encourage the culture of encounter and bring a message of hope, especially to the most disadvantaged. This week’s meeting at the Vatican between Pope Francis and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of social networking giant Facebook, looked at ways to achieve this. The meeting Read more