#social-media
Every item in the public site that shares this topic, gathered across writing, book notes, and publications.
- Entries
- 94 total
- Writing
- 84
- Book notes
- 5
- Publications
- 5
Writing
2025
- Nov 5, 2025 From CV to Living Web: Rewilding My Digital Identity
Why a living web presence should be more than a static CV.
- Jan 31, 2025 Disruptive Innovation: DeepSeek’s Foray into the American AI Market
What DeepSeek's rise says about competition and disruption in the AI market.
2024
- Dec 10, 2024 What is a Digital Garden
What a digital garden is and why it matters.
- May 20, 2024 Navigating the Digital Landscape - Enjoy Screens, But Not Too Much, Mostly Together
How to find balance, safety, and agency in a screen-filled world.
- May 13, 2024 The Role of Education and Research in Confronting Harmful Discourses
Why educators and researchers should help confront harmful discourses.
2023
- Dec 8, 2023 The Online Misinformation War: Navigating a Cacophony of Competing Narratives
How misinformation spreads online and why readers need stronger habits.
- Nov 9, 2023 Down the QAnon Rabbit Hole
How QAnon grew from fringe internet spaces into a political force.
- Oct 24, 2023 Small Websites, Big Connections: Understanding the Fediverse
What the fediverse is and why people are moving there.
- Oct 20, 2023 The Complex Role of Social Media in Protest Movements – A Review of Twitter and Tear Gas
A look at Twitter, protest, and the fragility of networked movements.
- Sep 16, 2023 A Thoughtful Look at How New Technologies Are Reshaping Our World
A takeaway on how new technologies reshape society and power.
- Aug 6, 2023 Finding the Perfect Match: A Guide to Testing Different AI and LLM Models for Your Dataset and Purpose
How to choose among AI and LLM models for a specific use case.
- Jan 21, 2023 Digital Wildfires: Tending to Social Media in the Classroom
How to tend to social media and critical media literacy in class.
2022
- Mar 5, 2022 Guidance on Planning and Building an Organization’s Website
How to plan a website that serves members instead of just existing online.
- Feb 19, 2022 Why Can’t We Agree On What’s True?
Why digital platforms make consensus about truth harder to reach.
2021
- May 13, 2021 Intersectionality In Educational Technology
Why intersectionality matters in educational technology work.
- Apr 24, 2021 Repurpose & Reshare Your Talks on Social Media
How to extend the reach of your talks by resharing them online.
- Mar 24, 2021 Breaking Down the Misinformation & Disinformation Ecosystem
A framework for distinguishing misinformation from disinformation online.
- Mar 19, 2021 Writing Myself Into Existence
Why writing has become a way of making sense of my life.
- Mar 17, 2021 What Should We Demand of Tech
What we should expect from technology as users and citizens.
- Mar 11, 2021 Are You Guilty of ‘Orbiting’?
A look at orbiting, ghosting, and the weirdness of digital social distance.
- Feb 26, 2021 Bots, Disruptors, and Frictionless Interactions
How bots, friction, and human touch shape the user experience.
- Feb 3, 2021 Remembering in Digital Contexts
How digital residue changes the way we remember people after they die.
- Jan 13, 2021 Monkeys Throwing Feces
A candid look at parenting, conflict, and the messy work of change.
- Jan 7, 2021 Before You Post That Hot Take
Why impulsive hot takes can make online moments worse.
- Jan 5, 2021 From Trash to Treasure
How a hard semester turned into a lesson in recovery and reflection.
2020
- Dec 18, 2020 How To Write a Blog Post
A practical guide to writing and publishing a blog post.
- Dec 15, 2020 Considerations of Death
How technology and social networks shape our views of death.
- Dec 9, 2020 Well-Being in a Digital World
What happens when you step away from social media but not the web.
- Dec 1, 2020 Trust, But Verify
Why verification and reputation matter in online information.
- Nov 12, 2020 Speak To An Audience
Why speaking to one specific audience makes writing stronger.
- Nov 10, 2020 Begin Owning Your Online Content
Why owning your online content starts with having a home base.
- Nov 4, 2020 Live an Antifragile Way of Life
What antifragility means and why growth can come from disorder.
- Nov 3, 2020 How to Know You’re Not Insane
A reflection on gaslighting, mistrust, and feeling unmoored from reality.
- Oct 3, 2020 Trading Up The Chain
How misinformation and speculation move up the media chain.
- Sep 16, 2020 Re-Examining My Social Signals
A reflection on stepping back from social signals for a month.
- Sep 4, 2020 Is social media bad for us?
A look at social media, screentime, and the mental health conversation.
- Sep 3, 2020 Gone for a minute
A brief note on stepping away from social feeds.
- Jun 9, 2020 Do The Work
How to turn anti-racist intentions into sustained action.
2019
- Nov 12, 2019 A Turning Point
How poetry can mark a turning point in a collaborative project.
- Oct 1, 2019 Shape of My Story
How poetry and performance shape a community storytelling project.
- Sep 22, 2019 Recognizing the details
How close reading and detail work shape a poetry-making practice.
- Sep 3, 2019 Where I Begin
How a poetry project uses voice, performance, and shared making.
- Aug 27, 2019 Explain who are you…to this day
How poetry can be used to ask and answer identity questions.
- Aug 24, 2019 Talking to Children about Technology, Social Media, & Algorithms
How to talk with children about tech, social media, and algorithms.
2018
- Dec 5, 2018 The most valuable thing on the Internet is your attention
Why your attention is the most valuable thing on the internet.
- Oct 23, 2018 Why people troll others online
Why people troll online and how those behaviors work.
- Oct 12, 2018 Online disinhibition effect
How online anonymity can lower social restraint and distort behavior.
- Oct 11, 2018 Why do people say things online they would never say face-to-face?
Why people say harsher things online than they would face to face.
- Sep 21, 2018 Exploring temporal patterns Playing with data visualization & social media analytics
How to think about temporal patterns in qualitative research.
- Jul 25, 2018 Encountering harmful discourses in the classroom
How educators can respond when hate and harmful discourse enter class.
- Jul 4, 2018 Three examples of annotations, bookmarking, & sharing in my digital commonplace book
Three ways annotations and social bookmarking can support networked learning.
- Apr 29, 2018 Switching up my signals
Why I changed my relationship with social networks and digital spaces.
- Apr 3, 2018 Meaning making while reading online
How online algorithms shape meaning-making and reading.
- Mar 24, 2018 The Cambridge Analytica scandal
What Cambridge Analytica reveals about data, politics, and manipulation.
- Mar 15, 2018 The four types of online discussion. Where are you?
How online discussion takes different forms across platforms.
2017
- Nov 24, 2017 Information Without Emotion is Rarely Retained
Why emotion helps information stick in learning.
- Jun 21, 2017 Three Stages to Become a Digitally Agile Researcher
How researchers can build digital agility for more effective, connected work.
- Jun 6, 2017 Three things I’ve learned by writing a newsletter
How I write and send my weekly newsletter.
- Feb 7, 2017 How to register a domain and host your own website
Why hosting your own website is the best way to own your content.
- Jan 4, 2017 Develop Your Own Personal Cyberinfrastructure
How to build a personal cyberinfrastructure for digital identity and control.
- Jan 2, 2017 Three steps to identify and develop your digital identity
Three steps for becoming a more digitally agile educator.
2016
- Nov 18, 2016 Don’t click here: Facebook, algorithms, & articles you’re not meant to see
How Facebook's algorithms shape what you see and what gets hidden.
- Jul 6, 2016 Doug Belshaw Brings Blockchain Thinking to the Badge Summit
Doug Belshaw's Badge Summit keynote through a blockchain lens.
- Feb 17, 2016 Digital Portfolios + Open Badges + Blockchain = Personal Learning Ledger
How digital portfolios, badges, and blockchain might connect.
- Feb 14, 2016 How to Find Creative Commons Licensed Images and Cite Them Correctly
How to find CC-licensed images and cite them correctly.
2015
- Dec 22, 2015 Transmedia Storytelling
How transmedia storytelling spreads a narrative across multiple media channels.
- Nov 5, 2015 Getting Started in Medium: Long form response and advanced writing practices
A look at advanced writing techniques in Medium.
- Oct 21, 2015 Getting Started in Medium: Reading, annotating, commenting, and recommending
A beginner's guide to reading and writing in Medium.
- Jul 15, 2015 Play With Digital Media, Stop-Motion Animation, & Vine to Earn the #VineOff Badge
Why stop-motion and Vine are useful ways to play with digital media.
- Jul 3, 2015 Deconstruct My Digital Identity Through a Glitch Remix Video – #CLMOOC Make Cycle 1
How a glitch remix helped me deconstruct my digital identity.
2014
- Oct 2, 2014 Where Do We Stand With the Mozilla Web Literacy Map?
Where the Mozilla Web Literacy Map stood at a key transition point.
- Sep 4, 2014 My (Current) Thoughts on the Mozilla Web Literacy Initiative
My current thoughts on where the Mozilla Web Literacy initiative is headed.
- Jul 22, 2014 Creating and Sharing Your Ideas Online With Others
How I think about sharing ideas across Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.
- Jul 11, 2014 Creating and Sharing Your “One Page” on the Internet
How to create a one-page hub for your online identity.
- Jul 3, 2014 Create a Game or “Choose Your Own Adventure” Using Google Forms
How Google Forms can be used to create a simple choose-your-own-adventure game.
- Jul 3, 2014 The FacePalm Social Mood Experiment
A satire of Facebook's mood experiment using Google Forms.
- Jul 1, 2014 Facebook’s Secret Mood Experiment and the Challenges of Living Online
How the Facebook mood experiment raised questions about online ethics.
- Jun 27, 2014 Literacy practices in an open, networked, collaborative learning space
How literacy practices change in open, networked learning spaces.
- Jan 22, 2014 TechTalk 003 – Twitter, Vine, Instagram, & the #WALKMYWORLD Project
A practical overview of Twitter, Vine, and Instagram as creative and participatory tools for educators working in open online spaces.
2013
- Nov 12, 2013 TechTalk 002 – Twitter, ‘Twitteracy’, and Connected Educators
A TechTalk on Twitter, twitteracy, and connected educators.
- Aug 5, 2013 Day One at the MA New Literacies Institute – ChalkBoardMan Moving From Print to Screen
Notes from day one at the MA New Literacies Institute.
2012
- Mar 19, 2012 Creating and Curating Your Digital Identity
How to create and curate a stronger online identity and brand.
2011
- Nov 10, 2011 Teens, Cyberbullying, & Social Networks
What research says about teen behavior, cruelty, and cyberbullying online.
- Mar 7, 2011 Poetry, Digital Media, and Mobile Phones
How poetry, digital media, and mobile phones intersect in learning.
Book notes
1753488000000
- 2025 Digital Minimalism
Cal Newport
- 2025 The Attention Merchants
Tim Wu
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- 2024 The Anxious Generation
Jonathan Haidt
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- 2017 Twitter and Tear Gas
Zeynep Tufekci
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- 2014 Hatching Twitter
Nick Bilton
Publications
2026
- 2026 Talking to Children about Technology, Social Media, & Algorithms
Report · O'Byrne, Ian. (2026). Talking to Children about Technology, Social Media, & Algorithms.
2023
- 2023 Digital Wildfires: Tending to social media in the ELA classroom
Journal article · O’Byrne, W Ian; Crandall, Bryan Ripley; Dail, Jennifer S; Goering, Christian Z; Mora, Raúl Alberto; Price-Dennis, Detra; Witte, Shelbie. (2023). Digital Wildfires: Tending to social media in the ELA classroom. Critical Media Literacy.
2017
- 2017 Open scholarship: leveraging social networks and communities as a digitally agile researcher
Book chapter · O’Byrne, W Ian. (2017). Open scholarship: leveraging social networks and communities as a digitally agile researcher. The Digitally-Agile Researcher.
- 2017 Social scholarship and the networked scholar: Researching, reading, and writing the web
Journal article · Semingson, Peggy; O’Byrne, Ian; Alberto Mora, Raúl; Kist, William. (2017). Social scholarship and the networked scholar: Researching, reading, and writing the web. Educational media international.
2016
- 2016 The role of K-12 education in creating critical digital experts in the era of Web 2.0
Journal article · O'Byrne, W Ian. (2016). The role of K-12 education in creating critical digital experts in the era of Web 2.0. First Monday.