Photo by Oleg Magni on Unsplash I have a complicated relationship with social media, but one that is far from unique. About once a year, I find myself on an anti-social media crusade, only to spend the rest of the year allowing it to slowly creep back into my life. I really do resent it – the way I can actively feel myself unable to pull away, even when I’m hyper-aware that it’s not making me happy. Have you ever closed an app, only to immediately reopen that same app? It makes you feel like a lab rat, sat in the same cage all day hitting the same “reward” button over and over. Especially during a pandemic, limited to the world between my four walls for the last 10 months, I’ve found it nearly impossible to entirely forgo scrolling away my time. What I notice when I delete those apps, however, always surprises me. More than I ever could have conceived, the ever-so-subtle emotional manipulation involved in using ...
Every week we see a new headline highlighting a new deal, acquisition, or merger of some big-name media companies. It’s nearly impossible to pin down an accurate map of these ownerships, as new deals are so frequently changing the corporate media landscape. Sometimes, especially in the short-term, these deals can appear to work out well for the consumer. More often, however, they can prevent innovation and competition at best, while outright undermining our democracy at worst. http://frankwbaker.com/The%20big%20picture.jpg There really is no more exemplary candidate than AT&T. I would wager that most people my age are unaware that AT&T was founded by none other than Alexander Graham Bell, originally being called the Bell Telephone Company. Bell gradually accrued market dominance by either refusing to work with and/or buying out competitors , eventually rebranding to the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. Even after the formation of the ...