The real cool kids

If a technology company is going to steer my lifestyle choices, I'd like it to be Pinterest. Or Fitbit, maybe. That way my life would be well-exercised and kinda DIY crafty. Alas, Facebook appears to be the only tech company unabashedly nagging users about otherwise personal things. (Which, Facebook, you already own us: Give it up, plz.)

1. Inside the lives of the Internet's elite. Facebook and Twitter are ~so~ 2013. The real cool kids -- and by "cool," I mean "rich" -- are hanging out in closed social networks like "A Small World" and "IVY," where entry fees are high, applications rigorous and genuine connections ... pretty scarce.

2. In defense of the iPhone. Don't you miss the Olden Dayes, when people actually spoke to one another and everyone wasn't absorbed in their damn phones? NO, says old-timer Andrew O'Hagan, in an essay so fantastically British/snobby I allllmost think it's self-parody.

3. Nobody needs to rebound anymore. "For the next month, we sexted continuously. I was having a virtual rebound. Which, it turns out, is the best kind: distraction, affirmation, and a sexual palate cleanser, all without needing to wash the trails of mascara from my face, or disrupt my busy post-breakup schedule of restorative Pilates classes, attended while reeking of booze from the night before."

Whooooops! (Been there.)

Pocketable: How did Amazon, of all things, become Literary Enemy No. 1? (7953 words/32 minutes)

Postscripts: Algorithmic jeans. Dumb apps for dumbies. 21 Tinder trolls on the top of their game and 15 rules for creativity in the Internet age. The problem with sentiment analysis. The (lesser known!) problem with Facebook's real names. What your iPhone can teach you about happiness and what it's like to watch countless strangers' awkward online dates. Finish that book. Look up from your phone. Stab your friends in the back -- it's okay! Did you know Silk Road made the real world more safe? (... so maybe that shutdown is not-so-great.)

Until tomorrow!
@caitlindewey

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