Last summer, Kevin Durant made possibly the biggest decision he’ll ever make. After eight years with the Oklahoma City Thunder, he published an article on The Player’s Tribune, announcing his intention to sign with the 73-win Warriors—not long after his Thunder had blown a 3-1 series lead against them in the Western Conference Finals. The… Keep Reading
Flashing through countless newsfeeds with bold lettering and eye-catching, often shocking imagery, online news videos have become intrinsic to users’ experience on social media. Painstakingly engineered for maximum impact on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, these brief videos are just one embodiment of social and news media’s increased reliance on one another. As social media’s importance… Keep Reading
Emails, Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, and repeat. Digital content is never more than a swipe or click away; it has a pervasive presence casting a shadow on users’ everyday lives—and at times, the online world can prove difficult to escape. While technology can help to foster creativity and aid with time management, it also… Keep Reading
What do you do when someone has the same name as you? Is your first instinct to befriend them—or rather, to fight them to establish dominance? Encountering another person with the same name, better known as a ‘Dopplenamer,’ brings ambiguity to one’s sense of self. An individual’s identity is often partially built around his or… Keep Reading
Commonly referred to as ‘finstagram,’ or ‘finsta,’ the ‘Fake Instagram’ phenomenon is on the rise. A rather curious oxymoron, the trend is taking over the popular and ever-evolving Instagram app. Over the past decade, the world has witnessed a digital boom, revolutionizing how—and what—people share. Within seconds, social media users can broadcast their new… Keep Reading
The combination of academics, finances, and relationships can strain students’ mental health. A 2013 survey of over 30,000 post-secondary students conducted by the Canadian Organization of University and College Health revealed that 63 per cent of students reported feeling lonely, and 50 per cent of students reported feeling hopeless. Significantly, 9.5 per cent even reported… Keep Reading
The internet has a dark side. A recent McMaster University study is the latest to confirm the adverse effects of too much screen time: The connection between internet use and mental illness is even stronger than previously thought. The survey of 254 McMaster University students, using the Young Internet Addiction Test as well as a… Keep Reading
MTL Blog is a normally benign clickbait website known for publishing articles such as “The Whole Foods Market Close to Montreal You Have To Road Trip To ASAP.” Recently, however, the blog moved away from think pieces on snow and poutine, and engaged in truly tasteless journalism. Two of the pieces in question, which have been… Keep Reading
In February, Jenna Stanwood argued in her piece, “Social media normalizes misinformation in US presidential primaries,” that users of social media have become swept away with catchy slogans and misleading information, to the detriment of good decision-making, and that this trend is a worrying sign for democracy. All of these points I absolutely agree with—but… Keep Reading
Two weeks ago the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) bylection for Vice-President (VP) Internal turned ugly… again. SSMU elections have been a source of controversy for years with the most recent one marred by a particularly malicious online culture. While much of the student body is generally disenchanted and uninterested in SSMU, the election… Keep Reading
