Mark D. Roberts

Is digital technology making your life better . . . or worse? Is work invading your personal life, if you have a personal life left? Is your personal life interrupting your work, making you more distracted and less effective? A recent story in the New York Times wrestles with questions like these, offering a variety…

Yesterday, I blogged on a recent article in the New York Times that points to the extraordinary influence of Facebook and YouTube in the protests in Egypt. Is this time to celebrate the power of the Internet to bring political and social liberation? No, says Evgeny Morozov, author of Net Delusion: The Dark Side of…

The New York Times has run a fascinating story on the impact of Facebook and YouTube on the protests in Egypt: “Movement Began With Outrage and a Facebook Page That Gave It an Outlet.” According to this story, last June, an Egyptian named Khaled Said was beaten to death by two Egyptian police officers. Said…

Avoiding the Trap of Self Reliance Psalm 30:1-12 When I was prosperous, I said,      “Nothing can stop me now!” Your favor, O LORD, made me as secure as a mountain.      Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered. Psalm 30:6-7 Self-reliance is quintessentially American. Our heroes are those who found strength…

Last month, I wrote about the soundtrack from True Grit (Jan 11; Jan 12) focusing on its creative use of classic hymns, especially “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” I mentioned how much I have enjoyed this album by Carter Burwell. This isn’t the sort of album that demands your full attention. I have listened to…

Like most of the U.S., the Texas Hill Country has had some impressively low temperatures in the last few days. Out at Laity Lodge, which sits next to the Frio River, the temp dropped into single digits at night. That’s low for us! And I’ll bet the Frio was “muy frio.” When it gets that…

In May of 1985, my wife and I traveled to Italy. It was my first time there, her second. When we arrived in Firenze (that’s Florence, to those of use who speak English), I was thrilled to see some of the finest works of art ever created, including Michelangelo’s David. But I was a man…

So, once again the experts have me confused. For years, I’ve read that if you want to lose weight, you need to eat a substantial breakfast. Skipping breakfast, we were told, makes you hungrier later in the day, so that you’ll consume more calories. As a breakfast lover, I was happy with this bit of…

Yesterday, I noted a recently released study of Facebook. S. Craig Watkins and H. Erin Lee of the Department of Radio-Television-Film of the University of Texas at Austin have published “Got Facebook? Investigating What’s Social About Social Media.” (You can download the PDF here.) Watkins and Lee argue, on the basis of extensive research, that…

The hit movie, The Social Network, paints an ironic, sad picture of relationships in the age of Facebook. The creators of the most powerful social media website in the world, one that focuses on having lots of friends, are utterly unable to have true friendships. They are social failures, even though they have made billions…

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