penworks

Brighton promenade this afternoon

#uk #Brighton #summer #photography #sunshine #PhotosOfMastodon

The Centrepoint (Centre Point). Outshines ultra new neighbours, and its 60 years old.

#London #UK #centrepoint #architecture #urbanarchitecture #cities #urbanism #photography #photooftheday #PhotosOfMastodon

Shoreditch Fire Station

Via fb random architecture group

#london #EastLondon #love #streetart #uk

So hot it was almost a mirage leading to art nirvana

#milleniumbridge #london #tatemodern #summer #photography #urban #photos

Mediterranean morning at chez moi: In the work studio at 7.15am today.

#photography #phonephotography #photooftheday #PhotosOfMastodon

I'm in Brighton and the seagulls are massive. I think they're a nuclear waste mutation

#Brighton #uk

Heads up to followers or others interested in what this acct shares.
- I'm feeling like experimenting with another server/instance so any recs for where might be good are very gratefully received.
- If youre interested in the tech and society aspects of what I share you might want to follow my 'main' account @DrPen@mastodon.social.
- this account will always be about the media, media-politics and media-society of internet people

Always in gratitude to the Fediverse.

#mastodon #Fediverse #community

Seen in the wild.

#dystopia #postapocalypse #technofeudalism #techrevolt

Thought for today - Digital Addiction.
Are we addicted to social media? Health apps? Work-function assistant apps? Organisation apps? News apps? E-commerce apps? Are we just addicted to life as techno-solutionism in all forms? Are we addicted to using any apps just because it feels like fun, a game, entertainment?

In the social media case, I believe a large amount of 'the addiction attraction' is hyper-personalised consumerisation. The interweaving of narcissism, social acceptance, conformism, life-worth-as-economic-value, life-worth-as-social-media-measurement, added to the intense emotional reward of buying things to reaffirm sense of self and fitting in, make the digital social+product marketplace a very alluring space to occupy. Instagram's whole business case is this.

Remember, the Iron Curtain did not fall due to intellectual debate or ideological challenge. It fell because of Levi jeans and Coca Cola.

Smartphones are really fun. Even old phones before the digital revolution were fun. Kids, mums and anyone who had time and felt sociable would be on the phone for hours. Calling friends when you were a teenager was a mandatory part of growing up. "Get off the phone!" was a common shout from your mother. We even stood in the phone box in the evenings because it felt like fun.

The breakpoint came when people started being born who did not know what life was like before the digital revolution. It's them that are now paying some kind of psychosis price for these addictive toys. But it's not only socmed, it's everything that is digital.

But you know, I love my phones. I love their character, their style, their functionality. They really are part of who I am. Somebody really should make completely customisable shells for phones. They'd make billions.

#socialmedia #socialmediaaddiction #digitalliteracy #datasociety #academia #academicchatter

Img:
Nhung Le/Unsplash

Longread about social media and other tech platform bias.

Bluesky, Eurosky, Mastodon and academic metrics.

So Bluseky did a $100m VC deal last April and didn't tell anyone. Wooaa. Hidden agenda or what? Bluesky is without doubt the corporate big tech alternative to XTwtr, and Bluesky users are about to find that out. Ads, blue ticks, premium content/accounts etc etc. Everyone in the work or influencer community think Bluesky is the professional solution choice. This now includes the EU zone seeking to build Eurosky, a frankly naïve and rather silly attempt to have 'their own' sovereign socmed.

Well. Bluseky has never worked for me, or probably anyone like me. Zero followers beyond the nice people from Mastodon who also use BS, and some stragglers from random starter packs, with big names and zero interest in nobodies like me. After that, grifters: people selling books, health supplements, gofundme issues or startup ideas. No one ever engages, there is literally zero social aspects to BS. Big academic names do well, prominent political voices, vibey influence types, news sources or famous tech people all do well. The algorithms like them. But ordinary people? Not a chance.

In Mastodon there are people who have more than 50k followers. There are also many people who have less than 1k, like me. But we all get a fair crack. Everyone is 'seen' in the same way. Hashtag boosts really work. Your followers have actually made the decision to follow you. There is very little starter pack behaviour. I get a lot of interaction and social aspects to being in the Mastodon community.

I had 1 boost and 1 like (same person) on BS for a post about my recent paper. In contrast, I had an interaction with a quite prominent academic in a conversation thread, plus 7 boosts and 6 likes from different people, on Mastodon, 2 different posts.

The only metrics that are seen by academic Altmetrics are any that are visible in Bluesky. This can include bridgey Fed Mastodon interactions, but all others are missed. In other business circles this would be called fixing the playing field to only value some companies, but not others. Bias, in other words. Metrics in academic contexts are important. They give traction to the work and even influence your chance at jobs, or research funding. But yours are only counted if youre on Bluesky.

This works the same for LinkedIn (I suspect it can also see Facebook etc). There is no justifyable reason that things work like this, other than companies and academic people basically being ignorant, or in bed with the big tech platforms. Luckily, a lot of European orgs and unis choose Mastodon, for its genuine value and total independence.

#academia #academicchatter #metrics #analytics #bigtech #bluesky #mastodon

Seen on Lemmy in /f*ckcars.

According to America, this is a 'car'. It is parked in a bike lane. Making a statement.

#tyrannyofthecar

Rockband of the moment: SpaceAcre

https://www.spaceacremusic.com/
https://spaceacre.bandcamp.com/

https://spaceacre.bandcamp.com/track/chemicals
https://spaceacre.bandcamp.com/track/pathogen-feat-juju

#music #musicofmastodon #rockmusic #uk #london