Five years ago—on December 4, 2019—I got my cancer diagnosis. I still remember it clearly. Two days earlier, I’d had a suspicious mass in my left breast biopsied. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking much about it because I’d had a similar biopsy two years earlier in my right breast and it was benign (fibroadenoma). That was [ ]
Back in 2020 when Twitter was still fun/enjoyable and not a total cesspool, I documented that that year s cookie weekend via 60+ tweets, with pictures. Given I don t want to direct anyone to visit that platform anymore, I ve recreated the content here. But first, a quick Q A regarding the event. So without further ado, here [ ]
Note: Last Updated November 2023 (link to PDF at bottom) A few days ago on CNBC, I saw this article on a problem especially rampant in academia, and one that I’ve talked about on numerous occasions: the perception that successful academics never fail in their work. Every manuscript is accepted! Every grant proposal funded! Jobs [ ]
The following appears in the most recent edition of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. TO CITE: Vitak, J. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens by danah boyd (Book Review). Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 58(3), 470-472. doi: 10.1080/08838151.2014.935944 BOOK REVIEW OF: boyd, d. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives [ ]
Yesterday, I shared a takedown notice I received from WordPress (who had been contacted by Elsevier) for a paper I posted on the Papers section of my website. The pdf was the final version of the paper, violating the publishing contract I had signed with Elsevier before publishing the paper. I removed the pdf and [ ]
Update [12/12, 1:40pm]: I have written a more in-depth post on the take-down and my thoughts on this issue here. - In the last couple days, news has been spreading of Academia.edu receiving takedown notices from Elsevier and notifying users that it is automatically complying with requests from the publishing giant by removing content without [ ]
In this CSCW paper (my second at the conference), I analyze a subsection of data from my dissertation, focusing specifically on the question of how (a) one s use of Facebook and (b) Facebook-derived relational outcomes may vary between geographically dispersed vs. geographically proximate Friends, as well as between Friends who rely primarily or solely on the [ ]
I m very proud of this qualitative paper I worked on this spring with UMD iSchool student Jinyoung Kim and will present at CSCW in February (in Baltimore woot!). This study analyzes a robust qualitative dataset I gathered in 2011 as part of my comps but had to put aside when I began my dissertation research. So [ ]
In light of the recent developments regarding NSA gathering data on Americans from various online and telecommunications sources, the Pew Research Center posted a blog highlighting some longitudinal data it has gathered since 9/11 on Americans attitudes toward relinquishing civil liberties. The post shows that over the last decade, fewer Americans believe that we need [ ]
Today, I gave a talk as part of the CASCI research series at UMD, presenting some of the highlights from my dissertation. I ve linked to my slides below and will try to follow up with some more detailed notes shortly.