India is renowned for its exotic tourist attractions, sumptuous cuisine and diverse cultural origins. Even though a majority of the population is Hindu, the country has been lead by a Sikh Prime Minister, a Muslim President and an Italian originated woman, Sonia Gandhi. Thus, India has, to a large extent, shown great tolerance for other [...]

An episode of the local (for Boston) NPR show “On Point” sent around Berkman last week inspired a spirited conversation. The conversation ranged from the definitional – concern that the term Digital Natives was “relying too much on age as the determining factor of Internet and technology savviness” and the riposte that DNs are [...]

According to the web-comic he posted online , Sean Travis Tevis was fed up with his anti-abortion, censorship promoting, anti-gay marriage, pro-intelligent design state representative, Arlen Siegfreid. Sean decided to run against him. He only needed 151 signatures to get on the ballot, but needed to raise $26,000 to run a decent campaign. So, like [...]

I had the good fortune to be able to spend half a day last week with the participants and staff of Sub/Urban Justice, a group of individuals and organizations “committed to transforming suburban and urban communities by supporting youth to develop a social justice perspective”, thus endowing them with leadership skills that will allow them [...]

Alice Marwick directed me to an interesting analysis on Facebook’s redesign, which posits that,
Facebook’s new design, as many of us have been noting since the company began testing it months ago, seems to emphasis features also seen in trendy new web services favored by us self-styled “early adopter” types.
Mark Slee of Facebook, in talking about [...]

February 2nd 10:00 AM: In my hotel room in Amsterdam – I’m here with a school trip to an MUN (Model United Nations) Conference – and packing my bags for our return flight to Cairo in the evening.
10:15 AM: Suddenly, my room mate bursts in:
- You are not going to believe this!
- What?
-There’s no [...]

As more and more of our lives become enmeshed in the digital world, more and more of our lives are detected, stored, and compiled by the digital systems that serve us. As we call friends on cell phones, navigate streets with GPS systems, login to Facebook from our notebooks, and swipe our [...]

The veil?
And that’s where many of us would simply end the discussion.
The issue of the veil is one that raises a red flag for many; it has on innumerable occasions lead to heightened emotions that at times culminate in drastic acts of violence. Many now approach the topic as a ‘danger-zone’ of sorts; afraid [...]

The term ‘Digital Native’ has only just become familiar to me – before joining the Berkman Center as an intern I had no true conception of what being a Digital Native really meant. And I believe that a lot of people my [...]

I thought I was. I was born January 9th, 1980. I missed the 70s by just nine days.
I love technology. I was luckiest 6 year-old kid in he world when my uncle gave the family a Commodore 64 for Xmas. I programmed in BASIC. I was in chat-rooms on Prodigy and CompuServe. I played in [...]