Dataclysm

Dataclysm gives powerful motivation for being more honest online by using information collected from the internet to identify what all of us are really like under the veil of anonymity and how we as a society have changed recently.

While there are a lot of negative effects of the social media storm, there have been some benefits. It might be easy to think that it’s all bad and that we’re all less intelligent because of these platforms, but that’s not true. In many ways, it’s actually making us better.

Don’t believe me? Even critics have to agree that our writing has improved because of social media. After all, we do far more of it than any other generation in the world.

Just think about all that you have to type to post on Facebook or Twitter. You don’t even have to be a blogger to be typing dozens of words each day. Estimates say that within the next couple of years, people will write more words on Twitter alone than all the words in every book in the world!

Even on image-sharing platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, you’ve got to have a caption. And once you’ve posted, you’ll do even more typing in the comments section of your own or other’s content.

So we’re doing a lot of it, but we’re also getting better at the same time. Not just because of the amount of writing we’re doing. Twitter’s character limit, for example, helps people say more with less words.

Did you know that Pixar only has bathrooms in the central atrium of its campus? The purpose of this is to encourage people to have random conversations that can spark new ideas. Most innovations are simply the combination of two seemingly unrelated ideas, and this is a perfect example of how to foster that. But the internet can do this for us too, whether or not you’re a massive company. Spreading and combining ideas is best accomplished with people that we’re merely acquainted with. So think again the next time you consider thinning out your Facebook friends! Just consider things you hear in passing on your daily commute, for example. Someone might mention a new movie or book that leads you to your new favorite. And now with social media in all sorts of forms, we can get that kind of experience every day, whenever we want! Having more connections also benefits your relationship with your significant other. Data provided by Facebook identifies that your friendship with your spouse, for example, represents the connection between two separate social groups. But it’s also found that couples with mutual friends are more likely to stay together. Those with fewer connections in common,…