This article is the last of a 7-part series — Thanks for getting this far! I did have several draft versions to round up this article series, but, honestly, all of them felt somewhat superficial… provisional… as the COVID-19 pandemic is going over its half-year mark, as I write this, I actually feel it’s characteristic that I wasn’t able to…

4th of 7-part series, each standing on its own (see list at end) — Having grown up in a divided country, where a surveillance-state controlled one side, I deeply care about my privacy, but not nearly as much as I care about my 70-year-old mother still in Germany. All proposed exit strategies of the COVID-19 pandemic contain some form of digital surveillance apparatus. With…

2nd of 7-part series, each standing on its own (see list at end) — I was shocked when I first heard that the median duration of undistracted screen focus of an information worker is down to a mere 40 seconds. I’m an information worker. And I should know about the power of persuasive tech to distract us. I had spent the summer of 2011…

This article is the 1st of a 7-part series. — As digital communication becomes our main connection during social distancing lockdowns, many of us start feeling the toxicity in our relationship with our algorithms. We’ve had numerous intellectual discussions about the omnipresence of our digital overlords. But now, it suddenly becomes personal. Just as the lack of an easy exit…