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"Send people off with the time and space to think properly and the quality of their ideas will probably improve." Perhaps more than any other category of professionals, creative types are expected to thrive in brainstorms. In the public’s imagination, their offices are filled with fidget toys and Post-it notes in an array of colors, all meant to absorb some of the energy of a group of fast-thinking, well-dressed hipsters deep in ideation mode. But a new report based on a survey of 20,000 creatives from 197 countries suggests that, in fact, a majority of these professionals—including writers, musicians, photographers, and podcasters—find that brainstorming is largely unhelpful for solving a creative challenge.

Digital Media

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When Netflix posted earnings last October, it told investors (pdf) it launched a cadre of young stars to Instagram fame such as Millie Bobby Brown of the Netflix series Stranger Things and Katherine Langford from 13 Reasons Why. It said (pdf) during earnings in January that 80 million members had watched the straight-to-Netflix thriller Bird Box, and that the video-game craze Fortnite was a bigger competitor than long-time rival HBO. These are not the kinds of metrics you typically get from an earnings release. Netflix investors trade on things likes subscriber gains and free cash flow, not Instagram followers. But the streaming-video company is sending a message: It isn’t just a reflection of culture. It creates culture.

Digital Media

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Your online profile is less a reflection of you than a caricature. Whether you like it or not, commercial and public actors tend to trust the string of 1s and 0s that represent you more than the story you tell them. When filing a credit application at a bank or being recruited for a job, your social network, credit-card history, and postal address can be viewed as immutable facts more credible than your opinion. But your online profile is not always built on facts. It is shaped by technology companies and advertisers who make key decisions based on their interpretation of seemingly benign data points: what movies you choose to watch, the time of day you tweet, or how long you take to click on a cat video. Many decisions that affect your life are now dictated by the interpretation of your data profile rather than personal interactions. And it’s not just about advertising banners influencing the brand of the soap you buy—the same mechanics of profiling users and targeting messages apply to political campaigns and visa applications as much as supermarket metrics. When advertising looks like news and news look like entertainment, all types of content are profiled on the basis of your data. So what story does your data tell about you?

Digital Media

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I remember the exact day I joined Facebook: May 15, 2005. It was the day of my college graduation, and I was eager to keep in touch with my classmates as we scattered across the world. Thirteen years later, I’m one of the 2.13 billion people counted among Facebook’s monthly active users. But as the #DeleteFacebook movement gains strength in the wake of revelations over Cambridge Analytica’s illicit use of user data to influence the 2016 US presidential elections, I’m wondering if it’s finally time to cut my ties to the social media giant. Leaving Facebook isn’t a clear-cut path to data privacy. As HuffPost explains, deactivating your account leaves your data intact. It’s possible to permanently delete your account—and with it, all the information Facebook has gathered about your political leanings, relationship status, and shopping habits—but it’s a long and complicated process. Besides, in our current state of surveillance capitalism, even if you get off Facebook, other tech companies like Google are busy auctioning off your data to advertisers, too. That said, a large exodus of people from Facebook would be a way to send a message to CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the need for the company to overhaul its approach to privacy protections—and perhaps locate its moral compass.

Digital Media