Serendipity35

Nate Silver is an American statistician, author, and professional poker player who transformed the landscape of political and sports analysis through probabilistic modeling. Silver first gained prominence in the early 2000s by developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting Major League Baseball player performance. He soon applied these "sabermetric" techniques to politics, founding the influential site FiveThirtyEight in 2008. He famously cemented his reputation by correctly predicting the presidential winner in 49 states that year. Following his departure from ABC News in 2023, Silver returned to his independent roots by launching the Silver Bulletin on Substack. As of 2026, he remains a central figure in election forecasting, providing real-time data modeling for the current midterm cycle. His work has shifted toward a broader exploration of risk; his 2024 book, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, examines the high-stakes world of professional gambling, crypto, and venture capital.

Here is a recent post of his about social media, focusing on the evolution (devolution) of Twitter to X.

The content that gets “engagement” on Twitter is mostly complete crap

And yet, while Facebook is now almost completely irrelevant to the political discourse, that isn’t quite true for Twitter. Google search traffic in the U.S. for the precise term “twitter” is down quite a lot, but that’s not fair to X because the platform now has a new name. Broader traffic for search topics related to Twitter/X is also down, by more than half relative to the peak in late 2012. But the recent decline has been more gradual: about 20 percent as compared to two years ago. That seems to track with other third-party data showing a slow-but-steady decline in Twitter engagement, though nobody can be quite sure since X is no longer a public company.

It’s not hard to notice that Twitter has become extremely right-leaning. But I’d argue there’s an equally important trend: the top accounts are of incredibly low quality. Elon, with the algorithmic boost he built in for himself, is at the eye of the storm, of course. But “Catturd” literally gets far more engagement than the New York Times, for instance.

Here's the graphic Silver made using Claude AI to show what's hot on X this year.

This week, you probably saw headlines like "Meta and YouTube designed addictive products that harmed young people," as a jury in Los Angeles awarded the plaintiff damages of $6 million, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder

We are all plugged in to the electronic web around us that is far larger than the World Wide Web. That feeling of being unable to unplug is incredibly common and results from a powerful combination of psychological triggers, clever product design, and the essential role technology plays in modern life. "Addiction" is a strong word in this context, but it is the operative word in these kinds of cases.

Don't feel like you are "weak" or lack willpower if you find it difficult to disconnect. These systems are scientifically optimized to maximize your engagement. The core reason for compulsive checking is a chemical reaction in your brain centered on dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, motivation, and reward-seeking. 

Social media and even email platforms use the same psychological principle that makes slot machines and video games addictive. You don't know when the next "win" will appear. That could be a "like," a validating comment, an alert, or an email from someone "important." Are any of these really important? Maybe - and that possibility mixed in with that famous Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is powerful. It compels you to keep checking. 

Designers know they need apps and websites to be addictive. I can list some of these techniques, and you can take them as things to be conscious of and avoid. You could also use it as a designer to create an addictive app or website. These things are intentionally engineered as features that make it easy to lose track of time and difficult to stop.

One of those techniques is using infinite scroll, which eliminates natural stopping cues (like the bottom of a page). The content just keeps loading, encouraging endless consumption. |

Push notifications hijack your attention and create a sense of immediate urgency or curiosity, pulling you back into the app regardless of what you were doing.

Autoplay on videos and content streams automatically transitions you to the next item, removing the moment you would have had to make a conscious choice to continue or stop.

As I said earlier, many techniques used in gaming are used in the gamification of other apps. You might not think of things like streaks, badges or LinkedIn profile completeness bars create a feeling of required daily attendance to avoid losing progress or status.

Most of these are psychological traps. FoMO and the social validation of likes and shares, and positive comments tap directly into our fundamental need for social acceptance and validation.

Do you ever find yourself waiting in line, standing on the train, or during a commercial break, checking your phone? That instant, low-effort stimulation. is a form of addiction. 

It's true that technology is no longer optional. We need it for much of our communication and work. We crave constant connectivity. Some jobs demand constant email and instant messaging availability. The lines between work and personal time have been blurring for at least two decades. We need directions (maps), banking, tickets, appointments, and emergency communications from our digital devices. That new reality seems to make a complete disconnect feel irresponsible, unsafe, and maybe impossible.  

But I don't think it is hopeless. The solution is not to throw away devices or turn off your cell service and WiFi or have more willpower. Advice from "experts" is to create friction between yourself and the addictive features. Only allow notifications for direct calls, texts, and genuinely critical applications. Designate specific times (like the first hour of the day, mealtimes, or the hour before bed) and locations (the bedroom, the dinner table) as completely device-free. Remove the most addictive social media apps from your phone, or move them off the home screen and turn off those badges and notification sounds that remind you that there are 3 new somethings on Instagram.

I wrote here about the open-source software called Elgg almost two decades ago. (Not to be confused with elgg.net, a social networking site for educators back around 2006, which no longer exists.)  Elgg is open-source social networking software that provides individuals and organizations with the components needed to create an online social environment. It offers blogging, microblogging, file sharing, networking, groups, and a number of other features. It was also the first platform to bring ideas from commercial social networking platforms to educational software. It was founded in 2004 by Ben Werdmuller and Dave Tosh

I view those older posts and many of the ones on this site that date back almost 20 years as historical documents of a sort. I'm sometimes tempted to update them, and I do sometimes fix a broken image or a proofreading mistake, but they may have some value as documentation of another time in edtech history.

How many of the alternatives to commercial course management systems from my 2006 list still exist? I looked up Elgg to see if it was still in use. The Wikipedia entry shows an impressive list of sites that are using Elgg. The list includes Oxfam, the Australian, Dutch, Canadian, and British Governments, New Zealand Ministry of Education, State of Ohio, USA, The World Bank, UNESCO, and the United Nations Development Programme.

Here is one of those old posts - now just historic.

Elgg is software for building a personal learning landscape. The software is from the United Kingdom. I first saw it mentioned on the Moodle site and thought it was a kind of plug-in to Moodle. It uses blogs, e-portfolios, shared files, RSS feeds, and other "social networking" tools. I thought it had been designed for educational use, but looking through the users, it has a good number of general users.

Their site has a demo community set up, and their resources/links are set up using an embedded wiki. You can create a free user account and get space for a blog, RSS feeds, an aggregator to read other people's content, and space to store your own resources (files). As a guest, you can still view items made public in user profiles - here's mine

Since their new release is version 0.601, this is obviously new beta software. So does this replace a Moodle or Blackboard, or supplement it, or serve a different purpose?

My collaborator here, Tim Kellers, installed the Elgg software here at NJIT, so drop by and register if you want to try it out. I also suggest you go to the elgg.net site and create an account so you can become part of that educator community. I have made some interesting contacts outside the United States from there. Right now, I am just having this blog's content mirrored to my Elgg blog account by using an RSS feed (yeah, there are some formatting & image issues doing that).

http://webapps.saugus.k12.ca.us/community - California's Saugus Unified School District uses it, and as you can see, it is a secure environment with user id and password access. However, take a look at their user introduction pdf document. It's a nice 9-page intro with screenshots. Another K12 district getting ahead of the colleges!

Ready for the test question? Elgg is to Elgg.net as ______ is to Wikipedia. (Answer: Mediawiki)

Well, to deal with that confusion (or further confuse you), elgg.net will now be edufilter.org.

Here's an email that went out to users from the Elgg folks:

Changes are afoot at Elgg.net!
Actually, you've been accustomed to change throughout the existence of the site since we started it in 2004. New features pop up all the time, and we think you'll be pleased to hear that this isn't going to stop soon.
However, we're going to change the name. Next Wednesday, Elgg.net will become Edufilter.org.
This is because, for a lot of people, Elgg.net is Elgg. Granted, it's a confusing name. But Elgg is a free, open source, white label social networking framework that anyone can install on their own servers. Want it running at your institution? Point your elearning folks at http://elgg.org.
Elgg.net, meanwhile, is a social network for education - and therefore, we think Edufilter is probably a better name.
You've probably got concerns, so let's deal with the most important:
#1: We're not going to break any of your links. While the front page of Elgg.net will forward to the main Elgg software homepage, anyone visiting elgg.net/your-username will still get to your page. We have no plans to end this, so if your address is printed on materials, don't worry. Everything's fine.
#2: The site will not be discontinued. It continues to be our flagship installation.
Furthermore, making the site overtly educational means we can give you more directed content and features. Sponsorship opportunities are available; if you'd like to promote your product or service available to some of the world's leading lights in elearning, let us know.
Best regards,
The Curverider team

 

A Few Other Posts About This

https://serendipity35.net/index.php?/archives/489-Putting-All-Your-Educational-Eggs-In-One-Basket.html

https://serendipity35.net/index.php?/archives/83-More-of-the-Competition-in-the-CMS-Market.html

https://serendipity35.net/index.php?/archives/265-A-directory-to-Web-2.0-Companies.html

 

Typepad was a blogging service that was launched back in 2003. I used it for years as a fast blogging platform. I was less and less serious about using it as I  moved to other, more robust platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger and Serendipity (used for this blog) emerged.

I don't think I posted anything there in the past year, but I happened to click the bookmark for my site this past week and found that the URL was replaced with networksolutions.com/typepad, which told me that "Typepad has closed—your next chapter starts here. Your previous provider has shut down, but your online presence can still thrive. Partner with Network Solutions to keep your domain, website, and brand moving forward. Unfortunately, you can no longer access your files, and there will be no extensions beyond the end of service date. All of the blog data will be purged."

The platform had been through some changes over the years and stopped accepting new signups at the end of 2020. In August 2025, Typepad announced it would be shutting down on September 30, 2025.

I'm not very upset about the shutdown because I wasn't really using it. I have 10 other blogs that I post to. (Yes, that is ridiculous. Take a look here.) What does upset me about it shutting down is that it's a reminder that all the content you're posting online (particularly on a platform you don't own and control) can go away quickly - "purged" as in the case of Typepad.
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Typepad's shutdown can be attributed to several factors that often affect online services. While there isn't a single definitive cause, here are some probable reasons.

Changing market landscape: The blogging and website hosting space has become increasingly competitive, with many platforms offering free or low-cost services. This shift likely put pressure on Typepad to adapt and stay attractive to users.

Ownership changes: Typepad changed hands over the years, moving from its original owners to Endurance International Group and then to SAY Media. Such transitions can sometimes lead to changes in strategy or resources allocated to the platform.

Technical issues and support challenges: Some users reported issues with the platform, including difficulties with importing content to other services and concerns about support responsiveness. These challenges might have contributed to a decline in user satisfaction.

Business model sustainability: Like many businesses, Typepad needed to balance its offerings with revenue. As the market evolved, maintaining a viable business model might have become increasingly difficult.

For context, similar challenges are not unique to Typepad. Many businesses face hurdles such as adapting to market changes, managing growth, and ensuring customer satisfaction. A broader look at common reasons for business failures includes factors like lack of market demand, insufficient capital, and inability to pivot in response to changing conditions.