Seriously awesome photo series by Olivia Locher that pokes fun at ridiculous laws, like the one that states that it's illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time in Alamaba.

Does being uber-connected make us more or less happy? This debate has been going on since social networking has become as prominent as it is in our lives.

To quote this article:

In ongoing research, the psychologist Timothy Wilson has learned, as he put it to me, that college students start going “crazy” after just a few minutes in a room without their phones or a computer. “One would think we could spend the time mentally entertaining ourselves,” he said. “But we can’t. We’ve forgotten how.”

Social networking - and Facebook in particular - can be the cause of heightened sadness, anxiety, jealousy, etc, because it makes it easier to see what we're missing out on. That said, without it, we're equally anxious or bored because of the culture that has developed around the perpetual need to stay connected. 

Will the vicious cycle ever see its end?

Srsly.

Reading about how brains work is nothing short of fascinating. Here are some of the most intersting:

Attention bias: When you only consider a few options or outcomes even though there are truly many more possibilities.

Backfire effect: When you reject evidence that proves you wrong even though you know the evidence is correct.

Bias blind spots: Failure to recognize your cognitive biases (how meta!)

Frequency illusion: When something you just learned about suddenly appears everywhere.

Reactance: Doing something opposite what you're asked to do to demonstrate your freedom of choice.

Another guest piece from my #learningtolearn series, here's some really cool information about how our brains work throughout the day. Did you know that there really is a scientific explanation for why we feel more focused at certain points during the day?

Personally, I get the most work done in the morning, and then in the late evening. I know to schedule important meetings and tasks for these blocks of time, and try to take lunch and coffee breaks when I tend to lose focus or energy.

What about you? When are you most focused during the day, and how do you leverage this to your advantage?

Facebook recently announced a change it is making for its teenage audience: they wil now be able to post photos and other content publicly (I didn't even realize that they weren't able to do this before!).

Apparently, if you were between the ages of 13 and 17, you didn't previously have the option to share content to the public - you could only post to "friends" and "friends of friends." To keep up with SnapChat and Instagram, Facebook decided to lift this.

Frankly, I'm not sure it will make a difference in the teenage usage of Facebook; they're using it less beacuse it's increasingly filled with brands, ads, and parents. 

Facebook can try to suck up to the teenage demographic as much as they want-of course, it's ultimately about business for FB- but making this move is honestly (1) something most teens won't even realize and (2) a futile attempt of being the "cool parent" allowing kids to do something that will ultimately probably cause them trouble, just to win their favor.

New favorite word: Metacognition.

Okay, so there really isn't a way to get everything you want in life (in my humble opinion). There are always going to be things you can't control, but that's okay beacuse you can control a lot more things than you can't.

Here are some great business and general life tips from well-respected entrepreneur Dave Kerpen. My favorite? The four most important words (in business and in life): Thank You & I'm Sorry.

I love the way the first sentence of this article is phrased. Perhaps our dreams and those of others around us could give us interesting data about the way our minds work as individuals and as a society.

The only questions is - would you be willing to wake up every so often to record your dreams, for the love of science?

Back in the Mad Men days, they didn't have Internet, computers, Twitter, Facebook, AdWords, SEO, or, really anything besides brains and words (and lots of scotch).

If they were so extremely successful in the advertising industry, why can't we find a million times that success with all of this technology to help us? This is a cool piece taking some quotes from the show (yes, I know it's fictional, but just roll with it) and analyzing how they can be applied to business, writing, marketing, advertising, and life in general in today's world.