Jenna Wortham

“For all the advances in tech that let us try on various guises to play around with who we are, it seems that we just want new ways to be ourselves.”

“High school is already an academic and social pressure cooker, and the forces that make it stressful are amplified for queer students.”

“Obama routinely pushed policy that pleased the tech-savvy, including his successful effort to keep broadband suppliers from giving preferential treatment to bigger web companies over individuals.”

“The Internet is pushing us - in good ways and in bad - to realize that the official version of events shouldn't always be trusted or accepted without question.”

“I've long been interested in how technology mediates desire and the way that our phones, an extension of ourselves, foster intimate interactions that feel so personal and deep, despite being relayed through a machine.”

“Nonviolent, visual protests have a long history of forming images that can quickly go viral and set a powerful tone for a moment.”

“Technology can be part of a solution, but it takes far more than software to usher in reform.”

“I've endured humiliating experiences trying to get a cab in the various cities I've visited and lived in. Available taxis - as indicated by their roof lights - locked their doors with embarrassingly loud clicks as I approached. Or they've just ignored my hail altogether.”

“We may have a tacit understanding of how our solar system works, but watching the sun disappear behind the moon reminds us of the vastness of space and the enduring mysteries of the universe we inhabit.”

“For many of us, our smartphones have become extensions of our brains - we outsource essential cognitive functions, like memory, to them, which means they soak up much more information than we realize.”

“Social media is my portal into the rest of the world - my periscope into the communities next to my community, into how the rest of the world thinks and feels.”

“The rise of the social web promised a new era of personalization for globe-trotting. But like many things born online, as popularity of the new tools increased, efficiency and usefulness began to decrease.”

“Most efforts to approximate normal human behavior in software tend to be creepy or annoying.”

“The celebrated film critic Pauline Kael once wrote that movies function as escape pods, portals to parallel universes that can be radically different from emotional norms and societal conditioning of our own. What she meant was they parceled out freedom, allowing viewers to lose their selves in an effort to find greater connection to the self.”

“Twitter, it can be said, completely changed the way activism is done, who can participate, and even how we define it.”

“Drag has been featured in popular culture for decades. Movies like 'Kinky Boots,' 'Tootsie,' 'The Birdcage' - even 'Mrs. Doubtfire' - have showcased men, some gay, some not, who dress and perform as women.”

“Social media seemed to promise a way to better connect with people; instead, it seems to have made it easier to tune out the people we don't agree with.”

“We live in a time of astounding technological advancements. There are deep-sea drones and live-streaming virtual reality.”

“Producing zines can offer an unexpected respite from the scrutiny on the Internet, which can be as oppressive as it is liberating.”

“When I visited my family in Virginia, I tracked down my seventh-grade best friend and sat in TGI Fridays near a mall for hours, laughing while her daughter took insane-looking selfies on my phone.”