We need to start seeing privacy as a commons - as some kind of a public good that can get depleted as too many people treat it carelessly or abandon it too eagerly. What is privacy for? This question needs an urgent answer.

In short, Google prefers a world where we consistently go to three restaurants to a world where our choices are impossible to predict.

I used to work for an NGO called Transitions Online, and I was their Director of New Media. I was a very idealistic fellow who thought that he could use blogs, social networks and new media to help promote democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.

Dictators aren't stupid, or regimes could be toppled easily by young people mobilizing on Facebook.

A faithful lifehacker would use technology to avoid dead time and move on to the entertaining, more gratifying activities as soon as possible.

Universities ought to be aware of the degree they would want to accept funding from governments like China to work on, say, face recognition technology.

Social media's greatest assets - anonymity, 'virality,' interconnectedness - are also its main weaknesses.