I study privacy. I’ve done so since joining the field of internet studies eight years ago, and I plan to do so for the foreseeable future. But early in my PhD program, a creeping sense of disillusionment made me question whether this work mattered. I was part of a few research teams studying how peopleContinue reading “Re-making Boundaries”
Author Archives: Priya Kumar
Patience/Priorities
Patience has never been one of my strong suits. When inspiration strikes, I want to act on it immediately. And since ideas emerge faster than the actions to execute them, I perpetually feel like I have so much to do. Work-wise, two projects currently hold my attention: the dissertation and the paper I’m leading throughContinue reading “Patience/Priorities”
Exploring Digital Privacy and Security in Elementary Schools @ CHI 2019
How do elementary school educators think about privacy and security when it comes to technology use in the classroom? What privacy and security lessons do students receive? Below, I describe findings and recommendations from a paper I co-wrote on this topic with Marshini Chetty, Tammy Clegg, and Jessica Vitak. I’ll present this paper at theContinue reading “Exploring Digital Privacy and Security in Elementary Schools @ CHI 2019”
Why Deepak Chopra is Wrong About Technology
One reason I value my newspaper subscription is that it reminds me not to take things for granted. Especially when it comes to technology. In a recent column, the Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler recounted a conversation with alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra. Chopra has been criticized for promoting medical treatments based on pseudoscience, and hisContinue reading “Why Deepak Chopra is Wrong About Technology”
LaTeX: A Window onto Another Way of Thinking
Last week, I worked with LaTeX, a formatting system that uses markup language to create documents, for the first time. The experience was: Not as complicated as I imagined, and Offered a glimpse into how the more technically oriented people in my research field think. The decision to use LaTeX was not mine. The organizersContinue reading “LaTeX: A Window onto Another Way of Thinking”
Becoming a Scholar
Since starting this PhD program, I’ve wanted to write an academic version of my personal mission statement. I assumed that if I dug deeply enough, or pondered long enough, the contours of Priya-as-scholar would sharpen into focus and reveal where in the realm of knowledge my research fits. My fixation on “figuring it out,” beliedContinue reading “Becoming a Scholar”
Creating a Productivity System that Works for Me
Like many people, I enjoy having a routine. This summer, after moving from a cubicle into a shared office space, I began going to campus more routinely and working a similar schedule each day. The regular schedule plus the commute activated more natural boundaries around “work” and “home” time. On campus, I focused a bitContinue reading “Creating a Productivity System that Works for Me”
Time to Focus
A few weeks ago I played with a cousin’s four-year-old daughter. “Look at the map!” she cried, laying out a Lego theme park map on the ground. “First we have to go through the ninjas, then we have to go get Hercules.” We ran around the park, her one-year-old brother wandering as we zipped by.Continue reading “Time to Focus”
Escaping the Trepidation Trap
In the first sentence of his chapter “On Recalling ANT,” Bruno Latour lists four things that “do not work” with actor-network theory: “the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen! Four nails in the coffin” (p. 15). Apart from its bluntness, this sentence stands out because Latour is one of theContinue reading “Escaping the Trepidation Trap”
A Crack and a Relief
It happened. The crack, when “you can no longer stand what you put up with before, even yesterday” (Deleuze & Parnet quoted in Jackson & Mazzei, 2013); when “one can no longer think things as one formerly thought them, [and] transformation becomes both very urgent, very difficult and quite possible” (Foucault, quoted in St. Pierre, 2014). ForContinue reading “A Crack and a Relief”
