Our phones don't just keep us in touch with the world; they're also diaries, confessional booths, repositories for our deepest secrets.

Best-friend tattoos require so much prep work, which adds to their legitimacy. First, a friendship must be deep enough to warrant the rite; then the perfect symbol must be found to forge the bond.

The speed with which modern society has adapted to accommodate the world's vast spectrum of gender and sexual identities may be the most important cultural metamorphosis of our time.

The types of ideas protected by intellectual-property law typically don't include a clever catchphrase on a Vine or a film idea in a tweet.

Once, at Thanksgiving, a neighbor wandered in while my cousin Lisa worked on a turkey, shearing meat off its frame and sliding the steaming slices onto a big flowered plate. 'Hey, that's the man's job,' she yelped, in between slurps of her Big Gulp. No one even paused to acknowledge the comment; everyone just laughed and laughed.

In many ways, Obama is America's first truly digital president. His 2008 campaign relied heavily on social media to lift him out of obscurity.

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.

The fact that I live in New York, a city that thrives on accessibility, might explain why I was slow to grasp the appeal of Alexa. Here we have bodegas on every corner, most open 24 hours, in case you need to pick up a roll of toilet paper or a bottle of hot sauce in the middle of the night.

There is no picturesque version of what self-care looks like; it's different for every person who wants to practice it.

'Drag Race' has become a staple of modern television for the way it skewers expectations and attitudes about gender, much as a show like 'black-ish' works to challenge stereotypes about black families in America.

The more films and TV shows I spoil for myself, the more I am convinced that truly interesting stories can't be ruined - the plot thickens with the viewing like a rich sauce.

Although drag has a long cultural history in America, it remained largely underground till the late 1980s.

Many of the short videos on Vine feel as though they belong to an ever-evolving, completely new genre of modern folk art.

The American understanding of China is filtered through years of politics; we rarely see the culture on its own terms.

When I was a kid, 'Quantum Leap' was one of my favorite TV shows.

Ultimately, what the tech industry really cares about is ushering in the future, but it conflates technological progress with societal progress.

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.

It wasn't always easy - getting dumped by my female friends for their newfound boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends stung; I felt like a jilted lover, heartbroken and wondering what I'd done wrong. But it was also easier to forgive them, to accept what time and energy they were willing to offer, even if it was less than what I wanted.

Oceans of emotion can be transmitted through a text message, an emoji sequence, and a winking semicolon, but humans are hardwired to respond to visuals.

The ancients often believed a celestial event like an eclipse to be a bad omen, that the sun or the moon vanishing from the sky was a harbinger of disaster, a sign of devastation or destruction to come.

Wellness, I came to realize, will not happen by accident. It must be a daily practice, especially for those of us who are more susceptible to the oppressiveness of the world.

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

If you're comfortable with what you have and who you are, you'll automatically be more comfortable talking about your finances.

Find the autonomy in your work. Autonomy is key to feeling good about the work you do, no matter what kind of work it is.