Stories by Brett Frischmann

Brett Frischmann is the Charles Widger Endowed University Professor in Law, Business and Economics, Villanova University. His latest book is Re-Engineering Humanity (Cambridge University Press 2018). His novel, Shephard's Drone, will be out on February 3, 2019.

Behavior & Society
Stretched Too Thin by Social Media
Beware its power to reshape your web of relationships
January 10, 2020 — Brett Frischmann | Opinion

Policy & Ethics
Electronic Contracts and the Illusion of Consent
The ubiquitous "click-to-agree" mechanism presses people to act like machines
February 19, 2019 — Brett Frischmann

Behavior & Society
Is Smart Technology Making Us Dumb?
Yes and no: there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the question
December 27, 2018 — Brett Frischmann

Policy & Ethics
How Personalization Leads to Homogeneity
Tech companies are perpetuating a bleak view of humans as programmable cogs
November 27, 2018 — Brett Frischmann and Deven Desai

Environment
The Tragedy of the Commons, Revisited
A classic study of the perils of resource sharing, with implications for how we deal with climate, has been updated
November 19, 2018 — Brett Frischmann

Behavior & Society
There's Nothing Wrong with Being a Luddite
It enables critical reflection and evaluation of the technological world we’re building...
September 20, 2018 — Brett Frischmann

Policy & Ethics
The Misleading Power of Internet Metaphors
If you use terms such as “cloud,” “smart” or “Internet of Things,” you’re fooling yourself and everyone else
September 5, 2018 — Brett Frischmann

Policy & Ethics
Algorithm and Blues: The Tyranny of the Coming Smart-Tech Utopia
Why optimizing the world for efficiency, productivity and happiness is bad for humanity
July 30, 2018 — Brett Frischmann

Behavior & Society
How Facebook Programmed Our Relatives
A simple experiment reveals how social media has come to encode a range of social behaviors
June 21, 2018 — Brett Frischmann and Katherine Haenschen