Social media is an undeniable force in today's world. These talks highlight its impact -- from big history-defining moments to the silliness we’ve come to expect.

With the advent of the Internet and social media, news is distributed at an incredible rate by an unprecedented number of different media outlets. How do we choose which news to consume? Damon Brown gives the inside scoop on how the opinions and facts (and sometimes non-facts) make their way into the news and how the smart reader can tell them a...

O

Attention: everybody wants some -- social media, tech companies and more. Watch these talks to better understand the ways these entities try and get on your radar.

Media and advertising companies still use the same old demographics to understand audiences, but they're becoming increasingly harder to track online, says media researcher Johanna Blakley. As social media outgrows traditional media, and women users outnumber men, Blakley explains what changes are in store for the future of media.

Does quitting social media make you an unemployable Luddite? Computer scientist Dr. Cal Newport doesn't think so. In this eye-opening talk, he debunks three objections commonly offered up as rationale for keeping that all-important Facebook account.

Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.

Bryan Kramer believes that social media is so popular because it allows us to control our personal brand: aligning the perceptions others have of us with our perception of ourselves. Concluding with a live Twitter experiment to test the true reach that sharing can have, he makes a case for the use of social media, and -- in the process -- illumi...

Insights and advice to escaping the echo chambers of social media, newsfeeds, and everyday conversation so that we may get a better, less rose-tinted grasp of the world and people around us.

Our hyper-connected lives have been rewired for the digital age. These talks explore how the Internet and social media are shaping our relationships, personal lives and sense of self.

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

Wael Ghonim helped touch off the Arab Spring in his home of Egypt ... by setting up a simple Facebook page. As he reveals, once the revolution spilled onto the streets, it turned from hopeful to messy, then ugly and heartbreaking. And social media followed suit. What was once a place for crowdsourcing, engaging and sharing became a polarized bat...