We live in a time of astounding technological advancements. There are deep-sea drones and live-streaming virtual reality.
There is no picturesque version of what self-care looks like; it's different for every person who wants to practice it.
Ultimately, what the tech industry really cares about is ushering in the future, but it conflates technological progress with societal progress.
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.
High school is already an academic and social pressure cooker, and the forces that make it stressful are amplified for queer students.
Learning to live with not meeting other people's expectations has been extremely freeing and is the only gift I wish to pass on to any future offspring.
Artists' obsessions with technology are not new, but in the late aughts, the work tended to focus on the possibility of the medium, treating technology like a new tool rather than a sociopolitical framework.
We are being conditioned, as a population, to never wait, to never delay our gratification, to accept thoughtless, constant consumption as the new norm. But how we think about consumption and willpower carry enormous implications for the environment and the culture of society as a whole.
When I visited my family in Virginia, I tracked down my seventh-grade best friend and sat in TGI Fridays near a mall for hours, laughing while her daughter took insane-looking selfies on my phone.
'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 video-sharing app Vine was the first place I got a glimpse of cultures beyond my own, including those of the Middle East. I was able to see how some women there wanted us to see them: prospering, aware.
The Internet is pushing us - in good ways and in bad - to realize that the official version of events shouldn't always be trusted or accepted without question.
When I was a kid, 'Quantum Leap' was one of my favorite TV shows.
The American understanding of China is filtered through years of politics; we rarely see the culture on its own terms.
Although drag has a long cultural history in America, it remained largely underground till the late 1980s.
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.
Established technology companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google have expanded their reach and influence throughout the world. And while many countries have pushed back against that spread, our government has essentially left them alone.
For all teenagers, the Internet offers a periscope to the outside world, but it's particularly important for students who are unable to find themselves represented and understood in their immediate surroundings.
Social media is my portal into the rest of the world - my periscope into the communities next to my community, into how the rest of the world thinks and feels.
Producing zines can offer an unexpected respite from the scrutiny on the Internet, which can be as oppressive as it is liberating.
