Google has been placing more and more crap around search results, which is very annoying, but it turns out this crapification may work out quite well for the giant internet company. That's reportedly because people can't really tell anymore what's a Google advertisement and what's a Google search result, turning the simple act of internet searching into a confusing profitable mess.

Scottish post-electo crew Errors threw together this very normal and comforting video about, like, how we're all being subsumed into a hypermedia e-dystopia that is once absurd and soul crushing, or something. It's weird that I'm not "getting" the subtext because this is such a straightforward and obvious-feeling video. As Creators Projects writes, this is "a parallel universe that seems to resemble Giorgio de Chirico paintings... [with] a bit of the Pet Shop Boys about it, a pixel or two of Net Art and a WTF aesthetic that will have a Marmite effect on you." Um, exactly? Also, it feels like something I should have downloaded at 9600 baud.

"Unfriend Finder" is a browser extension that lets you know when someone has defriended you on Facebook. It's a very useful piece of software, in the sense that if you ever want to install it you know your life has taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Hey, can you spare a hundred bucks for my animé about the forces of Satan? Oh wait, no, actually how about $75 for my low-noise waterproof USB vibrator? Or maybe like $10 for my buddy's interactive ebook and film on psychedelic medicine? How about a $1 pocket grill investment? These annoying pitches all represent actual things—actual projects on Kickstarter, favored venue of filthy broke ass hippies the world over. There is just way, way too much of this shit.

Here's a collage of the depressing quotes from 1,000 students around the world who were asked to quit the internet and all media for a day as part of a University of Maryland study. They became depressed, they became anguished — and they became disgusted with their own dependency.

Is your ego underinflated? Do you lack the mass media ubiquity and blind teen adulation required for true self worth? Luckily there's an iPhone app to help! Meet "Fan Mail."

Should Mike Moradian get a Harvard MBA? Or should Mike Moradian forever change education with his awesome web startup? Mike Moradian is tortured by this decision, so he has asked the nation to think about what will make the brightest possible future for Mike Moradian and then to get back to Mike Moradian with a recommendation. Don't you already want to help?

Google's social network is on a rampage. It's banning people for using nicknames. It' s banning people for names that are too short. It's banning people for names that are too long. It's even banning people for having the wrong names.

How do you, party attendee, separate the important people who deserve your attention from the little people, who do not? You could always scan name tags. But to be a pro suck up, whip out your iPhone and open Sonar.

With college increasingly derided as a pricey con, it's no wonder America's parents worry their kids will skip higher education entirely and try to get rich programming social networks or iPhone apps or whatever. Scary!

Old-fashioned STD tests are too slow and awkward for British youth, so the government's funding a computer chip you pee on and attach to your phone for an instant diagnosis. You don't even have to leave your favorite nightclub bathroom!

The iPhone's alarm failed to handle the switch from Daylight Saving Time in Europe, causing a wave of workplace tardiness this morning. This is the second continent to curse Apple's phone after Australia experienced the same bug last month.

Have you ever been staring at your junk clogged email inbox and thought, "I wish I could talk to all these people on the phone?" No? Well, then prepare to be baffled by yet another weird Google invention.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin couldn't make it to a science gala this past weekend, so he went as a robot he could control remotely. It's a little creepy and a little awesome.

Good news for women who hate internet porn: Men are increasingly bored with the genre's fake female characters and implausible situations. The bad news: Men are increasingly getting off to actual females they know, via Facebook pictures.

Syphilis cases are up fourfold in parts of Britain where Facebook is most popular. Mere coincidence? The Telegraph newspaper thinks not, after consulting an expert.

If you see someone toting a Kindle onto the subway, give them space: Judging from what owners of the e-book reader have done to author Michael Lewis, they can be some seriously mean and vengeful nerds.

The geeks at South by Southwest look docile, but online they turn against mutual enemies with ruthless efficiency. This year's victim: Umair Haque, the Harvard wonk whose interview with Twitter's CEO just turned into a virtual stoning.

United Airlines ordered tech writer John Battelle to stop video chatting with his daughters because "maybe I could communicate with a terrorist on the ground." Other in-flight wifi uses were OK, since terrorist don't tweet or email. (Pic)

Here's a cache of the private messages misdirected by Facebook last week, messages about sex and divorce, devotion and infidelity, cancer and rubdowns. Messages underlining how deeply digital networks run through our lives, and how important online privacy has become.