Worth Your Attention

“Using social media is essentially a trade-off. You get very small but significant advantages for your well-being that come with very small but statistically significant costs.” Scientific American on why social media may not be as bad as you think.
Perhaps YouTube’s recommendation algorithm isn’t radicalizing us after all.
“While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.” Jack Dorsey on why Twitter is banning political ads.
“I think the most stunning surprise about the state of the world at the moment is to see such a profound lack of optimism in the future, by so many people, in a time of great prosperity.” Microsoft’s Brad Smith in an interview about his new book.
A lesson from the richest person in the world: The particular sale isn’t the ultimate goal of the interaction; building the overall relationship with the customer is.
Would you watch TV shows or movies at double speed? Netflix is testing such a feature, and some movie people are not happy.
Jean-Louis Gassée on iPadOs’s poor discoverability. (I, too, have written about the challenges of making things discoverable in touchscreens.)
Long-time app/web users don’t like it when navigation options move around. To whit: Some iOS 13 users are unhappy with changes to Mail.app’s toolbar.
Resources to help drive more responsible use of AI from Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly. The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.” President Obama on call-out culture.

Worth Your Attention

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