Google Loosens Ties to Google Plus – The New York Times

“For many users, Google Plus accounts don’t get all that many visits. Now, Google seems to be indicating it, too, will be paying less attention to its social network.

On Monday, Google said it would move features once integrated into Google Plus out of the social network and into other Google services. Photo features have already been moved to the newly introduced Google Photos. Location-sharing will go to Google Hangouts, the company’s chat app.”

via Google Loosens Ties to Google Plus – The New York Times.

FACEBOOK ALERT

“Rather than make an app or website that is a one-stop shop, tech companies instead are introducing stables of services. Twitter has Vine, a video-sharing app, and Periscope, a live-streaming app, separate from the main Twitter platform. Facebook not only broke out photos and messaging into separate apps, but also decided to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp, direct competitors to those services, and maintain them both as yet another set of options for smartphone owners.”

Building Attention Span – David Brooks, The New York Times

“If you’re like most of us, you’re wondering what the Internet is doing to your attention span. You toggle over to check your phone during even the smallest pause in real life. You feel those phantom vibrations even when no one is texting you. You have trouble concentrating for long periods.

Over the past few years researchers have done a lot of work on attention span, and how the brain is being re-sculpted by all those hours a day spent online. One of the conclusions that some of them are coming to is that the online life nurtures fluid intelligence and offline life is better at nurturing crystallizing intelligence.”

via Building Attention Span – The New York Times.

Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children — NYT

This problem is seriously hurting young men in this country.

Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children

American youths are plugged in and tuned out of the real world for many more hours of the day than experts consider healthy for normal development.

well.blogs.nytimes.com|By Jane E. Brody

Brian Williams Scandal Shows Power of Social Media – The New York Times

The soldiers who prompted Brian Williams’s fall from one of the most powerful jobs in the media had first tried to blow the whistle on him in 2003.

But that was before the Internet became ubiquitous. And so, like most people who had a problem with the news, the soldiers had few options. A clip of Mr. Williams recounting a helicopter attack in Iraq had been broadcast by NBC, then dissipated into the ether.

via Brian Williams Scandal Shows Power of Social Media – The New York Times.

I just discovered this guy David Carr, and now he’s gone.

I just discovered this guy David Carr. I only posted him here once. But it was an amazing post. He made a video to demystify net neutrality, and was the only journalist I know who could explain it.

David Carr, Times Critic and Champion of Media, Dies at 58

Mr. Carr, a shrewd and well-informed skeptic, wriggled away from the demon of drug addiction to become an unlikely name-brand media columnist at The New York Times.

nytimes.com|By BRUCE WEBER