Reading The Atlantic this week reminded me it is time I subscribed. If you love great journalism you should pay for it! Online advertising doesn’t work. The New York Times digital ad revenue in 2016 was $209M, while their monthly unique users grew to 92M in January 2017, which nets out to approximately $2.27 per unique user in 2016. In a year, you almost undoubtedly paid more to download the ads than they received from the advertiser for you viewing the ad. If you can spare half an hour, Scott Galloway’s Death of the Industrial Advertising Complex is entertaining and worthwhile.
I used my phone less while in Tasmania last week and it was a great feeling. Every time I reduce my usage I feel better for it. This week The Atlantic asks Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?. A tough headline to live up to, yet it came closer than I expected to making the case. Even if a generation hasn’t been destroyed, I do think society has a problem on it’s hands learning to manage the addiction of our digital devices and software which reduce the frequency and quality of our face to face interactions.