Reading List: Present Shock and Paul Miller, Obama and the Decline of Facebook

We hope you all had a great weekend. This week, you can read the estimates of how many millions of young people have left Facebook since 2011 and read why Obama thinks that is important for healthcare.gov. We’ve also got an anecdotal look at how the next generation perceives the internet and advertising and a sardonic look at the life of a search engine marketing specialist. What are you reading this week?

Douglas Rushkoff (‘Present Shock’) talks to Paul Miller – The Verge

If you enjoyed Michael Toy’s thoughts last week about Present Shock, you’ll most likely also enjoy this video of Paul Miller–323 days into his year-without-the-internet experiment–interviewing Rushkoff on the causes and symptoms of present shock and how to deal with them without giving up the internet for good.

What Happens When the President Sits Down Next to You at a Cafe – The Atlantic

POTUSnap

“It seems like they don’t use Facebook anymore,” Obama said.

Facebook is so uncool even the president of the United States knows it.

More Than 11 Million Young People Have Fled Facebook Since 2011 – Time

“Skeptics of Facebook’s business model have long pointed to anecdotal evidence that the social network is losing its luster with teens as evidence that the firm will ultimately be unable to justify its $140 billion valuation. Indeed, even Facebook itself admitted last fall that it had lost younger users.”

How Children View Advertising and the Internet – Digiday

An interview with two children about advertising and the internet. “Oh that’s not an advertisement. That’s just a thing telling you a movie’s going to come out.”

Living the Dream: The Life of a Senior Search Engine Marketing Specialist – McSweeney’s

“Almost every day I get asked, ‘What’s it like being a Senior Search Engine Marketing Specialist?’ Everyone is dying to know, and let me tell you, it’s everything I ever dreamed it would be.”

Other articles

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About the Contributor

Benjamin Robertson

Benjamin Robertson
Benjamin Robertson is a founding editor at Second Nature. He has worked in advertising for the Chicago Tribune and Gannett, and now is a web developer at Mediacurrent. He studied Communications and Media Studies under Dr. Read Schuchardt at Wheaton College in Illinois. He has presented papers on Marshall McLuhan, media ecology, and Christianity at the Media Ecology Association, National Communication Association, and the McLuhan's Philosophy of Media Centennial Conference in Brussels. He lives with his wife, Ruth, in Greenville, SC. His personal website is benrobertson.io

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