Here’s a few goodies from this week

• Only Disconnect – Author Gary Shteyngart writes eloquently about his technological transformation, “With each post, each tap of the screen, each drag and click, I am becoming a different person — solitary where I was once gregarious; a content provider where I at least once imagined myself an artist; nervous and constantly updated where I once knew the world through sleepy, half-shut eyes; detail-oriented and productive where I once saw life float by like a gorgeously made documentary film. And, increasingly, irrevocably, I am a stranger to books, to the long-form text, to the pleasures of leaving myself and inhabiting the free-floating consciousness of another.”
• Grades don’t drop for college Facebook fiends – Another study wondering whether Facebook usage affects students’ performance in college. My guess would be that in the early days of Facebook, it did make a difference, but over time as students are introduce to social media at a younger age, they use it more natively and it therefore has less off an effect on them – just as it has been with all prior new media.
• Amazon’s Former Chief Scientist on Influence, Twitter’s Fake Audience, and iPad Sex Appeal – “Why do people tweet? What is the driver of them spending time doing this? I think it’s because they think they have people giving them attention, and they do everything to play with that attention. The reason Twitter works so well is that they don’t have a feedback-loop, where people can realize just how little attention they’re getting. I’m not saying the system was set up that way deliberately, but it’s a very well setup system. People can fool themselves into believing that others are listening, which is not easy in real life. When you’re talking to other people on the street and nobody is listening, after a while you sort of have to stop talking. Not so on Twitter.”
• Apple’s new ads highlight FaceTime’s emotional connection – I really like the four new Apple iPhone 4 FaceTime commercials. And I find them to be a perfect example of how effective marketing doesn’t advertise “features,” but attempts to create an emotional connection to the experience of using the device. After watching the commercials, it almost feels like it would be better to experience those events over FaceTime than in person.

In multitasking, more than two tasks do not compute – A report from Science on what happens in the human brain when we attempt to multitask. It turns out that the brain is not too bad at doing two tasks, but when we attempt to add a third, things don’t work out so well.

Kindle and iPad Books Take Longer to Read than Print – A study by Jakob Nielsen found that readers tended to read more slowly on iPads (6.2%) and Kindles (10.7%) than printed books. This seems about right to me since it will probably take some time for long-time readers to transition to a new medium.

iPhone 4 Creator talks about Materials – Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, talks about how important it is to touch and work with materials rather than just model them in computers. The is the chief difference between the formal senses of the terms technology (practical) and science (theoretical).

iPhone 4 and the Art of Self Photography – Interesting post from TUAW on the shift from photography being about capturing the world to capturing the self. The iPhone 4 makes this explicit with it’s front facing camera.

How the Web is Affecting Social Relationships – According to this study, most people self-report that in 2020 they see the Internet having a positive impact on their family and relationships.