TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Netflix adds advertising, eliminates reviews

Teens are texting instead of reading, researchers say

A new study has alarming findings that probably are not surprising to anyone who knows a teenager: High schoolers are texting, scrolling and using social media instead of reading books and magazines.

In their free time, American adolescents are cradling their devices hours each day rather than losing themselves in print or long-form media, according to research published Monday by the American Psychological Association.

In fact, 1 in 3 U.S. high school seniors did not read a book for pleasure in 2016. In the same time period, 82 percent of 12th-graders visited sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram every day.

Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and one of the authors of the study, said the lack of leisure reading is troubling. For her, the most important discovery hidden in the data is this statistic: In the 1970s, about 60 percent of high school seniors reported reading a book, magazine or newspaper every day. Four decades later, in 2016, 16 percent of high school seniors reported doing so.

The reason for the concern is that the skill set and attention it takes to digest concepts in longform writing are quite different from glancing at a text message or status update, she said.

Netflix forever changed the way we watch television, but recent announcements suggest the company might slowly be normalizing.

One of the service’s primary appeals is that users can watch TV shows uninterrupted by meddlesome commercials. Netflix, in essence, invented binge-watching by allowing us all to watch a dozen episodes of “Stranger Things” without a reminder that anything in the outside world exists.

That’s no longer the case, at least not for everyone.

This week, the service rolled out advertisements that appear between episodes of various shows for some users. The ads, though, won’t be for Cookie Crisp or Tide, but for other shows streaming on Netflix.

“We are testing whether surfacing recommendations between episodes helps members discover stories they will enjoy faster,” the company told Ars Technica in a statement. “A couple of years ago, we introduced video previews to the TV experience, because we saw that it significantly cut the time members spend browsing and helped them find something they would enjoy watching even faster.”

It is unclear how long the “testing” will last. Netflix did confirm that the test will only be for a segment of its user base.

Meanwhile, another familiar feature has vanished. On the web version of the service, users could leave written reviews of various shows and movies — and for years, they did just that. But on Friday, Netflix removed this ability, along with every user review ever left there.

Phone case with Mormon temple draws buzz

SALT LAKE CITY — Disney-loving Mormons are buzzing over a phone case made by an Australian company that features the characters from “Beauty and the Beast” in front of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City.

A Hong Kong designer thought it was a castle. Katie Hoyos, a mother of four boys, is a megafan of the 1991 animated classic and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She posted a photo of the case on Facebook.

The post has gained attention on social media, the Salt Lake Tribune reported last week. Hoyos said she’s a bit baffled by the attention and said she never intended for her or the image to go viral.

FedEx offers hub employees tuition toward online degree

MEMPHIS, TENN. — FedEx Corp. plans to offer free tuition to employees at its international hub in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Commercial Appeal newspaper reports the tuition would be good toward an online degree from the University of Memphis.

The university says in a statement that about 11,000 employees would be eligible for the program. The university’s online arm has 60 graduate and undergraduate degree programs.

FedEx employees who don’t have a high school diploma would be able to earn a high school-equivalent degree.

Airbnb plans more home-sharing apartment complexes

Airbnb is set to debut another almost-hotel-and, according to its development partner, it has many more to come. An apartment complex in Nashville, Tennessee, will lease apartments to a mix of longterm renters and short-term visitors as the Silicon Valley home-rental behemoth’s second announced Airbnb-branded building.

The new project is a takeover of an existing 328unit building, the Olmsted, in the downtown SoBro neighborhood, a popular tourist destination for music lovers and bachelor parties. Airbnb’s partner Niido purchased the building last week.

Under Niido’s new ownership, current Olmsted residents will be encouraged to sublet their units to Airbnb travelers for a maximum of 180 days per year. Airbnb and Niido will take 25 percent of the income the residents generate from home-sharing. The two companies will jointly rent a portion of the remaining vacant units through Airbnb’s platform for short-term stays.

The concept, called Niido Powered by Airbnb, is part of a larger push by Airbnb to team up with real estate developers and facility managers, a group that has frequently argued that the home-sharing company enables renters to sublet their apartments illegally.