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Write a letter to John Burn-Murdoch in response to his article “ smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health”

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Smartphones and social media are destroying children's mental health

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Evidence of the catastrophic effects of increased screen-time is now overwhelming

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Abi

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vincy

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Write a letter to Judith Thurman in response to her article "A Loss for words"

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Write a letter to Judith Thurman in response to her article "A Loss for words"

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Judith Thurman began contributing to The New Yorker in 1987 and became a staff writer in 2000. She writes about books, culture, and fashion. Her story on Yves Saint Laurent was chosen for "The Best American Essays of 2003."

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Write a letter to Nathan Heller is response to his article " The end of the English Major"

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Write a letter to Nathan Heller is response to his article " The end of the English Major"

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Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?

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Write a letter to Yeji Jesse Lee in her article "The Pandemic Didn't Create a Mental Health Crisis after all, Study Finds"

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Write a letter to Yeji Jesse Lee in her article "The Pandemic Didn't Create a Mental Health Crisis after all, Study Finds"

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Most people's mental health fared fairly well over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, a surprising new study shows.

The report, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ, analyzed 137 studies from around the world and found that in general, people's mental health didn't show large changes before and after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"The effects of COVID-19 on mental health are more nuanced than the 'tsunami' descriptor or other similar terms used by some investigators and in many media articles," the researchers wrote.

"Rather than a mental health crisis, at a population level there has been a high level of resilience," they said.

The researchers looked at studies conducted between 2018 and 2019, before China first reported the first coronavirus outbreak to the World Health Organization, and compared those results with studies conducted on the same groups of people in 2020 or later.

They found that most changes in mental health symptoms, which included symptoms of depression and anxiety, "were close to zero and not statistically significant."

"Among general population studies, we did not find changes in general mental health or anxiety symptoms, and the worsening of depression symptoms was minimal," the study found.

The vast majority of the studies that were analyzed took place in wealthier countries.

However, some groups of people did see their mental health worsen.

Women showed worsening mental health symptoms, the report said, though it was by small amounts. The study also noted that the same was true for older adults, university students, and those who belonged to a minority sexual or gender group.

"Significant worsening of symptoms among women or female members of the population is of concern," the study said, adding that women are disproportionately represented in the healthcare field, holding the vast majority of jobs in family and elder care.

The researchers also noted that intimate partner violence towards women increased during the pandemic.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
More from Business Insider:

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The Pandemic Didn't Create a Mental Health Crisis After All, Study Finds

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Most people's mental health fared fairly well over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, a surprising new study shows. The report, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ, analyzed 137 studies from around the world and found that in general, people's mental health didn't show large changes before and after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Write a letter to Amy Orben in response to her article entitled "How social media affects teen mental health: A missing link"

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Write a letter to Amy Orben in response to her article entitled "How social media affects teen mental health: A missing link"

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Researchers investigating the impacts of social media on mental health must consider where exactly adolescents are in their cognitive and social development.

Amy Orben is a programme leader track scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.

2. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK.

Depression, anxiety and suicidality have all sharply increased in adolescents over the past decade. So, too, has the amount of time that young people spend online (see 'Troubling trends'). Partly because of fears that there's a link between these trends, governments around the world are under pressure to do more to regulate technology companies.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00402-9
Competing Interests

A.O. is an unpaid member of governmental and non-governmental organizations (including the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and The British Academy). She has also provided unpaid and paid talks and consultancy work to organizations that will not gain or lose financially from this publication. S.-J.B. currently receives funding from Wellcome, the MRC, the Jacobs Foundation, the Wellspring Foundation and the University of Cambridge. In the past five years, S.-J.B. engaged in a paid consultancy with Cognita International Schools Group and has provided paid expert witness work for UK charities, legal organisations in the UK and USA and the UK government. S.-J.B. is the author of two books related to the brain, education and learning, for which she received an advance and royalties. S.-J.B. gives talks in schools, in the state and private sector, as well as at education conferences and for education organizations, and other public, private and third sector organizations (some talks are remunerated). S.-J.B. is a member of the Rethinking Assessment group, the Steering Committee of the Cambridge Centre of Science Policy, the Technical Advisory Group for the UK Government Department of Education 'Education and Outcomes Panel-C Study' and the Singapore Government National Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. She was a member of the Times Education Commission in 2021-22.

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How social media affects teen mental health: a missing link

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Researchers investigating the impacts of social media on mental health must consider where exactly adolescents are in their cognitive and social development. Researchers investigating the impacts of social media on mental health must consider where exactly adolescents are in their cognitive and social development.

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Write a letter to Sarah Barrel in response to her article " The North-west Passage: A 21st-century expedition"

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Write a letter to Sarah Barrel in response to her article " The North-west Passage: A 21st-century expedition"

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Write a letter to Giles Tremlett in response to his article "Benidorm gets high and mighty ugly"

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Write a letter to Giles Tremlett in response to his article "Benidorm gets high and mighty ugly"

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It was life as normal at the Pheasant Plucker, the Jolly Sailor and the Bridewell, a row of three union flag-bedecked establishments dedicated to keeping Benidorm's legion of beer-drinking British tourists happy last night. Tetley's and John Smith's Smooth Bitter were on tap; there were pies, chips and all-day British breakfasts to be had and the promise of Sky Sport or karaoke later in the evening.

But the talk was not about soccer or the horses. Instead it was of their latest neighbour, a giant hotel which, even by the brash standards of Europe's tackiest resort, promises to take British package tourism to new heights.

Those who stepped outside inevitably found themselves craning their necks upwards and staring at the neon-lit superstructure of the concrete and glass Gran Bali Hotel - the newest addition to a skyline already bristling with ugly skyscrapers - which opened its doors yesterday. At 48 floors, it has the dubious distinction of being the tallest hotel in Europe.

"What happens if it is bombed? We will all die," muttered one worried Bridewell drinker.

At 186 metres tall, the glitzy, garish Bali, is Europe's 13th largest skyscraper. Its presence here confirms Benidorm's status as the high-rise tourism capital of the world.

Some 1,500 holidaymakers at a time will squeeze into the Bali's 778 rooms, together with several hundred more who already stay at a smaller hotel on the same site. Eighteen lifts, including two on the out side of the building, will send them hurtling backwards and forwards to their rooms.

Guests can have their wrinkles zapped by lasers, get their blonde streaks redone or tan themselves by the pool while enjoying a view of the neighbouring skyscrapers that populate this concrete oasis.

Fake mountain waterfalls make a vain attempt at reminding visitors of the real tropical paradise that gave the hotel its name. Jacuzzis and 150m high sundecks are on offer to those prepared to take the most luxurious penthouse suites.

The owners, who dream of turning Benidorm into a Mediterranean Las Vegas, are lobbying for a new gambling law to be passed so that they can also offer their guests the joys of one-armed bandits, blackjack and roulette wheels.

"I am proud. This is the start of a new era for Benidorm," explained Joaquin Perez, one of the co-owners. "Soon we will have more hotel beds here than even London or Paris. We must bring people from all over the world."

For Benidorm, the butt of a thousand jokes, its new £60m hotel raises an upright finger at those who sniff at the cheap, mass tourism that has turned it into one of the wealthiest towns in southern Europe.

More than five million visitors a year is not enough for Benidorm, despite the elbow-room-only crowds in its old town or the battle for sunloungers on its beaches. The Bali is just part of a plan to add 10,000 holiday beds to the 50,000 plus already here within the next two years.

Special deals with package tour companies such as Airtours and Thomson mean that many of the rooms at the Bali will be taken by some of the 1.2 million British tourists who come here every year. Elton John, due to perform in Benidorm next week, was expected to be the first of what the management hopes will be many showbiz guests to cast some glamour on the town's tawdry reputation. His camp glitz is just what the new Benidorm wants.

British tourists who went to gaze at the Bali yesterday were sceptical. "I wouldn't stay up there," said Lynn Hall from Manchester.

"Our tour rep said there were rumours that it was either sinking or beginning to lean over."

The Bali has taken 15 years to build, as the owners have slowly sunk the profits from their other Benidorm hotels into it.

Although no one can deny that it is spectacular, the Bali fails to brighten the monotony of a skyline already dominated by the 316 hotel and apartment buildings more than 12 stories high. The first one went up in 1969. Now 350,000 people are squeezed into 30 sq km.

The Bali is at its most spectacular at night, and from a distance, when it looks like a massive, silver knife, projecting beams of light up into the clouds. By day it becomes a dull, grey, concrete and glass giant, visible for miles. "We kept waiting for them to paint it," said one local.

Town authorities denied that the resort, which already has to recycle its water, had reached saturation point. "Benidorm will now have to grow upwards, just like this," said a spokeswoman. The Bali will not, however, solve all Benidorm's image problems.

One more old-fashioned hotel nearby has put up posters advising clients coming from the beach that "reception has a special thinner available to help you remove grease or tar from your feet."

But, as it prepares to take its place in the record books, Benidorm is feeling brasher and more bullish than ever.

"Anyone who insults the five million people who come here every year is insulting the ordinary people of Europe," said the town hall spokeswoman. "Benidorm is just one of those places that you either love or hate."

It's newest building is no exception to that rule.
Hot, dry, noisy and crowded
Area 3,788 hectares

Skyscrapers (over 12 stories): 316

Visitors 5.5 million a year

British visitors 1.2 million

Residents 62,000

Sunloungers 6,410

Beach length 5km

Average water temp 19.8C

August rainfall zero

Discos and disco-pubs 181

Amusement arcades 87

Visitors who want to return 83%

Visitors from Spain 41%, Britain 36%

Rubbish 176 metric tonnes a day

Average noise level in centre 63 decibels

Water consumption 12m cubic metres a year

Population growth over 40 years 1,008%

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It was life as normal at the Pheasant Plucker, the Jolly Sailor and the Bridewell, a row of three union flag-bedecked establishments dedicated to keeping Benidorm's legion of beer-drinking British tourists happy last night. Tetley's and John Smith's Smooth Bitter were on tap; there were pies, chips and all-day British breakfasts to be had and the promise of Sky Sport or karaoke later in the evening.

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Write a letter to Will Stewart in response to his article "Three Yeti Sightings in Siberia".

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Write a letter to Will Stewart in response to his article "Three Yeti Sightings in Siberia".

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'They just rushed away, all in fur, walking on two legs': Three yeti 'sightings' in Siberia in a week

Three separate 'sightings' of yetis have been made in Siberia in recent weeks, say fishermen and an official in Russia.

All were in the remote Kemerovo region, where around 30 'abominable snowmen' live, according to the country's leading researcher on the creatures.

In one previously undisclosed case last month near Myski village, fishermen in a boat on a river initially mistook distant figures first for bears and then people, said the Siberian Times

'We shouted to them - do you need help?,' said fisherman Vitaly Vershinin.

'They just rushed away, all in fur, walking on two legs, making their way through the bushes and with two other limbs, straight up the hill.'

He said: "What did we think? It could not be bears, as the bear walks on all-fours, and they ran on two.... so then they were gone.'

On a second sighting on the bank of the Mras-Su River several days later, an unnamed fisherman was quoted saying: 'We saw some tall animals looking like people.'

He added: 'Our binoculars were broken and did not let us see them sharply. We waved at the animals but they did not respond, then quickly ran back into the forest, walking on two legs.

'We realised that they were not in dark clothes but covered by dark fur. They did walk like people.'

In a further case this month, an unnamed forestry inspector had encountered a 'yeti' Shorsky National Park, according to local government official Sergei Adlyakov.

'The creature did not look like a bear and quickly disappeared after breaking some branches of the bushes,' he said.

This case was in Tashtagolski district, close to the border with Khakassia. No images have appeared from the alleged sightings.

STILL AT LARGE: THE HISTORY OF THE YETI

Russia's leading 'yeti' expert Igor Burtsev, head of the International Centre of Hominology, claimed that Myski will next month host an international conference and expedition in search of the yeti.

He said the 'sighting' was 'significant' though he was unaware of the later National Shorsky Park case.

He added: 'We shall explore new areas, to the north from the usual places yetis have been seen previously. The conference will start in Moscow and then we will travel with our guests to Kemerovo region.'

At a similar expedition last year, he claimed to have found yeti hair though no DNA findings have been released.

He claims the creature - also known as Bigfoot and Sasquatch - is the missing link between Neanderthal man and modern human beings.

Burtsev has previously claimed a population of around 30 yetis are living in Kemerovo region.

'We have good evidence of the yeti living in our region, and we have heard convincing details from experts elsewhere in Russia and in the US and Canada,' he said.

'The description of the habits of the Abominable Snowmen are similar from all over the world.'

Last November hunters claimed they had discovered the nest of a legendary Yeti in the same area of Siberia.

Experts stumbled across trees, twisted by force to form an arch, in the area which is famed for sightings of the wildman.

Biologist John Bindernagel, 69, said: 'We didn't feel like the trees we saw in Siberia had been done by a man or another mammal.

'Twisted trees like this have also been observed in North America and they could fit in with the theory that Bigfoot makes nests.'

Sightings of the Yeti have been reported in France, North America and the Himalayas but Dr Bindernagel said these are mainly ignored by scientists who are put off by 'jokes and taboos.'

Mr Burtsev has previously strongly denied accusations that yeti 'sightings' are a bizarre ruse to attract tourists to the far-flung region.

Reports say the two-legged creatures are heavy-set, more around 7ft tall and resemble bears.

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'They just rushed away, all in fur, walking on two legs': Expert claims three yeti 'sightings' in one week in Siberia are 'significant'

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Three separate 'sightings' of yetis have been made in Siberia in recent weeks, say fishermen and an official in Russia. All were in the remote Kemerovo region, where around 30 'abominable snowmen' live, according to the country's leading researcher on the creatures.

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Write a letter to Pete Warren in response to his article "The End of Privacy"

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hen the furore about Google Street View washed across the UK last month, Google must have been pleased. For a much more sinister invasion of privacy had gone unnoticed. A week before, Google had, without any fanfare, released 11 software applications for mobile phones that spell a fundamental change in our lives.

Among the applications were functions such as text messaging, web browsing, a diary, Orkut - the company's social networking offering - and a program for Google Maps. Innocent enough, perhaps. But combined they would allow Google to know what you are doing all of the time. A truly Orwellian development that has been described by privacy campaigners as "a catastrophic corruption of consent".

Far-fetched? Not at all.

The mobile phone industry has for years seen the potential for a rich market to develop in location-based services if only it could get its customers to agree.

Google, on the other hand, has decided to take advantage of that market and it has sought to do so by appearing to be helpful. The rationale is simple - offer a service for free and the customer will not notice that they have given a company the right to know where they are at any time.

This is clearly the reason for the inclusion of Orkut in the package. If social networking can be united with mobile, and location can be offered as a service so friends know when they are near each other, then location-based marketing can be offered to clients.
Record industry
"Mobile is the key to understanding where a person is and what they have been browsing," says Neil Andrew, head of portal advertising for the mobile phone company 3, who makes it clear 3 would only do this with the consent of their customers.

The industry's aim is to unite information on the customer's age, gender, web-browsing habits, home address and buying patterns with a record of their daily movements, and subject that to behavioural analysis techniques.

This provides data on you - the customer - so powerful that the companies involved can predict what you are about to do next, and then sell that information to brands interested in marketing to you.

"Being able to predict what you do next and provide you with useful things at that moment is the holy grail," admits Shaun Gregory, the head of 02 Media.

But that means that people using such services are making one of the greatest surrenders of privacy in history - which has excited warnings from senior figures in the data-mining industry.

"What is going on at the moment is the opening of a barn door into your personal habits," says Glyn Read, a former marketing director of SAS Institute, a leading behavioural analysis company.

"The value of understanding people's personal information is enormous - this will allow a form of subliminal advertising to develop," says Read, adding: "We are at the tip of an iceberg of what is possible. The real worry comes when governments start to demand access to this data."

Read's comments are confirmed by his former company. "We have been working with all of the big banks and with the mobile industry on what can be achieved from mobile data," says Laurie Miles, head of analytics for SAS UK. "We can also collect data from people's voices to tell whether they are lying or not, so this gives us an opportunity to bring marketing and risk together."

Up till now, the mobile phone industry has always had that information, but data protection rules have stopped it being used because their customers have not given permission for them to do so.

Now, worried about a potential decline in revenue, the mobile industry wants to get around those rules. If we can be talked into signing up for our details to be used in mobile advertising, even if we don't understand what that means, then Gregory's holy grail will have been achieved.

According to Informa, a market analysis company, by 2013 the global market in mobile content will be worth £237bn to companies as diverse as media groups and sports manufacturers, whereas mobile advertising will only be worth £8.37bn, according to the analysts Gartner, but up until now there has been a reluctance among customers to pay for data plans.

"One of the factors driving this sudden interest has been the increasing use of mobile broadband dongles on laptops, which has seen a sharp increase in data traffic," says Guillermo Escofet, an analyst from Informa's mobile content and applications Intelligence Centre. "The industry is looking for something that will compensate for falling revenue from voice."

And there are wider implications for the market. "If you look at the potential from locational advertising and the leads you can get from that then it's larger than the content market itself. This will not be advertising as we have known it," says Andy Bovingdon, marketing director of the mobile analytics company Bango.

Companies such as Nike and BT are already working on campaigns that will link the web and mobile services, for example providing you with routes to a sports event, help with parking, where you can eat and even sponsor a film for the children to watch on the way home. Blick, a UK mobile company, is already offering free airtime to those aged between 14 and 25 in return for signing up for advertising.

While the mobile industry and Google are adamant nothing can happen without the customer's permission, users may not realise what they are agreeing to. If you sign up for any Google services, for instance, you are unlikely to realise you are giving permission for all of your data to be used for marketing.

Google Latitude, for example, states that agreement to use the service means you are prepared to share your location with the people in your address book as well as Google, although Google states "it is not possible at the moment for us to access information from that program".

The company continues: "Our terms and conditions do say we are allowed to use your information to provide you with services but there are practical considerations over whether we could do that with locational information. Our view is that we can use information to provide the services that you want."
Giving them Latitude
Google's terms and conditions do not state directly how they will use your data, but instead direct you to a website. The company says: "We need to be accurate but rather than have a huge amount of detail on privacy and our use of user data we have put that on a separate page. There is a clear link from our home page to our privacy page." However, when we tried the link it was not active, and had to be cut and pasted into a browser.

Hidden-away small print has drawn criticism from the Information Commissioner's Office. "We have launched a 'small print, big print' campaign to encourage companies to make it clear to people what they are signing up for," says a spokesman. "While what is happening at the moment may not be good practice, people are technically consenting."

Google says it tries "to make it clear in all cases what we are doing with a specific program. Our policy is always that people should opt into the services we offer."

But this position is not good enough for the campaign group Privacy International, which is planning to raise the matter with MPs next week. "This is a catastrophic corruption of consent. People are being told that they are signing up for marketing when in fact they are being opted into a massive surveillance strategy," says Simon Davies, director of Privacy International.

SAS's Read goes even further: "People do not realise the huge potential of this information for controlling our lives. We are sleepwalking into a minefield."

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Pete Warren on the invasion of privacy through your mobile phone

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hen the furore about Google Street View washed across the UK last month, Google must have been pleased. For a much more sinister invasion of privacy had gone unnoticed. A week before, Google had, without any fanfare, released 11 software applications for mobile phones that spell a fundamental change in our lives.