It has become known as the war of nerves. An apt name for a jittery, jangling time in British history, consumed with fear of what may be coming, in which the sheer unpredictability of life became as the historian Prof Julie Gottlieb writes a form of psychological warfare. Contemporary reports describe threats of mysterious weapons, gigantic bluff, and a cat-and-mouse game intended to stampede the civilian population of this island into terror.
Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum.
I am a professor of public health who studies health behaviors and the gap between intentions and outcomes. I became interested in this self-care paradox recently, after I suffered from a concussion. I was prescribed two months of strictly screen-free cognitive rest-no television, email, Zooming, social media, streaming, or texting. The benefits were almost immediate, and they surprised me. I slept better, had a longer attention span, and had a newfound sense of mental quiet.
Are people turning away from social media? But that tide might be finally, yet slowly, turning. My Gen Z students have recently been the ones telling me about social media "cleanses", whereby they take a break from it all for a prescribed duration, and "grayscaling" their socials (whereby color images turn to black and white, making them less eye-candy-esque-and all around having better cellphone etiquette such as putting it away during class and turning it off at night.
A recent Washington Post piece pulled together what a lot of us have been describing for years: the "brain rot" feeling isn't just slang. Researchers are linking heavy social media use and rapid-fire content to measurable changes in attention and memory, and the way it shows up day-to-day can look a lot like anxiety.
You can find them anywhere there are people and inclines: train platforms, gyms, grocery stores. They come in different shapes and sizes, they represent every age and demographic, but they all move in the exact same way - slow-motion shuffle, scroll, lift foot, poke screen, land foot, repeat. The worst ones get to the top (or bottom) of the stairs and suddenly stop. This would be justifiable if they received notification of a nuclear warhead careening towards the city. But it's usually just a Slack they have to read extra carefully.
