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.
For much of the past century, doctors had a near-monopoly on medical knowledge. That is changing fast. There is a whole parallel system rising up, powered by consumer health. Anywhere there is a gap - in getting care, answers or reassurance - commercial players are jumping in. Health tech start-ups, apps, diagnostics, online clinics, influencers - they are all competing for authority, and figuring out how to monetise it.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die: Gore Verbinski's mad, mad, mad epic is angry, angry, angry. And with good reason. The apocalyptic dramedy shoots its poison-tipped arrows at two of the most deserving targets in America right now: our addiction to social media and our willingness to let AI assume command of our lives. Both trends get eviscerated, trashed and stomped on (this is by no means a subtle film) in cathartic ways.
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.
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.
