Addictive apps are bad for children's health it's time for regulation - Devi Sridhar
The Guardian Weekly|July 14, 2023
WhatsApp is for old people. At least that's what my first-year medical students tell me. Young people, especially teenagers, communicate through Snapchat, an app that reaches 90% of 13-to 24-year-olds and 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds across the UK.
Addictive apps are bad for children's health it's time for regulation - Devi Sridhar

It has more than 21 million active users in Britain per month, which is almost one-third of the population, and each accesses the app on average more than 50 times a day.

If we go back to the 1980s and 1990s, parenting was often about keeping children physically safe. A moody 14-year-old wanting to be alone in their room was a normal thing-in fact this was sufficient to protect them. Parents had clear oversight over who their kids were with at home, and the physical materials they were consuming. Fast-forward to 2023 and children are in their rooms, but exposed to an entire virtual world with almost no regulation over the content they see, how much time they're spending on devices or the boundary between necessary social communication with friends and a much darker world of harmful or pornographic material, and predatory influencers.

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Finn family murals
The Guardian Weekly

Finn family murals

The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition

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4 mins  |
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I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
The Guardian Weekly

I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

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3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The Guardian Weekly

A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams

The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.

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4 mins  |
November 08, 2024
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
The Guardian Weekly

'What will people think? I don't care any more'

At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister

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10+ mins  |
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I see you
The Guardian Weekly

I see you

What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results

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10+ mins  |
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Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
The Guardian Weekly

Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago

Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.

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3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
The Guardian Weekly

Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit

Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.

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3 mins  |
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Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
The Guardian Weekly

Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping

After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.

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2 mins  |
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'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
The Guardian Weekly

'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital

Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order

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3 mins  |
November 08, 2024
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
The Guardian Weekly

Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'

High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness

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5 mins  |
November 08, 2024