Tag Archives: smartphones

“Americans under 30 feeling worse about their lives”; researchers say smartphones may be the cause

Depression-under-30

Important Takeaways:

  • 1 big thing: Kids are dying inside
  • A shocking number of American kids are sad, suicidal and stuck on small screens sucking away their zest for life.
  • Rates of depression and anxiety among American adolescents jumped by more than 50% in multiple studies between 2010 and 2019, writes Jonathan Haidt, a leading expert on the spike in teen mental illness. Those numbers were relatively stable in the 2000s.
  • The suicide rate for kids between 10 and 14 tripled between 2007 and 2021, according to the CDC.
  • The share of high school girls who seriously considered attempting suicide jumped from 19% in 2011 to 30% in 2021.
  • The pandemic is often cited as a driver of the teen mental health crisis. But it was brewing long before then
  • A growing body of research links the acceleration of the crisis to one of this century’s biggest events: the arrival of the smartphone.
  • “Smartphones and social media fundamentally changed the way teens spend their time outside of school,” says Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author of the book “Generations.”
  • In the early 2000s, middle- and high-school kids saw friends in person about three times a week. Now, that’s closer to 1.5, according to data from the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future project.
  • At the same time, screen time has skyrocketed. Teens spend an average of 4.8 hours every day on social media apps, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Gallup.
  • For the first time, the U.S. fell out of the top 20 in the World Happiness Report, released Tuesday. Gallup cited “Americans under 30 feeling worse about their lives” for the steep drop

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Forever Chemicals are everywhere affecting 140 industries, and at least 45% of drinking water

Forever-Chemicals

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘Forever’ Chemicals Are Nearly Everywhere. These Companies Are Helping Clean Up the Mess
  • The planet has a problem with “forever” chemicals. Known as PFAS, the chemicals are everywhere—from our nonstick cookware to our waterproof clothes, and smartphones. The chemicals are even in our drinking water and bloodstreams, and have been linked to increased risk of cancer in humans, among other issues.
  • “PFAS touches so many sectors,” says Dimple Gosai, clean tech analyst and head of U.S. ESG research at BofA Securities. The chemicals are pervasive in consumer apparel and food packaging, she notes, and are having an impact on insurers, industrial companies, and water utilities. “It’s a risk I think everyone needs to care about.”
  • More than 9,800 lawsuits alleging harm from PFAS have been launched across 140 industries since 1999, leading to $16.7 billion in settlements, according to a recent report from risk consultancy Milliman.
  • Contaminated water is a growing concern. According to a 2023 study by the U.S. Geological Survey, at least 45% of tap water is estimated to have one or more types of PFAS

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Google turns Android phones into earthquake sensors; California to get alerts

By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google’s Android phones on Tuesday started detecting earthquakes around the world to provide data that could eventually give billions of users precious seconds of warning of a tremor nearby, with an alerting feature first rolling out in California.

Japan, Mexico and California already use land-based sensors to generate warnings, aiming to cut injuries and property damage by giving people further away from the epicenter of an earthquake seconds to protect themselves before the shaking starts.

If Google’s approaches for detecting and alerting prove effective, warnings would reach more people, including for the first time Indonesia and other developing countries with few traditional sensors.

Seismology experts consulted by Google said turning smartphones into mini-seismographs marked a major advancement, despite the inevitably of erroneous alerts from a work in progress, and the reliance on a private company’s algorithms for public safety. More than 2.5 billion devices, including some tablets, run Google’s Android operating system.

“We are on a path to delivering earthquake alerts wherever there are smartphones,” said Richard Allen, director of University of California Berkeley’s seismological lab and visiting faculty at Google over the last year.

Google’s program emerged from a week-long session 4-1/2 years ago to test whether the accelerometers in phones could detect car crashes, earthquakes and tornadoes, said principal software engineer Marc Stogaitis.

Accelerometers – sensors that measure direction and force of motion – are mainly used to determine whether a user is holding a phone in landscape or portrait mode.

The company studied historical accelerometer readings during earthquakes and found they could give some users up to a minute of notice.

Android phones can currently separate earthquakes from vibrations caused by thunder or the device dropping only when the device is charging, stationary and has user permission to share data with Google.

If phones detect an earthquake, they send their city-level location to Google, which can triangulate the epicenter and estimate the magnitude with as few as several hundred reports, Stogaitis said.

The system will not work in regions including China where Google’s Play Services software is blocked.

Google expects to issue its first alerts based on accelerometer readings next year. It also plans to feed alerts for free to businesses that want to automatically shut off elevators, gas lines and other systems before the shaking starts.

To test its alerting abilities, Google is drawing in California from traditional government seismograph readings to alert Android users about earthquakes, similar to notifications about kidnappings or flooding.

People expected to experience strong shaking would hear a loud dinging and see a full-screen advisement to drop, cover and hold on, Stogaitis said. Those further away would get a smaller notification designed not to stir them from their sleep, while people too close to be warned will get information about post-quake safety, such as checking gas valves.

Alerts will trigger for earthquakes magnitude 4.5 or greater, and no app download is necessary.

MyShake, an app launched by Allen’s Berkeley lab last year to provide Californians warnings and let them report damage, has drawn 1 million downloads.

Stogaitis also said Google has not discussed its plans with Apple Inc, whose competitor to Android comprises half the market in countries including the United States.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Nathan Frandino; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. holiday shoppers spend record $126 billion online

FILE PHOTO: Shoppers walk through the King of Prussia Mall, United States' largest retail shopping space, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mark Makela

By Melissa Fares

(Reuters) – U.S. shoppers spent a record $126 billion on online shopping during the 2018 holiday season, taking advantage of early discounts on Amazon.com and other websites and with more people using smartphones to place their orders, Adobe Analytics said on Tuesday.

Adobe, which collects its data by measuring 80 percent of all online transactions from the top 100 U.S. web retailers, said the amount was 16.5 percent higher than last year’s total.

Mobile platforms made up 51 percent of traffic to retail websites during the November-December period and were responsible for nearly a third of all online spending.

Online shoppers spent $3.7 billion on Thanksgiving and $6.2 billion on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Cyber Monday the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday — was the biggest U.S. online shopping day ever, with $7.9 billion spent.

Top-selling items online were L.O.L. Surprise Fingerlings toys; Take-Two Interactive Software’s video game Red Dead Redemption 2; Nintendo’s Switch console; streaming devices; and Dell and Apple laptops, Adobe said.

Consumers spent an average 40 percent more per day during the three weeks after Cyber Monday than in the first three weeks of the season, Adobe said. Sales continued to grow until Dec. 17.

While the online sales figures showed how low U.S. unemployment rates and rising wages boosted consumer confidence during the holiday season, department stores continue to struggle.

Further, consumer confidence in 2019 is seen as likely to be strained by rising U.S. interest rates, the ongoing trade dispute with China, market volatility due to concerns over global growth and political deadlock in Washington.

Macy’s Inc shares plunged 18 percent on Thursday after the department store chain slashed its full-year profit and sales forecast on the back of an anemic holiday season.

Kohl’s Corp reported similarly muted comparable sales growth for the holidays, sending its shares down as much as 9 percent on Thursday. Shares of Target Corp were down nearly 4 percent even after the retailer posted relatively strong holiday sales growth of nearly 6 percent on Thursday.

Overall sales for the 2018 U.S. holiday shopping season rose 5.1 percent to over $850 billion, hitting a six-year high, as shoppers were encouraged by early discounts, according to a Mastercard report in late December.

(Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York; Editing by Frances Kerry)

ISIS tells supporters to quit messaging apps for fear of U.S. bombs

A man holds a smartphone showing the Islamic State logo in front of a screen showing the Telegram logo in this picture illustration taken in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

By Ali Abdelaty

CAIRO (Reuters) – Islamic state has told its members to stop using internet-based communication apps like WhatsApp and Telegram on smartphones, suspecting they are being used by the U.S.-led coalition to track and kill its commanders.

Until recently, the hardline group used such apps to chat with members and supporters outside its main areas of control in Syria, Iraq and Libya — including, say French officials, the assailants who staged attacks across Paris a year ago, killing at least 130 people.

A U.S.-led military coalition has been bombing Islamic State positions since 2014, when the group proclaimed a caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Twenty commanders of the group were killed this year, including spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani.

“If you get onto the programs like WhatsApp and Telegram or others from Mosul, and get in touch with a person being tracked, the crusaders will start thinking about you … assessing your importance and identifying the locations of the (Islamic State) centers by following you,” said an article in the group’s weekly newspaper, Al-Naba, published online.

The new instructions came as the group tries to fight off a U.S.-backed offensive on Mosul, its last major stronghold in Iraq, by far the biggest city it controls.

Islamic State members already avoid communicating directly with each other on Twitter, which they used 2-3 years ago to spread their ideology and attract new followers.

The group has used Telegram, a messaging service, but its account has become a lot less active. While Telegram offers private messaging, its main use to Islamic militants has been as a distribution tool to share propaganda with backers to repost on Twitter for the wider world.

Pro-IS sites on Telegram frequently remind readers that Telegram is for sharing messages only among supporters, and “not a media platform for (preaching) to all Muslims and the West”, in other words for recruiting sympathizers to join their cause.

Dozens more alternative messaging apps exist, offering various degrees of anonymity and security, but the phones required to use them are seen as increasingly risky possessions.

Al-Naba called on the militants to shut down their mobile phones before entering any of the group’s bases to avoid exposing them to air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

“Switch off your phone after you finish your communication and beware of the greatest disobedience of all – switching it on when your are in one of the offices,” it said. “As long as it has power, the phone is spying on you.”

In Mosul, Islamic State is cracking down on communication with the outside world to prevent residents from helping the forces advancing on the city, executing people for using mobile phones. Earlier this year, it confiscated satellite dishes to prevent people from seeing the progress made by the Iraqi army.

Islamic State has executed 42 people from local tribes, caught with SIM cards, Iraqi intelligence officers said last month. This could not be independently confirmed.

WhatsApp bars Islamic State supporters for a litany of violations of its terms of service. But identifying violators in private conversations is difficult since the Facebook-owned company implemented strict end-to-end encryption earlier this year.

Telegram, which has a long history of anti-censorship battles with governments around the world, says its policy is to block terrorist channels open to the public, and other illegal public content. Private communications between individuals are not blocked on the service, as these conversations are also encrypted.

Despite the company’s ban, this week pro-Islamic State Telegram channels claimed responsibility for a knife attack at Ohio State University and detailed Islamic State fighters’ plans in the Philippines to expand into southeast Asia.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in Frankfurt; Editing by Maher Chmaytelli and Peter Graff)