Sleep & development

People are taking an unapproved weight-loss drug. AI found something surprising

Too tired to be judged by humans?

Across four experiments, greater social jet lag was linked to stronger preference for AI evaluators, largely through social anxiety — and the effect depended on whether AI was framed as neutral.

When the attention economy becomes a child-safety problem

A documentary follows Kristin Bride’s campaign after her son’s death, placing cyberbullying, persuasive platform design and the business model of attention inside the same child-safety argument.

Can machine learning spot student distress in wartime?

A study of 225 university students in Lebanon tested whether machine-learning models could identify depression, anxiety and stress during the 2024 war — with promising internal performance and a clear need for independent validation.

What age gates can — and cannot — fix about social media

Australia’s under-16 restrictions are reducing account ownership for some young users, but workarounds and privacy trade-offs show why prohibition alone cannot solve the design problem.

The age a model assigns you

When software estimates how fast a brain is ageing, a private process becomes a score. Identity and threat follow the number — not, automatically, the tissue.

Sleep that does not have to be earned

A wearable that shifts REM without a pill is a real, early result. What it is not, yet, is a new moral of the night.

The classroom without a pocket

Phone bans are not a morality play. They are a mixed empirical literature about attention, equity, and what a developing control system is asked to practise.

Notification debt: the invisible cognitive tax

Every unread badge is a half-open loop. The cost is not the glance. It is the residue in working memory.

Screens and teenage sleep: what the mixed science actually says

Public debate treats “screen time” as one exposure. The literature is more granular — evening light, interruption, and displaced opportunity — and still serious enough for design.

Why video calls drain social attention faster than rooms do

Back-to-back video days often feel heavier than rooms. A theoretical account names the load. It is not a universal law of the medium.