I teach a course on the relationship between social media and society at Durham College. As part of their assessments, I ask my students to reflect on their social media use. A recurring theme is that they cannot be separated from their smartphones. Many admit to spending significant time daily on social media watching short videos without […] … learn more→

It all begins innocently – a late-night peek at your favourite social media site before bed. You catch a headline that grabs your attention with “breaking news” you can’t afford to miss. Like following digital breadcrumbs, one click leads to another. Before you know it, you’re tumbling down a rabbit hole of endless updates and […] … learn more→

During a long holiday period like the one we just went through, many parents spend more time with their teenagers and monitor their screen time in the hope that they will get outside. They will be keeping an eye on one type of behavior in particular: time spent scrolling . In particular, doomscrolling , which involves scrolling endlessly across […] … learn more→

Imagine attending a funeral where the person who has died speaks directly to you, answering your questions and sharing memories. This happened at the funeral of Marina Smith, a Holocaust educator who died in 2022. Thanks to an AI technology company called StoryFile, Smith seemed to interact naturally with her family and friends. The system used prerecorded […] … learn more→

We all have different ways of understanding and processing information and, beyond our intellectual capacity, people develop executive skills from childhood that allow us to adapt to the environment. These are the skills that come into play when we learn. In fact, learning styles and executive functions are intrinsically related, as both influence how people […] … learn more→

Title of course: “Economic Realities of the American Dream” What prompted the idea for the course? One of us – Steve Fazzari – was trained as an economist, and the other – Mark Rank – as a sociologist. We’ve shared scholarly interests over the years as colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis. But our teaching partnership really began […] … learn more→

In the context of competent digital citizenship, it is essential to understand how young people consume news and the degree of trust they place in sources in order to act critically and responsibly in the abundant flow of information on the networks. A recent study published in Media & Journalism , based on data from more than […] … learn more→

We all know that time seems to pass at different speeds in different situations. For example, time appears to go slowly when we travel to unfamiliar places. A week in a foreign country seems much longer than week at home. Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored, or in pain. It seems […] … learn more→

The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42% in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers, according to research by The Reading Agency. But what are the implications? Will people’s […] … learn more→

Could a cyclist’s seat pad determine his performance? Enough to win a Tour and exponentially improve his sporting results? The answer is yes, if this tiny change is combined with many others, such as redesigning the seats, applying alcohol to the wheels to increase their traction, using tights with electrical heating systems to maintain ideal […] … learn more→