New smartphone use cases keep popping up, while calls for digital boundaries get louder. As Danny Boyle is celebrated for shooting an entire film on an iPhone, health bodies push back on patients filming during procedures, and Sabrina Carpenter is seriously considering banning phones at her concerts.
Scroll down to read about men’s book clubs, magic mushrooms, and mental load in the workplace.
Stats to power your week
✈️ Anti-tourism protests are growing across Europe, but are vacationers listening? While 35% of international vacation planners say they care about the impact of tourism on local communities, less (16%) say this is important when picking a destination. Good intentions rarely have a smooth landing. GWI Travel
🥵 A popular Oxford dog show recently got called off due to scorching weather, but as it turns out, nearly half of attendees probably would’ve skipped it anyway. 44% of US/UK consumers say they’d cancel attending an outdoor event they were interested in if it was extremely hot. So, organizers have to find ways to beat the heat - or lose the crowd. GWI Zeitgeist
🤖 The backlash against “AI slop” is loud among some online communities, but quieter on certain feeds. 41% of Reddit users say they’d like content less if they found out it was made with AI, compared to 31% of TikTokers. While Reddit’s CEO vows that the app will “stay human”, TikTok’s culture of remixing and experimentation means its users are more open to machine-made creativity. GWI Zeitgeist
👦 Now all the initial excitement has died down, we have the real story on how parents responded to Adolescence. 36% of those who’ve seen the show have had more open conversations about their child’s screen habits. A smaller number have become stricter about usage (25%) or taken away their phones (8%). GWI Zeitgeist
🩺 Covid created massive hospital backlogs, boosting demand for private healthcare. Since 2021, there’s been a 32% rise in Brits saying they’ve bought health insurance in the last 6 months, and a recent peak in business professionals saying their company offers it. According to private healthcare analysts LaingBuisson, the number of Brits who are privately covered has reached record highs. GWI Core/Work
What’s on our radar
As Canadians’ interest in visiting America plummets, the US travel industry has launched a charm offensive to woo its neighbors south, including Canadian-only deals for everything from cheap hotels to pizza discounts.
At Cannes, TikTok unveiled AI-powered tools that generate video ads from text or photos. Meanwhile, Meta launched a volley of new AI features, including the automated personalization of ad copy for different audiences, in ten languages.
Despite all the hype around emotional support bots, Anthropic found only 2.9% of Claude interactions are for “affective use”. Meanwhile, a different kind of aid shows real promise: psilocybin, a psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, can alleviate depression for five years after just one dose, new research reveals.
At a time of widespread public anxiety about the decline in boys’ reading and the rise of the toxic “manosphere” influencers, books addressing male friendship and masculinity were front and centre on the shortlist for this year’s Carnegie medals for children’s writing. Meanwhile, men’s book clubs are doing their best to lure men back to novels.
AI copyright disputes have escalated, with a judge ruling for Meta Platforms, and against a group of authors, over whether the former infringed on the latter’s rights. Udio and Suno (AI music tools) are also currently in a legal battle with record labels.
Chart of the week
The share of Democrat voters expecting the economy to get better in the near future tripled between late 2020 and mid 2021, shortly after Biden was elected, before plummeting to an all-time low after Trump’s re-election. The opposite is true among Republican voters.
This offers a good reality check: economics is psychology in disguise. The best GDP growth in the world won’t open wallets if voters feel pessimistic, while terrible economic indicators won’t stop spending if people believe things are improving. Perception drives behavior, not statistics.
🔥 Hot take
Punchy perspectives, with data that nudges the narrative
“Entry level workers are more stressed out than CEOs”
The bigger the role, the bigger the burnout... or so you’d think? Turns out, junior staff are 23% more likely to feel overworked than executive managers. And that’s been the case for a while now. A 1960s study into stress-related illnesses found that UK civil servants in lower grades had higher cortisol levels and took more sick days than senior colleagues.
It’s not just workload that causes burnout - it’s how much control you have over that workload. If junior staff feel powerless over their time and tasks, their mental load gets heavier. More autonomy, flexibility, and a voice in decision making could take some weight off their shoulders.
