What Happens When You Block Your Phone’s Internet Access for 2 Weeks?

What Happens When You Block Your Phone’s Internet Access for 2 Weeks?

Pamela Ferdinand

Blocking the internet on your smartphone for just two weeks can lead to better mood and mental health — and may significantly improve your attention span, even making you feel as if you’re 10 years younger, new research suggests. Those effects continue even after internet access is restored.

The study, published in February in PNAS Nexus, is the first to measure how cutting off mobile phone internet use affects the brain and mood. While the methods differ from clinical psychology studies, a group of U.S. and Canadian researchers from diverse fields says its results are remarkable.

“These results provide causal evidence that blocking mobile internet can improve important psychological outcomes, and suggest that maintaining the status quo of constant connection to the internet may be detrimental to time use, cognitive functioning, and well-being,” the researchers say.

“Despite the many benefits mobile internet offers, reducing the constant connection to the digital world can have large positive effects,” they add.

Key findings of the study include:

• Better mental health: The reduction in depressive symptoms was larger than what’s typically seen with antidepressants and similar to the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy. The researchers asked about symptoms such as “feeling down, depressed, or hopeless,” and “having little pleasure or interest in doing things.”
• Improved attention: Blocking mobile internet use reversed the equivalent of 10 years of typical age-related attention decline, the researchers say. They measured this by giving people a widely-used task in which they had to pay attention to changing images on a screen and react to only certain kinds of images and not others. Sustained attention typically starts to decline a little bit each year after age 40, the researchers say. That means our attention on challenging tasks at age 50 is, on average, worse than it was at age 40.
• Lasting effects: Mental health and well-being continued to improve even after internet access was restored.

“These results show that using smartphones less can improve how we feel and how easily we can focus our attention,” says lead author Noah Castelo, Ph.D., of the University of Alberta in Canada.

“Setting time limits on how long you can use certain apps might help people who feel like their attention is increasingly fragmented.”

The research comes at a time when nearly 90% of American adults own a smartphone, with the average user spending about 4.6 hours daily on their devices, one survey shows.

While other devices like laptops and tablets can also distract, smartphones are especially disruptive due to their constant presence, the researchers say. About 95% of people used their phones during their last social event, far more than with any other digital device.

At the same time, half of U.S. smartphone users — and the majority of those under age 30 — worry that they use their device too much, as evidence grows linking smartphone use to declines in mental health and brain function, including behavioral and cognitive self-control.

Another report published this month indicates that excessive screen time among adolescents negatively impacts multiple aspects of sleep, which in turn increases the risk of depressive symptoms, particularly among girls.

In this study, most — but not all — of the participants felt better after the mobile internet block. About 70% reported improved mental health, 73% experienced greater well-being and roughly 59% showed better focus and attention.

Participants said they spent more time offline, pursued hobbies, went outside and socialized in person. They also consumed less media, exercised more and slept about 18 minutes more each night. Time spent texting or talking online remained unchanged.

Individuals also reported feeling more socially connected, which helped reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. When researchers analyzed the overall effects, they found clear boosts in mood and mental health and smaller but measurable gains in attention.

“These improvements can be partially explained by the intervention’s impact on how people spent their time; when people did not have access to mobile internet, they spent more time socializing in person, exercising, and being in nature,” the researchers say.

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Magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes Ecuador, 20 injured

Magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes Ecuador, 20 injured

Reuters

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck near the coast of Ecuador on Friday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, injuring at least 20 people, damaging buildings in the city of Esmeraldas and temporarily shutting down some oil infrastructure.

The quake struck at a depth of 23 km (14.29 miles), EMSC said, with Ecuadorean authorities ruling out issuing a tsunami warning.

The government said in a report that 20 people were injured and around 135 families were affected by the earthquake. Several public buildings and private homes were damaged, and some areas also experienced power outages.

President Daniel Noboa, in a post on social media platform X, said the government would work to set up shelters, deliver humanitarian aid kits and "assist with everything our people need."

Ecuador's Geophysical Institute, which estimated the quake's magnitude at 6.0, also reported a second earthquake with a magnitude of 4.1 minutes later in the province of Guayas.

6.3 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean rattles Ecuador

The Associated Press 

A strong 6.3 earthquake off Ecuador's Pacific coast shook the northern part of the country Friday, with some initial reports of some damages to houses. No injuries were reported.

The earthquake was centered in the Pacific Ocean 13 miles (20.9 kilometers) northeast of the city of Esmeraldas, and it had a depth of 21.7 miles (35 kilometers), according to the United States Geological Survey. 

Ecuador's risk management office said on X that the earthquake was felt in at least 10 provinces, but it's still monitoring and assessing the situation.

Some local media showed images of Esmeraldas, the coastal town in the Pacific closest to the epicenter, where the facades of some houses suffered damage.

Esmeraldas is more than 183 miles (296 kilometers) northwest of Quito, Ecuador's capital.

Ecuadorean authorities initially issued a tsunami alert for the Pacific coast, but it was cancelled a little later.

India, Pakistan Trade Gunfire & Build-Up Militaries After Kashmir Terror Attack

India, Pakistan Trade Gunfire & Build-Up Militaries After Kashmir Terror Attack

TYLER DURDEN

Tensions between historic nuclear-armed enemies Indian and Pakistan are soaring, with Western officials closely watching amid fears they are barreling toward a new war along the border. The United Nations is desperately urging 'maximum restraint'.

Indian officials have confirmed Friday that Indian and Pakistani soldiers briefly exchanged fire along their highly militarized frontier in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, according to The Associated Press.

Small arms were used by both sides in the gunfight, and no casualties have as of yet been reported, a briefing by an Indian official indicated, in the first such live-fire incident since 2021. It also violates a pledge from the same year for the two nations to observe a ceasefire along the disputed Line of Control between Indian and Pakistani controlled areas of Kashmir.

Widely circulating videos suggest that India has been rushing troops and military equipment to the border in readiness for potential escalation or any scenario.

No details have been issued as to the precise location of the new exchange of gunfire:

Indian army sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that the Pakistani side initiated the shooting. A government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir also confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that troops exchanged fire, but did not say who started the exchange.

“There was no firing on the civilian population,” Syed Ashfaq Gilani, the Pakistani official, told AFP.

A war of words and accusations have broken out between Pakistani and Indian officials after India on Tuesday suffered one of its worst terror attacks in recent years. Islamist gunmen conducted mass killings in a picturesque and tourist-poplar spot in the disputed and Indian-administered region of Kashmir.

26 people were killed, and nearly all of the dead were travelers visiting a popular tourist destination in the Baisaran Valley, which is only accessible by foot or horseback. A huge military rescue operation and search for victims ensued. 

Indian leaders and media have been charging that Pakistan had harbored and backed the militant group that committed the atrocities. But Islamabad has shot back with accusations that India orchestrated a false flag.

Pakistani Defesce Minister Khawaja Asif claimed in a Thursday interview with Al Jazeera that the attack was "orchestrated" and rejected India’s claims that Pakistan was involved.

India is booting out all Pakistanis, canceling their visas and sealing the border, while both sides have effectively closed their airspace to the other. Crucially Indian has also canceled a landmark water treaty which determines usage of several rivers which crisscross both countries.

Indian shares were the worst performers in Asia on Friday amid the soaring tensions...

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The Next Phase of Surveillance? Getting Under Your Skin

The Next Phase of Surveillance? Getting Under Your Skin

Brownstone Institute

Aaron Kheriaty

My friends, let me introduce you to Yuval Noah Harari, a man chock-full of big ideas. He explained during the COVID crisis:

“COVID is critical because this is what convinces people to accept, to legitimize, total biometric surveillance. If we want to stop this epidemic, we need not just to monitor people, we need to monitor what’s happening under their skin.”

In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Harari repeated this idea: “What we have seen so far is corporations and governments collecting data about where we go, who we meet, what movies we watch.

The next phase is the surveillance going under our skin … He likewise told India Today, when commenting on changes accepted by the population during COVID-19:

“We now see mass surveillance systems established even in democratic countries which previously rejected them, and we also see a change in the nature of surveillance. Previously, surveillance was mainly above the skin; now we want it under the skin.

“Governments want to know not just where we go or who we meet. They want to know what’s happening under our skin: what is our body temperature; what is our blood pressure; what is our medical condition?”

Harari is clearly a man who wants to … get under your skin. He just might succeed.

Another recent interview finds him waxing philosophical:

“Now humans are developing even bigger powers than ever before. We are really acquiring divine powers of creation and destruction. We are really upgrading humans into gods. We are acquiring, for instance, the power to re-engineer human life.”

As Kierkegaard once said of Hegel when he talks about the Absolute, when Harari talks about the future, he sounds like he’s going up in a balloon.

Forgive me, but a few last nuggets from professor Harari will round out the picture of his philosophy, and his lofty hopes and dreams:

“Humans are now hackable animals. You know, the whole idea that humans have this soul or spirit, and they have free will and nobody knows what’s happening inside me, so, whatever I choose, whether in the election or in the supermarket, that’s my free will — that’s over.”

Harari explains that to hack human being, you need a lot of computing power and a lot of biometric data, which was not possible until recently with the advent of AI.

In a hundred years, he argues, people will look back and identify the COVID crisis as the moment “when a new regime of surveillance took over, especially surveillance under the skin — which I think is the most important development of the 21st Century, which is this ability to hack human beings.”

People rightly worry that their iPhone or Alexa have become surveillance “listening devices,” and indeed, the microphone can be turned on even when the device is turned off. But imagine a wearable or implantable device that, moment-to-moment, tracks your heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance, uploading that biometric information to the cloud.

Anyone with access to that data could know your exact emotional response to every statement made while you watch a presidential debate. They could gauge your thoughts and feelings about each candidate, about each issue discussed, even if you never spoke a word.

I could go on with more quotes from professor Harari about hacking the human body, but you get the picture. At this point, you may be tempted to dismiss Harari as nothing more than an overheated, sci-fi-obsessed village atheist.

After years binging on science fiction novels, the balloon of his imagination now perpetually floats up somewhere above the ether. Why should we pay any heed to this man’s prognostications and prophesies?

It turns out that Harari is a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His bestselling books have sold over 20 million copies worldwide, which is no small shake.

More importantly, he is one of the darlings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and a key architect of their agenda. In 2018, his lecture at the WEF, “Will the Future Be Human?” was sandwiched between addresses from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. So he’s playing in the sandbox with the big dogs.

In his WEF lecture, Harari explained that in the coming generations, we will “learn how to engineer bodies and brains and minds,” such that these will become “the main products of the 21st Century economy: not textiles and vehicles and weapons, but bodies and brains and minds.”

The few masters of the economy, he explains, will be the people who own and control data: “Today, data is the most important asset in the world,” in contrast to ancient times when land was the most important asset, or the industrial age when machines were paramount.

WEF kingpin Klaus Schwab echoed Harari’s ideas when he explained: “One of the features of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that it doesn’t change what we are doing; it changes us,” through gene editing and other biotechnological tools that operate under our skin.

Even the dreamy-eyed Harari admits there are some potential dangers with these developments: “If too much data is concentrated in too few hands, humanity will split not into classes but into two different species.”

The WEF made waves a few years back by posting on their website the slogan, “You will own nothing. And you will be happy.”

Although the page was later deleted, the indelible impression remained: it provided a clear and simple description of the future envisioned by Davos Man. As the WEF savants predict, at the last stage of this development, we will find ourselves in a rent-only/subscription-only economy, where nothing really belongs to us. Picture the Uberization of everything.

The prophetic Aldous Huxley foresaw this “Brave New World” in his 1932 novel. These changes will challenge not only our political, economic, and medical institutions and structures; they will challenge our notions of what it means to be human. This is precisely what its advocates celebrate, as we will see in a moment.

Corporatist arrangements of public-private partnerships, which merge state and corporate power, are well suited for carrying out the necessary convergence of existing and emerging fields.

This biological-digital convergence envisioned by the WEF and its members will blend big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, genetics, nanotechnology and robotics.

Schwab refers to this as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will follow and build upon the first three — mechanical, electrical and digital. The transhumanists — who we will meet in a moment — have been dreaming of just such a merging of the physical, digital and biological worlds for at least a few decades. Now, however, their visions are poised to become our reality.

Mechanisms of control

The next steps in hacking human beings will involve attempted rollouts — which we should vigorously resist — of digital IDs, tied to fingerprints and other biometric data like iris scans or face IDs, demographic information, medical records, data on education, travel, financial transactions and bank accounts.

These will be combined with central bank digital currencies, giving governments surveillance power and control over every one of your financial transactions, with the ability to lock you out of the market if you do not comply with government directives.

Using biometrics for everyday transactions routinizes these technologies. We are conditioning children to accept biometric verification as a matter of course. For example, face IDs are now used in multiple school districts to expedite the movement of students through school lunch lines.

Until recently, biometrics such as fingerprints were used only for high-security purposes — when charging someone with a crime, for example, or when notarizing an important document.

Today, routine biometric verification for repetitive activities from mobile phones to lunch lines gets young people used to the idea that their bodies are tools used in transactions. We are instrumentalizing the body in unconscious and subtle, but nonetheless powerful, ways.

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Powerful volcanic eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka blankets villages with ash

Powerful volcanic eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka blankets villages with ash

strange sounds

Volcanic ashfall from an eruption of Bezymianny Volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula has blanketed three villages in the Milkovo District, local emergency services said on Thursday.

Volcanic ash is currently falling in three villages from emissions from Bezymianny Volcano, the regional branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said on its Telegram channel, News.Az reports, citing Xinhua.

“While the livelihoods of residents have not been disrupted, emergency services strongly advise people to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary,” it added.

The Far Eastern Branch of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Russian Academy of Sciences has modeled the projected path of the ash cloud. Their data indicate that volcanic particles are drifting toward another settlement, the village of Kozyrevsk in the Ust-Kamchatsky District.

The Bezymyanny volcano has emitted an ash column for the fifth time in 24 hours, with the latest plume rising 11 km above sea level. As a result, the aviation color code has been raised to “red,” meaning a significant threat to all types of aircraft.

Bezymianny Volcano is situated about 40 km from the village of Klyuchi and 350 km from the regional capital city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

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