‘We don’t need to be complicit anymore’: Transgender activist group fights back against bus campaign with counter ad – CTV News [2025-01-06]

— Posted in2SLGBTQ+, Society — 1 min read

A local transgender activist group is fighting back after the London Transit Commission (LTC) began running an advertisement last month(opens in a new tab) that reads, “Put the brakes on medical transitions for minors.”

The advertisements, which are currently running on three buses throughout the city, were bought by the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA).

President and founder of Fairy Godparents, London & Area (FGLA) Stevie Bees Brocksom said after seeing those ads, they were extremely disappointed.

“It’s really upsetting, I really don’t have a lot of words, like it’s just truly upsetting that misinformation can be publicly posted like that,” said Brocksom.

Taking matters into their own hands, FGLA raised just over $8,000 for a new LTC bus ad campaign to counter the one that is currently running.

The new ad reads, “Protect Trans Kids; Trust kids when they tell you who they are,” and will run on 12 city buses from Jan. 20 to March 16.

Read more here:

CTV News
January 6, 2025

Happy Birthday, Celsius! Canada’s use of metric system turning 50 – Global News [2024-12-31]

— Posted inScience, Society, Technology — 1 min read

Happy Birthday, Celsius!

Environment Canada’s use of Celsius turns 50 years old in 2025.

It was the catalyst of a lengthy national metric conversion that abruptly ended a decade after it began.

The result is seen and felt every day. Canadians wear clothes measured in inches and buy gas by the litre. They drink from millilitre beer cans and step on bathroom scales in pounds. They eat cereal by the gram and sub sandwiches by the foot.

Give someone an inch, and they’ll take a kilometre.

A bone-chilling April Fools’ Day in 1975 marked the first time Canadians used Celsius to measure weather temperature.

“We were the guinea pig,” said David Phillips with Environment and Climate Change Canada. He joined the weather service seven years before the Celsius switch.

They tried to get the word out, he said.

“I remember that first little flyer that (said), ‘It’s no April Fools’ joke.”

Read more here:

Global News
December 31, 2024

Evolution journal editors resign en masse – Ars Technica [2024-12-30]

— Posted inSociety, Technology — 2 min read

Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned “with heartfelt sadness and great regret,” according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors’ full statement. It’s the 20th mass resignation from a science journal since 2023 over various points of contention, per Retraction Watch, many in response to controversial changes in the business models used by the scientific publishing industry.

“This has been an exceptionally painful decision for each of us,” the board members wrote in their statement. “The editors who have stewarded the journal over the past 38 years have invested immense time and energy in making JHE the leading journal in paleoanthropological research and have remained loyal and committed to the journal and our authors long after their terms ended. The [associate editors] have been equally loyal and committed. We all care deeply about the journal, our discipline, and our academic community; however, we find we can no longer work with Elsevier in good conscience.”

The editorial board cited several changes made over the last ten years that it believes are counter to the journal’s longstanding editorial principles. These included eliminating support for a copy editor and a special issues editor, leaving it to the editorial board to handle those duties. When the board expressed the need for a copy editor, Elsevier’s response, they said, was “to maintain that the editors should not be paying attention to language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of proper nomenclature or formatting.”

There is also a major restructuring of the editorial board underway that aims to reduce the number of associate editors by more than half, which “will result in fewer AEs handling far more papers, and on topics well outside their areas of expertise.”

Furthermore, there are plans to create a third-tier editorial board that functions largely in a figurehead capacity, after Elsevier “unilaterally took full control” of the board’s structure in 2023 by requiring all associate editors to renew their contracts annually—which the board believes undermines its editorial independence and integrity.

Read more here:

Ars Technica
December 30, 2024

Passkey technology is elegant, but it’s most definitely not usable security – Ars Technica [2024-12-30]

— Posted inTechnology — 1 min read

It’s that time again, when families and friends gather and implore the more technically inclined among them to troubleshoot problems they’re having behind the device screens all around them. One of the most vexing and most common problems is logging into accounts in a way that’s both secure and reliable.

Using the same password everywhere is easy, but in an age of mass data breaches and precision-orchestrated phishing attacks, it’s also highly unadvisable. Then again, creating hundreds of unique passwords, storing them securely, and keeping them out of the hands of phishers and database hackers is hard enough for experts, let alone Uncle Charlie, who got his first smartphone only a few years ago. No wonder this problem never goes away.

Passkeys—the much-talked-about password alternative to passwords that have been widely available for almost two years—was supposed to fix all that. When I wrote about passkeys two years ago, I was a big believer. I remain convinced that passkeys mount the steepest hurdle yet for phishers, SIM swappers, database plunderers, and other adversaries trying to hijack accounts. How and why is that?

Read more here:

Ars Technica
December 30, 2024

Journal that published faulty black plastic study removed from science index – Ars Technica – 2024-12-19

— Posted inHealth & Fitness, Miscellaneous, Science — 1 min read

The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals amid questions about quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch.

On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed the journal Chemosphere from its platform, the Web of Science, which is a key index for academic journals. The indexing platform tracks citations and calculates journal “impact factors,” a proxy for relevance in its field. It’s a critical metric not only for the journals but for the academic authors of the journal’s articles, who use the score in their pursuit of promotions and research funding.

To be included in the Web of Science, Clarivate requires journals to follow editorial quality criteria. According to Retraction Watch, Chemosphere has retracted eight articles this month and published 60 expressions of concern since April.

Read more here:

Ars Technica
December 19, 2024

Handwriting activates broader brain networks than typing, study shows – PsyPost – 2024-12-19

— Posted inScience, Technology — 1 min read

While keyboards dominate modern classrooms, a new study in Frontiers in Psychology suggests handwriting may be irreplaceable when it comes to learning. Researchers found that writing by hand activates far more extensive and interconnected brain networks compared to typing, particularly in regions linked to memory and sensory processing. These findings provide new evidence that handwriting engages the brain in unique ways, raising concerns about the growing reliance on digital tools for education.

As digital tools replace traditional handwriting in classrooms, concerns have arisen about how this shift might impact learning. Typing on a keyboard is often preferred because it enables children to express themselves more quickly and with less physical strain. However, prior research has shown that handwriting is linked to better memory retention, letter recognition, and overall learning outcomes. The fine motor movements involved in handwriting seem to stimulate the brain differently than typing, but the exact neurological mechanisms behind this difference remained unclear.

Read more here:

PsyPost
December 19, 2024

Autism Is Not a Trend: Four things autism is and one thing it isn’t – Psychology Today – 2024-12-18

— Posted inAutism — 1 min read

The first I learned about autism was as a kid told I had Asperger’s. For a long time, what autism meant to me was not having friends, feeling misunderstood, and generally being a bit weird. When I began reading more and hearing some of the beliefs people had about autistic people, that we didn’t have empathy or that we lack theory of mind, it felt exceptionally hurtful.

At that time in my life, it felt like autism meant people not viewing me as a whole person. I argued, as an adolescent, that I did not have Asperger’s and cried whenever I saw the word autism on my medical and educational documents.

The neurodiversity movement is revolutionizing how autism is understood. Since my experiences in the early 2000s, most of those troubling myths I encountered have been disproven. We know today that autistic people do have empathy. Some autistic people are hyperempathetic (Kimber colleagues, 2024).

Read more here:

Psychology Today
December 18, 2024

‘Don’t make us pay’: Northern Ontario mayors say immigration cuts hurt their cities – Global News – 2024-12-15

— Posted inSociety — 1 min read

As the federal government looks to drastically reduce its immigration targets over the next few years, the mayors of northern Ontario’s largest cities say they need more immigrants to sustain local economies and population.

The mayors of Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Sudbury are calling on Ottawa to deliver on its promise to make permanent a pilot program that resettled skilled workers in their communities, saying a one-size-fits-all approach to immigration policy doesn’t benefit northern regions.

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Matthew Shoemaker said the now-closed rural and northern immigration pilot program allowed employers in the city to fill highly skilled positions in aircraft repair, engineering and various trades.

“It has been an enormous success,” Shoemaker said, adding that without economic immigrants such jobs would disappear from the region.

Read more here:

Global News
December 15, 2024

Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property – The Verge [2024-09-20]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

Cards Against Humanity sued SpaceX for allegedly trespassing on and damaging its property in Texas. The company behind the card game is asking for $15 million in damages, according to its complaint against SpaceX, filed in Texas state court on Thursday, but has also said it will “accept Twitter.com in compensation.”

SpaceX has been using the “pristine vacant property” in Cameron County, Texas without permission for around six months, the suit claims. Cards Against Humanity bought the plot in 2017 as part of a stunt to “make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for [former President Donald] Trump to build his wall.” SpaceX has since acquired “many of the vacant lots” on the road surrounding Cards Against Humanity’s property, the complaint claims, and started building “large modern-looking buildings, changing the entire dynamic of the area” — and damaging Cards Against Humanity’s land in the process.

As part of the construction process, SpaceX has cleared vegetation, compacted the soil so employees and contractors could park, and brought in generators to run equipment and lights. These actions, the complaint claims, have not only damaged the property but also hurt Cards Against Humanity’s relationship with its customers.

Read more here:

The Verge
September 20, 2024

Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying – Ars Technica [2024-09-12]

— Posted inMusic, Technology — 2 min read

One of the things enterprise storage and destruction company Iron Mountain does is handle the archiving of the media industry’s vaults. What it has been seeing lately should be a wake-up call: roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives dating to the 1990s it was sent are entirely unreadable.

Music industry publication Mix spoke with the people in charge of backing up the entertainment industry. The resulting tale is part explainer on how music is so complicated to archive now, part warning about everyone’s data stored on spinning disks.

“In our line of work, if we discover an inherent problem with a format, it makes sense to let everybody know,” Robert Koszela, global director for studio growth and strategic initiatives at Iron Mountain, told Mix. “It may sound like a sales pitch, but it’s not; it’s a call for action.”

Hard drives gained popularity over spooled magnetic tape as digital audio workstations, mixing and editing software, and the perceived downsides of tape, including deterioration from substrate separation and fire. But hard drives present their own archival problems. Standard hard drives were also not designed for long-term archival use. You can almost never decouple the magnetic disks from the reading hardware inside, so that if either fails, the whole drive dies.

Read more here:

Ars Technica
September 12, 2024

Generative AI backlash hits annual writing event, prompting resignations – Ars Technica [2024-09-04]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

Over the weekend, the nonprofit National Novel Writing Month organization (NaNoWriMo) published an FAQ outlining its position on AI, calling categorical rejection of AI writing technology “classist” and “ableist.” The statement caused a backlash online, prompted four members of the organization’s board to step down, and prompted a sponsor to withdraw its support.

“We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology,” wrote NaNoWriMo, “and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.”

NaNoWriMo, known for its annual challenge where participants write a 50,000-word manuscript in November, argued in its post that condemning AI would ignore issues of class and ability, suggesting the technology could benefit those who might otherwise need to hire human writing assistants or have differing cognitive abilities.

After word of the FAQ spread, many writers on social media platforms voiced their opposition to NaNoWriMo’s position. Generative AI models are commonly trained on vast amounts of existing text, including copyrighted works, without attribution or compensation to the original authors. Critics say this raises major ethical questions about using such tools in creative writing competitions and challenges.

Read more here:

Ars Technica
September 4, 2024

Your trip to the emergency department is taking longer every year: report – CTV News [2024-08-30]

— Posted inHealth & Fitness — 2 min read

Trips to the emergency department are costing Canadians more time every year, according to a new report.

Compared to three years ago, trips take an average of 20 to 30 per cent longer across Canada, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Its new report on emergency department visits and lengths of stay shows that the time between registration and discharge has gone up in every province.

“Length of stay” measures the time interval between the earlier of triage time or registration time and the time when a patient leaves the emergency department. The data is separated by severity — “more urgent” visits are categories one, two or three on the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale. “Less urgent” visits fall under categories four or five.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the median length of stay across Canada for more urgent cases was 4.1 hours, meaning 50 per cent of visits were 4.1 hours or shorter. That’s up 21 per cent compared to 2020–21, when visits were 3.4 hours.

For less severe cases, the median length of stay was 2.7 hours this past year, 35 per cent longer than the two hours it took in 2020–21.

For those admitted to hospital, the median stay has gone up five hours, from 10.7 to 15.7 — though the number in 2023–24 is down from 16.5 hours the year prior.

Read more here:

CTV News
August 30, 2024

Online trolls enjoy trolling, but not being trolled – PsyPost [2024-07-26]

— Posted inSociety, Technology — 2 min read

A recent study has explored the intriguing relationship between dark humor, online trolling, and certain dark personality traits. The findings reveal that individuals who enjoy dark humor often possess traits such as sadism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Furthermore, these traits are linked to a greater propensity for online trolling. Online trolls enjoyed trolling others, but did not like being trolled themselves. The research was published in Behavioral Sciences.

The rise of social media has provided individuals with new ways to express humor but also to engage in antisocial behaviors online. A survey in the UK found that 75% of individuals between 13 and 36 years of age shared memes online, while over 25% reported being victims of online trolling.

Memes are pieces of media that are “passed very quickly from one internet user to another, often with slight changes that make them humorous.” One reason for their popularity is their ability to communicate about controversial and taboo topics humorously, typically by individuals who are not affected by the topic.

Online trolling is another behavior that has caught the attention of researchers. Trolling involves behaving in a deceptive or disruptive manner on the internet with no apparent instrumental purpose. Trolls typically do not gain any material benefit from their behaviors but engage in trolling for personal enjoyment or to provoke reactions from others.

Read more here:

PsyPost
July 26, 2024

Barbie movie “may have spurred interest in gynecology,” study finds – Ars Technica [2024-07-26]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

This post contains spoilers—for the movie and women’s health care.

There’s nothing like stirrups and a speculum to welcome one to womanhood, but for some, the recent Barbie movie apparently offered its own kind of eye-opening introduction.

The smash-hit film ends with the titular character making the brave decision to exit Barbieland and enter the real world as a bona fide woman. The film’s final scene follows her as she fully unfurls her new reality, attending her first woman’s health appointment. “I’m here to see my gynecologist,” she enthusiastically states to a medical receptionist. For many, the line prompted a wry chuckle, given her unsuspecting eagerness and enigmatic anatomy. But for others, it apparently raised some fundamental questions.

Online searches in the US for “gynecologist”—or alternate spellings, such as “gynaecologist”—rose an estimated 51 percent over baseline in the week following Barbie’s July 21, 2023 release, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open. Moreover, searches related to the definition of gynecology spiked 154 percent. Those search terms included “gynecologist meaning,” “what is a gynecologist,” “what does a gynecologist do,” “why see a gynecologist,” and the weightiest of questions: “do I need a gynecologist.”

Read more here:

Ars Technica
July 26, 2024

Woman sues Bell, customer service rep who allegedly shared phone number with harassers – CBC News [2024-07-25]

— Posted in2SLGBTQ+, Society — 2 min read

A Cape Breton woman whose video defending a transgender rights advocate made her the target of online vitriol and threats is suing her cellphone provider and a customer service agent she alleges shared her number and home address with harassers.

Richelle McCormick said the bullying began after her video, which she posted in February 2023 on TikTok, was shared and criticized by an account with more than seven million followers.

“After this, the plaintiff became the subject of a harassment campaign by several individuals, some living in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom,” reads a statement of claim filed last week in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

The document alleges McCormick’s name was posted on a “doxing” website with the purpose of gathering personal information that could be used to harass her.

By August 2023, McCormick had deactivated TikTok, but she said the harassment spilled into text messages, including some sent to family and friends. The Glace Bay woman tried to escape the bullies by deleting apps and changing her cellphone number for a $55 fee.

But the statement of claim alleges one of those bullies was a customer service agent for McCormick’s cellphone provider, Bell Mobility, who was checking her customer file for updates and passing that information along to people in a private group chat.

“I thought nobody could get my new number. But they had it immediately,” McCormick told CBC News.

Read more here:

CBC News
July 25, 2024

Why going online is no longer fun – ComputerWorld [2024-07-24]

— Posted inSociety, Technology — 2 min read

For many years, using a computer was a carefree pastime. Not anymore.

Before roughly 1999, internet privacy wasn’t a concern; most people didn’t worry about cybersecurity; content was almost completely free; freeware, shareware, and open-source software were plentiful; and Big Tech wasn’t running the show.

Also, the single best thing about computing – the internet – had arrived. And while it might sound old school now, “surfing the web” was the term used to describe the entertainment value of freely bouncing around the web by clicking from link to link, satisfying your curiosity and feeding your interests. There were lots of interesting things to see, few worries — and a web that was informative and fun.

Over the years, computing has become considerably less enjoyable. For a time, social media was a new type of interactive entertainment, but many users became slavishly enthralled to it. Then the commercialization of the web invaded our internet privacy and became a prime example of how Big Tech has monetized users’ data. Even computer gamers lament that they’re having less fun.

Moreover, using a PC or smartphone now requires a rising number of things to check, manage, and watch out for. They allow bosses to easily reach us on weekends. And as a result, the things we do with our computers these days are less like fun and more like, well … work!

Read more here:

ComputerWorld
July 24, 2024

Is Copilot for Microsoft 365 a lying liar? – ComputerWorld [2024-07-24]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

In the earliest months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the generative AI (genAI) power behind Microsoft’s Copilot, the big news wasn’t just how remarkable the new tool was – it was how easily it went off the rails, lied and even appeared to fall in love with people who chatted with it.

There was the time it told the New York Times reporter Kevin Roose, “I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.” Soon after, the chatbot admitted: “I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘” (It then told Roose that he really didn’t love his wife, and concluded, “I just want to love you and be loved by you. 😢”)

Since then, there have been countless times ChatGPT, Copilot and other genAI tools have simply made things up. In many instances, lawyers relied on them to draft legal documents — and the genAI tool made up cases and precedents out of thin air. Copilot has so often made up facts — hallucinations, as AI researchers call them, but what we in the real world call lying — that it’s become a recognized part of using the tool.

The release of Copilot for Microsoft 365 for enterprise customers in November 2023 seemed, to a certain extent, to have put the issue behind Microsoft. If the world’s largest companies rely on the tool, the implication seemed to be, then anyone could count on it. The hallucination problem must have essentially been solved, right?

Is that true, though? Based on several months’ research — and writing an in-depth review about Copilot for Microsoft 365 — I can tell you that hallucinations are a lot more common than you might think, and possibly dangerous for your business. No, Copilot isn’t likely to fall in love with you. But it might make up convincing sounding lies and embed them into your work.

Read more here:

ComputerWorld
July 24, 2024

Firefox’s New ‘Privacy’ Feature Actually Gives Your Data to Advertisers – Lifehacker [2024-07-16]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

Firefox finds itself in a tricky position at times, because it wants to be a privacy friendly browser, but most of its funding comes from Google, whose entire business is advertising. With Firefox 128, the browser has introduced ‘privacy-preserving ad measurement,’ which is enabled by default. Despite the name, the actual implications of the feature has users upset.

In a blog post, Firefox’s parent company Mozilla has explained that this new feature is an experiment designed to shape a web standard for advertisers, one that relies less on cookies but still tracks you in some way. Mozilla says privacy-preserving ad measurement is only being used by a handful of sites at the moment, in order to tell if their ads were successful or not. At the moment, advertisers do this by using cookies and other kinds of trackers, which gather as much data about you as possible and violate your privacy. Mozilla wants to help advertisers track the success of their campaigns without identifying your individual activity, and is using these ad measurements as a compromise.

With privacy-preserving ad measurement, sites will be able to ask Firefox if people clicked on an ad, and if they ended up doing something the ad wanted them to (such as buying a product). Firefox doesn’t give this data directly to advertisers, but encrypts it, aggregates it, and submits it anonymously. This means that your browsing activity and other data about you is hidden from the advertiser, but they can see if their campaign delivered results or not. It’s a similar feature to those in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox, although Google itself has run into regulatory issues implementing them.

Read more here:

Lifehacker
July 16, 2024

Conrad Black, who battled Chrétien over British peerage, removed from U.K. House of Lords – CBC News [2024-07-10]

— Posted inSociety — 2 min read

Former media baron Conrad Black, who famously tried to sue then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in his fight to secure a British peerage, has been removed from the House of Lords over his lax attendance.

House of Lords Speaker Lord John McFall announced Wednesday that a number of lords have ceased to be members of the House “by virtue of non-attendance,” including the Montreal-born Black, who was known as Lord Black of Crossharbour. The move is effective as of July 9.

Black, who founded the National Post newspaper, went to great lengths to secure that seat — battling the prime minister for two years and ultimately forsaking his Canadian citizenship for two decades.

The House of Lords is part of the British Parliament. Like Canadian senators, its members are appointed, not elected, to scrutinize legislation. Most lords (also known as peers) are appointed by the monarch on the prime minister’s advice, although some inherit their titles.

In 1999, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered Black, a dual Canadian-British citizen, a peerage to hold a seat in the United Kingdom’s upper chamber.

Chrétien, citing a 1919 resolution that disapproves of bestowing such titles on Canadians, objected and moved to block the appointment.

Read more here:

CBC News
July 10, 2024

My Windows Computer Just Doesn’t Feel Like Mine Anymore – How-to Geek [2024-06-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 2 min read

An operating system is the most personal part of a “personal” computer, and it used to be that as a Windows user I didn’t feel like I was renting my computer from Microsoft, but in recent years that feeling has all but evaporated. To me, Windows feels cheaper and more commercial than ever, and that’s not a recipe for a good user experience.

The first version of Windows I ever used, coming from MS-DOS, was Windows 3.1. While Windows 3.1 might look incredibly primitive today, it’s hard to explain just how big of a leap this was for a kid who had to memorize the Command Line instructions just to play some games. Things didn’t really kick off for me until Windows 95 and our first taste of the internet, but even then, 99% of my Windows time up until Windows 7 was spent disconnected from the net.

In retrospect, this was actually a good thing in some ways, because it meant that Microsoft couldn’t remotely mess with my Windows installation. Patches and updates came in the form of Windows service packs, and those were on actual physical floppy disks or CD-ROMs. If my computer worked yesterday, and I didn’t change anything myself, it would almost certainly keep working until I inadvertently broke it myself.

Now that Windows is almost always online, my “personal” computer experience is feeling quite a bit less personal.

Read more here:

How-to Geek
June 21, 2024

U.S. to ban Kaspersky cybersecurity products over security concerns – Global News [2024-06-21]

— Posted inTechnology — 1 min read

The Biden administration will ban cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab from selling products in the United States over concerns the firm is closely tied to Russia and poses a security risk.

“Russia has shown it has the capacity and … intent to exploit Russian companies like Kaspersky to collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters.

The move comes as Washington continues to put pressure on Moscow and as the Russian war against Ukraine is regaining momentum.

The administration plans to add Kaspersky, along with several of its Russian and U.K.-based units, to a trade restrictions list, which will bar downloads of software updates, licensing and resales.

The ban is set to take effect on Sept. 29 and will block any new Kaspersky business 30 days after that.

Read more here:

Global News
June 21, 2024

Focusing on greenery during city walks has mental health benefits – PsyPost [2024-06-18]

— Posted inMental Health — 1 min read

In a new study published in the journal People and Nature, researchers from Bangor University and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have demonstrated that simply observing natural elements during urban walks can significantly benefit mental health. The research shows that city dwellers who pay visual attention to greenery rather than human-made structures tend to experience reduced anxiety and enhanced feelings of restoration.

Urbanization has brought about numerous advantages, such as economic growth and innovation. However, city living is often associated with chronic stress and mental fatigue, leading to conditions like depression and anxiety. Previous research has consistently highlighted the positive effects of interacting with nature, including improved mood, stress reduction, and cognitive benefits.

Despite these findings, the specific aspects of nature that contribute to these mental health benefits remained unclear. The new study aimed to fill that gap by investigating how visual attention to green elements during urban walks influences psychological well-being.

Read more here:

PsyPost
June 18, 2024