Modern Life
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Why Long-Form Articles Matter in a Soundbite World
I was recently asked “Why Are Your Articles So Long?” It’s a blooming good question. Short answer: because they need to be. I research. Properly. I don’t throw half-baked opinions into the void and call it content. I build context, ask awkward questions, dig for angles that don’t fit the usual narrative, and refuse to…
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Why I Don’t Watch Porn and Feel Fine About It
Around 80 percent of men consume online pornography. I haven’t looked at it in decades – not from moral outrage, not from purity, just because somewhere along the way it stopped meaning anything. This is a personal account of what that position actually feels like, what it costs, and why awareness changes more than just…
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Webcams With Wandering Backgrounds Are Utter Nonsense
Somewhere in a meeting room, a group of very pleased-with-themselves tech people decided that what video calls really needed was a camera that stalks your face around the frame like a budget Spielberg shot. Auto-framing, eye-tracking, magical “keep you in the centre” nonsense. Clever demo. Terrible experience. The sort of distracting and annoying thing that…
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The Social Media Paradox – What Happened to Reciprocity?
What happened to “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”? For over six years I’ve been running a local community website, Facebook page and Facebook Group with over 12,000 people. In that time I’ve quietly promoted countless local businesses. Loads of them. Most I’ve never met. Most don’t even know I exist because I do…
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AI Dog vs Helpless Human – Who’s Really Smarter?
Your dog is ace. I know it. Our dog is. All dogs are. All animals are. Your dog is an incredibly loving automation system. Oh, did I say automation? Yes. I did. They are aren’t they? Fully autonomous. Runs on pure instinct and real-time intelligence. No cloud connection needed. No updates necessary (just food). No…
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The Algorithm Con – How Social Media Manipulates Us
Algorithms, algorithms, algorithms. That’s all we’ve been hearing about for years now. And here we are, midway through 2023, watching the AI bandwagon race along at full speed, churning out generated content, videos, articles, the lot. Bullshit everywhere, made by AI. And the search results? Completely screwed. Google’s algorithms haven’t caught up. Did they ever?…
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Ragebait, Deepfakes and the Death of Trust Online
This has been bothering me for a while, and it’s finally tipped over from background noise into something I can’t ignore. Ragebait isn’t new. Sensationalism isn’t new. People twisting stories for attention has been around as long as people have been selling newspapers on street corners. What is new is how little effort it now…
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Big Tech Is Stealing Your Life and You’re Paying for It
This video addresses a harrowing question: How much of our finite lives are we actually surrendering to Big Tech, and what is the true cost of our “free” social media addiction? The answer is as stark as it is depressing: the average young person is on track to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at screens.…
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Why Digital Communication Encourages Shallow Thinking
There’s something deeply flawed about how we communicate now. Not because we communicate more. But because we think less. Digital communication encourages shallow processing. It rewards speed over reflection, reaction over reasoning, and certainty over curiosity. And when shallow processing meets confidence, you get loops. Endless loops. When the Evidence Is Right There and Nobody…
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Stop Blaming Social Media – Parents Need to Parent
What is it with parents, schools, and even government officials banging on about how kids should spend less time staring at screens? Kids should spend less time on social media. We should restrict their access to platforms. We should limit their time on devices. Here’s a radical thought: just take the devices off them. Better…