A jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a landmark social media addiction case, ruling that addictive design features such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations harmed a young user and contributed to her mental health distress. The verdict awards $3 million in compensatory damages so far and could pave the way for more lawsuits seeking financial penalties and product changes across the social media industry. "Meta is responsible for 70 percent of that cost and YouTube for the remainder," notes The New York Times. "TikTok and Snap both settled with the plaintiff for undisclosed terms before the trial started." From the report: The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google's YouTube over features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations that she claimed led to anxiety and depression.

The jury of seven women and five men will deliberate further to decide what further punitive damages the companies should pay for malice or fraud. The verdict in K.G.M.'s case -- one of thousands of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general against Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap, which owns Snapchat -- was a major win for the plaintiffs. The finding validates a novel legal theory that social media sites or apps can cause personal injury. It is likely to factor into similar cases expected to go to trial this year, which could expose the internet giants to further financial damages and force changes to their products. The verdict also comes on the heels of a New Mexico jury ruling that found Meta liable for violating state law by failing to protect users of its apps from child predators.

A study published last week in PNAS found that people who regularly cause problems or make life difficult -- whom the researchers call "hasslers" -- are associated with measurably faster biological aging in those around them, at a rate of roughly 1.5% per additional hassler and about nine months of additional biological age relative to same-age peers.

The research drew on DNA methylation-based epigenetic clocks and ego-centric network data from a state-representative probability sample of 2,345 adults in Indiana, aged 18 to 103. Nearly 29% of respondents reported at least one hassler in their close network. The biological toll varied by relationship type: hasslers who were family members showed the strongest and most consistent associations with accelerated aging, while spouse hasslers showed no significant effect on either epigenetic measure.

The damage also went beyond aging clocks -- each additional hassler was associated with greater depression and anxiety severity, higher BMI, increased inflammation, and higher multimorbidity. When benchmarked against smoking, a major behavioral risk factor for aging, the hassler effect corresponded to roughly 13 to 17% of smoking's estimated impact on the same aging clocks.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Many parents of both boys and girls have witnessed striking differences in the way their kids use technology, with their sons generally gravitating to video games and their daughters often spending more of their screen time scrolling through social media. Emerging research indicates that brain differences between males and females help account for the split. According to a 2017 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 41% of teenage boys said they spend too much time playing video games while only 11% of girls said they do. Marc Potenza, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, teamed up with researchers at universities in China to find out why. Using functional MRIs, which measure brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, the team studied neural responses in young male and female gamers, particularly in the parts of the brain associated with reward processing and craving -- a motivating factor in addiction. When the men and women were shown photos of people playing video games, those parts of the men's brains showed higher levels of activation than those parts of the women's brains. Brain regions that have been implicated in drug-addiction studies also were shown to be more highly activated in the men after gaming. The researchers said the results suggest men could be more biologically prone than women to developing internet gaming disorder.

But girls and women aren't free from problems when it comes to digital media. Data from Pew shows that, in general, women use social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest far more than men. Many girls and women are drawn to those photo-sharing sites because they like to form bonds and find similarities, says Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at Stanford University. Even if women only use those sites more than men because that is where their friends are, many experts and parents say they have found that girls appear to have a greater fear of missing out, which compels them to keep up with what their friends are posting. Some recent studies show that girls feel the ill effects of too much social media use, such as depression and anxiety, more than boys do.

The Collision Conference, one of North America's most influential technology gatherings, tweeted on Tuesday: "We've got some news. It's about Toronto. But we'll let Justin Trudeau tell you about it." What followed was a video in which the prime minister announced that Collision, which typically boasts 25,000 attendees, will be coming to Canada in 2019. From a report: "I'm happy you chose Toronto to host North America's fastest growing tech conference for the next three years, but I have to say, I'm not completely surprised," Trudeau said. "Toronto is a key global tech hub and an example of the diversity that is our strength." And Collision is not alone in coming north. At least two other major technology conferences have recently made the decision to relocate to Canada, lured in part by Toronto's burgeoning tech sector, but also driven by travel restrictions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, policies that have left organizers scrambling to accommodate those who can't visit the United States.

In mid-April, Creative Commons, an international non-profit dedicated to the legal sharing of digital content, held their global summit in Toronto for the second year in a row. "The political climate in the U.S., specifically the open hostility from the current administration towards many international communities, and the anxiety from those we work with about how they might be treated was definitely a deciding factor," said Ryan Merkley, CEO of Creative Commons. "What's most unfortunate is that this approach is so inconsistent with the views of the many collaborative communities we work with every day in the U.S."

At Access Now, a non-profit that organizes the RightsCon digital rights conference, Trump's travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries hit close to home. "One of our interns at the time was an Iranian citizen with a U.S. green card, and she wasn't able to leave the country to go to Brussels to help us organize the (2017) event," RightsCon director Nick Dagostino said. For years, RightsCon has alternated between San Francisco and a series of global venues, and after last year's event in Brussels, heading back to California would have been the natural choice. But then, people started telling Access Now that if the event happened in the U.S., they wouldn't show up.

General practitioner Rangan Chatterjee says he has seen plenty of evidence of the link between mental ill-health in children and their use of social media. "One 16 year-old boy was referred to him after he self-harmed and ended up in A&E," reports BBC. Dr. Chatterjee was going to put him on anti-depressants, but instead worked with him to help wean him off social media. "He reported a significant improvement in his wellbeing and, after six months, I had a letter from his mother saying he was happier at school and integrated into the local community," says Dr. Chatterjee. That and similar cases have led him to question the role social media plays in the lives of young people. From the report: "Social media is having a negative impact on mental health," he said. "I do think it is a big problem and that we need some rules. How do we educate society to use technology so it helps us rather than harms us?" A 2017 study by The Royal Society of Public Health asked 1,500 young people aged 11-25 to track their moods while using the five most popular social media sites. It suggested Snapchat and Instagram were the most likely to inspire feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. YouTube had the most positive influence. Seven in 10 said Instagram made them feel worse about body image and half of 14-24-year-olds reported Instagram and Facebook exacerbated feelings of anxiety. Two-thirds said Facebook made cyber-bullying worse.

Consultant psychiatrist Louise Theodosiou says one of the clearest indications children are spending too long on their phones is their behavior during a session with a psychiatrist. "Two or three years ago, it was very unusual for a child to answer their phone or text during an appointment. But now it is common," said the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital doctor. She has seen a rise in cases where social media is a contributing factor in teenage depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. These problems are often complex and wide-ranging -- from excessive use of gaming or social media sites to feelings of inadequacy brought on by a constant bombardment of social media images of other people's lives, to cyber-bullying.

boley1 quotes Business Insider: According to Elon Musk, the main challenges with flying cars are that they'll be noisy and generate lots of wind because of the downward force required to keep them in the air. Plus, there's an anxiety factor. "Let's just say if something is flying over your head...that is not an anxiety-reducing situation," he said. "You don't think to yourself 'Well, I feel better about today. You're thinking 'Is it going to come off and guillotine me as it comes flying past?'"

An anonymous reader shares a report: Most cities with a cluster of tech companies can offer those workers either a short commute or low rents -- but not both, according to a study by property consultancy Savills. Berlin is the exception to that rule. Savills found that the German capital offers tech workers some of the lowest rents and among the shortest commutes of 22 cities it surveyed. Commuting is a hugely important factor for worker satisfaction. One study, by the UK's Office of National Statistics, found that each additional minute of commuting increased workers' anxiety and reduced their satisfaction with life. Based on how long it takes to get to work.
The five best cities are: Austin (16 mins), Melbourne, Stockholm, Berlin, and Tokyo (24 mins).
Five worst cities: Bengaluru (47 mins), Hong Kong, Seattle, Seoul, and Toronto (40 mins).

Based on how much tech workers pay in rent (per week).
Best cities: Seoul ($153), Santiago, Berlin, Buenos Aires, and Cape Town ($192).
Five worst cities: San Francisco (with $775.45), New York, Boston, London, and Singapore ($488.16).

schwit1 quotes a report from The New York Times: Social isolation is a growing epidemic (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source) -- one that's increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental and emotional consequences. Since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who say they're lonely has doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent. About one-third of Americans older than 65 now live alone, and half of those over 85 do. People in poorer health -- especially those with mood disorders like anxiety and depression -- are more likely to feel lonely. Those without a college education are the least likely to have someone they can talk to about important personal matters. A wave of new research suggests social separation is bad for us. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent. Another analysis that pooled data from 70 studies and 3.4 million people found that socially isolated individuals had a 30 percent higher risk of dying in the next seven years, and that this effect was largest in middle age. Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.

thecarchik writes "While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances. That's where the Chevy Volt-style range extender comes in, though the Volt adds unlimited range by burning gasoline in a conventional engine to generate electric power. Now, a new type of fuel cell offers the potential for a different kind of range extender, one that removes the enormous practical problem facing hydrogen fuel cells: the lack of a distribution infrastructure to fuel vehicles that require pure hydrogen to feed their fuel cells. Researchers at the University of Maryland have managed to shrink the size and lower the operating temperature of a solid-oxide fuel cell by a factor of 10, meaning it could conceivably produce as much power as a car engine but occupy less space. The advances come from new materials for the solid electrolyte, as well as design changes, and the researchers feel they have further avenues for improvement left to explore."

Slashdot readers both contributed and helped moderate questions for the New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate. You can read the answers below, but if you'd like to see an expanded introduction, thumbnails of the candidates, and different formatting, go to the Youth Debate page. And that's not all: We're supposed to get candidates' rebuttals on or about October 17, so don't touch that dial!

One writer refers to flaming as "teletextual incendiarism," the best term I've ever seen, and flamers as "homo incinerans." Conventional thinking is that flaming is the online equivalent of barbarism, but it's much more complicated than that. Flaming may be the canary in the coal mine, a barometer of how free cyberspace is or stays. It may also be a kind of virtual role-playing, the kind done more knowingly on sex sites. I've gathered here some reflections on the evolution of flaming and metaflaming, including what Freud himself might make of it if he got online. He'd almost surely think that flamers have some issues to resolve.