Thatchers, Aldi Back In Court On Appeal Of ‘Cloudy Cider’ Trademark Ruling

Trademark

from the with-a-chance-of-meatballs dept

Earlier this year, we talked about a fairly silly trademark dispute in the UK between beverage company Thatchers and German grocer Aldi. At issue was competing lemon cider products offered by both companies. Thatchers makes a product named its “Cloud Lemon Cider”, while Aldi sells its “Taurus Cloud Cider.” Thatchers complained that the products were too similarly named and that the trade dress for both products used similar color schemes.

There were several issues with those claims. First, the names. Thatchers claimed that “Thatchers” and “Taurus” were too similar to one another. Which… I mean… no, they aren’t? And the remainder of the product names are almost entirely descriptive of the product itself. “Cloudy Cider” is not really any more deserving of a trademark than “hazy IPA,” as I stated in my previous post on this. As for the color scheme on the packaging, both used the colors yellow and green. Yes, they’re similar. They’re similar because lemons. I can think of roughly a zillion lemon-flavored products that also use that same color scheme.

As a result of those problems, the court ruled against Thatchers and dismissed the case earlier this year. But apparently the lesson didn’t fully land with Thatchers, which has appealed that ruling and will be going before the Court of Appeal. And based on the strictures for how the Court of Appeal can review the previous ruling, it is unlikely that this is going to go well for Thatchers.

The parties are back in court at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday and Wednesday as the cider company seeks to overturn this decision.

Commenting on this appeal, Mary Bagnall, head of intellectual property at Charles Russell Speechlys explained that “appeals in cases such as these are particularly difficult because the Court of Appeal may only intervene if the judge’s findings of fact were rationally insupportable, or in making her multi-factorial evaluation of the issues, she erred in law or principle.”

She added that “it is immaterial whether the Court of Appeal finds the decision surprising or whether it would have come to a different conclusion”.

I would be quite surprised if the Court of Appeal found that the lower court somehow made such an egregious material error of fact in this case. And I would have thought that whatever legal team Thatchers is employing here would have advised their client that there is a high likelihood of failure when it comes to this appeal as well. So, unless I’m missing something significant here, this really does look like a company that’s throwing money down the toilet for no good reason.

It’s not as though there is any real instances of customer confusion that Thatchers highlighted in evidence. Were this such a problem from a public confusion standpoint, I would expect those examples to have existed and for Thatchers to make a huge deal of them in the previous suit, never mind this appeal.

So other than lining the pockets of lawyers a bit, what are we actually accomplishing here?

Filed Under: cloudy cider, trademark
Companies: aldi, thatchers

Google Street View Car Inadvertently Helps Solve Year-Old Spanish Murder Case

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the car-presumably-now-living-anonymously-in-some-US-suburb dept

It takes a pretty weird string of coincidences to turn a Google Street View car into a potential witness for the prosecution. But that’s what has happened here.

Street View is pervasive. Some may also call it intrusive. Millions of miles are logged by drivers and pedestrians, year after year. And while those efforts to map the planet may occasionally surface things ranging from the bizarre to the beautiful to the possibly dangerous, the cameras aren’t there to capture events. They’re there to capture places.

But sometimes these places also contain events. In what has be one of the luckiest breaks for criminal investigators anywhere, a Street View car managed to drive past an apparent crime scene at precisely the right time, as ABC (Australia’s version) reports:

Police in northern Spain say a Google Street View image has helped them make arrests in a murder investigation.

The image shows a man loading a bag, which police suspect contained human remains, into a car.

Presumption of innocence aside, the Google Street View image depicts something that looks absolutely like someone putting a body into the trunk of a car:

And that’s not the only Street View image being used in this investigation. There are a couple of others, including what appears to be the suspect hauling the (alleged) body down a street in a wheelbarrow.

This all seems pretty daring for broad daylight, but let’s look at the facts. First of all, no one expects a Google Maps car to be driving around this particular neighborhood. The images were captured in the incredibly small town of Tajueco in Spain. And by small, I mean it’s home to barely over 100 people.

Second, this was a return trip for Google, but the company’s last visit occurred nearly 15 years ago. So, the chances of having an inadvertent witness traversing the small town’s even smaller streets would normally be almost zero.

But everything worked against the suspect here. Not only was Google roaming the streets, but its cameras passed by at exactly the moment the “large object” (as some news sources refer to it) is being placed in the trunk of this car. And the camera passes close enough the average viewer can make several (adverse) assumptions about the “large object,” most notably that the larger part of the large object looks a lot like a human body, especially when paired with the smaller part, which looks exactly like a human head.

Suddenly, after a year where the murder case had gone from front-and-center to the backburner, presumably en route for the cold case files, investigators suddenly had a usable lead — one that has resulted in two arrests and discovery of the body (well, body parts) which had apparently been buried without permission in a nearby cemetery.

While most of us are content to use Google Street View to familiarize ourselves with unfamiliar areas or, perhaps, to see what our old neighborhoods now look like, others are using this service to solve crimes and locate suspects. There are more “witnesses” than ever of things happening in public areas (and “private” areas, for that matter) — something to keep in mind the next time you decide to transport a corpse in broad daylight on a public street. If you aren’t careful, your next vanity search is going to return some extremely surprising results.

Filed Under: google street view, investigation, murder, spain
Companies: google

It’s Doubtful United Healthcare Is Abusing The DMCA To Takedown Luigi Mangione Apparel, But Someone Is

Copyright

from the not-how-any-of-this-works dept

I had seen this story before Christmas making the rounds on Bluesky, claiming that United Healthcare had sent DMCA takedowns to Teepublic to remove artist Rachel Kenaston’s illustration of Luigi Magione, the guy arrested for shooting and killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

While it does appear that Teepublic did, in fact, remove the image and claims to have received a DMCA notice from United Healthcare, I find it extremely unlikely that UHC actually sent a DMCA notice, given that they have no legitimate copyright claim over the image and enough lawyers who would know that. But we’ll get to that.

This case highlights a fundamental problem with the DMCA — it enables censorship by creating a system (backed by law) which allows anyone to demand content be removed from the internet with no real due process, putting heavy legal (governmental) pressure on companies to comply even if the claims are dubious. This arguably violates First Amendment rights by allowing the government to silence lawful speech.

While we can’t say definitively that UHC is abusing copyright law here, the fact that someone is able to do so in this case demonstrates the need to view copyright and the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedure in particular as a problematic tool for censorship.

404 Media got its hands on the actual email Kenaston received from Teepublic:

For reference, here is the removed image that Kenaston made:

It’s clearly an illustration based on the photo the NYPD released when attempting to identify Mangione, of him apparently smiling for someone working at the hostel he stayed at.

So, first off, obviously, the underlying image that the NYPD released would have extremely limited copyright protections which, if anything, would be assigned to the operator of the surveillance camera that took it. Kenaston’s illustration might also receive some fairly limited copyright protections for her artistic input.

But, obviously, none of that means that UHC would have any copyright interest at all. I doubt that UHC would have actually filed anything here, even if they don’t like the fact that a very large group of people appear to be supportive of Mangione. UHC have enough lawyers who understand IP law to know that this would be a totally bogus request. Of course there are many cases of companies sending such bogus requests, but those typically involve media operations or other IP-based companies, where unrelated content gets swept up by indiscriminate waves of takedowns (often through a third-party brand monitoring service). It seems similarly unlikely that UHC operates that kind of large DMCA takedown regime.

Also, TeePublic is misrepresenting the DMCA when it says it has no say in what stays on the site, or that it is “required” to remove the content. That’s simply false. The law does not require it, though it does create strong incentives for removal, by offering up a liability safe harbor for those that do remove. But companies are free to reject takedown notices if they don’t believe they are legit. It’s just that they might have to later defend that decision in court.

For what it’s worth, Teepublic is owned by RedBubble, and RedBubble has been taken to court many times over bogus claims of infringement. Indeed, I was an expert witness for them in past cases, so I know that the company has lawyers on staff who know full well that they can push back against bogus takedown claims. But also, I recognize that having fought out some expensive cases in court, they may take a much more “just pull it down so we don’t have to pay more lawyers” approach.

Going through the Lumen Database for takedowns using the Luigi Mangione name, I see that there are a bunch. Though, many of them seem to be people who made other stylized designs of Mangione and are mad that others have put them on t-shirts and hoodies. I question how many of the senders have significant copyright claims in designs like the following:

As we’ve been pointing out for decades, copyright is one of the very few tools in the toolbox that allows anyone to legally demand content be removed from the internet, and companies feel strongly compelled to do so.

Whether or not UHC is actually abusing copyright law this way, it’s clear that someone out there is, and that’s a very problematic feature of copyright law. The assumption that anything listed in a takedown notice is infringing, and the corresponding heavy-handed pressure to remove the content or face huge potential penalties, again reminds us why the DMCA is very questionable on First Amendment grounds.

The fact that someone is abusing it in this particular case is just a reminder of that, even if it’s not actually UHC doing the abusing.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, copyfraud, copyright, dmca, luigi mangione, notice and takedown, rachel kenaston
Companies: teepublic, united healthcare

Copyright Industry Wants To Apply Automated Blocking To The Internet’s Core Routers

Copyright

from the embedding-copyright-censorship-deep-into-the-core dept

A central theme of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) and this blog is that the copyright industry is never satisfied. Now matter how long the term of copyright, publishers and recording companies want more. No matter how harsh the punishments for infringement, the copyright intermediaries want them to be even more severe.

Another manifestation of this insatiability is seen in the ever-widening use of Internet site blocking. What began as a highly-targeted one-off in the UK, when a court ordered the Newzbin2 site to be blocked, has become a favored method of the copyright industry for cutting off access to thousands of sites around the world, including many blocked by mistake. Even more worryingly, the approach has led to blocks being implemented in some key parts of the Internet’s infrastructure that have no involvement with the material that flows through them: they are just a pipe. For example, last year we wrote about courts ordering the content delivery network Cloudflare to block sites. But even that isn’t enough it seems. A post on TorrentFreak reports on a move to embed site blocking at the very heart of the Internet. This emerges from an interview about the Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel:

In an interview with Tele.Sintese, outgoing Anatel board member Artur Coimbra recalls the lack of internet infrastructure in Brazil as recently as 2010. As head of the National Broadband Plan under the Ministry of Communications, that’s something he personally addressed. For Anatel today, blocking access to pirate websites and preventing unauthorized devices from communicating online is all in a day’s work.

Here’s the key revelation spotted by TorrentFreak:

“The second step, which we still need to evaluate because some companies want it, and others are more hesitant, is to allow Anatel to have access to the core routers to place a direct order on the router,” Coimbra reveals, referencing IPTV [Internet Protocol television] blocking.

“In these cases, these companies do not need to have someone on call to receive the [blocking] order and then implement it.”

Later on, Coimbra clarifies how far along this plan is:

“Participation is voluntary. We are still testing with some companies. So, it will take some time until it actually happens,” Coimbra says. “I can’t say [how long]. Our inspection team is carrying out tests with some operators, I can’t say which ones.”

Even if this is still in the testing phase, and only with “some” companies, it’s a terrible precedent. It means that blocking – and thus censorship – can be applied automatically, possibly without judicial oversight, to some of the most fundamental parts of the Internet’s plumbing. Once that happens, it will spread, just as the original single site block in the UK has spread worldwide. There’s even a hint that might already be happening. Asked if such blocking is being applied anywhere else, Coimbra replies:

“I don’t know. Maybe in Spain and Portugal, which are more advanced countries in this fight. But I don’t have that information,” Coimbra responds, randomly naming two countries with which Brazil has consulted extensively on blocking matters.

Although it’s not clear from that whether Spain and Portugal are indeed taking this route, the fact that Coimbra suggests that they might be is deeply troubling. And even if they aren’t, we can be sure that the copyright industry will keep demanding Internet blocks and censorship at the deepest level until they get them.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky. Originally posted to Walled Culture.

Filed Under: anatel, brazil, censorship, copyright, core routers, due process, infrastructure

Daily Deal: DevDojo Pro, Premium Content, Tools, and Courses for Devs

Deals

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

This DevDojo Pro subscription gives you access to a set of tools to help you build your next great idea. Start with the Page Creator, where you’ll find Tailwind CSS Page Builder, a tool for crafting beautiful landing pages. Then, move on to Wave SAAS Starter Kit, where you’ll learn how to build your Software as a Service app and make money from it. With Ninja Training Program, you will learn the basics before you get started building your business. It’s on sale for $150.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Florida Sheriff Decided It Might Be A Good Idea To Manufacture Crack And Now 2,600 Convictions Might Be Vacated

Legal Issues

from the just-out-there-doing-the-CIA's-work dept

As much as I write about cops, you’d think I’d rarely be surprised by them or their thought processes. But, every so often, they surprise even me. Let’s take a ride back to early 1989, when the Broward County (FL) Sheriff’s Office was actually bragging about this sort of thing:

A chemist with the Broward County sheriff’s office has manufactured $20,000 worth of crack cocaine for sale by undercover deputies in sting operations, officials confirmed.

Randy Hilliard legally makes crack on the seventh floor of the Broward County Courthouse. Undercover officers then sell the cocaine and arrest the buyers.

‘They were doing so many stings, it got to the point where we couldn’t keep up. It made it easier to do it ourselves,’ Hilliard said Monday. Usually, police use drugs seized in investigations for sting operations.

Well… I guess… congratulations for being Florida, but more CIA? Unpacking is what needs to be done here, but first let’s just acknowledge the fact the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was perhaps the closest any law enforcement agency has been to winning the Drug War and then — instead of resting on its laurels — decided to start the war all over again.

What the actual fuck. They busted so many people, deputies couldn’t seize enough drugs to use in future sting operations. Rather than realize they’d made a dent in the drug problem, they put a chemist to work to generate a drug problem that pretty much no longer existed.

“Unprecedented” would be one way to describe this. So would “unconscionable.” Here’s the response from a DEA rep — an agency not exactly known from shying away from actions that are unprecedented and/or unconscionable.

‘I never heard of that in my life before,’ agreed Con Dougherty, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

Most of us are in Con Dougherty’s boat, whether we like it or not. Manufacturing illicit drugs for the sole purpose of distribution isn’t an act that inhabits the grayest areas of under-developed law. A cop shop wouldn’t hire a hacker to illegally access the DOT (Dept. of Transportation) database to instantly invalidate thousands of license plates just because officers are having trouble finding expired license plates to ticket. But, because it’s drugs, it’s apparently OK to manufacture drugs to sell to people for the sole purpose of busting them for buying drugs.

It wasn’t OK for long, though. A Florida appeals court shut down this illicit drug manufacturing operation four years after it was first exposed.

A sheriff who said he made crack to guarantee a supply for undercover operations has been told to stop by a state appeals court.

“The sheriff of Broward County acted illegally in manufacturing crack,” Judge Mark Polen wrote in Friday’s decision. “The police agencies themselves cannot do an illegal act, albeit their intended goal is legal and desirable.”

The needless addendum? This statement, from the then-Sheriff, sour-grapesing his way into some sort of win by pretending he was always going to do the thing now being forced onto his department by a state court order.

Broward County Sheriff Nick Navarro said he would comply because his anti-crime strategy, started in 1989, has eliminated much of the area’s drug activity.

Except that the drug activity had been “eliminated” before the sheriff’s department artificially created a new drug market for the sole purpose of generating more drug activity, which was for the sole purpose of putting people in jail, seizing their property, and otherwise making their lives miserable because an unexpected new source of crack cocaine had magically materialized in the area.

It seems like it’s too little and it certainly seems late, but at least this injustice is no longer being ignored. Victims of this Broward County-centric form of entrapment may belatedly see justice, thanks to a county prosecutor who’s apparently less unwilling than his predecessors to pretend this fuckery never happened.

A Florida prosecutor says he will seek to vacate as many as 2,600 convictions of people who bought crack cocaine manufactured by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for sting operations between 1988 and 1990.

[…]

Broward County State Attorney Harold F. Pryor said Friday that while his office was reviewing old records, prosecutors realized that many people may still have criminal charges or convictions on their records because of the sting operation.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Pryor said in a statement.

Which is true, of course. For years, though, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office did the wrong thing. Not only did they manufacture supply to meet demand it could no longer prosecute due to the lack of possessed drugs, it sent out officers to peddle drugs as close to schools as possible for the sole purpose of securing harsher sentences for residents who had the misfortune of running into these law enforcement officers who felt they could only do their jobs by violating more serious laws (drug distribution, selling drugs in “drug free” zones) than the people they arrested.

It will take some time to handle more than 2,500 cases. Those with current convictions will apparently have those vacated. That’s the immediate effect. The long term justice might be too late, even if it’s better than nothing: the prosecutor is hoping to have past convictions sealed or expunged or both. But this will likely come years after the damage has already been done. Most of the victims of the sheriff’s drug production lab are already suffering the combined weight of two decades of vindictive drug policy. While this may finally clear their records, it can’t possibly erase the damage done by years of being viewed as felon in the eyes of the law.

I’m glad this is happening, but the question that needs to be asked of everyone in the Broward County government is why it took more than 20 years for anyone to attempt to right these 2,600 wrongs.

Filed Under: broward county, broward county sheriff, florida, police misconduct

Words Without Action Are Wind: Senators Blast Automakers On ‘Right To Repair’

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

U.S. automakers have long tried to monopolize repair, in a bid to cash in on captive customers. But they also want to cash in on user behavior, driving, and phone data without much in the way of oversight, transparency, or consumer privacy. That’s why they’ve historically been so opposed to “right to repair” reforms that make car repairs cheaper, easier, and more transparent.

There’s no defending their shitty behaviors on the merits. So automakers have long lied about right to repair reforms, at times claiming they’re a boon to sexual predators, or a threat to national security in a bid to thwart national and state reforms.

Last week, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Josh Hawley, and Jeff Merkley sent a letter to the heads of Ford, General Motors, Tesla, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen — to remind them they have an atrocious track record on right to repair:

“As the gatekeepers of vehicle parts, equipment, and data, automobile manufacturers have the power to place restrictions on the necessary tools and information for repairs, particularly as cars increasingly incorporate electronic components. This often leaves car owners with no other option than to have their vehicles serviced by official dealerships, entrenching auto manufacturers’ dominance and eliminating competition from independent repair shops.”

The Senators are quick to point out that despite the industry’s best efforts to monopolize repair, 70 percent of car parts and services currently come from independent repair shops. Those shops are generally well regarded, the senators note, “while nearly all dealerships receive the worst possible rating for price.”

The three senators also poked holes in the industry’s claims that right to repair reforms (like in Massachusetts) harm consumer privacy and security. Automakers routinely are found to have some of the worst privacy and security standards in all of tech, and an FTC report from 2023 found automaker claims that right to repair laws harmed public safety and privacy were baseless.

The automakers have until January 6 to answer the senators’ question. I guess the letter is supposed to scare automakers. But automakers know Trump 2.0 is going to take an absolute hatchet to consumer protection and corporate oversight at agencies like the FTC. They also know Congress (including Josh Hawley) is still too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era.

With the feds likely useless on right to repair (and everything else for the foreseeable future), that leaves the onus on individual states to continue shoring up consumer right to repair issues. But with so many high stakes fights headed states’ way (immigration, public safety, consumer protection, environment, labor) I think right to repair reforms could easily get lost in the shuffle over the next few years.

Filed Under: automakers, consumer, manuals, right to repair, tools, vehicles

Jets Owner Woody Johnson Reportedly Made Personnel Decisions Based On Madden Ratings

Too Much Free Time

from the ratings-system dept

I have to thread the needle a bit on this one. On the one hand, I have very much evangelized how much sports video games has done to educate lots of people on some of the finer points of professional and college sports, myself included. Even though, at times, I like to poke fun about how playing games like Madden or NCAA Football probably doesn’t actually qualify someone to run an IRL football program. At the same time, we’ve also seen these same games in use to further educate fans of these games, including during broadcasts.

So, fine, these games can be useful in lots of ways to fans of these games. But they’re still subjective and imperfect facsimiles of their real life counterparts. The most famous example of this is perhaps the Madden player ratings system. Every year when the game comes out, you will inevitably see a report about how this player disagrees with his rating, or that person thinks some player attribute isn’t as accurate as it should be. And because of the subjective nature of all of this, owners of NFL teams probably shouldn’t be basing IRL team decisions on what they see in the video game.

And, yet, that is reportedly what New York Jets owner Wood Johnson did.

A new report claims that Woody Johnson, who owns the NFL team the New York Jets, has used EA’s popular Madden video game series to help him make decisions involving real players. It’s even reported that a trade deal was killed due to stats found in the game.

On December 19, The Athletic reported that during the last NFL offseason, a trade deal between the Jets and the Denver Broncos was close to being finished until owner Johnson vetoed the plan. According to multiple sources, the owner canceled the deal to pick up wide receiver Jerry Jeudy because the player had a low rating in Madden. Jeudy would be picked up by the Cleveland Browns and had a fantastic season.

That wasn’t the only time Johnson did this sort of thing. He also reportedly pushed back on his General Manager’s desire to sign John Simpson in free agency due to some low attribute ratings in the game. The Jets, in that case, did still sign Simpson, who played well for the team.

Now, on the one hand, I’m somewhat impressed that a 77-year-old knows enough about the Madden series to even use it this way. On the other hand, there are also reports that some of this knowledge is coming from Johnson’s two sons.

According to some sources who spoke to the outlet, the use of Madden in decision-making is a sign that Johnson’s teenage sons have too much influence.

“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” a Jets executive told The Athletic.

Now, the team denies these unemployed children have anything to do with any personnel decisions for the team. However, when you consider just how laughably bad the Jets are run as an organization, I can’t find myself putting anything past them.

There are ways to apply lessons learned from video games in real life, to be sure. But I would advise NFL owners and executives to no more base team decisions on Madden ratings than they would assume all turtles are evil because they played Super Mario Bros.

Filed Under: madden, madden football, video games, woody johnson
Companies: ea, ny jets

Rethinking Screen Time: Not All Screen Time Is The Same

Studies

from the it's-not-all-junk dept

In an era where digital devices are everywhere, the term “screen time” has become a buzz phrase in discussions about technology’s impact on people’s lives. Parents are concerned about their children’s screen habits. But what if this entire approach to screen time is fundamentally flawed?

While researchers have made advances in measuring screen use, a detailed critique of the research in 2020 revealed major issues in how screen time is conceptualized, measured and studied. I study how digital technology affects human cognition and emotions. My ongoing research with cognitive psychologist Nelson Roque builds on that critique’s findings.

We categorized existing screen-time measures, mapping them to attributes like whether they are duration-based or context-specific, and are studying how they relate to health outcomes such as anxiety, stress, depression, loneliness, mood and sleep quality, creating a clearer framework for understanding screen time. We believe that grouping all digital activities together misses how different types of screen use affect people.

By applying this framework, researchers can better identify which digital activities are beneficial or potentially harmful, allowing people to adopt more intentional screen habits that support well-being and reduce negative mental and emotional health effects.

Screen time isn’t one thing

Screen time, at first glance, seems easy to understand: It’s simply the time spent on devices with screens such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and TVs. But this basic definition hides the variety within people’s digital activities. To truly understand screen time’s impact, you need to look closer at specific digital activities and how each affects cognitive function and mental health.

In our research, we divide screen time into four broad categories: educational use, work-related use, social interaction and entertainment.

For education, activities like online classes and reading articles can improve cognitive skills like problem-solving and critical thinking. Digital tools like mobile apps can support learning by boosting motivation, self-regulation and self-control.

But these tools also pose challenges, such as distracting learners and contributing to poorer recall compared with traditional learning methods. For young users, screen-based learning may even have negative impacts on development and their social environment.

Screen time for work, like writing reports or attending virtual meetings, is a central part of modern life. It can improve productivity and enable remote work. However, prolonged screen exposure and multitasking may also lead to stress, anxiety and cognitive fatigue.

Screen use for social connection helps people interact with others through video chats, social media or online communities. These interactions can promote social connectedness and even improve health outcomes such as decreased depressive symptoms and improved glycemic control for people with chronic conditions. But passive screen use, like endless social media scrolling, can lead to negative experiences such as cyberbullying, social comparison and loneliness, especially for teens.

Screen use for entertainment provides relaxation and stress relief. Mindfulness apps or meditation tools, for example, can reduce anxiety and improve emotional regulation. Creative digital activities, like graphic design and music production, can reduce stress and improve mental health. However, too much screen use may reduce well-being by limiting physical activity and time for other rewarding pursuits.

Context matters

Screen time affects people differently based on factors like mood, social setting, age and family environment. Your emotions before and during screen use can shape your experience. Positive interactions can lift your mood, while loneliness might deepen with certain online activities. For example, we found that differences in age and stress levels affect how readily people become distracted on their devices. Alerts and other changes distract users, which makes it more challenging to focus on tasks.

The social context of screen use also matters. Watching a movie with family can strengthen bonds, while using screens alone can increase feelings of isolation, especially when it replaces face-to-face interactions.

Family influence plays a role, too. For example, parents’ screen habits affect their children’s screen behavior, and structured parental involvement can help reduce excessive use. It highlights the positive effect of structured parental involvement, along with mindful social contexts, in managing screen time for healthier digital interactions.

Consistency and nuance

Technology now lets researchers track screen use accurately, but simply counting hours doesn’t give us the full picture. Even when we measure specific activities, like social media or gaming, studies don’t often capture engagement level or intent. For example, someone might use social media to stay informed or to procrastinate.

Studies on screen time often vary in how they define and categorize it. Some focus on total screen exposure without differentiating between activities. Others examine specific types of use but may not account for the content or context. This lack of consistency in defining screen time makes it hard to compare studies or generalize findings.

Understanding screen use requires a more nuanced approach than tracking the amount of time people spend on their screens. Recognizing the different effects of specific digital activities and distinguishing between active and passive use are crucial steps. Using standardized definitions and combining quantitative data with personal insights would provide a fuller picture. Researchers can also study how screen use affects people over time.

For policymakers, this means developing guidelines that move beyond one-size-fits-all limits by focusing on recommendations suited to specific activities and individual needs. For the rest of us, this awareness encourages a balanced digital diet that blends enriching online and offline activities for better well-being.

Rinanda Shaleha, Doctoral student in the College of Health and Human Development, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Filed Under: mental health, screen time

NYPD, NYC Gov’t Continue Freefall As Top Cop Resigns Following Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct

Legal Issues

from the schadenfreude-now-has-a-lifetime-subscription-option dept

Few things have been more enjoyable than watching the collapse of New York City mayor Eric Adams’ personal, cop-focused empire. Granted, if you’re a NYC resident, your mileage will vary because violently disintegrating governments rarely later resolve as fully functional enterprises.

But there’s still something incredibly satisfying as watching a law-and-order mayor bind himself to law-and-order figureheads (literally and figuratively: Adams used to be an NYPD officer and bunch of his buddies either are or were employed by this agency) only to see that loyalty repaid by FBI raids, multiple investigations, multiple sudden retirements, and the ongoing disgracing of pretty much every member of the mayor’s inner circle.

The Adams administration will perhaps end up inadvertently immortalized by this unforgettable statement one of the mayor’s flacks offered (believe it or not) in his defense earlier this year, following multiple raids of city officials by FBI agents:

“Investigators have not indicated to us the mayor or his staff are targets of any investigation,” the mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, said in a statement. “As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.”

The only reason someone would need to say this once, much less repeatedly, is because the “members of the team” are either currently violating the law or planning to violate the law. What’s surfaced since that point makes it clear it was more of the latter, with the former being relegated to the underachievers in Mayor Adams’ cabinet.

Now, there’s another top official to add to the list, as the New York Times reports:

New York City’s top uniformed police officer, the chief of department, abruptly resigned Friday night following allegations of sexual misconduct, setting off local and federal investigations and extending years of turmoil at the Police Department.

The former chief, Jeffrey Maddrey, submitted his resignation and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted it, according to a statement from the department on Saturday.

For the most part, top law enforcement officials only resign to end ongoing investigations or escape punishment that might be the result of completed investigations. There’s too much pension on the line to pull the plug before the situation reaches critical mass. And, given enough years on the force, a partial pension may still be collected even if the resigning person would have been denied a continued payout if the investigation had been allowed to reach its conclusion.

The New York Times report refuses to dig into the sordid details. But they are sordid. And the normally pro-cop New York Post is more than happy to divulge what’s contained in the allegations the NYT apparently felt didn’t need to be recounted in full.

The NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer abruptly resigned late Friday night after The Post uncovered explosive allegations that he demanded sexual favors from a subordinate in exchange for massive amounts of overtime.

Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey stepped down soon after The Post contacted the NYPD about Lt. Quathisha Epps’ claims in an exclusive interview that he routinely preyed upon her, asking for sex in NYPD headquarters.

“He wanted to have anal sex, vaginal sex, oral sex,” Epps said. “He was always asking me to kiss his penis.”

Yeah, it’s all pretty awful, even if complying with Maddrey’s demands (allegedly) led to Epps securing hundreds of thousands of dollars of overtime pay for hours that possibly were never worked.

Not that any of these accusations mattered to Mayor Adams, who continued to support Maddrey until October, which would roughly coincide with the time when things started to go south extremely quickly for the mayor himself in terms of FBI raids and concurrent federal investigations. And he continued this support (until it was politically and legally inconvenient) despite Maddrey’s history of misconduct and harassment.

Maddrey was third-in-command in the NYPD. With this resignation, another top spot opens up. Residents hoping it will be filled with someone better than Maddrey probably shouldn’t hold their breath. Mayor Adams has run through four commissioners in the last 18 months, with two of them resigning in the wake of ongoing investigations into the mayor’s office and his political appointees, which also include a couple of former commissioners. With this latest embarrassment, the office of the mayor is continuing to pay the price for placing cronyism above public service and making it more clear than it’s ever been that being a top cop doesn’t require ever being a good cop.

Filed Under: eric adams, jeffrey maddey, nypd, police misconduct, sexual assault