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Lifestyle

Meta Will Pay 17 Billion Dollars and Switch Off the Things That Made Instagram Work on Teenagers

Forty seven states settled with Meta on Wednesday, days into a trial in Oakland. The money is a fraction of one year of revenue. The rest of the deal is a list of product changes: a daily cap for under eighteens, hidden likes, no notifications during school.

Aug 28, 2026/4 min read

An aerial view of the Facebook campus at Menlo Park in California, the headquarters of Meta

Lifestyle

The People You Have Never Met Are the Ones Making You Lonely, and the Friends Are Not Helping

A nationally representative study of 1,512 American adults found those with the most social media contacts they had never met in person had more than double the odds of loneliness. Contacts who were close friends made no difference either way.

Aug 26, 2026/3 min read

King's Cross station in London at night, seen from the Euston Road

Lifestyle

Five More Minutes of Sleep and Two More Minutes of Exercise a Day Were Worth an Extra Year of Life

A study of 59,078 people found the minimum combined improvement associated with one more year of life was startlingly small. The same study found the maximum was nine years, which is the number nobody is quoting.

Aug 25, 2026/4 min read

Low morning sunlight falling across an empty tree lined footpath

Lifestyle

We Wrote That Third Places Were Coming Back. The Census Data Says They Were Disappearing.

A visible revival of cafes, clubs and community spaces is real, and so is a measured decline in how many exist. Both can be true at once, and the difference between them is a question about who gets one.

Aug 24, 2026/4 min read

Editorial illustration of wooden folding chairs arranged in a circle in an empty community hall at dusk

Lifestyle

More Companies Ordered People Back to the Office This Year, and the Best Studies Still Do Not Support It

A controlled trial found two days at home produced no measurable productivity loss and cut resignations by a third. A study of large listed firms found return to office mandates did not improve company value. Mandates increased anyway.

Aug 22, 2026/4 min read

An empty office desk with a laptop and a telephone

Lifestyle

Every Sleep Tip You Have Read Is the One Treatment Guidelines Do Not Recommend on Its Own

Dim the lights, avoid caffeine, keep the room cool. Sleep hygiene is the advice everyone has absorbed, and clinical guidelines do not recommend it as a standalone treatment for insomnia. What they recommend instead is not a supplement.

Aug 21, 2026/3 min read

An unmade bed with morning light falling across the linen

Lifestyle

Houseplants Do Not Purify Your Air, and the Real Reason to Keep Them Is Better Than the Myth

A 1989 NASA experiment in sealed chambers became the most repeated claim in interior décor. In an actual room, ventilation removes pollutants far faster than plants can, and you would need an implausible indoor forest to compete.

Aug 21, 2026/3 min read

Potted houseplants arranged near an interior window

Lifestyle

Cooling Is More Than Sixty Per Cent of a Gulf Household's Electricity, Against About Twenty Five in America

Air conditioning is roughly half of peak electricity demand across the region, and nearly every building has it. Which means almost everything that reduces a household bill here is about heat getting in, not about appliances.

Aug 21, 2026/3 min read

Air conditioning condenser units mounted on the side of an apartment building

Lifestyle

September Is the Real New Year, and There Is Research Explaining Why That Works

People start things at the beginning of a week, a month or a school year far more often than at any other moment. Behavioural scientists call it the fresh start effect, and it is worth using deliberately.

Aug 17, 2026/3 min read

An open notebook and pen on a desk in morning light

Lifestyle

The Fastest Growing Thing in Nightlife Is a Room Where Your Phone Is Locked Away

Phone-free events have grown by 567 per cent globally since 2024 and by 913 per cent in the United States. The interesting part is not the abstinence. It is that people are paying for enforcement.

Aug 17, 2026/3 min read

People talking together in a warmly lit cafe in the evening

Lifestyle

The City Fills Back Up, and Nobody Warns You It Will Be Loud

For ten weeks the Gulf empties. In the last fortnight of August it refills, all at once, and the version of the city you got used to disappears in about four days.

Aug 16, 2026/3 min read

A quiet city street in the Gulf during the summer heat