11th May, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

They come in the dead of night armed with the implements of their trade; single-minded in their effort to accomplish their illicit mission. They’re the “guerrilla gardeners”, a secret army of people working in cities around the globe to bring a touch of beauty to the lost wastelands of our modern metropolises. “In the case of guerrilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty,” writes David Tracey, Canadian-based author of the book Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto. One of the earliest examples of guerilla gardening took place in Britain in the mid-1600s when groups known as the Diggers planted vegetables and crops on public land. The idea was resurrected in the UK in the 1970s and in recent years has again gained impetus. Richard Reynolds has penned a handbook on the practise - On Guerrilla Gardening - and runs a website guerrillagardening.org where he provides details of guerrilla gardening projects aimed at ‘fighting the filth with forks and flowers’. “There is no manifesto,” he says in a recent article in The Sunday Times. “Having some greenery and creating a better environment has many positive benefits.” In another article, Mr Reynolds says that while guerrilla gardening is a crime in Britain - under the law, it’s considered criminal damage - “common sense”, he says, “would suggest it is quite the opposite”. Closer to home, Australian Bob Crombie spends his spare time cleaning up and planting out public green spaces in Sydney. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year, Mr Crombie describes himself as a ‘bewilderer’, an old term which he told the newspaper, meant ‘to be become connected to life, the source, the spirit, God”. "Bewildering is much more than just planting trees, greening and hugging koalas," he tells the newspaper. "It is a very deep human response to our relationship to our world, especially our immediate environment, that recognises our place in it, our dependence upon it and our responsibility to it."

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TOTAL RECALL?

27th March, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

It started with the handwritten diary - think of Englishman Samuel Pepys’ famous work from the seventeenth century - but advances in technology have brought about whole new ways in which people can record their lives. Yes, we’ve seen the explosion of blogs and social networking pages like Facebook and MySpace but now comes a trend that takes things to a whole new level. It’s called Lifelogging and it involves recording and storing all of life’s moments - the mundane and the extraordinary - for posterity. Lifeloggers use a range of technologies to achieve their ultimate aim - audio recorders, digital cameras, GPS devices and health-related sensors to name a few. Lifeloggers - and there have been a few including US-based computer scientist Gordon Bell - say that lifelogging has obvious benefits: being able to recall the name of the person you just met and what was discussed, the ability to analyse yourself and your behaviours to, for example, better improve work productivity, and the monitoring of vital statistics to provide better warnings of health troubles. And while some believe lifelogging will one day be ubiquitous, there are some issues which will need to be resolved first, among them how lifelogging connects with the privacy rights of those people you encounter in your day-to-day life as well as social etiquette issues and technologically-related issues such as how to ensure that your life archive can still be read 20 years down the track.

PICTURE: Agata Urbaniak (www.sxc.hu)

A RUSTING WORKLIFE?

18th January, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

So you’ve got your work/rest/play balance in order and have managed to avoid the stress of burn-out. But, if you’re finding you're spending your workdays watching the minutes tick slowly by on the clock, it may be that you’re among the thousands of workers suffering from 'rust-out'. As the term (which apparently first began to be applied in the business world in the Eighties) implies, rust-out is the opposite to burn-out. Those affected don't go down in a blaze of stress-related frenzy; instead they become so bored and apathetic about their unstimulating worklife that they simply ‘rust’ away. The causes are many and varied - perhaps someone missed out on a promotion they were qualified to get; perhaps changes to the workplace have meant their job no longer provides the challenge it once did. But whatever it’s cause, rust-out does have a serious side. It can be expressed through such things as a person’s unkempt appearance and lack of punctuality or productivity, and even, say experts, lead to serious depression or substance abuse if not addressed. And the first step toward doing so is all about simply acknowledging the issue. It may mean taking on new responsibilities, stretching yourself in new ways, setting new goals or simply varying the monotony of routine. In short, looking at how you - and, if you’re an employee, your boss - can work to re-energise your working life.

PICTURE: Jean Scheijen (www.sxc.hu)

A :-) 25 YEARS!

21st September, 2007

DAVID ADAMS

Feeling :-), :-( or maybe :-o? They’re called emoticons and they’re used in this, the information age, to succinctly illustrate exactly how we’re feeling via our electronic communications. While emoticons have a long and interesting history (the ubiquitous yellow smiley face, for example, was created back in the Sixties as part of a campaign to bolster the employees of an insurance company), Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman is generally credited with the creating the widely used :-) emoticon 25 years ago. Professor Fahlman posted a message, recovered during an “archaeological” computer exercise back in 2002, onto an electronic bulletin board on 19th September, 1982, during a discussion about how to identify comments meant to be taken lightly. The message apparently read: ‘I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-). Read it sideways.” The same message records that he also came up with the idea of using :-( “for things that are NOT jokes”. The use of emoticons exploded with the arrival of the internet, particularly used in forums or instant messaging, as well as the growth in use of mobile phones and these days text-based emoticons are often replaced with small graphic images, sometimes animated. Yet, for some, the challenge of inventing a new emoticon, using just the keys on a standard keyboard, is what it’s all about. One dictionary, Txtr’s A-Z, reportedly includes 16 pages of emoticons including the delightful {:-( which apparently stands for “toupee blowing in the wind”.

HACKING OUT A WAY TO A MORE EFFICIENT LIFESTYLE

29th July, 2007

DAVID ADAMS

It’s the idea that by just making small changes in your life, the overall picture will get better. Taking it’s name from the small change or ‘hacks’ software programmers make to improve computer programs, ‘life hacking’ is all about applying the same basic principles to your life. The term was invented by British technology journalist Danny O’Brien after he looked at how super-productive software programmers - what he terms “alpha geeks” - managed to work so fast and found that they tended to use a range of technical shortcuts - known as “hacks” - to get the job done. Popularised through the blogosphere, a plethora of life hack- dedicated blogs and websites appeared - including 43 Folders, LifeHacker and Lifehack.org - and the term quickly expanded to refers, according to Wikipedia, to “anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way” (although doings faster and more efficiently is also important). Examples include everything from shortening the length of meetings by making people stand (they’re less likely to waste time if on their feet) and prioritising the things you need to do the next day on a short list every night through to letting phone calls go through to the answering machine and then replying to them in batches instead of answering every time the phone rings. But beware, life hacking does come with pitfalls. Some life hackers have been known to get so caught up in finding life hacks that they’ve actually decreased their productivity!

PICTURE: Sarah Williams (www.sxc.hu)

WHEN 'WASTE NOT, WANT NOT' BECOMES A WAY OF LIFE

1st June, 2007

DAVID ADAMS

“Are you going to eat that?” It’s a common-enough asked question at dinner tables around Australia and, while for some it might simply represent a chance to get hold of another’s tasty treat, for others the phrase can expose their desire to cut down on what might get thrown in the bin. Taking the idea the next step are the ‘freegans’. Described as a reaction to waste and the 'injustices' that go into producing goods, the movement sees people looking for alternative ways to meet their needs in a bid to cut down on waste. This can mean everything from recycling clothes and furniture, squatting in abandoned properties and even rummaging through rubbish bins for food, part of a practice known variously in freegan circles as “urban foraging”, “dumpster diving” or “skip dipping”. The word itself is a combination of ‘free’ and ‘vegan’, though not all are vegans - meat-eaters can apparently be known as “meagans”. According to the website freegan.info, freeganism represents “a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider”. This, it goes on to say, means freegans try to avoid buying anything. There’s a growing number of organisations to facilitate this, including the organisation Freecycle where you can pick up goods that others have donated free of charge. Some freegans also hold “freemeets” where they bring goods which others can take and vice versa . Allied to this is the growth of the Really, Really Free Market movement, based on what they call a “gift economy”.

PICTURE: Kenn Kiser (www.sxc.hu)

RUNNING FREE IN THE URBAN JUNGLE

26th February, 2007

DAVID ADAMS

Those who have seen it will recall the scene close to the start of the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale, in which Bond pursues a man in an incredible chase scene through an urban environment in Madagascar. The scene, which took the chase to incredible heights and dexterity, has its inspiration in “free-running”, a physical discipline which involves navigating the urban landscape using moves which appear more akin to acrobatics, gymnastics or even martial arts than what we typically think of as running. (More than that, the scene actually features Sebastien Foucan, the founder of the sport, as evil bomb-maker Mollaka). A derivative of the similar discipline of parkour (which was founded in the Parisian suburb of Lisses about 15 years ago by athlete and childhood friend of Foucan, David Belle), free-running is all about getting from A to B. However unlike parkour - which is about doing so as quickly as possible - free running is all about doing so with as much flair and pizazz as possible. When it comes to free-running, aesthetics count. “The main difference then between parkour and free running is that parkour is defined by purpose ‘get somewhere quickly and efficiently using the human body’, and free running is defined by the activity or art of moving through your environment however you want, moving your way, following your own path,” explains a statement on the website American Parkour. The ‘sport’ - which Foucan said in a 2003 newspaper article is all about “ being creative in the way you move” - has attracted a considerable following around the world (and its share of criticism - critics complain about the dangers involved in activities such as leaping from rooftop to rooftop although Foucan has said that people don’t need to take risks to be a free-runner). For some practitioners, free running is more than just a sport. “It is not just a game,” Foucan has been quoted as saying. “It is a discipline because it is a way of facing our fears and demons that you can apply to the rest of your life.”

PICTURE: Paul Farmer (www.sxc.hu)

TAKING FRUSTRATIONS OUT ON A MOUSE - IT'S ALL THE RAGE

22nd December, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

It’s that time of year - shoppers running amok in a last minute bid to grab Christmas presents or trying to snap up a bargain in the Boxing Day sales. Despite exhortations to remember the true meaning of Christmas and all that it really represents, there are still times when it all gets too much for some. It may simply mean making a snippy comment to an assistant at a retail outlet or, at its worst, completely losing the plot after having waited for half an hour in a queue only to find the shop is now out of the turkey that you wanted to adorn the Christmas table. Well, sadly, those frustrations have now migrated online and with them have come a new syndrome and a term to describe it - “mouse rage”, or MRS as it’s known to insiders. The UK-based Social Issues Research Centre has reportedly identified the syndrome after studying the habits of 2,500 web users and yes, like road rage before it, its symptoms include increased heart rates, teeth clenching, hitting something (in this case, the mouse) and yelling at the screen. The SIRC study identified five different website flaws that can cause the problem - slow-to-load pages, confusing navigational layouts, excessive pop-ups, unnecessary advertising and that old “site unavailable” message. The message here is twofold: while those who create websites need to make sure they do their utmost to provide a simple and smooth web experience, we, the websurfers also need to take a deep breath. As you feel the frustration setting in, stop. Maybe it’s time to take a break from the computer for a moment or two - make yourself a cup of tea, take a walk in the fresh air. And, remember, try and take it easy on your mouse. After all, what did it ever do to you?

PICTURE: Richard S (www.sxc.hu)

'BUSYNESS' THE NEW STATUS SYMBOL

19th November, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

Noticed recently how being busy is the new status symbol? Ask anyone how they’re going these days and the one thing they’re almost certain to say is ‘busy’ or ‘swamped’ as though by admitting that we were any less so would be somehow the equivalent of shamefacedly admitting we’re not living life to the full; that we're somehow missing out. There’s no doubt that many people these days do lead busy lives - long working hours and the many other demands in our lives means many exist at a frenetic pace. But is that all there is to it? Writing in the pages of an Australian newspaper last year, social researcher Hugh Mackay mused whether our increased busyness was, in fact, “the great escape from emotional engagement with the rest of our lives” and quoted the Roman poet Ovid - “You who seek an end of love, love will yield to business: be busy and you will be safe”. So what to do? Well, while many people now talk about getting “balance” in their lives, our apparent busyness has also spawned a plethora of books with titles like Too Busy to Live: The Addiction America Applauds and The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness. Then there’s organised movements like that of “slow food”. For those who haven’t heard of it, slow food is all about taking your time - stepping aside from the hustle and bustle of our lives and taking time to enjoy the moment. There’s even an international association - Slow Food International - with chapters in various countries which describes itself as a “non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organisation”. Founded in 1989, it now boasts 80,000 members and has the stated aim of counteracting “fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”. It’s all part of what some have termed the “slow revolution” and, somewhat ironically, it seems to be gaining ground fast as more and more people choose to opt out of their busy lifestyles.

PICTURE: Henning Buchholz (www.sxc.hu)

'X' MARKS THE SPOT?

9th October, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

It’s an updated version of the old-fashioned treasure hunt. Geocaching involves using a GPS (Global Positioning System) device to track down hidden 'caches' - usually a waterproof container holding a logbook to record times and dates of finds and a small trinket which the 'geocacher' exchanges for something else of similar or higher value - all just for the thrill of the hunt. Geocachers - and we’re talking thousands of people across the globe here - get the co-ordinates for their hunts from dedicated websites like Geocaching.com (this particular website also has helpful tools like a tutorial for hiding caches and a guide to finding caches) and the Australian site Geocaching.com.au. Armed with a GPS device - these start at a couple of hundred dollars - they then set out on their treasure hunt. Geocaching, which follows on from the earlier tradition of letterboxing in which participants follow written clue to find the treasure, first emerged in the early Noughties after the US Department of Defence kindly decided to turn off the scrambling affecting their satellite navigation system which, up until then, had limited civilian accuracy to about 100 metres (turning off the scrambling meant accuracy could now be pinpointed to around 10 metres). So popular has the phenomena - which some argue should be called a sport - proved, that there are reportedly geocaching communities in more than 200 countries, including Australia, with an estimated 250,000 caches now hidden across the globe. Some people even plan their holidays with geocaching adventures in mind.

PICTURE: Damien (www.sxc.hu)

'VIRTUAL' REALITY NO LONGER

12th August, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

We’ve surely all adjusted to the idea of virtual worlds - places where you can pick up a sword and lead your army against nasty armies or just spend time hanging out in whichever Sims environment you’ve elected to live in. But recent years have seen a new twist. Virtual worlds are becoming real. There’s a growing number of online worlds appearing where people in our offline reality are paying over hard cash to purchase virtual property. Take the Entropia Universe. Originating from Sweden in 1995, it’s a futuristic world in which players or colonists can explore and develop parts of the world of Calypso using a currency called PED which allows players to buy virtual land and equipment. Doesn’t sound too different to SimCity yet? The difference is that in the Entropia Universe there is a real cash economy meaning PED can actually be converted into real US dollars at a rate of 10 PEDs to 1 US dollar and can now even apparently be withdrawn at real world ATMs. Transactions to date include an Asteroid Space Resort bought for $US100,000 by Jon Jacobs aka Neverdie in an auction and a somewhat mysterious egg bought by the same person for $US10,000 just last month. In July alone more than $210,00 worth of real estate was sold at public auction. And the Entropia Universe - which reported a turnover of $US165 million last year - is not alone. Another of the virtual world games called Second Life was recently reported as having more than 200,000 users who in January spent more than $US5 million dollars on virtual world transactions. Characters there are able to spend money on Coke and beer at a virtual bar and listen to music purchased at stores and uploaded to virtual iPods. Expect more to follow. It’s a whole new world out there.

PICTURE: Tom Denham (www.sxc.hu)

CYBER-SLACKING AT THE OFFICE

6th February, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

Almost everyone who works in an office and has unrestricted access to the internet has probably been guilty of it at some stage. Cyber-slacking, defined as using the work computer to surf the net or email for non-work related reasons, is a trend many companies across the world have been eager to address. Known by various other terms - cyber-bludging to name one - results of a study released by Monash University researchers early this year showed that workers are spending more than a quarter of their time connected to the web for non-work related reasons. Dr James Phillips and Kerryann Wyatt from the university’s School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine examined the internet use of 83 people and looked at five personality traits - neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness - to see what potential each had for predicting internet use. They found that extroverts sent more work and non-work related emails. People with less agreeable personalities were likely to spend more time on the net and those open to experience were more likely to spend time searching on the net for work-related reasons. “Extroverted employees particularly are abusing their internet privileges, spending reduced amounts of time working and so reducing productivity,” says Wyatt. ”Whether this is simply to socialise or procrastinate or to stimulate themselves is not clear, but it is likely to have a significantly negative impact on the workplace.” They suggest that a lack of supervisor awareness or inadequate policies for dealing with internet use are possibly to blame. The term, which the researchers say has been around since 2001, was added to the Oxford Dictionary back in 2003 along with reality TV, SARS and “lovely jubbly”.

PICTURE: Emin Ozkan (www.sxc.hu)

A SYNDROME FOR ANGRY MEN?

9th December, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

Apparently it’s not just old men who are grumpy. Experts are starting to provide evidence which supports what many - particularly women perhaps - have suggested for years: a condition known as irritable male syndrome (IMS). The phrase - which was apparently coined by Gerald Lincoln, an academic at Edinburgh University who used it to refer to a condition he identified in male sheep a few years ago - is the title of a book (The Irritable Male Syndrome) released last year by US-based psychotherapist and author Jed Diamond who told an Australian newspaper earlier this year that perhaps as many as 30 per cent of all men suffer from the problem. According to Diamond, there are as many as 50 common signs to help diagnose the condition including the depression, anger, fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, lethargy, low libido and confusion as well as an increased use of sarcasm, the feeling of being overworked and an urge to drink caffeine. Sound like anyone you know? Diamond told US magazine Newsweek recently that IMS commonly affects men aged between 15 and 28 years and those aged between 40 and 55 years - both periods in a man’s life when they are going through “hormonal changes and changes in their male identity and sexuality and relationships”. So what to do if you do have IMS? Diamond told Newsweek that counselling can be helpful and exercise and diet are also important. He believes testosterone treatment may also be an option. The upshot is that next time you come across an angry man, spare a thought that he may just be suffering from IMS. Go here to see if you suffer from IMS.

PICTURE: Robert Driese (www.sxc.hu)

A TRULY GLOBAL LANGUAGE?

4th August, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

It’s called Globish and some are hoping that it will be language of the future. Essentially a stripped down and simplified form of English, it’s the latest bid in a quest for a truly universal language (and, some might argue, a last attempt to stem the tide of English expansion). While at least two versions of the language have been developed, the version which has received the most attention is that promoted by a linguist and former IBM marketing executive, Jean-Paul Nerriere. The Frenchman, who has published a couple of texts on the “language” - Speak Globish and Discover Globish (the former introduced the concept while the latter, published in May, deals with the issue of grammar), has stripped language back to about 1,500 words. Starting with able and ending with zero, it’s apparently all one needs to be able to communicate effectively at a basic level (not bad considering the Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 400 times as many words - 613,000 or so). In a recent interview with the International Herald Tribune newspaper, Nerriere described Globish as a tool and not a language, saying it was simply a “means of communication” and not a cultural vehicle. As well as the 1,500 words, Globish relies on gestures and repetition and has been described as “English-lite”. Nerriere reportedly developed the language after seeing the way people from non-English speaking backgrounds but different countries drew on elements of English to communicate. In an interview earlier this year, he said that unlike previous efforts to develop a global means of spoken communication - such as Esperanto - Globish is “not artificial”. “It derives from the observation that some kind of English is spoken everywhere,” he said.

PICTURE: Murat Cokal (www.sxc.hu)

PLAYING THE NUMBERS GAME

25th May, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

It started in Japan as an alternative to crosswords, has swept across Britain and now has made it’s way to Australia where newspaper publishers are falling over themselves in their efforts to capitalise on the phenomenon. Called Sudoku, it’s a deceptively simple numbers game that some are calling the biggest puzzle craze since the Rubik’s cube of the early Eighties. The game consists of a series of nine-by-nine square grids and requires people to arrange the digits one to nine so that they appear in each row and column. Sounds easy? Think again. The game’s origins have apparently been traced as far back as the 1780s when a blind Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler invented a grid puzzle he called Latin Squares. The game then sat on the shelf, so to speak, until the 1980s when it appeared with the new title of the “Number Place“ game in the US. Spotted there by a Japanese puzzle magazine employee, the game was taken back to Japan and modified. Known as Sudoku, SuDoku or Su Doku (all of which can be loosely translated as “single number” - a reference to the fact that the game only uses single figures), the game then made the transition to Britain thanks to a retired New Zealand judge, Wayne Gould, who created a computer program to generate new puzzles and set up a website to publish them (he now supplies puzzles to papers across Britain and around the globe - from New York to Estonia). Aside from the newspapers, there’s dedicated Sudoku websites - www.sudoku.com is one - as well as books and magazines and talk of national championships (in the UK at least). Versions for mobile phones are also available and even the possibility of dedicated TV shows have been raised. Enthusiasts say that the game’s appeal is in its apparent simplicity not to mention the fact that it doesn’t require maths skills of any sort, just the ability to count to nine - a factor sure to encourage those for whom maths wasn’t a strong suit at school.

PICTURE: Joao Estevao A. de Freitas (www.sxc.hu)

MEET THE 'KIDULTS'

4th February, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

We’ve all no doubt heard of the social phenomena which involves older children either remaining at home well into their 20s and, yes, even 30s, or returning home time and again after moving out for brief stints. Now brace yourself for the raft of names being cleverly coined to describe the group. Recent efforts in the United States (where the Census Bureau estimates that as many as 40 per cent of young adults return home after moving out compared with 20 per cent 50 years ago), include “boomerang children” (as in, they come back), and “kidults” (adults who enjoy activities, such as playing computer games, which are typically seen as being for kids). Time magazine recently ran a cover story about the phenomena in which it referred to the demographic group as “twixters” (apparently from being “betwixt and between”), describing them as “young adults who live with their parents, bounce from job to job and hop from mate to mate”. “They’re not lazy, they just won’t grow up,” the magazine quipped in a recent cover line. Other names doing the rounds in cyberspace include “rejuveniles”, “youthhood” and “adultescence”. In England the group is apparently referred to as “kippers” (which stands for the rather long-winded “kids in parents’ pockets eroding retirement savings”) while according to Time, in France they are referred to as if suffering a disease - the “Tanguy syndrome” (apparently referring to a 2001 film about a bloke who refuses to move out of home despite his parent’s best efforts). Which name eventually sticks remains to be seen.

PICTURE: Joshua Blake, iStockphoto.com

SLASH/SLASH

12th November, 2004

ADAM KELSALL

Slash/slash: for many this new term may hark back to a saying about...erm...going to the toilet that was coined somewhere in the Eighties. In fact it has nothing to do with that. You are most likely to fall into the shadow of a slash/slash at a social occasion when the old corker "so what do you do?" falls from your lips. The slash/slash will reply "Oh I am a computer program designer/reclaim the night campaigner/occupational health and safety rep/sessional at blah blah university". Each slash differentiates another of the roles your new friend carries out. Living in the Noughties where job and business equals status, a slash/slash seems to be a very valuable commodity indeed. They also make discussion easier: the more slashes they and you have, the easier it will be to find common ground for a discussion. Praxis: write down all your responsibilities and count the amount of slashes. If it's less than five then maybe it's time to start bustin' out some new roles.

PICTURE: Anssi Ruuska, iStockphoto.com

CYBERCHONDRIA

2nd November, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

Blurred vision? Hmm, things aren’t as sharp as they should be. Fatigue? Yawn...yes. Headaches? Uh huh. Dizziness? Woah, is the room spinning? Chills? Brrrr, yes. Anxiety? Well yes, and increasing as I work through this list I found on the internet and realise that I seem to have a number of the symptoms of hepatitis. As far as I know I’ve got nothing of the sort but maybe I’m one of those people who a recent study identified as suffering from ‘cyberchondria’. British researchers believe there are people who are incorrectly self-diagnosing themselves with a range of conditions after reading about the symptoms on the web in the same way people once did after reading medical books. “We found that people using these sites can take on board medical advice which is incorrect - an obvious concern,” says Dr Neil Coulson, who led the research team at the University of Derby. “Indeed, the health profession has coined the phrase ‘cyberchondria’ for people using the internet for self diagnosis and presenting this misinformation to their GP.” While noting the net can be a great source of comfort for people looking for support - particularly for carers - the researchers have recommended that health professionals need to post corrective information when they come across something they believe is incorrect. Meantime, I’d better go and lie down. This cyberchondria might just be catching.

PICTURE: Mark Strozier, iStockphoto.com

Your Say

Comment left by Peter Wilbourne Sudoku is a logic exercise rather than a numbers game, the numbers are just convenient familiar shapes to use in the puzzle, so counting to nine is not mandatory. I got round the elderly eyesight and fiddly little numbers problem by writing a sudoku helper, and it worked quite well so I put it on a free to use on line website at http://www.pewterweb.com. It must work ok, over 20000 people have used it in the past few weeks.

Comment left by joshua coleman with the STANDBY/ON (standby button) what modem is that button on send me back a message my email adress is josh_coleman96@hotmail.com thanks bye

Comment left by Todd Where do i find more information on Jean Scheijen?

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