Can you imagine life without the always-on internet? If you’re like most people today, it’s a simply indispensable tool, and the thought of suddenly being without it makes you shudder and brings images of the Dark Ages to mind.
It’s glorious, no doubt, and it really is a remarkable tool, but unfortunately, it’s not all upside. A recent study funded by the European Research Council has concluded that access to broadband internet access costs you as much as 25 minutes of lost sleep every night. Considering that most of us are already getting by on far too little sleep, that’s not good.
Luca Stella, one of the researchers responsible for the study, had this to say about it:
“Internet addiction and technology use near bedtime are often blamed as a major cause of the sleep deprivation epidemic. Yet the empirical evidence on this relationship is still limited. In our study, we first show descriptive evidence that the use of digital services at night is correlated with shorter sleep duration. Then, exploiting differences in the access to high-speed internet caused by the pre-existing telephone infrastructure in Germany, we analyze the relationship between high-speed internet and sleep. We find that access to broadband internet reduces sleep duration and sleep satisfaction.”
While the report is clearly bad news, in many ways, it merely confirms what we already knew. It seems self-evident that if you spend time surfing the web just before bed, you’re probably going to get sucked in, which is going to cut further into your already limited sleep time. Sure enough, we now have evidence that supports this notion.
What is interesting in the report, and something that runs counter to most people’s assumptions, is that people in the 30-59 year age range suffered more sleep loss than those in the under 30 crowd.
A fair question then, is how much sleep are you getting? If you’d like more, it might be time to consider curtailing late-night internet use.
Facebook and Instagram are rolling out new tools designed to help manage how much time you’re spending on those two social media platforms.
There’s a new, surprisingly elaborate phishing scam targeting iPhone users. The scam starts with an email informing users that their phones have been locked due to “illegal activity” and instructing them to call “Apple Care” to get the problem fixed.
A dark day for Lifelock, the Identity Theft Protection company. It has recently come to light that the company may have accidentally exposed their customers to additional attacks.
Microsoft has made numerous ventures into the smartphone ecosystem, but so far, they’ve only been met with limited success. This time, they’re trying something a little different.
File this away under things you already knew. Coronet recently released a report entitled “Attention All Passengers: Airport Networks Are Putting Your Devices & Cloud Apps At Severe Risk,” and the news is about what you’d expect.
Twitter has long had a reputation for being at the mercy of bots that have been used to sway public discourse and opinion.
If you’ve used Windows 10 for any length of time, you’ve probably had this happen to you. You’re right in the middle of working on something important, and all of a sudden, your OS decides it would be a great time to install some updates!
Mimecast’s 2018 “State of Email Security” report is out, and although it’s contents are hardly a surprise, the news it contains is mostly bad.
There is a small but significant change from Google, with the release of Chrome 68. The updated browser will now prominently notify browsers when they surf their way to non-HTTPS websites, displaying them as “Not Secure.”
