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"THE DIGITAL DIVIDE The fear of losing control aside, many hawkers also have to deal with another major challenge: Digital technology, which entails some basic competence in logic and literacy - much to the horror of those who only received some primary school education, typical of the older generation of hawkers."

"Some standards did spread and crystallise over time, as more books were printed and literacy rates climbed. The printing profession played a key role in these emergent norms. Printing houses developed habits for spelling frequent words, often based on what made setting type more efficient. In a manuscript, hadde might be replaced with had; thankefull with thankful. When it came to spelling, the primary objective wasn't to faithfully represent the author's spelling, nor to uphold some standard idea of 'correct' English - it was to produce texts that people could read and, more importantly, that they would buy. Habits and tricks became standards, as typesetters learned their trade by apprenticing to other typesetters. They then often moved around as journeymen workers, which entailed dispersing their own habits or picking up those of the printing houses they worked in."

"I don't trust it, David! It's the whole Lord of the Rings vibe - "one app to rule them all", which famously didn't work out great for Middle-earth. A lot of people have concerns, myself included. It's why there was a backlash to Meta - which provides Facebook and WhatsApp - trying to launch a digital currency. I think there's a broader issue of digital literacy here: when we give up our permissions to a super app, do we really know what we're agreeing to?"

"The combination of the infinite scroll and lack of live links has led to a very specific kind of information economy on the app. Creators whose brand involves discussing news or popular culture (and there are a lot of them) opt to screenshot headlines, summarize articles, and offer their takes. But it's impossible to know whether the creator even read the article or if they're just offering a summary of the online discourse. Even worse are the accounts that spread false headlines, whether they know it or not. Without live links, all these possible situations are presented to you in the exact same way: with a familiar face on your FYP speaking authoritatively."

"In a sharply worded warning, the cancer experts say that 'novel solutions' such as new diagnostic tests have been wrongly hyped as 'magic bullets' for the cancer crisis, but 'none address the fundamental issues of cancer as a systems problem'. A 'common fallacy' of NHS leaders is the assumption that new technologies can reverse inequalities, the authors add. The reality is that tools such as AI can create 'additional barriers for those with poor digital or health literacy'. 'We caution against technocentric approaches without robust evaluation from an equity perspective,' the paper concludes."

Youngtroopz - right up your EE alley!

"only 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds could identify the ads in Google's search results"

"The difference between skimming and reading with all our intelligence is the difference between fully activated reading brains and their short-circuited, screen-dulled versions."