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Times
27 minutes ago
- Times
Can Keegan Bradley really be first Ryder Cup player-captain for 62 years?
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The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I don't think my brain should have gone through that': five young people on their experience of smartphones as teens
Debate and anxiety about teen and preteen access to smartphones and social media is raging. One paper has likened smartphones to a 'parasite' on our brains, while another study suggests moderate use of social media does not have a harmful effect on young people. In the US more than 100,000 parents have joined an online pledge to delay giving children smartphones until at least the eighth grade and in Australia a ban on under-16s using social media will come into effect in December. Despite all this, OECD figures released in May show 70% of 10-year-olds and 98% of 15-year-olds have internet-connected smartphones. So is giving teenagers smartphones that big a deal? To find out, we asked four twentysomethings who got a smartphone at some point in their teen or preteen years – and one who didn't. Sienna Seychell, 21, Melbourne I was about 11 when I got my first smartphone. But when I was six I got an iPod Touch so I had already been communicating with people that way. My brother installed Kik, the infamous app for predators, on the iPod – a bit concerning to think about now! But I just used it to text my friends from school. I know a fair few of my friends went down a rabbit hole contacting people that they definitely shouldn't have at that age. I got social media in year 5 or 6. I convinced my mum to let me get Snapchat for the filters and I got Instagram shortly after. It definitely brought my friendships closer because I had a readily accessible means of communication outside school hours. I was cyberbullied in year 6, so that was a negative. But I feel like I put that aside to be able to talk with friends. I had a good experience of social media overall but it has contributed to friends' severe eating disorders. I think I would have been more outdoorsy had I not had a phone. I would have connected with nature more and hung out in the real world, instead of online all the time. I think it would have made a great impact on my mental health. I suffer from pretty bad anxiety and OCD and sometimes I feel that a big trigger is using my phone and being able to focus on things online that are outside my control. I would have hated a social media ban – but I would have gotten over it! If I could go back I would have not let myself ever get TikTok. I think my attention span is so poor because of it and I really struggle to sit down and study or just do what I love doing without getting distracted. I can barely watch a movie for an hour without checking my phone a few times. I'm always on my phone. Ella Jackson, 21,, regional New South Wales I was 12 when Mum took me to get an iPhone 5, so I had Instagram from a really young age. I grew up in a place called Penrose, which is in the NSW southern highlands. I liked emo music so I would spend a lot of time on my phone looking into that world. I found a sense of belonging on the internet, because there weren't a lot of people around who liked the same things as me. The bad side of it was Instagram models, obviously. Twelve-year-old girls shouldn't be comparing themselves to 30-year-old women. I think I also became conscious of the fact that it seemed like a big deal to live a life that was 'worth' posting on Instagram, especially in the later part of high school. It made me conscious of how people perceive others. I felt like everybody was judging each other all the time. Studying I found so tricky, because the phone was always there and it was so easy to be distracted by it. I ended up having to film myself studying so I couldn't go on my phone. And because my mum's house was in a regional part of the highlands, there was no way out unless she was going to drive me 40 minutes into town. So I was just stuck at home all weekend and would just sit there streaming, which is crazy. It's this huge amount of time that was not well spent. When I got my driver's licence, all of this changed. I could go places and see my friends. More interesting things came along and my brain was like, OK, you don't need to be doing this any more. Zach Karpinellison, 29, Sydney I had a dumb phone until I was probably 15, then I pivoted to a cheap Android. On my dumb phone I had limited data and credit. So the clear difference was that, all of a sudden, you're constantly messaging other people. I was in an era where schools had no sense of whether phones needed to be regulated, so you had your phone on you all the time. It was a real opportunity to have quite deep conversations with people, which would do a lot of the work of forming a friendship with them. It was also an opportunity to connect to a wider pool of people outside school. That was good – I liked that part of it. But it trained me to expect immediate contact with everybody. I would feel a real panic and stress over not hearing back from people if they didn't immediately write back. I carry that with me to this day – being stressed about someone not responding to me. As a teenager, you're already full of anxiety and trying to figure out the world. Then you're messaging someone at 2am and they drop off, and you spiral out into 'something terrible has happened!' I don't think my brain should have gone through that at that stage. I had Facebook and Messenger, then Instagram towards the end of high school. Because I went through those different iterations of the internet, I am savvy about how to use these things but also have an ability to step away from it. I recognise when I'm being sold things in a way that people who are gen Z don't necessarily. But we were posting ourselves online and comparing the like counts [of Instagram posts]. That was, like, absolutely brain melting. It was not good. Pearl Cardis, 24, Sydney I had a Nokia brick phone in school. It was the equivalent of a party trick because I could toss it across the playground, or break in three pieces for the drama, and then put it back together – people's eyes got so wide. But beyond that it was pretty rough. We were quite low-income. Mum had all of us on Vodafone so that we could do free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls but we weren't able to text anyone. So I could only really use my phone to call family. All around me it was Apple city – everyone else had an iPhone. I was not overly concerned with fitting in but I also didn't have great friendships. I doubt being different in that way helps when you're already kind of an oddball. For me the dominant experience was one of stress and isolation because I had less independence and less ability to connect with people around me. It was difficult to travel anywhere or meet anyone because I couldn't use maps or text friends. I remember getting off the bus one time and just being so panicked, in the middle of nowhere, with no way to contact anyone except an actual pay phone on the side of the road. I tried to call someone but they didn't pick up. I know that a lot of people had huge body image issues going through high school or were very concerned with trends and appearance – whereas I was just not conscious of that. I still had low self-esteem, which I think any young person will, but it was more through comparison to my peers than anyone online. I didn't get a proper phone until I was 20. I think I'm a very different person to what the mould looks like for the people I grew up with. I am able to go without my phone for an extremely long time without worrying about it. I feel less habituated to needing to check notifications all the time, and I hate [the pressure to] respond to people regularly. But when TikTok came out there were periods where I would be trapped for five hours at a time scrolling. I just get so sucked in because I have no guardrails. It's like a kid who doesn't have sugar who gets access to sugar. Maybe these are things that it's better to be trained to adapt to as you grow up, as opposed to the floodgates opening all in one go. Reinhard Holl, 24, Adelaide I got an iPhone in year 7. I came to social media a little bit later, maybe midway through high school – it didn't spark my interest that much at first. Later it became more of a fixation. I would say social media became a little bit of a negative thing in the way that I felt a lot of pressure to be perceived a certain way, put things online and keep up with the way that everybody else was using it in high school. But it also became a good way to interact with people. The phone definitely affected my sleep. I would wake up and get straight on my phone and mentally reinforce having that immediate stimulus as a normal thing. I think it affected my attention span, too – it was this thing that I was focused on constantly. If I could go back I wouldn't have allowed myself to sleep with it in my room. But really, I feel like I got thrown in the deep end and learned how to have a phone that way. I now have a good dynamic with it – I know how to use it in a way that works well for me.
The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Get a sharp knife, season properly and don't do too much at once: how to start cooking
Food is more than just nutrition: it can be joyful, social and exciting. But the act of preparing it can feel awfully daunting. Many beginner cooks suffer from a fear of failure, a lack of foundational knowledge and a poor understanding of how long it actually takes to prepare a dish, says Sam Nasserian, founder and CEO of Cozymeal, a culinary services company. But 'once people learn the basics and try a few recipes, they're surprised by how easy and fun cooking can be', he says. And there are lots of benefits to cooking at home. Namely: it tends to be healthier and cheaper than eating out or ordering in. So how does one start cooking? We asked experts. Not as much as you think. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the elaborate cooking gadgets out there, but experts agree you really only need a few key tools and ingredients to prepare most dishes. Caroline Chambers, author of a book and Substack both called What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, says you can go far with just 'a chef's knife, a cutting board, a good nonstick pan, a few rimmed baking sheets, and a few silicone spatulas'. Nasserian also suggests a medium-sized oven-safe skillet, a small lidded saucepan, measuring cups and spoons, a colander and some storage containers for leftovers. You don't have to go for the fanciest, most expensive gear either, says Sohla El-Waylly, author of the cookbook Start Here. When it comes to a knife, for example, 'you just need a sharp knife that you feel comfortable sharpening', she says. 'That might be the cheapest knife you pick up from Walmart.' Then, if you feel inspired later, you can level up. Quality can make a big difference when it comes to basic spices and pantry staples, though. El-Waylly recommends stocking up on good kosher salt, like Diamond Crystal – 'It's very fluffy, light and forgiving when you first start cooking,' she says – and fresh black pepper that you crack yourself, either with a knife or a pepper mill. 'I know it sounds boring, but it's the basics where you can really screw yourself up right off the bat,' El-Waylly says. Other useful ingredients she recommends keeping on hand are olive oil, a neutral oil (like canola oil or avocado oil) for high temperature cooking, a couple of vinegars, bags of rice and some beans. There is a popular idea that cooking is intuitive. It might be for some, but intuition usually only comes after lots of practice. 'Cooking is a learned skill, just like riding a bike or learning to read,' says Chambers. 'If your mother or some other authority figure in your life didn't teach you the fundamentals, how should you be expected to have acquired them?' The first thing Chambers recommends is enrolling in or watching a knife skills class (there are free ones online). 'Knife skills are the fundamental skill in cooking, and if you don't have a basic knowledge of them, you're always going to feel frustrated and slow in the kitchen,' she says. More from How to start: How to start meditating How to start weightlifting How to start budgeting How to start running Nasserian is keen on knife skills too, including learning a safe knife grip. Another important step is developing good cooking habits, like setting up ingredients before you turn on the stove – also known as 'mise en place'. Properly seasoning food is where a lot of beginners slip up, Nassierian says, especially by 'under-seasoning early and over-salting later'. 'You season throughout the cooking process, not just at the end,' says El-Waylly. 'Every time you add something to the pan, add some salt.' Tasting the food as you cook is essential. This doesn't only help with seasoning, but also with learning how flavors develop, says El-Waylly. 'When you're working with spices and you taste something early on, you might feel like the spices taste like themselves and don't come together,' she says. 'But when you taste as it's cooking, you'll notice flavors blending and harmonizing.' Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion For those who are learning how to cook, 'super low effort, super high reward recipes are essential', says Chambers. She says her tiny tomato pasta and taco salad recipes are especially popular among novice cooks. Nasserian also recommends trying recipes that will teach you core cooking skills: a one-pot lentil soup can teach you how to time sauteing and simmering; sheet pan chicken with vegetables, chopping and roasting; a three-egg omelet, heat control; and a vegetable stir-fry, knife work and sauce rations. 'Rotate through them for a couple of weeks, and you'll have the confidence to tackle almost any recipe,' Nasserin says. When you first try anything, you will inevitably make mistakes. But there are easy cooking gaffes to avoid. Don't overcrowd pans, says Nasserian (this can prevent browning and make ingredients soggy rather than crispy). And if you want to sear meat, make sure the skillet is hot enough before you drop it in (as in, very, very hot). Most of all, experts suggest starting off small and not biting off more than you can chew. 'TikTok makes it look really fun to cook an eight-part dinner party,' says Chambers. 'And it is fun! If you know how to cook.' El-Waylly says it's important to be realistic about timing. 'A lot of recipes will have a cook time of 45 minutes,' she says. 'But if you're starting out, give yourself three hours.' And if you're fretting about having people over for a meal, don't worry – the pros do it too. 'I still get nervous every time I cook for somebody. I don't think that ever goes away, and that's fine,' says El-Waylly. 'It means you care.'
