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Time of India
20 hours ago
- Time of India
I Don't Need a Companion When I Have ChatGPT
By Dr. Sakhhi Chhabra Technology has always redefined human behaviour, but now, it's doing the unthinkable, replacing companionship. In an Instagram reel, I saw a couple's harmless banter. The wife casually asked her husband, 'Can I check your call log?' He passed the phone over. Then he joked, 'Can I see your ChatGPT history?' And suddenly, awkward silence. Flustered. Defensive. That's when it hit me: we've crossed into a strange new zone of digital intimacy . Two decades ago, folks turned to their best friends to ask, 'How should I text him back?' Parents asked adolescent kids for help with condolence messages. Kids asked mums for advice after a friendship fallout. Partners helped each other in untangling life's mini-dramas. Now? We turn to a blinking cursor. It doesn't yawn, interrupt, or say 'Not this again.' It just listens and responds. Faithfully. Brilliantly. Instantly. It's not just a tool. It's that best friend and listener we ever wanted but never had. Remember when composing a message to your boss or crush was a group project? Friends circled around the phone like emotional surgeons: 'Too needy.' 'Add a winky face.' Emotional labour was shared and messy. But now, I type, 'Apologise to a friend who I could not meet without sounding desperate,' and poof, ChatGPT delivers. No backstory. No judgement. Just perfectly tuned empathy. ChatGPT does it all, drafts emotional emails, and tailors exit messages, without sounding like a robot. Call it optimisation. Call it digital therapy. But it's also the slow erosion of human connection . People spending time with generative AI would relate, it knows one's fears. It remembers half-baked travel plans. It knows the goals and emotional meltdowns. According to a 2024 Pew survey, 28% of Gen Z and Millennials prefer discussing sensitive personal issues with AI than with humans. There's a strange comfort in being understood by a non-human. Why? Because AI doesn't judge. It doesn't interrupt, forget your birthday, or ask 'Why haven't you moved on yet?' Recently during a meet-up, when Gen AI was being discussed, one participant informed 'I can't share my login, not for privacy reasons, but because it knows too much. It's my digital diary, my co-author, and my therapist who never raises an eyebrow. More than most humans, it knows when I spiral, when I self-doubt, and when I need a pep talk. It never says you again? It just responds patiently and precisely.' Not long ago we used to crave a text that read like 'You've been quiet lately' from a friend. Now, I see a ping that says: Here's a refined version of your query. Would you like me to soften the tone? Recently I joked with my best friend that I have got your replacement: ChatGPT. But lately, I'm not sure it's a joke. Is it my secret obsession? My soulmate? My code-based emotional support ? But here's the dilemma: with all this emotional outsourcing, it's time to ask oneself if we are losing human muscle for connection. Humans are chaotic. They interrupt. Misunderstand. Forget. Misread moods. They bring mismatched schedules, unsolicited advice, and a glorious mess of vulnerability. ChatGPT, on the other hand, is always composed. Always available. Always aligned. But sometimes, we want the mess. The irritation of being misunderstood and the joy of being seen anyway. Companionship isn't just about resolution. It's about inside jokes, awkward silences, failed attempts at connection, and the strange beauty of being imperfect, together. The scariest part about bonding with AI isn't the tech, it's what it reveals about our lowered tolerance for human complexity. And while it doesn't hug back, ChatGPT knows how to phrase, 'You're going to be okay,' in six nuanced tones. Here's where it gets trickier. AI isn't just reshaping relationships, it's rewriting the workplace. Every field, legal, medical, academic, is morphing under AI's influence. Once, businesses claimed that AI would 'assist' humans. But AI is already making decisions faster, cheaper, and better. It's déjà vu from the early e-commerce era. Companies said 'online and offline' would coexist. Spoiler: offline got downsized. Now, CEOs say, 'AI will help us think better.' But in truth, it is doing the thinking. From pitch decks to performance reviews, AI isn't your intern, it's your silent overachiever. The survivors of this AI Darwinism won't be those who resist it, but those who train it. Who treats it as a lever, not a life raft. Because here's the eternal truth: Maslow's hierarchy won't change. We still need food, shelter, and belonging. But the way we earn, connect, and heal, that's changing fast. The stress is real and the demand for therapists is rising. Ironically, it feels like ChatGPT is the therapist. It listens. It offers CBT prompts. It reframes the toxic thought patterns. But maybe it's also the reason I will need a human therapist soon. So we must ask: Is this interface helping us become better humans or better at avoiding humanity? Maybe the ideal partner isn't someone who perfects our sentences, but one who stays while we fumble through them. Someone who misinterprets us then laughs it off. Who annoys us with bad advice and makes up for it with chai and hugs. Because as much as I love ChatGPT, it'll never accidentally say the wrong thing and mean it right. And sometimes, that's all I really need. (The author is the Asst. Professor (Marketing) XLRI Delhi NCR. Opinions are personal.)
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Parents back classroom phone bans—but here's why many moms still feel uneasy
As a mom of a teen and tweens, managing cell phones and screen time has been a moving target. I want my kids to be able to call me—and yes, call their friends—but I'm also incredibly aware of the online minefield they're navigating. From screen addiction to sextortion, the dangers are real, and they're growing. I'm a Millennial mom who got her first flip phone in high school and didn't see Facebook until my 20s. My kids? They're growing up in a world where their phone is both their diary and their playground. So, when I hear about cell phone bans in schools, I feel that gut pull: Yes, please, let them focus. And also: But what if they need me? Related: More than half of states nationwide have cell phone bans in K-12 schools—but is it safe? Cell phone bans are gaining support—but moms are split According to a new Pew Research Center survey, 74% of U.S. adults now support banning cell phones during class in middle and high school—up from 68% last fall. There's also a growing (though more hesitant) camp that supports all-day bans: 44% now, up from 36%. But beneath those top-line numbers is a story about the very real emotional and cultural complexity parents—especially moms—are navigating. Why some moms are nodding yes… but not without hesitation Many parents want fewer distractions at school. A majority of adults in the Pew survey said an all-day cell phone ban would improve grades, social skills, and classroom behavior. That's hard to argue with, especially when 72% of high school teachers say cell phone distraction is a major classroom problem. Only 37% of Americans believe a full-day phone ban would improve physical safety at school. That stat hits home when you consider that school lockdown drills have become as routine as recess, and that families of color often feel less trust in how schools handle discipline, emergencies, or even basic communication. Phones can be a lifeline in overwhelming moments There's strong evidence that many parents view cell phones as critical safety tools. A 2024 survey by the National Parents Union put it plainly: 'When there are emergencies at school, being able to directly communicate with your child … is critically important and too often schools are dropping the ball on effective communication,' said Keri Rodrigues, President of the National Parents Union. That sentiment is echoed across online parenting spaces. In a Reddit thread about school phone bans in Ohio, one parent, @RED_IT_RUM, wrote: 'Emergency calls and emergency contacts only. This would eliminate texting and browsing in class and curb phone cheating on tests. If there was ever a real emergency, they can still call out.' The Pew study backs this up: one of the most common reasons people oppose bans is the need for parents and children to stay in contact when necessary—especially during emergencies. Related: Mom shares why she took away her tween's cell phone—and a plea to other parents A closer look: How support for phone bans breaks down By age: Support for classroom bans is high across all generations—but younger adults (18–29) are less likely to support all-day bans (only 26% say it improves physical safety), while 42% of older adults (50+) agree. By race: White adults: 79% support class-time bans; 48% support all-day bans. Black adults: 59% support class-time bans; just 29% support all-day bans. By political party: Republicans are more supportive of all-day bans than Democrats (50% vs. 39%). Support across both groups has risen since last year. Policy on the ground: Uneven and unclear There's no national standard on school cell phone policies. Some districts enforce 'off and away' rules during class only. Others go full lock-up using magnetically sealed Yondr pouches. Affluent districts often have more resources—think school-issued Chromebooks and parent communication portals—while underfunded schools may rely on students' personal phones for even basic access. That digital divide matters. If a school doesn't offer reliable ways for students to reach parents or for parents to call in, banning their only device becomes an inconvenience and a risk. What moms are really asking for They're not calling for unlimited access to social media. What moms want—what they've always wanted—is for their kids to be safe, focused, and able to reach them when it matters. That means: Clear, thoughtful limits on device use that don't erase students' autonomy. School safety and communication systems that don't rely on privilege. Policies that consider race, income, and trauma. Moms shouldn't have to choose between their child's focus and their safety. In a world that demands more of parents every year, we can create smarter tech policies that support learning and connection. Sources: Most U.S. adults support cellphone bans in schools—especially during class time. July 8, 2024. Pew Research Center. Most U.S. adults support cellphone bans in schools—especially during class time. In Case of Emergency: New Survey Finds Why Parents Say Children Should Have Their Cell Phone at School. September 6, 2024. National Parents Union. In Case of Emergency: New Survey Finds Why Parents Say Children Should Have Their Cell Phone at School. Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Democratic coalition has a crack that is getting bigger
The good news for Democrats in the latest comprehensive survey of Americans' partisan identities is that among young voters, the party has regained a lead, a 6-point advantage among those ages 18 to 29. The bad news: Four years ago, the advantage was 32 points. Every year, the Pew Research Center publishes its National Public Opinion Reference Survey, the big kahuna for tracking the trends of partisanship among the major voting blocs. It's one thing for a voter to make a snap decision about one candidate in one election, but something different if he or she changes jerseys. That's the difference between a wave and a realignment. And in the year after a presidential election and before midterms get hot and heavy, Pew gives us a chance to see what the longer-lasting implications of 2024's wild and wooly presidential election may be. The overall trend of this decade is unmistakable: America has been getting more Republican, something you didn't need an exhaustive survey of 5,022 adults to tell you. In 2020, 49 percent of Americans identified as Democrats, compared to 43 percent of Republicans. The next year, in the wake of the Jan. 6 sacking of the Capitol and Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election results, Democrats widened their advantage to 10 points, 52 percent to 42 percent. But since then, it's been a steady retreat for the blue team. By 2024, Republicans actually enjoyed a 1-point advantage, 47 percent to 46 percent, a nearly perfect indicator of the results of the presidential election that fall. Now that the dust has settled, we find the parties in pretty much the same position, with Republicans holding that same 1-point advantage, but both parties a tick lower, 46 percent Republicans, 45 percent Democratic and 8 percent declaring themselves pure independents. These are historically good numbers for the GOP, which had traditionally been the smaller party for generations. The way Republicans won elections nationally was to harness the power of their high-propensity, affluent base in the suburbs to out-vote lower-income, working-class Democrats. If they could tip a majority of the true independents, Republicans could win substantial majorities, especially in midterms, despite starting from a smaller base. But the Trump era has turned a lot of that on its head, as Republicans emerge as the plurality party, but also the one that struggles to get its lower-income, lower-propensity voters to the polls. If you wanted one convincing argument for why Democrats are favored in midterms, this would be it — even more than the midterm curse, which has left the party in power with a record of three wins and 22 losses in the past 100 years' worth of midterms. After a century of being the bigger party, but the one with the turnout problem, Democrats find themselves in the other role: the smaller party with the more reliable voters. That's how Republicans fumbled their chance for a big win in 2022 but still won convincingly in 2024. It's also why the smart money is on Democrats in 2026. Then it's back to the bigger, presidential-year electorate in 2028, and advantage Republicans … and so on. Is that the future for American politics? Whole Foods Democrats versus Walmart Republicans, with the corresponding advantages and disadvantages? Another arrow pointing in that direction is that perennial bane of campaigns' get-out-the-vote efforts: younger voters. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won voters ages 18 to 29 by 25 points, 61 percent to 36 percent. In 2024, Democrat Kamala Harris won the same demographic group by just 4 points, 51 percent to 47 percent. Looking at the broader category of voters under the age of 45, we see women shifting away from Democrats by 7 points, dropping from 61 percent for Biden to 54 percent for Harris. Men dropped 7 points for Democrats, too, but slid into an outright minority, with just 45 percent for Harris, down from 52 points four years earlier. Compare that to the recent high-water mark for Democrats with young voters, when Barack Obama won 66 percent of voters under 30 in 2008. Many Democrats have concluded that this slide among younger voters, particularly men, is at the root of their problem these days. Operatives and donors are pouring tens of millions of dollars into youth outreach, including the very buzzy 'manosphere.' Bro pandering aside, what younger voters often have in common is that they aren't that well off, having just begun the game of life, and tend to vote at a fairly low propensity, typically accounting for just 15 percent or so of the national electorate. But as they age and begin voting at a higher frequency, they become more valuable members of a political coalition. Political habits and attitudes formed in one's 20s often persist through life. Voters have long tended to move rightward with age. A Republican majority with young voters now could be the bedrock of electoral dominance over the next two decades as the folks born in the 2000s enter prime voting age. So, how does the new Republican youth coalition look as we emerge from the shadow of 2024? The aforementioned good news for Democrats shouldn't be overlooked. The Pew numbers show a Democratic plurality at 49 percent. Yes, it's not the 63 percent of four years ago, but it does reverse a trend in partisan identification that saw Democratic declines for three straight years. Republicans dropped 4 points from last year. 2024 Election Coverage The gender gap for young voters remains massive, with young men split 52 percent Republican and 34 percent Democratic and young women going 58 percent Democratic and 37 percent Republican. Compare that to the 2024 election, when 59 percent of young women voted Democratic and 41 percent of young men did. Women under 30 are about as Democratic now as they were on Election Day, but young men are down considerably. No matter how much Democrats can juice their share among young women, there's no winning coalition for their party that can't get at least 40 percent of young men. One year's worth of data isn't sufficient to tell us about a radical realignment, and the Republican youth wave certainly seems to have ebbed since last fall, but Pew provides us with yet another blinking light on the dashboard for Democrats.
The Hill
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Amidst terrible tragedy in Texas, debates over misinformation cloud the truth
As search and rescue teams in Texas continue to search for those lost in extreme flash floods and communities try to piece together lives, claims quickly spread about what happened and who was to blame. Many on the left blamed the Trump administration 's cuts to the National Weather Service. On the right, keyboard warriors accused cloud seeding technologies of causing the devastating floods. Others in the community spread news of the miraculous survival of some of those caught in the flood. These claims and accusations have been called misinformation, commonly understood as 'false' or 'misleading' information. The floods in Texas have inundated news cycles with a broader discussion of what misinformation is, how it works, and the impacts it can have. It is not surprising that Americans are worried about misinformation. Recent polling by the Cato Institute shows that Americans believe misinformation is the greatest threat to their freedom. This finding is true for Republicans and Democrats, though they likely consider misinformation to be a threat for different reasons. Other polls have reported that 80 percent of Americans view misinformation as a major problem. And according to a 2023 Pew poll, 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government should take action to restrict false information, even if it limits freedom of information. Research on misinformation, though, shows that it is not as serious a threat as it is made out to be, and we must be careful that in our efforts to address it, we don't make matters worse. Misinformation is an incredibly subjective issue to which people respond to in complex ways. In fact, misinformation is most often adopted and spread by those who are already predisposed to believe it, as we can see clearly in the recent events in Texas. The cycle is familiar: Politically motivated actors spread false or misleading information that was too good to check because it reinforced their beliefs. Similarly, locals hoping for some good news shared and believed information that they desperately wanted to be true, but sadly, it was not. And as often happens during significant disasters, false or misleading information spreads because of the rapidly evolving nature of the tragedy — we often simply don't know what the truth is yet. So, while misinformation can be harmful, it is often more of a symptom than a disease. Research shows that misinformation itself often does not change the beliefs and actions of those who encounter it; rather, it tends to reinforce existing beliefs or behaviors. In that sense, misinformation does not have the powerful impact of which the media and political world commonly speak. Unfortunately, despite this evidence minimizing its impact and power, the clouds of misinformation loom large over our society today. Americans have been told for years now that we are in the midst of an 'infodemic' of powerful misinformation that infects our minds like a virus. For example, last year, the World Economic Forum's risk report labeled AI-powered misinformation and disinformation as the greatest threat facing the world in the next couple of years. The number of academic research, books, journalism and fact-checking resources has surged over the past decade. Rather than panicking about misinformation and opening the door to government censorship, the threat of misinformation must be addressed from the ground up rather than the top down. For tech companies, this means rebuilding user trust and helping users be better consumers of information. Tools like community notes — as being adopted or tested in some form by X, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms — are likely to be helpful in getting users to trust the fact-checks they are seeing. And efforts to 'pre-bunk' misinformation through better media literacy will help by empowering users. When the government begins funding counter-misinformation research, things tend to go awry. This may sound counterintuitive, but we often disagree about what misinformation is and tend to favor our political biases, as seen in the news around the Texas floods. So when the government doles out money to research misinformation, it is inevitably funding those biases, which over time contributes to polarization and a lack of trust in our institutions. Similarly, the U.S. government should limit what it deems 'foreign disinformation' to include only the most clear-cut and harmful cases. When not handled carefully, such efforts can and have turned into government attacks on Americans' speech and political views — see the intelligence experts getting the Hunter Biden laptop story wrong — further polarizing and degrading Americans' trust in their leaders. The flood waters are receding in Texas, but the storm of misinformation still rages within our society. Instead of doubling down on misplaced panic over misinformation, we must instead trust and help Americans discover the truth. More speech, more discussions — not less speech and more government control — are the way we sort through information and find a brighter tomorrow.
Indian Express
7 days ago
- Indian Express
Google AI Overviews led to 7% per cent drop in clicks to websites, Pew study finds
Google's rollout of features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search continues to fuel concerns about their negative impact on website traffic. Users shown AI-generated summaries of search results, as part of Google AI Overviews, are less likely to click on the traditional URLs that appear below Overviews, according to a report by Pew Research Center. Those who encountered an AI Overview only clicked on a website link eight per cent of the time. Meanwhile, those who were not shown an AI Overview were 15 per cent more likely to click on relevant website links, as per the study. These findings are based on a study that involved analysing the web browsing activity of over 900 individuals in the United States. Links displayed within AI Overviews saw minimal click-through rates (1 per cent) as well. The Pew survey comes a year after Google introduced AI Overviews, a feature where AI-generated summaries appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages and are shown to users in more than 100 countries. AI Overviews has raised concerns among online publishers and content creators who fear that these AI-generated summaries have caused web traffic to decline, as users are increasingly relying on these summaries to find information online instead of clicking through the links to the publishers' websites. Earlier this month, Google was hit with an antitrust complaint filed by a group of independent publishers in the European Union (EU) that accused the tech giant of causing 'significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss.' Over 18 per cent of all Google searches analysed by the study led to an AI-generated summary being shown to users. The majority (88 per cent) of these summaries or Overviews cited three or more sources. These sources that were cited within AI Overviews included Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit. 'Wikipedia links are somewhat more common in AI summaries than in standard search pages, while YouTube links are somewhat more common in standard search results than in AI summaries,' the Pew report said. 'Collectively, they accounted for 15 per cent of the sources that were listed in the AI summaries we examined. They made up a similar share (17 per cent) of the sources listed in standard search results,' it added. It further said that six per cent of the URLs found within AI Overviews linked out to government websites, while five per cent of URLs linked to news websites.
