Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s weekly tech newsletter. If you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send me an e-mail.
In this week’s issue:
😵💫 The secret to curbing doomscrolling? Make your offline time more meaningful
🧑🏻⚖️ Family of Tumbler Ridge victim sues OpenAI
💪 New manosphere doc shows the entertainment value of extremism
☎️ A smart dumbphone for adults and kids
DOOMSCROLLING
How to avoid digital distraction
Over the last few years, a cottage industry has cropped up with the singular objective of deterring our compulsive doomscrolling: apps that monitor screentime, physical devices that lock you out of the most addictive platforms, “dumbphones” that allow only the most basic functions.
But to really reap the benefits of a more offline life, you need to make those reclaimed hours more meaningful. That’s the argument Cody Cook-Parrott makes in their new book, The Practice of Attention: Cultivating Presence in a Distracted World. Cook-Parrott says we need to find replacement behaviours instead of instinctually reaching for our phones.
They highlight ways to fill time other than scrolling, such as spending time with neighbours, reconnecting with creative pursuits and getting more physical movement. The author also shares how they have curbed their own time online, including switching to a phone without e-mail or social media, using a website blocker on their computer and practising the Pomodoro method, a strategy where you work in 25-minute bursts with five-minute breaks. Read the full Q&A with Cook-Parrot here.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Tumbler Ridge victim’s family sues OpenAI
The family of a 12-year-old girl who was critically injured in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting has filed a civil claim against OpenAI. The claim argues that the tech company had specific knowledge of the shooter’s violent intentions but did not warn relevant law enforcement agencies. The 12-year-old, Maya Gebala, was shot three times at close range and suffered a catastrophic traumatic brain injury. She remains at the BC Children’s Hospital.
Over the past few years, a growing number of families have filed wrongful death suits against AI companies, alleging that their chatbots are designed to be addictive, exacerbate mental health issues and encourage suicide. For grieving parents who believe their children were harmed by social media or AI companies, civil lawsuits are one of the few ways to hold Big Tech accountable and push for a greater reckoning around child safety.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The TikTok vs. Ottawa feud is laid to rest
It looks like the TikTok vs. Canadian government saga has finally ended. Earlier this week, Ottawa announced that it will allow TikTok to continue to operate in Canada after completing a national security review.
A quick refresher: In November, 2024, the government ordered TikTok’s Canadian business be dissolved, including closing the tech company’s local offices, citing national security risks. Unlike in the U.S., Ottawa never threatened banning the app completely.
TikTok challenged the decision, and in January, a federal court overturned the order. As part of an agreement with Ottawa, TikTok has promised to implement enhanced protection for Canadian user data to reduce the risk of unauthorized or prohibited access, and improve safety guardrails for minors.
What else we’re reading this week:
Are AI-Generated Videos Changing How We See Animals? (The New York Times Magazine)
How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world (MIT Technology Review)
Adult Money
DUMBPHONES
Wisephone, US$399
It's impossible to doomscroll on the Wisephone.Supplied
In the world of dumbphones, there are two main types: the no-frills, low-tech flip phones that look remarkably similar to what you may have used in 2004, and sleek devices with minimalist interfaces made by tech startups that promise to fend off digital addiction.
Cook-Parrott, the author of The Practice of Attention, credits Wisephone (part of the latter category of dumbphones) with helping them avoid digital distractions. The Wisephone comes with a handful of apps, plus a very curated selection of third-party apps available for download, such as WhatsApp, Spotify, Uber and Google Calendar.
The forbidden list is more comprehensive: all social media, explicit content, web browsers and “solo media,” which Wisephone defines as apps that “monetize your attention and are known to isolate users.” The phone is geared toward adults who want to be less tethered to their devices, but it’s gaining traction among parents looking for a first phone for their kids with only the basics.
Culture radar
STREAMING
Inside the Manosphere shows the entertainment value of extremism
Louis Theroux with Harrison Sullivan.Netflix
Around a year after miniseries Adolescence tapped into widespread anxiety around the online radicalization of young men, Netflix is releasing what’s been framed as a kind of follow-up: a non-fiction look at the so-called manosphere from British documentarian Louis Theroux. As The Globe’s TV critic J. Kelly Nestruck explains, Inside the Manosphere takes a step back from the problem to focus on the symptoms – attention-seeking extremists who come and go in whack-a-mole fashion.
Theroux directs most of his attention toward the subset of the manosphere that is primarily concerned with fitness, wealth and women. That includes figures such as the British bodybuilder Harrison Sullivan, a.k.a HSTikkyTokky; Myron Gaines, who hosts the women-hating podcast Fresh and Fit; and Sneako, who’s actually left the red-pill business and is now peddling conspiracy theories and religion. Read Nestruck’s full review.