{"id":313780,"date":"2025-11-29T05:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/313780\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T05:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T05:48:14","slug":"lately-seniors-screen-time-cellphone-dead-zones-and-a-crush-on-frankenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/313780\/","title":{"rendered":"Lately: Seniors\u2019 screen time, cellphone dead zones and a crush on Frankenstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to Lately, The Globe\u2019s weekly tech newsletter. This week, it\u2019s me (Jacob Dub\u00e9<\/a>) taking the reins as Samantha escapes the start of Canada\u2019s cold weather. I\u2019m a community editor on the audience team here at The Globe, and also write the Real Estate newsletter<\/a>. As always, if you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send Samantha an e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s issue:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc75 How screen time is affecting seniors<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udee7 How the AI bubble will pop<\/p>\n

\ud83d\uddfc The dangers of cellphone dead zones<\/p>\n

\ud83e\uddcc Why you might have a crush on Netflix\u2019s Frankenstein<\/p>\n

SCREEN TIMESeniors are spending more time online. Is that harmful for their brain health?<\/p>\n

Growing up, our parents and teachers repeatedly warned us of the dangers of screens, how video games and the internet would rot our brains. But screen addiction isn\u2019t just for the teens of TikTok or Gen Alphas on Roblox \u2013 more seniors than ever are spending a worrying amount of time on their phones<\/a>. According to Statistics Canada, seniors aged 65 and older are going online: 82 per cent in 2022, up 6 per cent from 2020. For those 75 and older, it\u2019s 72 per cent, an increase of 10 per cent. About half of seniors say they use an instant messaging app, such as WhatsApp, while 44 per cent watched videos online. <\/p>\n

Lately\u2019s very own Samantha Edwards spoke to Toronto neurologist Howard Chertkow to find out how all this increased screen time could affect seniors\u2019 brain health. Puzzles and brain games could be doing some good. But those 10-hour YouTube rabbit holes? Not so much.<\/p>\n

Are you reading this newsletter on the web or did someone forward the e-mail to you? If so, you can sign up for the Lately newsletter<\/a>.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEWhat you need to know about the AI bubble \u2013 and how it will popOpen this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Chewing gum makes robots less intimidating, IMO.iStockPhoto \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

There are increasing signs that a bubble is forming around the artificial intelligence industry. Investors believe generative AI will usher in a new economic age and have been dumping money into the production of more powerful AI models and data centres that can handle their intense processing needs. And as Joe Castaldo writes, some companies are spending millions buying land and building data centres to some day make billions handling the demands of the latest AI \u2013 and making no money at all in the meantime<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As the financial returns of AI remain deeply uncertain, some of the biggest names in tech have even acknowledged the likelihood of over-investment in the industry. While history may not always repeat, it is full of booms and busts. Railways, electricity and the internet all changed the world, but not without financial carnage along the way. Why would AI be different? <\/p>\n

NO SERVICEWhy Canada\u2019s roadways are studded with cellphone \u2018dead zones\u2019Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Willow Fiddler\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Lost tourists. Stranded drivers facing mechanical breakdowns. Victims of car accidents and collisions with wildlife. Countless Canadians across the country are affected by a silent danger on the road<\/a>: cellphone dead zones. Across the country, roughly 15,000 kilometres \u2013 or 13.4 per cent \u2013 of major roads have no mobile service, according to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Four provinces consider that figure an undercount, and it also does not include thousands of kilometres of gaps on secondary roads. <\/p>\n

As Jill Mahoney and Irene Galea write, many rural residents, provincial politicians and experts say dead zones pose unacceptable public-safety risks and are calling on the federal government to steer the expansion of mobile service to cover the country\u2019s major roads. Do you have any roads near you that don\u2019t get cellphone service? Click here and let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re reading this week:<\/p>\n

Kids in China Are Using Bots and Engagement Hacks to Look More Popular on Their Smartwatches<\/a> (WIRED)<\/p>\n

The VPN panic is only getting started<\/a> (The Verge)<\/p>\n

Someone Is Trying to \u2018Hack\u2019 People Through Apple Podcasts<\/a> (404 Media)<\/p>\n

Why you shouldn\u2019t count on humans to prevent AI hiring bias<\/a> (The Washington Post)<\/p>\n

Adult Money GIFT GUIDEOpen this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Wavelength by CMYK GamesSupplied<\/p>\n

Wavelength by CMYK Games, $41.99 at jrtoycanada.ca<\/a><\/p>\n

The Globe\u2019s holiday gift guide is here<\/a>, full of recommendations for everyone from hard-to-buy-for dads to how-long-will-this-new-hobby-last best friends. If you want a game to bring to your gatherings that\u2019s easy to play and loads of fun, Wavelength from CMYK Games is a surefire winner. Completely ready right out of the box, Wavelength will have your friends and family arguing whether a horse is more round than pointy, or if Barack Obama is more of a geek or a nerd. The game has gone viral online as content creators make up their own categories (\u201cred flag vs. green flag\u201d is a personal favourite) and is sure to start a few laughs and a lot of arguments at your dinner table.<\/p>\n

Culture radarCREATURE FEATURE Why do people find Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein\u2019s monster so attractive?Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Mia Goth as Elizabeth and Jacob Elordi as The Creature in Frankenstein.Ken Woroner\/Netflix\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, director Guillermo del Toro released his much-anticipated adaptation of Frankenstein to Netflix. Compared to the shambling green monster in most pop culture portrayals, the film stayed closer to Mary Shelley\u2019s original novel. But there\u2019s one glaring difference in del Toro\u2019s version: This incarnation of Frankenstein\u2019s monster is objectively good-looking. <\/p>\n

Played by bona-fide hottie Jacob Elordi, the film\u2019s monster is tall, lithe and muscular \u2013 far from the grotesque description in the original story. His hotness has been a topic of discussion among critics and fans alike, but Graham Isador argues there\u2019s something else at play here. Aside from Elordi\u2019s natural charm, there\u2019s a long-term trend of finding storybook monsters attractive.<\/p>\n

From Tom Hardy\u2019s Venom to the titular Beast in Beauty and the Beast, showing creatures that are othered by society allows the audience to project their own feelings of otherness onto them, opening up the idea of romance. Read more on why having a crush on the Creature from the Black Lagoon is actually a sophisticated literary tradition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More tech and telecom news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to Lately, The Globe\u2019s weekly tech newsletter. This week, it\u2019s me (Jacob Dub\u00e9) taking the reins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,1397,276,277,10456,49,48,81472,1412,2922,61],"class_list":["post-313780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-appwebview","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-aud-growth","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lately-newsletter","tag-newsletter","tag-noastack","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}