stressed
Latest
Gadgets convicted of making us miserable, dodgy stats used as evidence
Gadgets need to be rounded up and thrown in a cell right alongside meat glue, child pageants and other notorious public enemies. The crime? Stressing people out, according to researchers at Ipsos Mendelsohn. The evidence? A survey of affluent Americans with a household income over $100,000 who moaned that their lives are more "complicated" than they were a decade ago. Damningly, the vast majority of these respondents also admitted that their lives are more "technology-infused" than a decade ago. The researchers also highlighted evidence from a separate poll of affluents, showing the growing prevalence of certain gadgets that add to the "complex calculus" of our lives: E-reader ownership has doubled over the last eight months, smartphone ownership is up to 52 per cent, and a third of affluents either own a tablet or expect to buy one soon. Sufficient proof, it seems, to send these poor devices down for life -- especially if we disregard all the other things that have stressed out rich Americans over the past decade (recessions, deficits, bad TV serials) and the possibility that busier people might actually need more technology to help them cope.
Biofeedback anti-stress pen: a great idea that's not so great at reducing stress
We've all known for quite some time that the pen is mightier than the sword, and now science has given us a pen that is mightier (sort of) than the stress of that TPS report your boss needs right now. A student at Delft University in The Netherlands will receive his PhD this week for research that led him to create just such a pen. Based upon the obvious premise that people play with their writing utensils when anxious, the pen uses motion sensors instead of more conventional means of stress detection. When the pen detects stressful movements, internal electromagnets provide corresponding counter-motion feedback to stop your nervous tics. During experiments, the pen did diminish test subjects' heart rates around five percent, but according to feedback none of them actually "felt" less stressed. The pen isn't yet commercially available, and given its dubious value as an actual stress reliever, we would look to more satisfying methods to aid the relaxation process.
