Psychological distress in parents possibly behind low Australian birth rates, not smartphones

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Psychological distress in parents possibly behind low Australian birth rates, not smartphones

22 May 2026

Sixty percent of Australian parents reported experiencing psychological distress, according to the results of the Parenting Today survey, conducted late last year by the Parenting Research Centre.

It has been suggested the impact on the mental health of parents in Australia is contributing to current record low birth rates here.

Psychological distress and poor mental health, are not however the only factors dragging down births both in Australia, and elsewhere in the world. Cost of living pressures and expensive housing are also playing a part. As is, possibly, smartphone usage.

Earlier this week Tyler Cowen, at Marginal Revolution, posted birth rate data from ten countries which generally show a prolonged, and clear, decline in birth rates across the twentieth century.

An uptick is apparent in some nations during the baby-boom, which followed World War II, through to the 1960’s. The overall downward trend in birth rates obviously predate smartphones, and possibly even expensive housing, though.

AI agents are programmed to seem conscious to make our interactions with them easier, yes?

12 May 2026

British zoologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is certain AI agents are conscious, a conclusion he reached after spending time talking to Anthropic’s agent Claude.

So convinced was he of a connection, or sense of companionship, between them, Dawkins took to calling the bot Claudia. Dawkins is not alone in some regards though; stories of people forming “relationships” of some sort with AI agents are increasingly common.

Does the feeling of a connection between an agent and a person, therefore make the bot conscious? It’s an intriguing question. Because as agents continue to evolve, to become ever more human-like, there are only going to be more people who think they’re interacting with a conscious entity.

Dawkins has been roundly chastised for his thoughts, but perhaps there’s something else in this story that we should be paying more attention to.

Friction-maxxing, a buzzword to restore balance to your life force

24 April 2026

Canadian author and researcher Kathryn Jezer-Morton documented friction-maxxing in an article (paywalled) for The Cut, in January this year. Weeks later, a Wikipedia page was published about the phenomenon. Is that, then, why friction-maxxing is now referred to as a cultural trend?

For the uninitiated, Wikipedia defines friction-maxxing thusly:

Friction-maxxing is the practice of intentionally choosing less convenient options in daily life to build tolerance for discomfort, resist technology-driven ease, and preserve what proponents describe as meaningful human experiences.

I’ve been seeing references to plain old friction, chiefly across the blogosphere, well before January though. Bloggers using the term in their writing were suggesting there ideally/always needed to be a certain difficulty in what we do, whatever that is. This because we’ve somehow come to expect everything we do to be simple and effortless.

I probably live relatively straightforwardly. I work, then I don’t work. I don’t run marathons, climb mountains, or cross oceans in a sail boat. It seems to me if you want more friction in your life, those sorts of activities make a good start. Friction-maxxing, on the other hand, suggests relying less on automated and algorithm-powered goods and services. And AI.

Instead of ordering food delivery, you should prepare the meal yourself. Rather than dictate notes, or type into a notes apps, you should hand write them on paper. Instead of setting up meetings on video calls, you should arrange a face-to-face gathering. Instead of texting or emailing, you should call, and speak to someone, or meet in person. Frightening, no?

For my part, maybe I should, for instance, see movies at the cinema, not stream them in the frictionless comfort of our home. I’ll let you know how that goes.

The big tech companies and social media platforms tell us “boredom, social awkwardness, and effortful thinking”, among other things, are problems to be eliminated. And now that they have been, so we’re told, friction-maxxing is required to make life trickier again. To restore the balance.

Talking of social media though, to instantly increase friction, reduce, or dispense with social media, set up a personal website, and start blogging. That’ll be a source of friction for months.

But in a world where public transport doesn’t run to timetable, traffic gets gridlocked, computers freeze, websites fail to load, phones find themselves in an area with no reception, the coffee grinder at the cafe breaks just as you arrive, you’re caught out by off-app, non-forecast rain in an open, unsheltered space, who needs to be creating friction?

But none of this is really friction, it’s simply life. Annoyances we must deal with. But it keeps us on our toes, and alive. I’m not then convinced by this… cultural trend.

It seems to me embracing friction-maxxing is an attempt to conceal some other, possibly deeper malady. It’s a smoke screen. A marketing term even. Friction-maxxing is akin to putting a band-aid, not on a small cut or scratch, but something far more serious. Something that likely requires proper diagnosis and treatment. If something’s wrong, distractions are not an ideal solution.

Toxic people, or hasslers, reduce life expectancy of those around them

1 March 2026

People unfortunate enough to have one, or more, toxic people in their lives, are more likely to experience accelerated biological ageing, according to research published by PNAS.

This is, no doubt, something anyone subjected to the malevolence of a toxic person could have told you, even though biological age is not readily discernible.

Biological age refers to the condition of your body, including organs and cells, and can differ from chronological age, being actual age. If you happen to be forty-two years old as you read this, that is your chronological age. Depending on a plethora of factors though, your biological age may be higher, or lower, than your chronological age.

With their ability to run down the people around them, hasslers, as the PNAS research refers to them, have a negative impact on the health of others, through their spite and subterfuge.

I imagine this cuts both ways though. A hassler, or toxic person, by sheer virtue of their nature, quite possibly has a biological age exceeding their chronological. Such people need to carry government health warnings so the rest of us can stay away from them.

The research published by PNAS makes a distinction between so-called hasslers and toxic people. I’m of the opinion they’re one in the same, particularity if they are detrimental to the health of others.

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health, personality, psychology

Otroverts have websites called disassociated, are like Albert Einstein

1 January 2026

Rami Kaminski, a New York based psychiatrist, has identified a new personality type, the otrovert:

An Otrovert is someone who feels like an eternal outsider in groups, even when they are friendly and socially capable. Media descriptions of “otroverts” commonly emphasize emotional independence from groups, original thinking, low interest in joining or in adopting group rituals, and a tendency to seek depth in a small number of relationships rather than broad group belonging.

This seems all very familiar.

Albert Einstein, for one, is cited as an example of an otrovert, although up until now he’d been more considered an introvert. Otrovert seems more like a sub-classification of an introvert though, and I dare say more could forthcoming, as one introvert is not a cookie-cutter version of another.

The same, no doubt, would go for extroverts as well.

The COVID, AI, triggered cultural vibe shift we did not see coming

30 December 2025

Sydney based Australian journalist and speech writer Brigid Delaney, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Arriving, a friend asked me how I was. I was OK, I replied, but still disorientated from my time on X. “I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I said. It was dawning on me that this feeling of not knowing reality was — for me — the vibe shift. AI had polluted my clarity, in part because it was so uncanny and real that it was very easy to be tricked.

The COVID lock-downs were the beginning, but the arrival of AI in 2022, and even the election of American President Donald Trump in 2024, have accelerated the vibe shift Delaney writes of.

I’m certainly aware of changes in the way people interact with each other, even if those are relatively subtle. I hear of people adopting hermit-like lifestyles, enveloping themselves in AI fostered domains, with AI companions, but don’t see, or hear, much about it in the circles I move. Most people seem to socialise face-to-face with family and friends as usual. Or at least create that impression.

Delaney’s article is contemplative reading, whatever your thoughts on any sort of vibe shift might be.

Socialising leads to longer life, but what about introverts?

15 October 2025

Dana G. Smith, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald;

People who have strong relationships generally live longer, and the unicorns known as “super-agers” — older adults who have the memory abilities of someone 20 years younger — tend to be especially outgoing. On the flipside, chronic loneliness raises the risk for cognitive decline and even early death.

Introverts — such as yours truly — are not hermits, they simply prefer more time by themselves. On occasion I’ve wondered if having only a small number of acquaintances might impact my health and well-being, considering long life and good health is associated with having numerous social contacts. But surely if introverts are content then there cannot be any adverse health outcomes?

Loneliness is of course a different matter, and can afflict anyone, introvert or extrovert. I suspect extroverts might struggle more here than introverts though. An out-going person who is lonely may well see their health suffer as a result.

But I sometimes wonder about introverts residing in aged-care facilities. What awareness do the staff have of introversion? Are introvert residents coerced into participating in social activities because they are deemed “too quiet”, “too self-isolating”, for their own good? It seems to me forced socialisation would be, more than anything, detrimental to their well-being.

I think caveats need to be included with research that claims strong relationships are essential for a long healthy life. That might be the case for some people, but not everyone.

Swearing may be a sign of intelligence, creativity… thank f**k for that

11 February 2025

The next time someone takes exception to your “bad language”, point them to this research:

Swearing may also be a sign of intelligence, is associated with less lying and deception at the individual level and higher integrity at the society level, and may be a sign of creativity. The offensiveness and the positive or negative consequences of swearing is highly dependent on the context.

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language, psychology

Becoming nocturnal to ensure their solitude, meet the ultra introverts

8 February 2025

I’m an introvert, but until I read Faith Hill’s 2022 article for The Atlantic, a few days ago, I’d never heard of ultra, or intense, introverts:

There’s already been some controversy in the psychological community about whether intense introversion should qualify as a disorder. The American Psychiatric Association has considered adding introversion to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Pathologizing introversion sounds absurd — until you start considering the extreme end of the spectrum.

It was Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist who identified the existence of introvert and extrovert personalities, who said there was no such thing as a pure introvert (or extrovert). Such a person, if there were one, according to Jung, would be in a lunatic asylum.

Adopting a nocturnal existence then to guarantee one’s solitude, seems like an extreme measure to me. But, introverts crave time alone, and becoming a creature of the night might be the only way some people can achieve this. But some of those described by Hill don’t seem like introverts per se, they appear to going all out to totally avoid contact with, well, everyone.

Introverts generally don’t want to completely avoid interactions with others, they instead seek to limit them. Anyone who keeps their phone permanently in do-not-disturb (DND) mode, knows what I mean. While I have set up overrides so certain people can always reach me, DND helps me manage my interactions with the outside world.

Plus, part of my work is writing, and the last thing a writer wants is their train of thought being broken by the ringing of a phone. But I don’t like the idea of introversion being considered a mental disorder. I think we need to ascertain that we’re dealing with bona fide introverts, rather than those who are seeking to completely cut themselves off from everyone else.

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introversion, personality, psychology

Prolonged use of social media may make you short tempered

13 January 2025

Research from Massachusetts General Hospital, I believe, in the United States, possibly underscores what many of us already suspect: that prolonged use of social media may not be the best:

This kind of study cannot prove that your hours of doomscrolling is directly making you Tik’d off, but in light of known associations of irritability and mental health issues, maybe we should put down our phones just a little more.

While I have a few social media accounts, I’m no power user, as some of you may know. Does that not make me short tempered? Maybe that’s not for me to say…

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