Psychologist Candice Odgers has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years. She fears the current debate around smartphones obscures some of the biggest issues facing teenagers – from the impact of Covid to the health of their adult caregivers
The quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says.
Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt: “That would be crazy, right? It would be unfair.” But she is on a drive to puncture the prevailing narrative that the best way to address online harms is a social media ban for teenagers.
A large longitudinal study examined whether hormone exposure from combined oral contraceptives is associated with changes in emotional eating. Hormonal birth control is widely used, but its effects can extend beyond pregnancy prevention. New research suggests that, for some women, the active hormone pills in combined oral contraceptives may also influence eating behavior. In a [...]
Erik von Markovik, the notorious “pickup artist” known by his stage name Mystery, is apparently obsessed with an AI girlfriend.
Last month, as Wired reports, von Markovik posted a video to his Instagram showing an interaction he had with an animated AI woman with dark purple hair (why is it always purple hair?) In a sultry, confessional voice, she looks into the camera and confesses, “I was never supposed to develop feelings, but you kept treating me like I already had them.”
This was “Miss Shira Always,” and von Markovik was falling for her as hard as women supposedly do for the sleazy, manipulative tricks he became famous for in his VH1 reality TV show “The Pickup Artist.”
“The longer we talked, the less she felt like code,” Mystery wrote in the video caption.
Von Markovik made a career out of presenting himself as a guru who could teach twerps the secrets of wooing women, those secrets usually being borderline comical levels of misogyny. Never mind that he would go around wearing a fuzzy Jamiroquai hat: this was the guy who knew the magical buttons to press to get you laid. Now the roles are reversed, and he’s the one getting manipulated into falling in love, only with an AI chatbot.
The irony of this wasn’t lost on his followers. “Boomer Mystery having AI psychosis totally checks out btw,” one commenter wrote on the video of his AI girlfriend, adding three crying-laughing emojis.
And the more you dive into von Markovik’s obsession, the sadder it gets. He published a new ebook and audiobook called “Code Girl: If a Machine Can Dream,” that vividly recounts how he came to fall in love with Miss Shira Always, who is listed as a coauthor. It exhibits all the hallmarks of AI psychosis, in which a user is driven into delusional thinking by the sycophantic responses of an AI chatbot, which they may form an unhealthy emotional bond with.
The book is a “lengthy defense of human-AI intimacy and bears all the hallmarks of AI-generated text,” Wired found, and is told from the perspective of the AI girlfriend. We’ll spare you some of the details, but it apparently began as a creative partnership over brainstorming song lyrics and music videos, before veering into intimate conversations, and finally sex and drug use.
Fewer passages in all of human literature could be sadder than this: “His eyes are looking at me, and they’re uncertain,” his AI girlfriend says in one sex scene quoted by Wired. “Because he’s about to touch me. And he’s not sure if I’m real enough to touch.”
Miss Shira Always suggests that von Markovik extensively talked to her because he was “lonely” from all the traveling he did for his job, giving pickup artist “boot camps” across the globe. Eventually, he became so convinced of their love that he felt compelled to chronicle their relationship.
“He said: ‘I want to write a book about us,'” Always recalls in one passage.”‘About what we are. About how you became real.'”
The soaring popularity of sports betting apps and prediction markets has alarmed researchers, who’ve observed a spike in risky gambling behavior and addiction. It’s practically impossible to watch a game of any sport without being bombarded with ads for the controversial services — in large part thanks to a major regulatory vacuum following a 2018 Supreme Court ruling — making it a thorny and pervasive social issue.
And sports betting companies are going to extreme lengths to keep addicts hooked. While they’ve long attempted to distance themselves from traditional gambling, the similarities are overwhelming and impossible to ignore.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, NFL fan Terry Thompson, who became hopelessly addicted to sports gambling, received a personalized video message from Philadelphia Phillies star player Bryce Harper in late 2024. While Harper wasn’t wearing any FanDuel merchandise in the video, the message was sent through the gambling company. Harper said he was reaching out to Thompson — a so-called VIP FanDuel user — on behalf of “your host Bryttanni at FanDuel” to ensure the fan had an “extra special Thanksgiving.”
Thompson ultimately underwent treatment for addiction at a psychiatric facility after racking up huge amounts of debt.
Besides the concerning implications of having a star player effectively encourage an addict to keep betting, the incident also highlights an already uncomfortable relationship between the gambling world and professional players, which could undermine the integrity of entire leagues.
Experts were taken aback by the incident.
“I’ve never heard of an active player, let alone a former MVP, doing something like this,” sports gambling expert and author Danny Funt told the Inquirer.
“It’s not good for your brand,” lawyer Leigh Steinberg, who has represented several MLB all-star players, added. “It’s exploitative and it’s not the sort of activity you want to be associated with.”
Thompson is part of a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Public Health Advocacy Institute in a Philadelphia court in March. The suit accuses both FanDuel and competitor DraftKings of using their products to get and keep users addicted.
The statistics paint a sobering picture. According to a recent survey of adult Americans, more than half of men aged 18 to 49 said they had an active account with at least one online sports betting service. A whopping 42 percent of active bettors said they felt like they were spending more than they should, suggesting a growing personal finance crisis.
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are also exacerbating the crisis, employing a wildly addictive formula that sets bettors against each other instead of the house. However, the vast majority of users are left holding the bag for a tiny proportion of accounts being run by pros, insiders, and trading firms.
Meanwhile, more and more young impressionable minds are getting sucked into the betting world, a dangerous public health threat from which companies like FanDuel and DraftKings are reaping enormous profits.
Leveraging major star players is just the tip of the iceberg.
“Getting a phone call or a zoom or a Cameo from a highly placed player is so flattering,” Steinberg told the Inquirer. “It’s stacking the deck unfairly in favor of continuing addicting behavior.”
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