Generation Next Blog

November 2018

If We’re to Have Another Inquiry into Mental Health, it Should Look at Why the Others Have Been Ignored

By |2021-03-03T15:39:28+11:00November 5th, 2018|Categories: Mental Illness, Society & Culture|Tags: , , , |

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has promised to hold a royal commission into mental health if Labor wins the November state election. Last week’s announcement comes a couple of weeks after the federal government asked the Productivity Commission to inquire “into the role of mental health in the Australian economy and the best ways to support [...]

Surgery Students ‘Losing Dexterity to Stitch Patients’

By |2021-02-22T18:16:11+11:00November 5th, 2018|Categories: Technology|Tags: , , , |

A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that [...]

Indigenous People with Disability Have a Double Disadvantage and the NDIS Can’t Handle That

By |2021-03-03T15:39:10+11:00November 5th, 2018|Categories: Mental Illness, Society & Culture|Tags: , , , |

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with severe disability face many barriers to fully accessing the support offered by the NDIS. This group of people has already experienced long-standing isolation and are particularly vulnerable to being left behind, again. The prevalence of disability among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is twice that experienced by [...]

The Neuroscience of Hate Speech

By |2018-11-05T12:07:11+11:00November 5th, 2018|Categories: Society & Culture|Tags: , , , |

Do politicians’ words, the president’s especially, matter? Since he has been in office, President Trump has relentlessly demonized his political opponents as evil and belittled them as stupid. He has called undocumented immigrants animals. His rhetoric has been a powerful contributor to our climate of hate, which is amplified by the right-wing media and virulent [...]

Android’s Under-5s Apps Have ‘Unfair and Deceptive’ Ads

By |2021-02-22T18:15:31+11:00November 5th, 2018|Categories: Technology|Tags: , , , |

Under-fives are being blitzed with app-based ads which are often manipulative, inappropriate or deceptive, according to a coalition of campaign groups. Examples given include a character crying if the child does not pay to unlock part of a game, and an app promoting another title that showed a cartoon of the US president trying to [...]

October 2018

Whatever You Think of Packer, He Was Brave to Talk About Depression

By |2021-03-02T18:51:27+11:00October 29th, 2018|Categories: Depression, Mental Illness|Tags: , , , |

The photograph was so disturbing, the first time I viewed it, I had to look away, as I felt as though I was intruding on someone’s deepest personal pain. The picture showed James Packer at the Crown Resorts Annual General Meeting in Melbourne in 2016, looking bloated and overweight, his eyes red and watery and [...]

What to do When Teens and Tweens’ Online Habits Blow the Family Budget

By |2021-02-22T18:15:00+11:00October 29th, 2018|Categories: Society & Culture, Technology|Tags: , , , |

Glancing through her bank statement made Brisbane mother-of-two Belinda* realise there was a problem. What had started with a few small amounts, as little as $1.60, for video game purchases, a song or an app “add on”, racked up almost unknowingly by her teenagers, was now totalling almost $300. Neither Belinda nor her children, aged [...]

Tim Cook Blasts ‘Weaponisation’ of Personal Data and Praises GDPR

By |2021-02-22T18:14:27+11:00October 29th, 2018|Categories: Technology|Tags: , , , |

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has demanded a tough new US data protection law, in an unusual speech in Europe. Referring to the misuse of "deeply personal" data, he said it was being "weaponised against us with military efficiency". "We shouldn't sugar-coat the consequences," he added. "This is surveillance." The strongly-worded speech presented a striking [...]

Mindfulness is Fine, but Staring at a Raisin Won’t Cure Anxiety

By |2021-03-02T18:51:48+11:00October 29th, 2018|Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Mental Illness|Tags: , , |

The blurb on the back of the book had an enticing promise: "Take a few minutes out of your day and colour your way to peace and calm". After decades of grappling with acute anxiety, perhaps this mindfulness colouring book would be my magic bullet. I bought a pack of fancy pencils and got to [...]

‘Bloody Awesome’: How Melatonin is Helping Children Fall Asleep

By |2021-03-03T18:05:03+11:00October 29th, 2018|Categories: Sleep|Tags: , , , |

Many parents will be only too familiar with the problem of children tossing and turning for hours before they finally go to sleep. Rather than put up with it, a growing number of families are turning to prescribed melatonin to help children fall asleep. For many it’s a revelation. “It’s amazing!” said Alison Guille from [...]

Go to Top