South Korea’s very low birth rate and ageing population have long served as a cautionary tale for other governments worried that they’ll see similar demographic challenges.
But now, for the second year running, more people in South Korea are having children, according to new preliminary data published by the ministry for data and statistics.
The 6.8% rise in births in 2025 is the largest rise since 2007, and has taken the country’s total fertility rate to 0.80, up from 0.75 in 2024. The news is being cautiously celebrated, but with South Korea’s overall population still shrinking, it is yet to reverse its demographic fortunes.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a demographer and professor of social science and public policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, about how South Korea has got to this point. Part of the reason is that a generation of so-called “echo-boomers”, born in the 1990s after a relaxation of the coutry’s strict anti-natalist policies, are now starting to have children.
But Gietel-Basten says many of the issues stopping people in South Korea from having children remain, despite huge sums spent by the government on tax incentives, housing benefit and childcare support. “ Unless you change underlying structural issues around gender roles, around work, culture, and so on, then even well-meaning policies are not necessarily going to have the impact that they should,” he says.
Listen to the interview with Stuart Gietel-Basten on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.
Stuart Gietel-Basten is a also guest professor at Osaka University and an adjunct professor at Khalifa University.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Victor (Vik) Pérez, Associate Professor of Practice, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Hub, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
For most of human existence, listening was closely tied to moments that carried meaning, emotion or survival. Nature supplied the backdrop – wind, water, animals – and music surfaced in hunting rituals, healing ceremonies and communal celebrations.
That balance began to shift with the industrial revolution, and the arrival of many loud, unnatural sounds. Today, many people move through the day with a near-constant stream of sounds: playlists for work, ambient study tracks, noise-cancelling headphones on commutes, podcasts on walks, background music for comfort.
Sound is no longer occasional or, for much of the time, collective. It is personal, portable and continuous.
What has changed is not only how we listen, but what listening is for. Many people use sound to manage how they feel and perform – to drown out distractions, stay motivated, reduce stress or make demanding tasks feel easier. Streaming platforms use music labels such as “deep focus” or “workflow” – signalling that these sounds are designed to do something for your mind.
There are upsides to this modern soundscape. In busy workplaces or homes, shaping the auditory environment can restore a sense of control and reduce disturbance – especially from intelligible speech. What we listen to can be a key tool for emotional self-regulation.
But there are downsides too. Continuous audio can crowd out silence, which supports recovery and reflection. What often disappears in a continuous soundscape is not just silence but the space to think. This daily exposure to non-stop music, chat and other sounds may be shaping how you think, decide and cope without you even noticing.
The always-on effect
Neuroscience points not to a dramatic rewiring of our brains through this changing audio experience, but a gradual adaptation. Repeated sound environments shape how attention is allocated, how effort is experienced and how mental states stabilise over time.
Those effects vary, though, depending on the context. Music can support repetitive or low-complexity tasks by increasing engagement and reducing boredom. But when tasks rely on language, problem-solving or new learning, the same music can compete for attention, making sustained thinking feel more effortful.
Reviews consistently find that music with lyrics is more likely to interfere with reading, writing and verbal reasoning, and that harder tasks are generally more vulnerable to interference. When sound competes with task demands, it can increase mental effort and fatigue, even if outward performance remains unchanged.
Experimental work suggests higher background sound levels can impair auditory working-memory performance — the capacity to hold and rehearse spoken information while filtering competing sounds. In other words, sound can reshape how thinking is experienced from the inside, long before measurable performance changes become visible.
Because these shifts accumulate gradually, they rarely announce themselves as effects. Instead, they shape mental defaults – how patiently you think, how quickly you judge and how you cope when answers aren’t clear.
How noise affects our health. Video: BBC World Service.
Three principles of audio happiness
A simple principle is to match the sound environment to the kind of thinking you’re doing. Some types of louder sound can support repetitive work, while quieter conditions are often better for reading, writing or analytical reasoning.
While lyrical music is more likely to disrupt reading, writing and analytical work, simpler sound is often safer for language-heavy tasks. By contrast, for repetitive or low-complexity work, self-selected or familiar music may support engagement for some listeners by tuning arousal into a more workable range.
Familiar or self-selected music can sometimes support repetitive work because the brain spends less effort processing novelty. Instead of continuously analysing new sounds, attention can remain anchored on the task itself, helping stabilise alertness during routine activities.
A second principle is self-monitoring. Generic “focus playlist” advice is less useful than paying attention to your own signals: rising distraction, mental fatigue, irritability or the feeling that you are working harder than you should. Audio that boosts energy or enjoyment does not always improve sustained concentration.
When these signals appear, pausing your soundtrack and shifting to a simpler sound environment can help reset your attention balance. Reducing linguistic content, lowering volume or introducing short periods of silence may ease the cognitive load before performance begins to suffer.
Which brings me on to the third principle: protect silence. Quiet time supports neural recovery and internally directed thought – functions linked to default-mode brain activity, when regions linked to reflection, memory integration and future planning become more active.
But valuing silence does not mean removing sound altogether. Beginning complex tasks in quieter settings, introducing short sound-free intervals between activities, or ending the day without continuous background audio can give the brain space to reset attention and recover from sustained input.
Environmental noise can also influence sleep quality by increasing micro-awakenings and reducing deeper restorative stages, even when people do not fully wake up. Many people use sound to help them sleep, but evidence shows it can have a disruptive effect on sleep quality.
Day or night, the sounds we live with do more than just fill the background. They help shape the mental conditions under which we learn, decide and live.
And that is the perhaps uncomfortable point. If you don’t actively choose your soundscape, someone or something will choose it for you – and your mind may start adapting before you realise it.
Victor (Vik) Pérez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The very public feud between the US Department of Defense (also known these days as the Department of War) and its AI technology supplier Anthropic is unusual for pitting state might against corporate power. In the military space, at least, these are usually cosy bedfellows.
The origin of this disagreement dates back months, amid repeated criticisms from Donald Trump’s AI and crypto “czar”, David Sacks, about the company’s supposedly woke policy stances.
But tensions ramped up following media reports that Anthropic technology had been used in the violent abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by the US military in January 2026. It was alleged this caused discontent inside the San Francisco-based company.
Anthropic has denied this, with company insiders suggesting it did not find or raise any violations of its policies in the wake of the Maduro operation.
Nonetheless, the US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has issued Anthropic with an ultimatum. Unless the company relaxes its ethical limits policy by 5.01pm Washington time on Friday, February 27, the US government has suggested it could invoke the 1950 Defense Production Act. This would allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to appropriate the use of this technology as it wishes.
At the same time, Anthropic could be designated a supply chain risk, putting its government contracts in danger. These extraordinary measures may appear contradictory, but they are consistent with the current US administration’s approach, which favours big gestures and policy ambiguity.
Video: France 24.
At the heart of the dispute is the question of how Anthropic’s large language model (LLM) Claude is used in a military context. Across many sectors of industry, Claude does a range of automated tasks including writing, coding, reasoning and analysis.
These would, for example, disallow the use of Claude in mass surveillance of US citizens or fully autonomous weapon systems which, once activated, can select and engage targets with no human involvement.
According to Anthropic, either would violate its definition of “responsible AI”. Hegseth and the DoD have pushed back, characterising such limits as unduly restrictive in a geopolitical environment marked by uncertainty, instability and blurred lines.
Responsible AI should, they insist, encompass “any lawful use” of AI models by the US military. A memorandum issued by Hegseth on January 9 2026 stated:
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and social ideology have no place in the Department of War, so we must not employ AI models which incorporate ideological ‘tuning’ that interferes with their ability to provide objectively truthful responses to user prompts.
The memo instructed that the term “any lawful use” should be incorporated in future DoD contracts for AI services within 180 days.
Anthropic’s competitors are lining up
Anthropic’s red lines do not rule out the mass surveillance of human communities at large – only American citizens. And while it draws the line at fully autonomous weapons, the multitude of evolving uses of AI to inform, accelerate or scale up violence in ways that severely limit opportunities for moral restraint are not mentioned in its acceptable use policy.
At present, Anthropic has a competitive advantage. Its LLM model is integrated into US government interfaces with sufficient levels of clearance to offer a superior product. But Anthropic’s competitors are lining up.
Palantir has expanded its business with the Pentagon significantly in recent months, giving rise to more AI models.
Meanwhile, Google recently updated its ethical guidelines, dropping its pledge not to use AI for weapons development and surveillance. OpenAI has likewise modified its mission statement, removing “safety” as a core value, and Elon Musk’s xAI (creator of the Grok chatbot) has agreed to the Pentagon’s “any lawful use” standard.
A testing point for military AI
For C.S. Lewis, courage was the master virtue, since it represents “the form of every virtue at the testing point”. Anthropic now faces such a testing point.
On February 24, the company announced the latest update to its responsible scaling policy – “the voluntary framework we use to mitigate catastrophic risks from AI systems”. According to Time magazine, the changes include “scrapping the promise to not release AI models if Anthropic can’t guarantee proper risk mitigations in advance”.
Anthropic’s chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, told Time: “We didn’t really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.”
Ethical language saturates the press releases of Silicon Valley companies eager to distinguish themselves from “bad actors” in Russia, China and elsewhere. But ethical words and actions are not the same, because the latter often entails a real-world cost.
That such a highly public spectacle is happening at this time is perhaps no accident. In early February, representatives of many countries – but not the US – came together for the third time to find ways to agree on “responsible AI” in the military domain. And on March 2-6, the UN will convene its latest conference discussing how best to limit the use of emerging technologies for lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Such legal and ethical debates about the role of AI technology in the future of warfare are critical, and overdue. Anthropic deserves credit for apparently resisting the US military’s efforts to undercut its ethical guidelines. But AI’s role is likely to be tested in many more conflict situations before agreement is reached.
Elke Schwarz is affiliated with the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)
Neil Renic is affiliated with the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)
A yellow disc with rays of white – an icon of childhood drawings and a flower with healing properties. We have picnics on it, play football on it and make daisy chains out of it.
The common or lawn daisy, Bellis perennis, is probably familiar to most people living in temperate climates. But there may be few things you do not know about this fascinating and perhaps under estimated flower.
A flower made of little flowers
Each daisy is actually an inflorescence – a multitude of tiny flowers called florets working together to set out a buffet for pollinators. There are two types of florets. The tube florets form the yellow centre of the inflorescence, about 100 in a typical daisy. You can see them open in sequence over several days from the outside inwards, revealing their treasures of nectar and pollen.
The ray florets have the long white petals. They are female, whereas each tiny tube floret has a set of male and female floral attributes. Every tube floret produces pollen and nectar as well as having an ovary which can make a tiny fruit at the bottom.
Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories. This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.
The white and yellow contrast between the two types of florets is probably attractive to pollinators. Watch a pollinating insect land on a daisy and it will probe each open floret for a sip of nectar. The florets all sit on a capitulum (a cone-shaped platform), which is surrounded by green phyllaries (or bracts). The capitulum also bears the miniature fruits called achenes which are one-seeded fruits.
Unlike some members of the same family, such as the dandelion, the little seeds have no hairy parachute or pappus to help them disperse. This means that most probably drop close to the parent plant, although they can also be dispersed on muddy paws or shoes, and by worms, ants and birds.
Intrepid explorers
The formal name of the daisy – Bellis perennis – was chosen in the 18th century by biologist Carl Linnaeus, who invented the system by which botanists still name species. Bellis is probably from the Latin for beautiful and perennis for perennial or long-lasting. The word daisy is thought to come from “day’s eye”, a reflection of the fact that the flowers close at night.
However, the word daisy is applied to many other species with similar inflorescences and is used to describe a whole family of plants, the Asteraceae. This is the largest family of flowering plants, incorporating species from thistles to sunflowers, almost all of which have the same inflorescence structure of smaller florets collected on a capitulum. There are over 32,000 species in this family, from tiny daisies to large tropical trees. They are found in most ecosystems on earth, except Antarctica.
This indicates they have a successful evolutionary strategy that has allowed them to adapt and spread. The little lawn daisy has travelled around the world from its native distribution in Europe to be ubiquitous in temperate climates from New Zealand to the US.
Circadian strategy
Most flowers stay open all the time but some, like daisies, open towards the sun in the morning to maximise warmth. This may make them more attractive to insect pollinators who need heat to regulate their body temperatures.
The ray florets do the opening and closing, covering the inner disc florets when closed. On cloudy cool days the daisies might not open at all. The movement of the petals is likely to be as a result of cell growth on either side of the long white ligule of the ray floret, with the cells on both sides of the petals growing at different rates.
Resourceful
Gardeners who want the perfect lawn may see daisies as a nuisance. But a 2021 study showed that lawn daisies provided up to 11% of the nectar available to pollinators in some urban environments, making them important food for our urban bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinating insects. These insects are, in turn, food for so many other animals along the food chain.
Daisies can self-pollinate. They can also clone themselves – sending stolons (runners) sideways to colonise a patch of ground. Bellis perennis seems to be well adapted to human-made habitats, with its short sward or dense mat. Daisies with longer swards tend to get outcompeted as they only produce leaves in a rosette near the ground. Its natural habitats include areas of low or disturbed vegetation such as trampled ground, stream edges and lake margins.
Bellis perennis, in common with most flowering plants, forms associations with fungi in its roots. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have been co-evolving with plants for the last 400 million years, allowing the colonisation of land by early plants. The plant feeds the fungi with carbohydrates and in turn, the fungi reach out into the soil and supports the plant with nutrients. This ancient partnership between plants and soil fungi still mediates plant interactions with other soil microbes, and regulates plant-plant interactions.
Human connection
The Asteraceae is probably the most popular plant family in popular medicine containing a wide range of active plant chemicals or phytochemicals with antioxidant, anti-inflamatory, antimicrobial, diuretic and wound-healing properties. Bellis perennis itself has had many common names over the centuries including gardener’s friend, bruisewort and poor-man’s arnica.
It feels like daisies have always been part of our lives in the temperate parts of the world and always will be. Daisies have long featured in literature and poetry, mentioned by Chaucer (The Good Woman), Shakespeare (Ophelia’s flowers in Hamlet) and the 19th century poet John Clare.
But the species that are thriving today are not necessarily assured a future. For example, many once common species of birds, like swifts and skylarks, are in decline now in the UK. Arable weeds such as common corncockle (Agrostemma githago) or cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) that were once a nuisance in crops are now rare species that need intervention to prevent their extinction.
So, we must treasure and monitor these flowers, to ensure they are part of our future as well as our past.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kevin Zapata Celestino, LSE Fellow in the Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science
When we think about school bullying, we often focus on victims given the emotional toll they endure, the academic disruption they face and the long-term scars that follow them into adulthood.
Victim-centred research has been critical in shaping strategies to prevent bullying. But there’s a perspective that would help us understand bullying that is too often ignored: that of the aggressors themselves.
There is a growing body of research that explores how students themselves understand and explain bullying, but very few explicitly address the perspectives of the aggressors. Consequently, there’s a risk of misunderstanding the complex social and psychological forces that drive this behaviour.
In a study I carried out in Mexico, I interviewed 13 former secondary students – now adults – who had once been bullies. By delving into their life stories and memories from childhood and adolescence, the study uncovered critical insights into why school violence occurs and how we might interrupt it.
What emerged from these conversations was not a portrait of monsters, but of children navigating harsh environments, social pressure and emotional confusion. The findings challenge some of the myths that revolve around bullies. My research reveals reveal how aggression is often learned, normalised, and even rewarded.
What do bullies say?
Many participants told me that their aggressive behaviour was modelled and reinforced in their homes, schools and communities. Several recounted growing up in households where domestic violence and dysfunctional relationships were common. “We grow up in a violent environment … it becomes normalised … even to survive,” one said.
Others described how violence was institutionalised in several community spaces. This included in sport clubs where abusive coaches “toughened up” players, inadvertently teaching them to equate aggression with strength. Media and social media also played a role. One interviewee admitted to replicating a violent social media trend, highlighting how digital platforms can amplify harmful behaviour.
People in my research described how, rather than being punished, physical dominance and violence was praised and reinforced through the approval of their peers. One explained: “The jerk who made life impossible was the one everyone wanted to hang out with … How are you going to change if everyone celebrates you?”
Perhaps most revealing was the role of bullying in securing social status and group belonging. Participants described aggression as a way to solidify friendships, join peer groups or avoid becoming victims themselves. The “game” of bullying, as they called it, was often seen as a ritual – one rooted in reciprocal joking, physical roughhousing and group cohesion. One participant explained: “You’d hit someone as a sign of friendship … That’s just how the group got along. If you complained, no one would invite you anymore.”
Importantly, such practices also involve blaming the victim, especially when victims were constructed as “weak” or “deserving” of mistreatment.
Bullying functioned also as a way to police norms, particularly around gender and conformity. Boys who failed to perform dominant masculinity, broadly understood as an idealised manhood shaped by aggression and toughness, were often a target. One recalled: “A guy who doesn’t fight back is labelled ‘pathetic’, ‘coward’, ‘less of a man’.” But girls, too, engaged in bullying to maintain social order, often within friendship circles.
These testimonies challenge simplistic views of bullies as merely “bad kids”. Instead, they reveal a troubling mirror of broader social values: competition, dominance, emotional repression and the normalisation of exclusion.
What this means for schools
School-based programmes must go beyond punitive discipline. Many former aggressors shared that suspensions or expulsions had little impact, and in some cases, even increased their hostility. One participant described expulsion as a “reward” that placed them in a school with other aggressive peers, perpetuating the cycle of violence.
What mattered more were moments of emotional connection. For some, a heartfelt conversation with a parent or a teacher’s genuine concern became a turning point. As one interviewee shared: “I stopped bullying when my mom talked to me … I saw her crying and realised I needed to change.”
Interventions should include restorative practices such as family group boards, reflection circles and community service, which are aimed at building community rather than just punishing. These practices include dialogue sessions, peer mediation, and conflict resolution and reparation mechanisms such as apologies, paying for damages or any other agreement to repay the harm.
Equally, social-emotional learning that helps students to understand and manage their feelings and teacher training focused on recognising subtle forms of aggression, also must be considered. Parents must be engaged not only as disciplinarians but as partners in emotional development. And importantly, students must be invited into honest conversations about empathy, belonging, and responsibility (to themselves and to other peers).
By listening to the voices of those who once caused harm, we can have a better picture of the complex dynamics that underpin school bullying. And in doing so, we open up new pathways for healing, not just for victims, but for those who once harmed.
Kevin Zapata Celestino does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, banks around the world collapsed or came close to it. Governments were forced to step in with billions of pounds of public money to stop the system imploding.
In response, regulators promised change. In the UK, these reforms were reinforced by ring-fencing, which separated everyday retail banking from riskier investment activities. The aim was simple: protect the public.
Our latest research looks at what actually happened next. Using more than 20 years of data, we studied how these post-crisis rules affected the UK’s four largest retail banks: HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group. In a system dominated by a handful of large institutions, there is a deeper question. If regulation made banks both safer and richer, who really benefited?
After 2008, regulators cracked down on excessive risk-taking. Capital rules were tightened, forcing banks to rely more on their own funds. Liquidity rules required them to hold enough cash and safe assets to survive sudden shocks.
These changes worked. The system is now far more resilient than it was before the crash. But this came at a cost to competition in the banking market – and so to consumers.
Higher capital levels consistently improved profitability at the largest banks. In plain terms, being forced to hold more of their own money made them look safer to investors and lenders. That reduced their funding costs and boosted returns.
Liquidity rules had a weaker effect on overall profits, but they did increase interest margins, which is the gap between what banks pay savers and what they charge borrowers. In other words, regulation didn’t just stabilise the big banks. It strengthened them.
We also found that productivity barely improved over time. When efficiency did fall – during the financial crisis and again during the COVID pandemic – it was mainly due to operational problems, not a lack of technology. Recovery depended on internal management fixes rather than innovation.
Post-crisis banking regulation reinforced the dominance of the biggest banks. David G40/Shutterstock
Our findings matter because the UK banking market is already highly concentrated. Large institutions can spread the cost of compliance across enormous balance sheets. They have diversified income streams and access to global funding. But smaller banks and building societies don’t.
For challengers, the fixed costs of regulation bite much harder. Higher reporting requirements, capital buffers and liquidity rules limit their ability to grow, invest or compete on price. The result is that reforms designed to make the system safer also raised barriers to entry.
So, post-crisis regulation reinforced the dominance of the biggest players. The market power of HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest became more entrenched, not weakened. Stability came at the price of competition.
What this means for customers
You can see the effects on the high street. A small number of large banks now dominate everyday banking. Mortgage rates, savings products and current accounts look strikingly similar across providers. Branch closures have accelerated, while access to in-person services has shrunk, especially outside major cities.
Despite rising profits at the biggest banks, service has not noticeably improved for many customers. With less competitive pressure, there is little incentive to cut fees, raise savings rates or innovate. In this sense, consumers may have paid indirectly for stability, through fewer choices and less diversity, particularly in smaller communities.
Post-crisis reforms have delivered a safer banking system, and that does matter. Deposits are better protected. Essential services are more secure. But our research highlights a difficult trade-off.
Capital rules improved resilience without lasting damage to profitability or efficiency. Liquidity rules remain essential, but may need careful calibration to avoid unnecessarily constraining lending.
More broadly, regulation alone cannot deliver a healthy banking sector. Long-term performance depends on better cost control, stronger risk management and improved lending standards.
These issues sit at the heart of today’s policy debate, including the Bank of England’s recent decision to cut capital requirements. While intended to boost lending and growth, some critics argue it is more likely to fuel shareholder payouts than increased credit supply. Our findings support those concerns.
The UK appears to have traded diversity for stability. But weakening bank resilience is not the answer. If policymakers want stronger lending and better outcomes for customers, they should focus on encouraging reinvestment, improving efficiency and strengthening competition, not simply making it easier for already dominant banks to return cash to investors.
The lesson of the past 15 years is clear. Regulation can make banks safer. But unless it is designed with market power in mind, it can also make the biggest players even bigger.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 1997 I was 13 and decidedly not a gamer. I liked film, music and Stephen King novels – but I had been “blessed” with two parents who believed video games rotted your brain. They did, however, invest in a home PC, seemingly under the impression I would be drawn only to its educational functions.
Their faith was misplaced when I discovered Blade Runner (1997), an adventure game based on the 1982 Ridley Scott film that I had not seen. Before, I had understood games as “collect coins, jump on enemies, avoid spikes, get a high score”. Now I was a detective conducting something called a Voight-Kampf test. I was scouring crime scenes, analysing CCTV footage and piecing together the narrative of a crime that kept escalating the more I proceeded.
By the end I was grappling with whether to turn my character’s back on every part of their life, whether their memories were their own, whether they were even human and the broader question of how a person can act morally when they cannot be certain of themselves – or their perception of reality.
This was my entry point into a lifelong love of video games. I’m still enamoured with their ability to directly involve you in the story, to challenge your decision making and values, knowing the consequences would play out in front of you, affecting situations and characters you had become emotionally invested in.
There is growing evidence that factors such as burnout from passive streaming culture are increasingly encouraging people towards video games – and yet many people still feel excluded from them. If you’re among that group, you may assume games are all too violent, too juvenile, too technical, or simply “not for you”.
The great shame here is that games tell deep and immersive stories and present beautiful worlds in ways that are wholly unique to the medium. If you don’t engage with games, you’re increasingly missing out on meaningful new stories and aesthetics.
Here are three different kinds of potential player and the video games I would prescribe for each one.
1. The aesthetic wanderer
Potential player one is an “aesthetic wanderer”. If this is you, you love music, immersive visual arts, installations and exhibitions. You find yourself are drawn to places, whether urban or nature, that evoke mood and feeling.
The trailer for Firewatch.
Aesthetic wanderers are driven by the sensory pleasure of atmosphere and the personal meaning they extract from interpretation of art and environment. They likely perceive video games to be loud, time-pressured, visually oppressive and goal-obsessed.
If this sounds familiar, then your route to video games should be through titles that prioritise exploration, the autonomy of self-pacing and a beautiful – or possibly disgusting – world. So long as it’s evocative.
Try playing Journey (2012), a wordless traversal across a desolate yet beautiful landscape, with flowing character movement that blends interaction with music, sound and atmosphere – offering an immersive, resonating and contemplative experience.
Alternatively, Firewatch (2016) offers a slowly unfolding mystery wrapped in a summer trek in the Wyoming wilderness, emphasising reflective presence in a lonely landscape and a narrative revealed naturally through a dialogue.
A more involved, but equally beautiful classic is Shadow of the Colossus (2018) – an at times deafeningly silent world in which you are drawn into conflict with vast, awe-inspiring creatures and are confronted with moral unease in your actions.
2. The pre-digital native
Potential player two is the pre-digital native. If you’re in this camp then you grew up before video games became established. You may be intrigued by games but believe you have missed the proverbial boat. You may view games as juvenile, a distraction from “genuine” pursuits, or even morally questionable.
The trailer for Return of the Obra Dinn.
Your love of cinema and literature is based in story over spectacle, and you also appreciate opportunities for growth and personal reflection. You may also be concerned that video games present a risk to your perceived competence, not in a cognitive or cultural sense, but in the fiddly physical controls that may require precise and immediate motor actions.
If you fit into this player type, seek out games that emphasise cognitive capability over motor-skills, with critical thinking over fast reactions. You could consider contemporary detective games, such as Her Story (2015) and Return of the Obra Dinn (2018).
3. The cultural sceptic
Lastly, potential player three is the cultural sceptic. If you’re in this group, you might believe video games were simply not made for you. You may observe a deluge of games targeting young men, with male protagonists, aggressive competition-based mechanics and even hostile exclusionary communities. You are interested, but feel the need to culturally protect yourself.
The cultural sceptic values autonomy and growth through new experiences. You may especially value relatedness, seeking credible characters that you can connect with. You are drawn to opportunities to collaborate, and you particularly enjoy art as a shared experience.
The trailer for Split Fiction.
If this sounds like you, consider games that feature cooperative multiplayer experiences like It Takes Two (2021), a puzzle platformer about a couple on the brink of divorce who find themselves trapped in the bodies of two of their daughter’s dolls. Here narrative and gameplay are inseparable as the game explores matters of relationship breakdown but also reconciliation and perspective through cooperation.
You may also find yourself drawn to games built around themes that fall outside of the “guns, gore and muscles” trope, such as Gone Home (2013), a first-person exploration game in which the player-protagonist uncovers journals to follow her sister’s journey to understanding and accepting her sexuality.
Alterntively, What Remains of Edith Finch (2017), a collection of interwoven stories in which the player inhabits the final moments of Finch’s relatives in a way that demonstrates how interactive experiences can explore a genuinely wide range of themes, and can tell stories in ways that would be impossible in any other medium.
If explored openly, there is no demographic barrier to all video games. A few months ago, I introduced my partner to the farming simulation game Stardew Valley (2016), a game I have been playing for about five years. She enjoys ballet, romantic fantasy novels and Sabrina Carpenter. She hadn’t played a game since the mid-90s. Her farm is now better than mine. A lot better.
For you, my potential player, this is an invitation and not a lecture. I’d love you to take the opportunity to engage with video games on your own terms, to challenge your initial assumptions and perhaps discover a new cultural love.
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Tom Garner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When someone is arrested and under police investigation, we usually don’t know their names. Police reveal only their gender, age and the crime for which they are under suspicion, and the media reports it.
The arrests of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson were a striking exception to this practice. When the police said they had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk” on February 19, newspapers widely reported that it was the former prince. The image of him in the back of a car after questioning featured on nearly every front page the following day.
Days later, Mandelson was arrested at his London home. Again, police said simply they “arrested a 72-year-old man”, and the media confirmed it was the former US ambassador.
The police investigations into both men, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, were prompted by US officials’ release of a tranche of emails from the Epstein files. Both men are suspected to have passed sensitive information to the paedophile financier while serving in official positions. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Why was the media allowed to report their names?
Privacy law in the UK is enshrined in the European convention on human rights. The ECHR bans intrusion into a person’s private life, which means citizens under investigation, or arrested by the police, have “a reasonable expectation of privacy”. This is to protect those who are arrested or investigated but never charged with a criminal offence.
Legally and ethically, journalists shouldn’t breach the privacy of people under investigation. However, the public interest exceptions in the Independent Press Standards Organisation editor’s code and the Ofcom code for broadcasting allow for breaches when reporting on matters of public interest – this includes detecting and exposing crime or wrongdoing, particularly when the suspect in question is someone in a position of power. Your average theft by an unknown civilian doesn’t count.
In the cases of Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson, there is clearly a strong public interest. One is a member of the royal family, the other a senior politician. Both held positions of power and influence, and were longtime friends of one of the most notorious convicted sex offenders in history.
In such a case, a media organisation being sued for breach of privacy may have a defence if it can demonstrate there was a strong public interest, and it reported the information because it was deemed to be of high value to society. The ECHR also protects public interest journalism.
Other high profile people named by the media at the point of arrest due to exceptional public interest include BBC newsreader Huw Edwards, who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children. Also named by the media on arrest was presenter Russell Brand. He is currently awaiting trial on sexual offence charges, which he denies.
Once charged with criminal offences, suspects become defendants, appear in court and can be officially named.
The College of Policing has just released new guidelines around police communications with the media. The guidance in relation to naming of suspects at arrest protects their right to privacy.
It says the names of those arrested or suspected of a crime should only be released “in exceptional circumstances, where there is a legitimate policing purpose to do so”, for example when a dangerous suspect is on the run.
How Cliff Richard shaped today’s privacy laws
Prior to 2013, police did release the names of those being investigated, or would at least confirm names to the media if asked. But a change in privacy law came after the police investigation into singer Cliff Richard, which toughened up the legislation.
In 2014, South Yorkshire Police raided Richard’s Berkshire home while he was out of the country. The star was unaware he was being investigated on suspicion of historical sexual assault allegations (dropped in 2016 due to lack of evidence). Richard only discovered the police probe because the raid was broadcast live on BBC News, with helicopter shots and a running commentary.
He successfully sued the BBC for £2 million for breach of privacy, telling a judge that the BBC identifying him had smeared his name and reputation around the world.
This case marked a major shift, establishing that suspects have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” before being charged with a criminal offence.
This was reinforced in the case of Alaedeen Sicri a 26-year-old Libyan arrested by police after the Manchester Arena bombings in 2017. He was later released without charge following the attack, which killed 22 people.
Sicri was not identified by Greater Manchester Police, but MailOnline published his name, images and other details after his arrest. He successfully sued Associated Newspapers Ltd and was awarded £83,000 in damages.
In the 2016 case of ZXC v Bloomberg, a businessman successfully sued Bloomberg for breach of privacy because it reported he was under investigation by a UK law enforcement agency. This was something the financial news organisation discovered by reading a confidential letter sent to him. The judge ordered his identity should not be published and awarded him £25,000 in damages. The ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
These cases all demonstrate the delicate balancing exercise between the rights of the media to report on an ongoing police investigation and an individual’s right to privacy.
A democracy needs both privacy and public interest reporting. Privacy is the shield that allows people to lead their lives without unwanted interference. But public interest journalism is the spotlight that prevents the rich and famous from abusing their power and holds them to account.
Polly Rippon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
British gardeners and farmers may remember 2024 with a shudder – it was widely referred to as “the year of the slug”. Vast numbers of slimy slitherers chomped their way through raspberries, laid waste to lettuce and toppled tomato plants.
Directly sown crops were demolished, early carrots did not germinate and main crop potatoes were damaged.
Slugs are well suited to the UK’s damp, mild climate and have a wide diet, but only a few species feed on live plants. Slugs and snails are actually an important part of the decomposition cycle, meaning they help the composting process. Apart from those that eat your plants, they can be considered a gardener’s friend, as long as their populations remain stable.
Outbreaks of insect pests, for example, occur when checks on population growth such as predators, competitors or environmental constraints are removed.
So, what conditions favour growth of slug populations and how well did 2024 match these?
Slugs need moist conditions as they have little or no shell and their protective mucus is water based. Slugs can reproduce throughout the year, but do so mostly in spring and in autumn. They can overwinter in the egg, juvenile or adult stage. To avoid frost and predators they seek dark, damp, insulated areas, such as underground, beneath pots or within compost heaps. Slugs are resilient and most survive the winter especially under mild conditions, but hard frosts will kill them.
If it’s mild, slug populations actually increase as early plant growth in late winter provides adults with additional energy to lay eggs. These eggs can hatch in ten days, but take up to 100 days if it’s cold. Over a typical one year life span a slug can lay up to 500 eggs.
And a warm wet spring or summer with frequent rain allows populations to disperse and grow.
The year 2024 had conditions ideal for slug breeding; a mild winter, high moisture levels in spring and summer, and no long dry spells.
According to the Met Office, 2024 climate statistics showed the UK is heading outside the “envelope of historical weather observations”. The year 2024 was the fourth warmest year since 1884. Overall it was a little wetter than average, but central and southern England had 25-30% more rain than normal, making the area both warm and damp.
In addition, 2023 had been the UK’s second warmest year, and wetter than average. This combination promoted slug population growth, setting the base for the 2024 increase.
In contrast, 2025 weather was less favourable for slugs as it varied from cold to extreme heat with little rainfall. Slug populations are disrupted by dry and unstable conditions. However, it is difficult to predict population trends when there is instability. For example, climate change is making it difficult to predict butterfly numbers.
Following a cold snap before Christmas 2025, UK winter was mild and very wet, with persistent cloud cover trapped by high pressure over Scandinavia. Some areas had 50% of annual rainfall in the first six weeks of 2026, with widespread flooding. When this pattern shifted, cold arctic air entered the UK. Spring could be chilly as March frequently exceeds December for snowfall and there can be cold snaps in April.
Thus, the picture for 2026 is complicated. Although flooding can kill overwintering eggs and adults, a mild wet winter will have reduced slug mortality. It may also affect slug predators. Beetles used for slug control in conservation agriculture can survive short term inundation but their larvae in saturated soil probably won’t. Flooding also creates lots of ready food for slugs from plants that have died in the water, a potential slug fest as it dries in spring.
With a global temperature above 1.4°C, compared to pre-industrial levels, the Met Office predicts a warm 2026. In addition, the UK government’s Environment Agency predicted a drought in 2026, before the winter’s heavy rainfall.
Overall the conditions point towards increased slug populations but probably not as bad as 2024.
You can water in parasitic nematodes. These only attack slugs and snails, where they transmit a lethal bacterial infection. It’s a wildlife-friendly option, if a bit expensive.
Put down bark, cat litter, sand or grit. Copper tape may be effective, but physical barriers don’t always work. Smear the edge of pots with petroleum jelly. Creating habitats for slug predators will boost your defences too.
Slugs are nocturnal so water plants in the morning so the soil can dry before they become active. Remove slugs under torchlight, or set pitfall traps. Grow slug-resistant plants such as such as sedum, rosemary and geraniums.
It seems counter intuitive to attract slugs, but compost heaps can redirect them from vulnerable plants. Ferric phosphate slug pellets are effective, but must be targeted around your most vulnerable plants as they can harm wildlife that eats slugs.
Whatever methods you use, remember that most slugs are our friends and an important part of the ecosystem.
Do the seasons feel increasingly weird to you? You’re not alone. Climate change is distorting nature’s calendar, causing plants to flower early and animals to emerge at the wrong time.
This article is part of a series, Wild Seasons, on how the seasons are changing – and what they may eventually look like.
Christopher Terrell Nield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When someone is arrested and under police investigation, we usually don’t know their names. Police reveal only their gender, age and the crime for which they are under suspicion, and the media reports it.
The arrests of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson were a striking exception to this practice. When the police said they had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk” on February 19, newspapers widely reported that it was the former prince. The image of him in the back of a car after questioning featured on nearly every front page the following day.
Days later, Mandelson was arrested at his London home. Again, police said simply they “arrested a 72-year-old man”, and the media confirmed it was the former US ambassador.
The police investigations into both men, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, were prompted by US officials’ release of a tranche of emails from the Epstein files. Both men are suspected to have passed sensitive information to the paedophile financier while serving in official positions. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Why was the media allowed to report their names?
Privacy law in the UK is enshrined in the European convention on human rights. The ECHR bans intrusion into a person’s private life, which means citizens under investigation, or arrested by the police, have “a reasonable expectation of privacy”. This is to protect those who are arrested or investigated but never charged with a criminal offence.
Legally and ethically, journalists shouldn’t breach the privacy of people under investigation. However, the public interest exceptions in the Independent Press Standards Organisation editor’s code and the Ofcom code for broadcasting allow for breaches when reporting on matters of public interest – this includes detecting and exposing crime or wrongdoing, particularly when the suspect in question is someone in a position of power. Your average theft by an unknown civilian doesn’t count.
In the cases of Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson, there is clearly a strong public interest. One is a member of the royal family, the other a senior politician. Both held positions of power and influence, and were longtime friends of one of the most notorious convicted sex offenders in history.
In such a case, a media organisation being sued for breach of privacy may have a defence if it can demonstrate there was a strong public interest, and it reported the information because it was deemed to be of high value to society. The ECHR also protects public interest journalism.
Other high profile people named by the media at the point of arrest due to exceptional public interest include BBC newsreader Huw Edwards, who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children. Also named by the media on arrest was presenter Russell Brand. He is currently awaiting trial on sexual offence charges, which he denies.
Once charged with criminal offences, suspects become defendants, appear in court and can be officially named.
The College of Policing has just released new guidelines around police communications with the media. The guidance in relation to naming of suspects at arrest protects their right to privacy.
It says the names of those arrested or suspected of a crime should only be released “in exceptional circumstances, where there is a legitimate policing purpose to do so”, for example when a dangerous suspect is on the run.
How Cliff Richard shaped today’s privacy laws
Prior to 2013, police did release the names of those being investigated, or would at least confirm names to the media if asked. But a change in privacy law came after the police investigation into singer Cliff Richard, which toughened up the legislation.
In 2014, South Yorkshire Police raided Richard’s Berkshire home while he was out of the country. The star was unaware he was being investigated on suspicion of historical sexual assault allegations (dropped in 2016 due to lack of evidence). Richard only discovered the police probe because the raid was broadcast live on BBC News, with helicopter shots and a running commentary.
He successfully sued the BBC for £2 million for breach of privacy, telling a judge that the BBC identifying him had smeared his name and reputation around the world.
This case marked a major shift, establishing that suspects have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” before being charged with a criminal offence.
This was reinforced in the case of Alaedeen Sicri a 26-year-old Libyan arrested by police after the Manchester Arena bombings in 2017. He was later released without charge following the attack, which killed 22 people.
Sicri was not identified by Greater Manchester Police, but MailOnline published his name, images and other details after his arrest. He successfully sued Associated Newspapers Ltd and was awarded £83,000 in damages.
In the 2016 case of ZXC v Bloomberg, a businessman successfully sued Bloomberg for breach of privacy because it reported he was under investigation by a UK law enforcement agency. This was something the financial news organisation discovered by reading a confidential letter sent to him. The judge ordered his identity should not be published and awarded him £25,000 in damages. The ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
These cases all demonstrate the delicate balancing exercise between the rights of the media to report on an ongoing police investigation and an individual’s right to privacy.
A democracy needs both privacy and public interest reporting. Privacy is the shield that allows people to lead their lives without unwanted interference. But public interest journalism is the spotlight that prevents the rich and famous from abusing their power and holds them to account.
Polly Rippon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
