Internet addiction affects the behavior and development of adolescents

 Adolescents with an internet addiction undergo changes in the brain that could lead to additional addictive behaviour and tendencies, finds a new study by UCL researchers.

The findings, published in PLOS Mental Health, reviewed 12 articles involving 237 young people aged 10-19 with a formal diagnosis of internet addiction between 2013 and 2023.

Internet addiction has been defined as a person's inability to resist the urge to use the internet, negatively impacting their psychological wellbeing, as well as their social, academic and professional lives.

The studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to inspect the functional connectivity (how regions of the brain interact with each other) of participants with internet addiction, both while resting and completing a task.

The effects of internet addiction were seen throughout multiple neural networks in the brains of adolescents. There was a mixture of increased and decreased activity in the parts of the brain that are activated when resting (the default mode network).

Meanwhile, there was an overall decrease in the functional connectivity in the parts of the brain involved in active thinking (the executive control network).

These changes were found to lead to addictive behaviours and tendencies in adolescents, as well as behaviour changes associated with intellectual ability, physical coordination, mental health and development.

Lead author, MSc student, Max Chang (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health) said: "Adolescence is a crucial developmental stage during which people go through significant changes in their biology, cognition, and personalities. As a result, the brain is particularly vulnerable to internet addiction related urges during this time, such as compulsive internet usage, cravings towards usage of the mouse or keyboard and consuming media.

"The findings from our study show that this can lead to potentially negative behavioural and developmental changes that could impact the lives of adolescents. For example, they may struggle to maintain relationships and social activities, lie about online activity and experience irregular eating and disrupted sleep."

With smartphones and laptops being ever more accessible, internet addiction is a growing problem across the globe. Previous research has shown that people in the UK spend over 24 hours every week online and, of those surveyed, more than half self-reported being addicted to the internet.

Meanwhile, Ofcom found that of the 50 million internet users in the UK, over 60% said their internet usage had a negative effect on their lives -- such as being late or neglecting chores.

Senior author, Irene Lee (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health), said: "There is no doubt that the internet has certain advantages. However, when it begins to affect our day-to-day lives, it is a problem.

"We would advise that young people enforce sensible time limits for their daily internet usage and ensure that they are aware of the psychological and social implications of spending too much time online."

Mr Chang added: "We hope our findings will demonstrate how internet addiction alters the connection between the brain networks in adolescence, allowing physicians to screen and treat the onset of internet addiction more effectively.

"Clinicians could potentially prescribe treatment to aim at certain brain regions or suggest psychotherapy or family therapy targeting key symptoms of internet addiction.

"Importantly, parental education on internet addiction is another possible avenue of prevention from a public health standpoint. Parents who are aware of the early signs and onset of internet addiction will more effectively handle screen time, impulsivity, and minimise the risk factors surrounding internet addiction."

Study limitations

Research into the use of fMRI scans to investigate internet addiction is currently limited and the studies had small adolescent samples. They were also primarily from Asian countries. Future research studies should compare results from Western samples to provide more insight on therapeutic intervention.

Journal Reference:

1. Max L. Y. Chang, Irene O. Lee. Functional connectivity changes in the brain of adolescents with internet addiction: A systematic literature review of imaging studies. PLOS Mental Health, 2024; 1 (1): e0000022 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000022

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/06/240604184208.htm

Private Credit Funds With No Skin in Game a Worry: Credit Weekly

 

• Supervisors concerned by risks from $2.1 trillion industry
• About 78% of US private credit deals are with PE-owned firms

Watchdogs are concerned about the “substantial” risk to investors in the private credit market after it emerged that almost 40% of funds don’t have skin in the game.

The decision by so many managers to avoid putting their own capital into the vehicles creates an “incentive misalignment,” the Bank of International Settlements said this week. The risk is that industry players could prioritize their profit over investors’ returns.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-06/private-credit-funds-with-no-skin-in-game-a-worry-credit-weekly

KFF: Medicare Advantage insurance market had highest gross margins last year

 A new analysis from KFF digs into insurers' financial performance across multiple markets and found the highest gross margins in the Medicare Advantage (MA) space.

At the end of 2023, gross margins per enrollee in MA were $1,982 on average compared to $1,048 in the individual market. Medicaid was the lowest at $753 in gross margin per enrollee, and group plans fell in the middle at $910. Gross margins are a notable indicator for financial performance, though they're not necessarily indicative of profitability as they do not account for administrative costs or tax liabilities.

Gross margins in MA were similar in 2023 to those recorded in the 2022 version of the analysis, according to KFF. In 2022, MA plans averaged $1,977 per enrollee. This is despite concerns from multiple major players in this space about a spike in utilization over the course of 2023.

"Across most markets, gross margins have been relatively stable in recent years, though they have declined somewhat from spikes that occurred in 2020 during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic," the researchers wrote.

The analysis also noted that margins for group plans declined significantly between 2020 and 2021 but have been on the rebound.

Margins in the individual market, meanwhile, spiked in 2018 and 2019 as plans jacked up premiums in response to efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to eliminate cost-sharing reduction payments to plans on the exchanges. Margins in 2023 were 31% lower than in 2018 and 10% lower than in 2019, according to the report.

The Medicaid space was roiled by the ongoing unwinding process, and that was likely felt in the gross margin results. Gross margins per enrollee decreased by 6% between 2022 and 2023, according to the report. Medicaid managed care plans had anticipated they would likely have a higher ratio of high-risk members.

The study also examined medical loss ratios, which it again noted are a marker of financial performance that's not necessarily a direct look at profitability. A lower MLR means a plan is keeping a higher share of income after paying out premiums, but the required threshold varies between sectors.

The individual market saw the lowest MLRs at 84% in 2023, but the figures were largely on par across the board. Average MLR in the group market was 86%, and it was 87% for Medicaid and MA.

MLRs have been fairly stable in MA over the past several years, though some plans saw MLRs spike alongside an increase in utilization.

"Each health insurance market has different administrative needs and costs, so similar MLRs do not imply that the markets are similar to each other in profitability," the researchers wrote.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/kff-insurance-market-had-highest-gross-margins-last-year

Starmer declares Rwanda deportation plan 'dead and buried'

 Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday he would scrap a controversial plan to fly thousands of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda in his first major policy announcement since winning a landslide election victory.

The previous Conservative government first announced the plan in 2022 to send migrants who arrived in Britain without permission to the East African nation, saying it would put an end to asylum seekers arriving on small boats.

But no one was sent to Rwanda under the plan because of years of legal challenges.

At his first press conference since becoming prime minister, Starmer said that the Rwanda policy would be scrapped because only about 1% of asylum seekers would have been removed and it would have failed to act as a deterrent.

"The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It's never been a deterrent," Starmer said. "I'm not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don't act as a deterrent."

Starmer won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history on Friday, making him the most powerful British leader since former Prime Minister Tony Blair, but he faces a number of challenges, including improving struggling public services and reviving a weak economy.

At the press conference in Downing Street, Starmer answered about a dozen questions and was repeatedly asked about how and when he would start delivering on his promises to fix the nation's problems, but he gave few specifics about what he planned.

Asked if he was willing to take tough decisions and raise taxes if necessary, Starmer said his government would identify problems and act in areas such as tackling an overstretched prisons system and reducing the long waiting times to use the state-run health service.

"We're going to have to take the tough decisions and take them early, and we will. We will do that with a raw honesty," he said. "But that is not a sort of prelude to saying there's some tax decision that we didn't speak about before."

Starmer said he would set up and chair different "mission delivery boards" to focus on so-called missions or priority areas such as the health service and economic growth.

ELECTION ISSUE

The question of how to stop the asylum seekers crossing from France was a major theme of the six-week election campaign.

While supporters say it would smash the model of people traffickers, critics have argued the Rwanda policy was immoral and would never work.

Last November, the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful, saying Rwanda could not be considered a safe third country, prompting ministers to sign a new treaty with the East African country and to pass new legislation to override this.

The legality of that move was being challenged by charities and unions in the courts.

The British government has already given the Rwandan government hundreds of millions of pounds to set up accommodation and hire extra officials to process the asylum seekers, money it cannot recover.

Starmer has said his government would create a Border Security Command that would bring together staff from the police, the domestic intelligence agency and prosecutors to work with international agencies to stop people smuggling.

Sonya Sceats, CEO of Freedom from Torture, one of the many organisations and charities which have campaigned to stop the Rwanda plan, welcomed Starmer's announcement on Saturday.

"We applaud Keir Starmer for moving immediately to close the door on this shameful scheme that played politics with the lives of people fleeting torture and persecution," she said.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/news/uk-pm-starmer-confirms-end-123712737.html

'Hamas accepts US proposal on talks over Israeli hostages, Hamas source says'

 Hamas has accepted a U.S. proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men, 16 days after the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war, a senior Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday.

The militant Islamist group has dropped a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts had said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel and would end the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

A source in Israel's negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday there was now a real chance of achieving agreement. That was in sharp contrast to past instances in the nine-month-old war in Gaza, when Israel said conditions attached by Hamas were unacceptable.

A spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. On Friday his office said talks would continue next week and emphasised that gaps between the sides still remained.

The conflict has claimed the lives of more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since Hamas attacked southern Israeli cities on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages, according to official Israeli figures.

The new proposal ensures that mediators would guarantee a temporary ceasefire, aid delivery and the withdrawal of Israeli troops as long as indirect talks continue to implement the second phase of the agreement, the Hamas source said.

Efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza have intensified over the past few days with active shuttle diplomacy among Washington, Israel and Qatar, which is leading mediation efforts from Doha, where the exiled Hamas leadership is based.

A regional source said the U.S. administration was trying hard to secure a deal before the presidential election in November.

Netanyahu said on Friday that the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency had returned from an initial meeting with mediators in Qatar and that negotiations would continue next week.

Some families of hostages on Saturday gave a statement to reporters ahead of a weekly hostage rally in Tel Aviv, in which they called on Netanyahu to go through with the deal.

"For the first time in many months, we feel hope," said Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan Zangauker, 24, who was abducted from his kibbutz home on Oct. 7. "This is an opportunity that cannot be missed," she said.

FIGHTING RAGES

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stepped up military strikes across the enclave, killing at least 29 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, and wounding 100 others, the territory's health officials said.

Among those killed in separate air strikes were five local journalists, raising the death toll of journalists since Oct 7 to 158, according to the Hamas-led Gaza government media office.

Israeli forces, which have deepened their incursions into Rafah, near the border with Egypt, killed four Palestinian policemen and wounded eight others, in an air strike on their vehicle on Saturday, health officials said.

A statement issued by the Hamas-run interior ministry said the four included Fares Abdel-Al, the head of the police force in western Rafah neighbourhood of Tel Al-Sultan.

The Israeli military said forces continued "intelligence-base operations" in Rafah, destroyed several underground structures, seized weapons and equipment, and killed several Palestinian gunmen.

Israel said its operations in Rafah aimed to eradicate the last Hamas armed wing battalions.

In the central Al-Nuseirat camp, one of the enclave's eight historic refugee camps, an Israeli air strike on a house killed 10 Palestinians, medics said.

The Israeli military said it eliminated a Hamas rocket cell that operated from inside a humanitarian-designated area. It said it carried out a precise strike after taking measures to ensure civilians were unharmed. Hamas denies Israeli accusations it uses civilian properties for military purposes.

The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces in several areas of the enclave by anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/talks-free-israeli-hostages-start-041553937.html

NATO Summit Is On July 9, But Zelensky Is Already Angry

 by Ted Snider via AntiWar.com,

Another year of war and another NATO summit, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still not going to get the NATO membership Ukrainians are fighting and dying for. At last year’s NATO summit, Zelensky was offered only “an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.”

“Ukraine isn’t ready for NATO membership,” U.S. President Joe Biden said because, as he told CNN, there are “qualifications that need to be met, including democratization.”

Zelensky was outraged: “It’s unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.”

At this year’s NATO summit, to be held in Washington from July 9-11, corruption reform will be added to democratic reform. Ukraine will neither be offered membership in NATO nor a timeline to membership. Instead, they will be told that they are still too corrupt to join NATO.

According to a senior official in the State Department, although the U.S. has to “applaud everything that Ukraine has done in the name of reforms over the last two-plus years… we want to talk about additional steps that need to be taken, particularly in the area of anti-corruption.” In a recent interview with TIME, Biden cited “significant corruption” for not being “prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”

Instead of being given membership, Ukraine will be given “a list of reforms it will be expected to carry out before its membership ambitions can be realized.”

As a consolation, Ukraine will be offered a headquarters in Germany “to give something solid to Kyiv at the summit even as they maintain the time is not right for Ukraine to join.” The mission, to be called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, will match the weapons the West sends to Ukrainian needs and coordinate training of Ukrainian troops without NATO itself providing that training. NATO will also offer Ukraine a senior civilian official to be stationed in Kiev who will oversee Ukraine’s “longer-term military- modernization requirements and nonmilitary support.”

NATO leaders at this year’s summit will attempt the sleight of hand of making the same old offer being made to Ukraine look shiny and new. Though what is being promised Ukraine won’t change, the wording of the promise will. Ukraine won’t be offered membership in NATO, but they will be offered “a bridge to their membership inside the alliance.” They will be offered a “path” to membership, though NATO is “very sceptical about bringing Ukraine any further along the path to full Nato membership this year.”

In an attempt to mollify Ukraine, NATO is considering labelling the path to NATO membership as an “irreversible” path. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has used that language, promising that “[t]he work we are undertaking now puts you on an irreversible path towards NATO membership so that when the time is right, Ukraine can become a NATO member straightaway.” But Ukraine might not even get that. The U.S. and Germany have reportedly stymied even that concession, favoring replacing “irreversible path” with “well-lit bridge.”

In order to avoid the debacle of last year’s offer of an invitation to NATO when NATO is ready and Zelensky’s angry reaction, NATO officials have engaged in “expectation management,” muting NATO members supportive of Ukraine accession, while warning Zelensky not to demand the “impossible.” NATO officials have asked Zelensky not to pressure NATO members to publicly support a timetable to NATO membership this time. “The hope,” The New York Times reports, “is that the mission and the commitment it represents will satisfy Mr. Zelensky and lead to a smoother summit than the last one, a year ago in Vilnius.. where he made his unhappiness clear.”

It didn’t work. Zelensky is already publicly stating his frustration and anger. “We understand that the White House is not ready to give us the invitation,” Zelensky said in a June 30 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. He castigated the U.S. for being “afraid to annoy Putin,” saying “this is the reason why we are not invited.” Zelensky criticized U.S. policy, saying, “I don’t think this is the policy of world leaders. These are the very cautious steps of my de-miners in the minefield.” He added in resignation that “If NATO is not ready to protect us, and to take us into the alliance, then we ask NATO to give us everything so we can protect ourselves.”

Unless something changes between now and the convening of the NATO summit on July 9, Ukraine will, again, not be given what it has been led to believe it is fighting for, and Zelensky will, again, loudly express his anger.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-summit-july-9-zelensky-already-angry

Newsom To Campaign For Biden In Bucks County Pa.

  California Governor Gavin Newsom will be in Bucks County on Saturday, July 6 campaigning for the re-election of President Joe Biden, the Biden campaign announced this week.

According to press reports, the Democratic Governor will appear with state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, State Rep. Tim Brennan, Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Ashley Ehasz, the Democratic candidate running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania's first district.

They are scheduled to appear at a 10 a.m. rally in the courtyard of the Bucks County Administration building at 55 West Court Street, Doylestown.

Bucks County is seen as a key swing county in Pennsylvania's contested general election for President of the United States.

In 2020, Biden beat Republican Donald Trump in Bucks County with 51.6 percent of the vote to Trump's 47.29 percent. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton won over Trump with 48.52 percent of the vote to Trump's 47.74 percent.

Doylestown Republicans said they plan on welcoming the California governor to town by staging a "flash rally" beginning at 9:30 a.m.

"Wear your Trump gear and bring your Trump flags," the Republicans wrote in a campaign announcement being circulated on social media.

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/doylestown/california-governor-campaign-president-biden-bucks