United Kingdom

The UK's telecoms regulator has found that nearly a quarter of children between the ages of five and seven own a smartphone while a similar percentage use social media unsupervised.

In its annual study of children's relationships with the media and online worlds, comms regulator Ofcom found infant schoolchildren are increasingly online and given more digital independence by parents, as calls grow for greater regulation of social media use among under 14s.

The research showed 24 percent of five- to seven-year-olds own a smartphone, while 76 percent use a tablet.

It also documents increasing use of online platforms, social media and games. The proportion of 5-7s using of social media has increased from 30 percent last year to 38 percent in the 2024 survey. Many of the most popular apps in the market have seen big increases in the same period: WhatsApp use is up from 29 percent to 37 percent; TikTok from 25 percent to 30 percent; and Instagram from 14 percent to 22 percent.

Online gaming within the same age group has also jumped from 34 percent to 41 percent, with the number of kids aged five to seven playing shooter games rising from 10 percent to 15 percent.

Of the children using social media, 42 percent do so with parental supervision while 32 percent use it independently.

...

Ministers are said to be considering banning sales of smartphones to children under the age of 16, while there have also been calls to enforce bans of social media use among under-14s.

The cost of some items including meat, crumpets, chocolate biscuits, furniture and household items fell. However, petrol and diesel prices rose.

Lower inflation does not mean prices overall are coming down, they are just rising less quickly.

Archive link https://archive.is/xZVYs

Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11175769

The former employee of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and whistleblower Emma Reilly alleges that “dangerous ‘favours’” are “being rendered by OHCHR to the Chinese government” and “these favours fall into a broader effort of the Chinese government to instrumentalise the UN to serve its national interests”. Her evidence alleges a “UN cover-up of special favours for the PRC [Peoples Republic of China]”.

Ms Reilly alleges that “during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals” that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the General Assembly who ultimately oversaw the process and had significant influence over the final texts put to the Assembly”. Her evidence alleges that the PRC “imposes a secret conditionality across UN agencies that the monies so provided may not be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan”.

The UK jobs market is showing signs of stalling as the number of people out of work rose, according to new figures.

The unemployment rate increased to 4.2% between December and February, which is the highest level for six months.

Meanwhile, the rate of people with a job dipped and the economically inactive - those not in work or looking for employment - ticked higher.

Economists suggested the data could spur the Bank of England to cut interest rates in the summer.

The UK economy is going to grow less than expected this year - with the International Monetary Fund warning the country will remain the second worst performer in the G7.

Newly revised forecasts indicate the UK's gross domestic product will expand by just 0.5% in 2024 - a slight downgrade from previous estimates in January - compared with global growth of 3.2%.

However, UK GDP is tipped to increase by 1.5% in 2025 - making it the third-best performer among G7 nations - as households recover following a prolonged cost of living crisis.

According to the IMF, inflation in the British economy will remain at about 2.5% for the rest of this year but fall towards the Bank of England's target of 2% next year.

...

When looked at per head - with output split across the UK's population - GDP flatlines, with no growth at all for 2024 and 1.1% in 2025.

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/6041838

The results are in! 🎶

Hey everyone!

Thank you for participating, I gathered the votes submitted until this morning and put together this little graphics to announce the results, it looks like The Northern Boys were a clear favourite with their eccentric yet catchy song ; Azahriah and Bagarre, both ex-aequo, follow them closely in second position.

Congratulations to everyone for submitting great songs!

The ranking is based on the average position out of every vote, here are the details:

1. The Northern Boys - Sexy Train (avg. rank : 3.4)
2. Azahriah - Introvertált dal (4.2)
3. Bagarre - On est les mêmes (4.2)
4. Royel Otis - Heading for the Door (4.5)
5. Tiki Taane - Tangaroa (4.6)
6. Cassette Beasts - Your Inception (4.9)
7. Pil - Dronning af månen - (5.0)
8. Lu Kala - Hotter Now (5.2)
9. Puggy - Lost Child (5.5)

The ranks are super close, I personally liked every single song and it was hard to have to rank them, because the last position didn't necessarily mean the song was bad.

But wait there's more! Here's a ranking based on how many time each song was ranked first :

1. The Northern Boys - Sexy Train (21 times ranked first!)
2. Tiki Taane - Tangaroa (13)
3. Bagarre - On est les mêmes (10)
4. Azahriah - Introvertált dal (8)
5. Royel Otis - Heading for the Door (8)
6. Lu Kala - Hotter Now (4)
7. Pil - Dronning af månen (3)
8. Cassette Beasts - Your Inception (2)
9. Puggy - Lost Child (1)

That means every single song submitted was at least one person's favourite song, which is heartwarming, everyone got to discover new music!

There's even more! Here's a small list of every instance's most favourite songs (the songs that were most ranked first for each instance), Belgium sadly didn't vote :

• Australia (aussie.zone) : The Northern Boys & Tiki Taane
• Canada (lemmy.ca) : The Northern Boys
• Denmark (feddit.dk) : The Northern Boys
• France (jlai.lu) : The Northern Boys, Royel Otis
• Hungary ([email protected]) : Tiki Taane
• New Zealand (lemmy.nz) : Pil
• Programming.dev (programming.dev) : The Northern Boys
• United Kingdom (feddit.uk) : Bagarre, Tiki Taane, Lu Kala
• 3rd party voters : The Northern Boys, Bagarre, Royel Otis

Again, I want to reiterate how thankful I am that y'all participated. I didn't expect any response at all for such a niche event in such a niche social media, it was scary to be responsible that everything goes smoothly, but so rewarding to see people coming together and sending songs, and discovering new music from you!

What's next for Lemmyvision?

I'm going to keep the community open if you want to use it to share lesser known songs from where you're from, that you'd like people to discover, feel free to use [email protected] as you wish, as long as it's in the spirit of this contest.

Obviously another edition will happen, and hopefully with more people, as Lemmy grows, and gathers more users, and I manage to make contact with more instances, there is an opportunity to discover even more music! If you'd like to help, feel free to send a message too!

However, I do find the idea of having smaller scale, thematic, events, or just prompts in between, like how the speedrunning event AGDQ has the SQDG in summer ; I'll think about something, but feel free to share ideas as well.

Thank you, and see you next year for Lemmyvision 2 !! 🎶