A few weeks ago I met a friend for a birthday tea in a swanky London hotel. I arrived early, but sat happily looking at the plush decor and listening to the pianist playing as I waited. It was all so peaceful and beautiful.
Then I saw a family of six, four children and two adults, sitting in silence. Head down, every one of them was glued to his mobile phone, completely oblivious to their surroundings and others. They do not exchange a single word. When levels of sandwiches, scones and cakes arrived, he hoped that at least see and say the one to the other. On the other hand, three of them began to take photos and then returned to their phones, presumably to publish images in social media, whileothers absentmindedly approached and took something to eat, recognizing just one with the other. It left me feeling incredibly sad. No doubt is the point of shared experiences sharing them with the peopleclosest to us, not a group of people randomly on Twitter? We are constantly told how social media is a force for good, disseminate knowledge and empower and connect people. But there are negatives, no less might it be so it absorbed all interferes with our most important relationships. This was a problem identified by a school in Middlesbrough which has banned mobile school gate: has become too commona sight so children come up to their parents at the end of the day only to be ignored because the adult is concerned with your phone. Soa signal has gone up telling parents to 'Say hello to his son with a smile, not a mobile phone'. Amazing that this has to be said. We must also be concerned about the potential risk to mental health. A study this week showed the social media can increase loneliness. You can also make envious people, we see a sequence of carefully manipulatedand selected from a person's life aspects and assume that it is true. But it is not. It is an edited version of reality. Sites of social networks such as Facebook risk us poorer because of interactions that we offer are not real, but it can easily be confused with this. They are attractivebecause they are fast and require little effort, but these are the thingsthat it pulls of lasting value. Real interaction with real people can bedirty, complicated and time-consuming time: much easier to publisha stream of witty phrases where your success in life can weigh how many tastes have. People incessantly post because it allows them to feel in control of a story about themselves and fosters a sense of same-validation. From a neurological aspect, the fever of dopamine that itreleases in the brain that makes us do it more. It is not simply children being sucked, many parents are just as bad. Where work have a unit of family therapy and part of the treatment is to improve family communication. This includes eating a meal together. Mobile are prohibited. Children initially complain, but tend to meet. It is parents whobreak this rule. I want to check my email for work, they protest, and can see the poor models are provided for their children, which does not distinguish between emails of job control and control Facebook.All this reminds me of a story of E. M. Forster called the machine stops. Reading 100 years after it was published, is surprised by his mysterious foreknowledge. The story is set in a future world dominated by technology. Human beings live in small, individual herds below ground,communicating through instant messaging and videoconferencing service. Personal interaction has become redundant and the only activity is discussing ideas on this device. Their physical needs for the system and eventually forget that it is they who created the machine to serve them, become subservient to it and begin to worship to it. It is evident that the machine is stopped. Humanity, however, has lost theconnection with the natural world and each other, and with crash of the machine reaches the end of civilization. Forster message is chillingrelevance to today's society: is the direct experience and participation in the world and the actual interaction that is of value. It is not the technology that endangers humanity, but our dependence on him, and inability to modulate their control over their lives. Surely we are missing out on a fundamental aspect of what is human being if we should not even bother to talk to our family sat next to us. Even the prisoners eat better Hospital food is surprisingly poor, as anyone who has been nourished patients will know the patients. It is a police to blame the fact that is institutional food. A few years ago I worked at a prison and let me tell you that food served the prisoners was much better than the horrible gloop that dish hasWell, for the reason cooks are not a rare commodity in hospitals andthis is the root of the problem. Responsibility for providing hospital food has been increasingly more outsourced to catering companies. This means that meals are mass-produced off site and transported to the hospital where these 'cook-chill' dishes are reheated or, more ominously, 'regenerated' Doctor who style, using autonomous high pressure steam. In a number of new hospitals built under private finance initiatives, such is the dependence on this type of food that is there are no kitchens. This is in contract many jails, which prepare fresh foodin adequate kitchens. All this is done in the name of 'efficiency', but it is a false economy: patients who are malnourished because he does not eat or food is poor quality take longer to improve. It angers me because disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people in society, the elderly, those with mental health problems or learning disabilities that are more likely to be in hospital longer and often have a lotof visitors from food extra. There is a simple solution: reinstatementof staff with trained cooks and hospital kitchens. It can be - Great Ormond Street has chefs who chop vegetables and meals. They are nutritious and tasty. In Cornwall, SNS buy local and sustainable sources. I hope that PRUE maintains its campaign. A new leaf for tobaccogiant? It is not often that a company announces that he wants their products more taxed. However this is exactly what tobacco giant PhilipMorris made a presentation this week ahead of the Budget.In to theChancellor Philip Hammond, he lobbied for an increase in the tax oncigarettes in a bid for to out-price people out. So should be applauding Philip Morris or viewing with suspicion? For some time, the company has talked about that you want a future free of smoke and afteryears of development, launched a product - Iqos, which heats tobacco instead of burning and it is believed that is less harmful than regular cigarettes. You know that just a matter of time before countries is banning cigarettes, so a cynic might say that this is a smart business move. Maybe. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I like to think that people who work in tobacco companies are like us, withfriends and family, and do not want to be part of something that killsand disables millions each year. And even a clever change in businessmodel, motivated by revenue as much as ethics, does it really if it means the destruction of cigarettes is removed and replaced with something more secure? But I will be interested in see how behaves the company in poor countries where cigarettes are still enormously profitable and not show any signs of abating. This is a true litmus test for dedicated how that is a smoke-free world. When it comes to hormonereplacement (HRT) therapy, I believe that women have been badly disappointed by the medicine.
In 2002, a large study had linked with stroke and breast cancer, and the stories that followed have cast a long shadow over the management of menopause. But this study has been strongly criticized, not least because it was based on women who had already gone through menopause, and considers that they have caused unnecessary alarm. And this means that many women have lost out in the real and tangible benefits of HRT that were repeatedly tested. This week we have seen another one of these studies that showed that it can reduce the risk of early death as as 30 per cent. But the hormone replacement therapy is still viewed with incredible caution and suspicion by GPs, manyof which are nervous about the the prescription. Of course, it is not right for everyone. He is not recommended for women who have hada recent heart attack, liver problems or that they have breast cancer. But for millions of people, is convenient and you can bring real benefits. It was convenient for it, if I were a woman of a certain age, there is no doubt that would lead.
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