Shamin Vogel sets out the stark reality for today’s young women who face ridiculous societal expectations and high living and childcare costs. Plus letters from Rachel Fowler and Claire Elizabeth Brown

I read Emma Beddington’s column with delight ( Young women are telling each other to ‘date rich’. How terrifyingly retro, 9 June ). I was raised to think that I can achieve whatever I want, always with the reminder that generations of women before me fought for equality. Moving to London for my studies, I became acquainted with the concept of women studying just to find a rich husband and to be a housewife and mother. This idea was utterly foreign, even incomprehensible, to the career‑oriented 19-year-old me.

A decade later, I am surrounded by female friends who now regret not having found a rich husband – who are faced with rising living expenses, a ticking body clock, ridiculous housing prices, seemingly out‑of‑reach childcare and fertility costs, and a never-ending parade of hopeful online dating matches. Yes, life is hard working as a man, but for women there are some more items on the list: you need to push for a good career, look fabulous, find a nice husband, have kids, be part of Forbes’ 30 under 30 , be an executive but not forget to have a clean white kitchen and make kids’ birthday cakes.

Customers keep filming employees behind the counter, in a bid to ensure their burritos are big enough

When Atulya Dora-Laskey clocks in to her job making tacos, burritos, and salad bowls on the line at a Chipotle in Lansing, Michigan, she knows there’s a chance a customer will whip out a camera to film her assembling their lunch. If it does happen, “it’s immediately anxiety-inducing for my co-workers and me,” she said. She finds it “very stressful and dehumanizing” to be filmed at work.

These incidents of filming began last month, after rumors circulated on TikTok and Reddit alleging that Chipotle line workers skimped customers on the chain’s infamously large portion sizes – unless customers filmed workers making their order.

• Unit will pay for prosecutions of online abusers
• ‘We are doing things differently,’ says Mark Bullingham

The Football Association has funded a special unit within the British police to help them prosecute anyone who abuses England’s players on social media. The governing body has long been committed to passing on the evidence of such instances to the authorities and there has sadly been too much of it.

But as England prepare for their opening Euro 2024 tie against Serbia on Sunday night, the FA’s chief executive, Mark Bullingham, revealed a new move.

Disquiet over social media addiction is leading to a growing enthusiasm for Polaroids, postcards and the physical and analogue world

For Bea, it was moments like finding herself scrolling though the news on the toilet that made her feel the need to reassess her relationship with her phone.

The 37-year-old from London had began to feel uncomfortable with the way pinging notifications and the urge to pick up her phone were encroaching on her life. So when her iPhone broke, over a year ago, she decided it was time to switch to a device that allowed her to stay in touch with others while minimising distractions.

A majority of people imagine they’re far fresher-faced than they actually are. So should we be battling our internalised ageism and embracing the ravages of time?

Sit your old bones down, because I’ve got bad news: you probably look older than you think you do. Don’t shoot the messenger – blame science. A recent study published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that 59% of US adults aged 50 to 80 believe they look younger than other people their age. Women and people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers; and only 6% of adults in the bracket thought (or realised) they looked older than others their age. In short, most of us are delusional.

While the survey only included people over 50, I reckon they would have got the same results if they polled anyone over 30. Our brains have inbuilt denial mechanisms that stop us confronting our own mortality. Many people’s biological age tends to differ from their “ subjective age ” (or how old they feel ). Mine certainly does: according to my passport I’m 40, but in my head I’m still a sprightly 29.

Enlarge (credit: Discord)

Discord had long been strongly opposed to ads, but starting this week, it's giving video game makers the ability to advertise to its users. The introduction of so-called Sponsored Quests marks a notable change from the startup's previous business model, but, at least for now, it seems much less intrusive than the ads shoved into other social media platforms, especially since Discord users can disable them.

Discord first announced Sponsored Quests on March 7, with Peter Sellis, Discord's SVP of product, writing in a blog post that users would start seeing them in the "coming weeks." Sponsored Quests offer PC gamers in-game rewards for getting friends to watch a stream of them playing through Discord.

Discord shared this image in March as an example of the new type of ads. (credit: Discord )

The goal is for video games to get exposure to more gamers, serving as a form of marketing. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ) reported that it viewed a slide from a slideshow Discord shows to game developers regarding the ads that reads: "We’ll get you in front of players. And those players will get you into their friend groups."

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The royals are perennial clickbait, but the wild online bunkum over the Princess of Wales hints at new and darker forces

On TikTok, there is a short clip of what an AI voiceover claims is a supposed “ring glitch” in the video in which Princess of Wales reveals her cancer diagnosis. It has 1.3 million views. Others, in which users “break down” aspects of the video and analyse the saga with spurious evidence, also rack up millions of views and shares. I have then seen them surface on X, formerly known as Twitter, and even shared on WhatsApp by friends and family, who see in these videos, presented as factual and delivered in reporter-style, nothing that indicates that this is wild internet bunkum.

Something has changed about the way social media content is presented to us. It is both a huge and subtle shift. Until recently, types of content were segregated by platform. Instagram was for pictures and short reels, TikTok for longer videos, X for short written posts. Now Instagram reels post TikTok videos, which post Instagram reels, and all are posted on X. Often it feels like a closed loop, with the algorithm taking you further and further away from discretion and choice in who you follow. All social media apps now have the equivalent of a “For you” page, a feed of content from people you don’t follow, and which, if you don’t consciously adjust your settings, the homepage defaults to. The result is that increasingly, you have less control over what you see.

Do you shout your achievements from the rooftops, or ‘move in silence’ while waiting for the perfect moment to flex online? If only we could all sit this one out

I have belatedly discovered the phrase “move in silence”. Apparently, Lil Wayne instructed people to do it in 2011 with the line: “Real Gs move in silence like lasagne,” a lyric that prompted various polemics (is the G in lasagne actually silent ?). Even then, a music commentator told Billboard it was “such an old concept”. It hadn’t broken through in the south side of Brussels, where I was living then (despite lasagne, happily, being plentiful).

I was finally alerted to “moving in silence” by an Instagram post. The phrase grabbed me, since I am a cheerleader for silence. My take is: the more people move in silence, the better, especially if they are in coach H of the 8.02 York to London King’s Cross. It’s the “Quieter” coach! Don’t make me stare pointedly at the sign and sigh!

Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss , which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series. (credit: Facebook )

Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta's streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn't produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

The streaming business' demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [ PDF ] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

As spotted via Gizmodo , a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [ PDF ] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

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