It’s hard. The world is designed to distract you. Facebook is a research laboratory focussed on human distraction. They invest billions and are excellent at their work. When facebook slip up, hard on their tails come Apple, apps, youtube, caffeine, bored friends, problematic neighbours and general office bullshit. Apps are designed to be as addictive as possible. Assume you are dealing with crack cocaine. If you can see it, you will use it. If you can
The government’s target to rapidly increase the number of apprentices risks being “poor value for money”, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The think tank warns that it could devalue the “brand” of apprenticeships by turning it into “just another term for training”. The government has a target of three million apprenticeships and is imposing a levy on employers to fund it. The Department for Education says standards are “rigorously checked”. Report co-author Neil Amin-Smith says there is a “desperate need” for better
UK professionals from working-class backgrounds are paid £6,800 less on average each year than those from more affluent families, a study has found. The class pay gap was highest in finance at £13,713, the research by the Social Mobility Commission concluded. The medical profession saw the next highest gap at £10,218, followed by information technology at £4,736. Commission chairman Alan Milburn said the 17% average pay gap showed the UK remained a “deeply elitist” society. The research, carried out by academics from the
According to youth homelessness charity, Zero-hours contracts ‘trapping young people in homelessness’. “They are desperate to get experience to improve their long-term prospects. They are being pushed by the Job Centre to take these zero-hours contracts. But if all they can access is a zero-hours contract, it will definitely be harder for them to escape homelessness in the long-term,” said Jennifer Barnes, head of policy and research at the youth homelessness charity, “These are young people who have already been through a
