There are more than 1.4 million appointments a day in general practice in England. Traditionally, patients booked by telephone, braving the “8am scramble”. However, a higher proportion of people are now contacting their GP surgery online than by phone, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.
The UK government recently instructed GP surgeries to offer online consultations from 8am to 6.30pm every day. Online consultation allows patients to explain their problem online. The online forms are checked, and patients are then spoken to on the phone or invited in for an appointment if needed.
Different GP surgeries use different online consultation tools, so you might not use the same system as friends or family.
Using online consultation requires internet access and the ability to write about your problem. This is easy for some people, but more difficult for others. Research shows that people living in the most deprived areas are less likely to be aware of or use online GP services.
This “deprivation gradient” is worrying because those who are worst off often have the greatest health needs. We cannot be sure that the increase in contacts with GP surgeries means everyone who needs care is actually getting it.
The UK government instructed GPs to offer online consultations during working hours. frank333/Shutterstock.com
Barriers
Some barriers are obvious – not having internet access or digital skills. A 2024 survey in the UK found that 38% of households struggled with digital skills and 17% lacked functional skills, such as having an email account. Other barriers are less obvious – patients are often confused by the different online options, and reception staff are not always able to guide them.
Introducing online consultation has meant big changes for GP surgeries in a short space of time. In the 2025 General Practice Patient Survey, just 51% of patients found it easy to contact their surgery via the website, and 49% via the NHS app. There is still a lot of work to make online consultation an inclusive option for everyone.
People want easier ways to see their doctor, and digital options can fit into busy routines. Now that online consultations are common, it’s important to understand who uses them and how they affect access to GPs. By looking at these patterns, we can help ensure online consultations improve access for everyone, rather than creating new barriers.
Helen Atherton receives funding from the NIHR.
Helen Atherton has collaborated with eConsult Ltd, a provider of online consultation software, who jointly fund a PhD studentship with the University of Warwick of which she is a PhD supervisor. The PhD is about how online consultation tools impact on clinical decision making. Helen has not worked for, consulted for or owned shares in eConsult and has not benefited financially from her association with them.
Ukraine is under unprecedented pressure, not only on the battlefield but also on the domestic and diplomatic fronts.
Each of these challenges on their own would be difficult to handle for any government. But together – and given there is no obvious solution to any of the problems the country is facing – they create a near-perfect storm.
It’s a storm that threatens to bring down Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and deal a severe blow to Ukraine’s western allies.
On the frontlines in eastern Donbas, Ukraine has continued to lose territory since Russia’s summer offensive began in May 2025. The ground lost has been small in terms of area but significant in terms of the human and material cost.
Between them, Russia and Ukraine have suffered around 2 million casualties over the course of the war.
Perhaps more importantly, the people of Ukraine have endured months and months during which the best news has been that its troops were still holding out despite relentless Russian assaults. This relentless negativity has undermined morale among troops and civilians alike.
As a consequence, recruitment of new soldiers cannot keep pace with losses incurred on the frontlines – both in terms of casualties and desertions.
Moreover, potential conscripts to the Ukrainian army increasingly resort to violence to avoid being drafted into the military. A new recruitment drive, announced by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, will increase the potential for further unrest.
Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure continues unabated, further damaging what is left of the vital energy grid and leaving millions of families facing lengthy daily blackouts.
The country’s air defence systems are increasingly overwhelmed by nightly Russian attacks, which are penetrating hitherto safe areas such as the capital and key population centres in south and west. It’s a grim outlook for Ukraine’s civilian population who are now heading into the war’s fourth winter. A ceasefire, let alone a viable peace agreement, remains a very distant prospect.
The political turmoil that has engulfed Zelensky and his government adds to the sense of a potentially catastrophic downward spiral. There have been corruption scandals before, but none has come as close to the president himself.
The amounts allegedly involved in the latest bribery scandal – around US$100m (£75 million) – are eye-watering at a time of national emergency. But it is also the callousness of Ukraine’s elites apparently enriching themselves that adds insult to injury.
The latest scandal has also opened a potential Pandora’s box of vicious recriminations. As more and more members of Zelensky’s inner circle are engulfed in corruption allegations, more details of how different parts of his administration benefited from various schemes or simply turned a blind eye are likely to emerge.
This has damaged Zelensky’s own standing with his citizens and allies. What has helped him survive are both his track record as a war leader so far and the lack of alternatives.
Without a clear pathway towards a smooth transition to a new leadership in Ukraine, the mutual dependency between Zelensky and his European allies has grown.
Whose side is the US on anyway?
The US under Donald Trump is no longer, and perhaps never has been, a dependable ally for Ukraine. What is worse, however, is that America has also ceased to be a dependable ally for Europe.
America’s new national security strategy, published last week, has exploded into this already precarious situation and has sent shockwaves across the whole of Europe. It casts the European Union as more of a threat to US interests than Russia.
It also threatens open interference in the domestic affairs of its erstwhile European allies. And crucially for Kyiv, it outlines a trajectory towards American disengagement from European security.
This adds to Ukraine’s problems – not only because Washington cannot be seen as an honest broker in negotiations with Moscow. It also decreases the value of any western security guarantees. In the absence of a US backstop, the primarily European coalition of the willing lacks the capacity, for now, to establish credible deterrence against future Russian adventurism.
The state of the conflict in Ukraine, December 7 2025. Institute for the Study of War
Efforts by the coalition of the willing cannot hide the fact that a fractured European Union whose key member states, like France and Germany, have fragile governments that are challenged by openly pro-Trump and pro-Putin populists, is unlikely to step quickly into the assurance gap left by the US. The twin challenge of investing in their own defensive capabilities while keeping Ukraine in the fight against Russia to buy the essential time needed to do so creates a profound dilemma.
Can Europe and Ukraine go it alone?
Without the US, Ukraine’s allies simply do not have the resources to enable Ukraine to even improve its negotiation position, let alone to win this war. In a worst-case scenario, all they may be able to accomplish is delaying a Ukrainian defeat.
But this may still be better than a peace deal that would require enormous resources for Ukraine’s reconstruction, while giving Russia an opportunity to regroup, rebuild and rearm for Putin’s next steps towards an even greater Russian sphere of influence in Europe.
At this moment, neither Zelensky nor his European allies can therefore have any interest in a peace deal negotiated between Trump and Putin.
A resignation by Zelensky or his government is unlikely to improve the situation. On the contrary, it is likely to add to Ukraine’s problems. Any new government would be subject to the most intense pressure to accept an imposed deal that Trump and Putin may be conspiring to strike.
Eventually, this war will end, and it will almost certainly require painful concessions from Ukraine. For Europe, the time until then needs to be used to develop a credible plan for stabilising Ukraine, deterring Russia and learning to live and survive without the transatlantic alliance.
The challenge for Europe is to do all three things simultaneously. The danger for Zelensky is that – for Europe – deterring Russia and appeasing the US become existential priorities in themselves and that he and Ukraine could end up as bargaining chips in a bigger game.
Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
Tetyana Malyarenko receives funding from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and the Research Council of Norway (project WARPUT, 361835, implemented by Norwegian Institute of International Affairs).
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vincent Charles, Reader in AI for Business and Management Science, Queen’s University Belfast
Pools for the extraction of lithium in Salinas Grandes, Jujuy, ArgentinaBrester Irina
From ancient slavery to the factory floor, progress has often relied on the exploitation of human beings. We might like to believe those days are well behind us. But in the digital age, AI and the metaverse risk repeating that pattern with new forms of invisible labour and inequality.
Ridley Scott’s 2000 film Gladiator told the story of Maximus Decimus Meridius, a betrayed Roman general who becomes enslaved and must fight as a gladiator to entertain the Roman elite. The sequel offered a new perspective on cycles of exploitation and the struggle for dignity.
Both films hold a mirror to modern forms of servitude. These stories remain unsettlingly relevant even today, where the metaverse, AI and digital economies are reshaping labour dynamics.
As AI takes over key logistics and procurement processes, new blind spots can emerge. AI tools designed to monitor efficiency and productivity, for example, can also be misused to micromanage workers. A 2022 investigation found that eight of the ten largest US employers use AI to track worker productivity, particularly in low-wage digital jobs.
Then there are the low-wage workers who moderate online content, protecting metaverse users from harmful material. Research has found that moderators can experience anxiety, depression, nightmares, fatigue and panic attacks due to their exposure to disturbing content. This can include images and videos of child abuse and violence, as well as cruelty and humiliation.
Another study revealed how content moderators in places such as the Philippines, India, Mexico and Silicon Valley suffer psychological trauma, exploitative contracts and a lack of protections. Companies in this case effectively outsource the psychological toll of this work. While it’s true that a smaller number of moderators are employed in higher-income countries, most content moderation is outsourced to lower-wage regions.
And although AI can help to flag and filter harmful content, research shows that manual content moderation remains critical in immersive environments.
Content moderation can leave low-wage workers traumatised and exhausted. Nwz/Shutterstock
The metaverse is often hyped as a space for creativity, freedom and new economic opportunities. Large tech companies promise users the ability to build virtual worlds, participate in decentralised economies and redefine their work-life balance. But again, this vision obscures the potential exploitation embedded within these systems.
Consider the rise of “play-to-earn” gaming platforms, where users earn cryptocurrency or digital assets by playing games. While it appears empowering, it often relies on labour from marginalised regions where players hope to earn a living but end up facing financial losses.
These can arise from the initial outlays required to play. This makes them players in name only, as they participate out of economic necessity.
Another practice in virtual economies is “gold farming”. This originated in so-called “massively multiplayer online role-playing games”, and involves “worker-players” repeatedly performing monotonous in-game tasks, known as “grinding”. This generates virtual currency or items, which are then sold for real-world money to higher-income “leisure-players”.
Gold-farming operations are typically run in low-income countries, where worker-players dedicate long hours for meagre pay while wealthier players benefit from purchasing the virtual goods and services.
In the metaverse, this practice is evolving into large-scale digital labour, where workers farm virtual goods in gig-like conditions without protections, benefits or fair wages.
Yet, empirical research on these forms of digital labour remains limited, even as these systems expand at remarkable speed.
Entertainment and ethics
The metaverse cannot exist without a vast material supply chain. Take, for instance, the workers who endure harsh conditions to produce the hardware that powers it. The mining of earth metals, critical for electronics like VR headsets, frequently involves exploitative labour practices.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accounts for more than 50% of global cobalt reserves and is the second largest producer of copper in the world. But first-hand reports reveal that miners work in shafts as deep as 100 metres with no safety protection. Workers, including children, risk their lives for minimal pay under dangerous conditions.
The demand for critical minerals is intensifying. The International Energy Agency has projected that demand for cobalt, lithium, nickel and copper could triple or more by 2050. To meet this demand, more than 350 new mines may be needed by 2035, increasing concerns about human rights.
The metaverse promises rich user experiences but also deepens the risk of exploitation. The escapism it provides often comes at the expense of unseen workers trapped in unequal systems. The growing number of people serving it certainly warrants more attention from regulators, unions and authorities.
But there are signs of progress. Governments are revisiting regulations to enforce ethical labour practices in supply chains. And the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive, adopted in July 2024, represents a significant step in holding companies accountable for human rights violations.
Similarly, the UK’s modern slavery statement requires businesses to do more to identify and mitigate forced labour risks in their supply chains. However, as the metaverse evolves, regulatory frameworks will need to adapt rapidly.
Exploitation in labour systems is not new, but the forms it takes in digital environments can be harder to detect and easier to scale. That is why staying attuned to these emerging dynamics matters.
The metaverse has the potential to democratise access to information, connection and opportunity. But its foundations must be free from the taint of exploitation.
We are all spectators, witnessing mostly the convenience of the end-user experience. But how different are we from the crowds who cheered for the gladiators in the Colosseum? In ancient Rome, suffering was visible yet overlooked; in the digital world it is perhaps easier to look away. The answer lies in regulation, accountability and a collective commitment to ensuring that the digital age does not repeat historical cruelties.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dana Lungu, Research Associate Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security, University of Bristol
Smart gadgets collect vast amounts of our personal data through their apps. It’s usually unclear why the manufacturers need this information or what they do with it. And I don’t just mean smartphones. All kinds of devices are quietly mining us, and few people have any idea it’s happening.
It’s a bit of a barcode lottery: data collection varies from brand to brand and from one operating system to another, making it even harder for consumers to get on top of this situation. For instance, Android phone users who have smart speakers like Amazon Echo or Google Nest have to share much more personal data than those with Apple iOS devices.
If you think this all sounds worrying, you’re not alone. A 2024 study by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found that participants were concerned about the excessive and unnecessary amount of personal information being collected by devices.
Unlike with those air fryers, much data gathering takes place without the user even having to give explicit permission. If you’re wondering how this is legal given the explicit consent requirements of general data protection regulation (GDPR), the answer lies in the lengthy technical policies buried in the fine print of privacy notices. Most consumers skim-read these or find them difficult to understand, leaving them with little sense of the choices they are making.
Privacy nutrition labels
It seems to boil down to two options. We share our personal data with the apps of smart devices and hope they will only collect routine information, or we opt out and usually have to live with limited functionality or none at all.
However, there is a middle ground that most people are unaware of: privacy nutrition labels. These allow you to take some control by understanding what personal data your gadgets are collecting, without struggling through the privacy blurb.
The trouble is they are difficult to find. They are not mentioned by consumer magazine Which? or the ICO, perhaps because they are only “recommended” by the UK government and the Federal Communications Commission in the US. Yet despite not being legally binding on manufacturers, these privacy labels have become the norm when it comes to smartphone apps, while other smart devices are gradually catching up.
Ironically, this solution came from the pioneers of smart gadgets, Apple and Google. They voluntarily adopted the idea after it was proposed by researchers in 2009 as a way of informing users that their data was being collected.
Experts at Rephrain, the UK’s National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online, have developed the following step-by-step guide to help consumers find their privacy labels on iPhones and Android phones (click or zoom to make the image bigger):
Once you find the relevant privacy label for the device in question, you’ll see practical, concise information about what data the app collects and why. Two sections list the types of data collected: “Data Used to Track You” and “Data Linked to You” for iPhones, and “Data Shared” and “Data Collected” for Android.
By reading the privacy label before making a purchase, consumers can decide if they are comfortable with the data collected and the way it is handled.
For example, I checked the privacy label of the app for the smart toothbrush I planned to get my husband this Christmas. I found out it collects the device ID to track users across apps and websites owned by other companies, and data linked to identity such as location and contact information.
So before purchasing smart devices for your loved ones this Christmas, check the privacy labels of their apps on your smartphone. You may be surprised by what you find. This holiday season, don’t just give someone a lovely present – give them the gift of data control at the same time.
This article draws on some research into privacy labels from the University of Bristol’s Marvin Ramokapane and Sophia Walsh.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jutta Haider, Professor in Information Studies, Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås
From automatically generated overviews to chatbots in spreadsheets, so-called artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into our watches, phones, home assistants and other smart devices.
AI-in-everything is becoming so ordinary and everyday that it is easy to overlook. But this normalisation is having a dangerous effect on the environment, the planet and our response to climate change.
AI’s direct environmental costs are undeniable. Data centres consume large amounts of electricity and water and AI queries use up much more energy than a conventional internet search.
The same companies that develop and promote consumer AI – including Microsoft, Google and Amazon – also use it to help corporations find and extract oil and gas as quickly as possible. But when it comes to the indirect effects of AI, the environment remains a huge blind spot for most people.
Our research identifies hidden costs and draws attention to how AI encourages hyperconsumption and large carbon footprint lifestyles. We also study how the cultural values embedded within widely available AI applications emphasise individualism and commodification, while ignoring or downplaying the relevance of environmental issues.
Consumption-based emissions must fall to avoid runaway climate change, so how environmental values are expressed matters. Our research shows that many AI companies do not consider the environmental harm caused by their products to be something worth worrying about.
AI is embedded in the digital tools and platforms people use in their everyday lives. Search engines, social media and online marketplaces have all incorporated what they call “AI features” into their applications.
These are often default settings that are hard to disable or opt out of. Many people are unaware these functions are switched on, let alone that their ultimate purpose is to encourage purchases from which platform owners can extract a profit.
Ai tends to encourage shopping habits – but has the potential to showcase more environmentally friendly alternatives. UnImages/Shutterstock
Such a business model accomplishes two things at once, generating both financial profits and data to be used as business intelligence. And it means emissions are generated twice: through the direct use of widely available applications, and in the additional emissions encouraged by the content being delivered to users. This is a double whammy for the environment.
As part of our research into big tech, we prompted Microsoft’s prominent chatbot Copilot with the simple term “children’s clothes”. This generated a list of links to online shops and department stores. Our prompt did not say we wanted to buy new children’s clothes.
To understand how the chatbot had turned our prompt into a web search, we asked it to describe its decisions. Copilot provided three phrases, all referring to consumption: children’s clothing stores, best places to buy kids’ clothes, and popular children’s clothing brands.
Copilot’s response could have been about typical materials and colours, sewing, or swapping and buying secondhand children’s clothes. In fact, Ecosia, the search engine that uses profits to fund climate action, foregrounds buying sustainable alternatives and shows options for renting, borrowing and buying secondhand.
However, Copilot’s AI search focused on shopping for new clothes – indirectly encouraging overconsumption. The same prompts in OpenAI’s SearchGPT produced near-identical results, by interpreting the user’s intent as that of a shopper. We also tested Google AI overviews and this gave us the same results, as did another search engine called Perplexity.
Nobody takes responsibility for these indirect emissions. They don’t come from the producers of the children’s clothes or the consumers. They fall outside most mechanisms for attributing, measuring and reporting environmental impacts.
By naming this phenomenon for the first time, we can bring greater attention to it.
We use the term “algorithmically facilitated emissions” – and believe platform owners, whose profits depend on connecting producers with consumers and extracting value from their exchange, should bear the responsibility for them.
‘Acceptable’ environmental harm
We can tell that most AI developers do not pay attention to the environment by analysing what these companies allow and restrict. We studied the acceptable use policies they have for their AI models, which specify the kinds of queries, prompts and activities that users are not allowed to perform with their services. Very few of these AI policies include the environment or nature – and when they do, it is usually superficial.
For instance, animals are only mentioned in one-sixth of 30 use policies we investigated. When included, animals are listed as individuals after humans, not as species that need protection or are valuable to ecosystems.
Misinformation is frequently mentioned in these policies as unacceptable. While policies like this tend to be human-centered, there is a lack of regard for the environment, both in terms of misinformation and overall mentions. Contributing to climate change or other environmental harms does not feature as a risk that should be avoided.
Tech companies, policymakers, governments and business organisations should acknowledge that the continued growth of AI is having systemic consequences which harm the environment. These include direct effects of energy and resource use, plus indirect effects pertaining to consumption-focused lifestyles and social norms that disregard the environment.
But the normalisation of AI-in-everything helps bury these consequences – just when environmental awareness is needed most, and pressure on governing bodies to pass climate-forward policies should be maintained.
New language can help these dynamics be seen, talked about and measured. Platforms that connect producers and consumers play an important role in deciding what gets produced and consumed – yet the way we, as a society, typically think about consumption does not allow for this. New terms, such as algorithmically facilitated emissions, can hopefully help people rethink and redesign our information infrastructure.
If AI can be built to increase consumption, then the opposite is also possible. AI could promote environmental values and reduce consumption – not the other way around.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Jutta Haider receives funding from Mistra – the Foundation for Environmental Strategic Research and from Formas – Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development.
Björn Ekström receives funding from Mistra – the Foundation for Environmental Strategic Research.
James White receives funding from The Swedish Research Council.
After joining the GBD 2021 Household Air Pollution team, an international effort to quantify the global health burden of household air pollution from 1990 to 2021, I expected familiar work: analysing how indoor smoke harms the body. Instead, what first looked like household data revealed a far deeper picture of global inequity.
The urgency of that inequity has rarely felt more immediate. In December 2025, the UK government published an updated environmental plan that would impose tighter restrictions on wood-burning stoves – a move aimed at cutting PM2.5 pollution, the fine particulate matter small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, linked to serious health risks.
Working with the data felt personal. Each night, I scrolled through country estimates, picturing families preparing meals over smoky stoves, inhaling toxins they cannot see and may not realise are damaging their health. For many communities, shifting to cleaner fuels is not about convenience. It is about survival.
Our study examined how exposure to household air pollution changed between 1990 and 2021 across 204 countries. Although the use of solid fuels such as wood, coal and dung has declined, household air pollution exposure remains widespread and the health consequences are severe.
Household air pollution rarely dominates headlines, yet it claims millions of lives each year. Every time a meal is cooked over smoke-filled flames, families inhale toxins that can shorten lifespans, hinder child development and deepen structural inequities.
Research links childhood exposure to impaired cognitive development, respiratory vulnerability and long-term health disadvantage. These effects are often hidden, unfolding slowly over years, which makes them easy to ignore and harder to address.
Household air pollution is a major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, lower respiratory infections, lung cancer and ischaemic heart disease, which is also called coronary heart disease and occurs when the heart is starved of oxygen because its arteries have narrowed or become blocked. These health risks play out unevenly across the world, and the global patterns in our data underline that unevenness.
Wealthier regions have seen sustained declines in exposure. Global data sets that track access to clean and modern energy show that households in higher income countries now rely far less on polluting stoves than they did in the past. Yet many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia remain heavily dependent on polluting fuels. Clean options such as liquefied petroleum gas, electricity, ethanol, improved biomass stoves and biogas remain financially out of reach for many households.
But our research can inform investments in clean energy, help shape health policy and strengthen public understanding of the risks.
Governments and development partners can accelerate access to cleaner fuels by improving the infrastructure that delivers them, such as fuel storage, transport and local retail networks. They can also strengthen electricity systems so households have consistent power supplies that support electric cooking.
Subsidies can help lower the cost of clean fuels and stoves so families are not pushed back toward cheaper, more polluting options. Investment in locally appropriate technologies matters because stoves work best when they suit the foods people prepare, the pot sizes they use and the rhythms of daily life.
Health systems can improve diagnosis and treatment for chronic conditions linked to household air pollution, particularly in places where exposure remains high. Stronger data systems also matter, since many countries still lack reliable monitoring of pollution exposure. Without accurate data it is difficult to identify communities at highest risk, measure progress or plan effective interventions.
Community engagement is central to lasting progress. Uptake improves when stoves fit local cooking styles, meet household preferences and are introduced through trusted local groups rather than imposed from outside. People are more likely to try and keep using a new stove when it comes from sources they know and when it aligns with their everyday routines.
Although household air pollution may be perceived as a personal or domestic issue, its effects extend far beyond the home. Clean cooking is not only a sustainability or climate topic. It is a matter of health equity. Clean cooking is not simply about replacing a stove or fuel type. It is about protecting health, expanding opportunity and giving every child the chance to grow up in an environment that does not silently harm them.
Reducing smoke in homes means fewer chronic illnesses, fewer premature deaths and a stronger foundation for global health. If progress slows, the burden will continue to fall most heavily on the places least able to bear it.
Vikram Niranjan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
It’s December, the weather’s turning, and the holidays are fast approaching. You’ve got to find the perfect gift for your partner, parents or that weird relative you only see once a year. At work, there’s the secret Santa for a colleague you barely know, and the office party you’d rather avoid.
Maybe you’re planning Christmas lunch – is it turkey and all the trimmings? There’s travel to sort out, dodging the rush hour trains or traffic. You might feel obliged to appear merry, even if you’re already exhausted.
Where exactly did this to-do list come from? Many of these pressures – these “got tos” – have their basis in social norms, not actual rules.
Social norms are unwritten rules or expectations that guide our behaviour. They reflect what we perceive as normal or correct in a given situation. Norms can help to create a sense of belonging, set expectations and help us avoid social friction. But norms can and do change.
While social norms can be important for regulating group behaviour and relationships, people can feel pressure to conform to these expectations. Not conforming could have potential consequences – like feeling socially excluded or losing status – but this will depend on the social group. Saying that, you’re allowed to reinterpret norms, question them or ignore them entirely.
In the UK, buying and sharing gifts, going to the work party, having large family gatherings, wearing Christmas jumpers, putting up decorations, eating and drinking too much and spending more money than usual are common Christmas norms. These norms are context-dependent though. Other countries, cultures and religions may have their own unique norms or not share celebrations at this time of year.
Social norms shape our sense of what we think we should do or feel during the festive season. Such norms can be positive or negative in nature, and may not always be helpful to adhere to.
Christmas norms have many origins. The pressure to buy “the perfect gift” largely emerged from 20th-century mass marketing, which encouraged people to spend more in shops and buy specific products. Other traditions, like sending Christmas cards, pulling crackers or decorating Christmas trees, date back to the Victorian era.
Today, the internet and social media expose us to a stream of photos, posts and adverts presenting an idealised Christmas. Television and film also reinforce polished images of festive harmony. We might see these portrayals weeks or months before Christmas, shaping our expectations – and possible anxieties – about how we ought to celebrate.
Why we follow norms
We tend to follow social norms through conformity: changing our behaviour to align with what we think others are doing or think is important. Sometimes we do this to fit in (known as normative influence). Other times we do it because we believe others know the right thing to do (informational influence).
Several things could make Christmas norms feel powerful.
Social comparison plays a big role. A perfectly staged Instagram photo of a family in matching jumpers, smiling in front of a table piled high with food, can pressure others to match or outdo that ideal. Not meeting such perceived standards may make us feel worse about ourselves in comparison.
Mere exposure can also be important. Simple repeated viewing of others’ Christmas posts on social media can influence what we think is the norm.
We may also fear judgement for not conforming. Having a smaller Christmas, changing traditions or opting out entirely can feel risky if we worry others will see us as stingy, antisocial or a grinch.
Another factor is pluralistic ignorance: assuming everyone else loves and expects full-scale Christmas celebrations. Others might actually prefer a smaller, quieter Christmas, but feel they can’t have one. My research with colleagues frequently finds that people misperceive what others actually think or do, and these misperceptions add extra pressure to conform to an imagined standard.
None of these factors make us irrational. Perceived social norms are a useful guide and can provide comfort, predictability and connection. But when norms become rigid they can generate stress, financial strain and emotional burnout. Rethinking such norms isn’t rebellious – it’s healthy.
How to let go of Christmas norms
Understanding these pressures can help us make conscious choices about which traditions to keep and which to let go. We know that social norms can be flexible, develop and change over time. Most families already have their own variations on Christmas norms and traditions.
Mine certainly does. In the 1990s, we always visited my grandparents on Christmas Eve for a family meal. Grandad, a non-smoker for the rest of the year, was known to treat himself to a Christmas cigar and a whisky. As kids, we were allowed to open a few presents early because Grandma had “spoken to Father Christmas” – and we didn’t argue with her.
Later on, we stopped having turkey on Christmas Day. My brother and I were never that keen; what we really wanted were the Yorkshire puddings and pigs in blankets. Eventually we shifted to different meals altogether, including curries and Mum’s famous spaghetti bolognese. Dad, who liked traditional roast meals, missed turkey – but our neighbours would sneak over a leftover plate across the fence so he didn’t lose out.
None of these changes meant abandoning tradition or rejecting each other. They simply reflected what worked for us. Often, doing Christmas differently opens the door for more honest conversations about what people enjoy and what they find overwhelming.
Our perceptions of what we think we should do can lead us to take on obligations we might not actually want. Notice which norms feel meaningful to you, and which feel burdensome. You could travel less, spend less, do less or simply not feel festive. You can keep some traditions and let others go. You can establish your own Christmas norms – or have none at all.
Robert Dempsey receives funding from the BIAL Foundation for ongoing psychometric research..
Forget Die Hard, Eyes Wide Shut is really the Christmas film hiding in plain sight.
Released in 1999 and set entirely during the festive season, the film follows a doctor, Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), whose wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) admits she once considered an affair. Shaken, he becomes obsessed with pursuing his own sexual encounter and stumbles into an underground world of masked orgies and ritualised desire.
Director Stanley Kubrick chose Christmas after deciding that the original mardi gras setting from Arthur Schnitzler’s novella wouldn’t work in contemporary New York. Christmas offered the closest equivalent. After all, it’s a modern period of ritual excess, indulgence and office-party transgressions.
It’s also a season of overeating, drinking and heightened expectations, which makes it the perfect environment for exploring jealousy, deceit and desire, the film’s defining concerns.
Kubrick also uses Christmas to highlight the thin line between social and sexual ritual. Both are governed by rules, masks and secrecy, and by the privileges of those with enough power or money to ignore the rules altogether.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Official Trailer.
In this, Kubrick was curiously prophetic, pointing to the predations of the likes of Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, the lavishness hints at the world of Donald Trump, who, when Kubrick made the film, was just a real estate and hotel entrepreneur.
Christmas is also the season for performing middle-class normality, a performance the film slowly unravels. The festive backdrop disguises the fact that Kubrick recreated New York on London streets and soundstages, contrasting choreographed gaiety with the darker psychological terrain of the story.
The setting also serves a crucial aesthetic purpose. The near-pervasive Christmas lights and decorations suit Kubrick’s love of practical lighting. These are visible, realistic light sources that add texture and colour, contributing to its dreamlike atmosphere. The original story he adapted was called Traumnovelle (German for “dream story”).
There may have been another reason, too. As I’ve written about extensively, Bill functions as a hidden Jewish character like the protagonist of the original book. The pervasiveness of Christmas underscores his sense of being an outsider. As Kyle Broflovski sang in the TV series South Park: “It’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas.”
Eyes Wide Shut depicts the upper-middle-class and moneyed elites of Manhattan, who use those beneath them to “service” their needs. Bill is summoned for his medical expertise when a sex worker overdoses at Victor Ziegler’s lavish party. He might just as easily be a plumber called to fix a leak.
Sex workers fare worse still. In the masked ceremony, the naked participants are staged as tableaux, basically objects, even furniture, for others’ pleasure.
Christmas consumerism also frames Bill and Alice’s marital tensions. The film repeatedly places Bill in service spaces like coffee shops, boutiques, hotels and hospitals. Even the apartment of Domino, the sex worker he meets, is presented as a workplace. On her shelf sits a copy of Introducing Sociology, reinforcing the consumerist theme.
By contrast, the Harfords’ flat, modelled on Kubrick’s own 1960s New York apartment, is warm and inviting. Kubrick lingers on domestic rituals such as brushing teeth, undressing, everyday movement. But even this comfort feels modest beside Ziegler’s townhouse or the opulent mansion where the orgy takes place.
Class anxiety runs through the film. Bill is preoccupied with his status, flashing his medical ID to access restricted spaces like the morgue and a closed costume shop. But such credentials barely get him close to the elite worlds he longs to enter.
To infiltrate them, he must use disguise. Money guides him; his wallet is always full, and his very name, Bill, seems a wry nod to economic power. Affluent by ordinary standards, he is still dwarfed by Ziegler’s wealth.
His masculinity is even more under threat. Alice cuckolds him, shattering his complacent illusion of security. She revels in puncturing his smugness.
Kubrick played cleverly with Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible persona, simultaneously using and undermining it. Bill’s most heroic act is offering a handkerchief to a model. “That’s the kind of hero I can be,” he says.
We’re not sure whether he’s being self-deprecating. He is flirting, but all his sexual encounters other than those with Alice are unconsummated. The only real act of heroism in the movie is done for him when the mysterious woman saves him at the orgy.
Why was the film so misunderstood?
When Eyes Wide Shut was released, audiences had been waiting 12 years for a new Kubrick film. If you wait 12 years for anything, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Many expected another grand narrative about war, geopolitics or technology. Instead they found a slow, dreamlike study of marital insecurity. And because the film opened in July, most critics missed its subversive Christmas commentary entirely. They didn’t connect the dots.
Kubrick spent his career making subversive films, intellectually and technologically. Eyes Wide Shut was no exception. As his final work, it stands as the ultimate counter-Christmas film, made, fittingly, by a man who knew what it meant to be a lonely Jew at Christmas.
Nathan Abrams has received external funding from government-funded organisations, charities, foundations, and research council grants.
Summer Evening on the Southern Beach by Peder Severin Krøyer (1893).Skagens Museum
Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since the author’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading researchers. Along the way, we visit locations important to Austen to uncover a particular aspect of her life and the times she lived in. In episode 6, we explore whether Jane was happy, using her last published novel, Persuasion, as our guide.
Given that happy endings in Jane Austen’s novels chiefly revolve around a love match with the desired hero, some might conclude that as Austen remained a lifelong spinster, happiness must have eluded her. But this groundbreaking writer was a woman who filled her life with meaning through interests, friendships, socialising, travel, and most of all, a purpose.
The Cobb in Lyme Regis remains much as Austen would have known it. Nada Saadaoui, CC BY-SA
Of course Austen had her fair share of worries. This was especially true after her father died, and she, her mother and her sister Cassandra found themselves in much reduced circumstances in less salubrious lodgings in Bath and then Southampton. A life of genteel poverty was leavened by her close relationships with the women in her life, including her good friends Martha Lloyd and Anne Sharp, a fellow writer with whom Austen could discuss the business of writing.
Much like her lovelorn heroine Anne Elliot, Austen had little affection for Bath. She missed the verdant Hampshire countryside of her youth and found the city oppressive, despite its lively social whirl. After eight years she returned to her beloved county when her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a house on his estate at Chawton.
Here the women settled into a more comfortable life, allowing Austen the space and peace to write. It was at Chawton in 1815 that she wrote her final novel, Persuasion – the story of happiness lost and regained. The world-weary Anne Elliot, whose bloom has withered and is considered past her prime at 27, is still pining for Frederick Wentworth, the man she was persuaded to give up years before, when he re-enters her life as a dashing naval captain.
In the sixth episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail, Jane Wright is joined by Nada Saadaoui of the University of Cumbria, whose research examines Austen’s depiction of walking in Romantic-era English landscapes, to answer the question: was Jane happy?
Jane Wright and Nada Saadaoui walked in Austen’s footsteps in Lyme Regis. Jane Wright, CC BY-SA
Austen’s abiding love of walking is reflected in the character of Anne, who finds restoration and renewal in the act. Taking in the sea air at the Cobb in Lyme Regis, the two explore what this coastal Dorset town meant to Austen, and how it inspired the pivotal scene in Persuasion where Anne and Wentworth reignite the spark of their connection.
“In walking and being out of doors, these characters open themselves up to transformation,” says Saadaoui, “and we see, especially for Anne, that this walk along the Cobb becomes a walk back to herself – to her strength, her voice, her true self, and her happiness.”
A portrait of Austen painted by her sister Cassandra during one of their visits to Lyme Regis. Wiki Commons
Later on, Anna Walker sits down with two more Austen experts – John Mullan, professor of literature at University College London, and Freya Johnston, professor of English at the University of Oxford – to comb through what clues Persuasion offers about Austen’s own happiness.
Johnston has studied Austen’s remaining letters closely. “Quite often [she] sounds angry. She also sounds quite bitter … but there is also happiness in the letters. Certainly a degree of pride in her achievements as an author and just an enjoyment of writing.”
Mullan believes Austen also derived happiness from her family: “I think if you could beam yourself down to an Austen family gathering, [you’d find that] they were a really rather terrific family. I think that they were open-minded, intelligent, humorous, optimistic people … they valued Jane’s talents and her intelligence and enjoyed hearing her read bits of her writing to them. And I think that that one can’t overestimate how important that must have been to her.”
Listen to episode 6 of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re craving more Austen, check out our Jane Austen 250 page for more expert articles celebrating the anniversary.
You can also sign up to receive a free Jane Austen 250 ebook from The Conversation, bringing together a collection of our articles celebrating her life and works.
This is the last episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail – however we will be running a special Q&A episode in January where you can put your questions to our panel of experts. Please send your questions to podcast@theconversation.com
Disclosure statement
Nada Saadaoui, John Mullan and Freya Johnston do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is hosted by Anna Walker with reporting from Jane Wright and Naomi Joseph. Senior producer and sound designer is Eloise Stevens and the executive producer is Gemma Ware. Artwork by Alice Mason and Naomi Joseph.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.
The government is proposing a change in the law on parental child abduction. The crime and policing bill, under consideration in parliament, would make it a crime for a parent to take their child on holiday and then not return them at the end of the agreed holiday period. This would be punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment.
The government is attempting to remedy what could be seen as a gap in the law. But this approach fails to take into account what we know about the situations in which this kind of parental child abduction occurs. In many cases, it involves a mother fleeing domestic abuse with her children.
Parental child abduction happens when a child is taken to another country without the other parent’s knowledge or consent, or when one parent takes the children abroad for a holiday and keeps them overseas beyond the agreed holiday period. Currently, the recourse for parents left behind is contained in the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction.
This was created with the objective of minimising harm to children. It enables the left-behind parent to apply to the court in the country the children were taken to for their prompt return. The Convention remains the primary legal instrument of response, with 103 signatory member states.
The crime and policing bill currently before Parliament will leave the 1980 Convention untouched but bolster criminal sanctions against parents who take children by amending the Child Abduction Act 1984, which applies to England and Wales.
The 1984 Act made it an offence for a parent to take or send a child out of the jurisdiction without the other parent’s consent. The parent who took the children is sanctioned only if police pursue a complaint made by the left-behind parent, which is then subject to a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute.
Now, the government seeks to strengthen criminal sanctions against parents who fail to return children. But the proposed seven years’ imprisonment does not align with what research and practice tells us about parental child abduction in 2025.
Profile of the abductor
There was little hard statistical data available on parental child abduction when the Hague Convention was created. However, the abduction of children was primarily seen as something done by fathers who were not the primary carer of their children.
The picture is now very different. Research conducted in 2015 found that 73% of taking parents were mothers, an increase from earlier years, and of these 91% are primary carers. My research and that of other scholars has found that domestic abuse features heavily in these cases. Essentially, these mothers are taking their children and attempting to escape an abusive situation. Research suggests that domestic abuse may be present in approximately 70% of child abduction cases.
If this amendment proceeds, then mothers who have fled overseas with their children to escape an abusive relationship may refuse to return for fear of prosecution. But through the mechanism set up under the Hague Convention, the children can still be ordered to go back. This proposed change in law takes no account of the impact on children of criminalising the parent who will most often be their primary carer. The potential criminalisation of primary carers will inevitably compound the trauma for children at the centre of these cases.
The reasons for parental child abduction are multifaceted and complex. The forum for resolving family law disputes is the family court, and punitive criminal sanctions are likely to cause harm to children. Furthermore, the potential criminalisation of mothers in the context of domestic abuse flies in the face of current government policy to support victims of abuse. It also fails to prioritise the individual needs of children caught up in parental conflict.
It is disappointing to note that the House of Commons has to date given scant attention to this proposed change to the law. It was not debated at report stage (when MPs have an opportunity to consider amendments to a bill).
Currently there are several members of the House of Lords with expertise in family law. Now that the bill has reached committee stage – a detailed examination of each line – in the House of Lords, I hope that they will draw attention to this issue and persuade others that the change in law should be abandoned. These complex cases should be left to the family court where they properly belong.
Allison Wolfreys does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
