Interesting Links for 21-10-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Gamifying Hobbies Is Ruining Them

(tags:fun gaming apps doom )

2. UK Public Wants More Balanced Coverage Of Political Parties

(tags:UK politics journalism )

3. Anxiety Toolkit (a set of tools for helping with anxiety)

(tags:anxiety advice )

4. Populism is bad for economic propsperity

(tags:economics fascism )

5. Some 60,000 kids have avoided peanut allergies due to landmark 2015 advice, study finds

(tags:allergies children GoodNews peanuts )

6. Goblin Tools - a collection of AI tools for neurodivergent people who struggle with things feeling too big and complicated.

(tags:viaSwampers ai adhd autism )

7. Either public safety is an absolute priority at sporting events or it is not.

(tags:israel football uk safety politics OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[simont]

#1: honestly I'm not sure why the all-or-nothing headline. "Adopting a gamified version of your hobby can turn out to make it less fun for you", fair enough. But the article mentions some birders who gave up using the gamification app and went back to just watching birds, and it had become fun for them again. The hobby as a whole wasn't ruined, for everyone else, or even for them. Birding without the app was still there, right where they left it, and they went back to it.

[andrewducker]

I suspect that they would contend that it had ruined it, and then they had un-ruined it. Or rebuilt it. Possibly refurbished it.