ReHacked #152: Taking a One-Week Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, WordPress running on an SQLite, How the war in Ukraine 'changed everything' for a generation of young Poles and more

Make a donation - support Ukraine

Ukrainian Red Cross | Providing emergency aid to all those in need

Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights | Supporting women and LGBTQI+ people in and around Ukraine

Voices of Children | Helping children in Ukraine affected by conflict

Don’t forget to share if you like what you read here, subscribe (if not yet) and leave a comment any form of your feedback is very important to me. Thanks!

RSS feed available if you don’t want to clutter your inbox.

WordPress running on an SQLite database #software

Taking a One-Week Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial | Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking #psychology #health #socialmedia

The present study aimed to understand the effects of a 1-week break from social media (SM) (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok) on well-being, depression, and anxiety compared with using SM as usual. We also aimed to understand whether time spent on different SM platforms mediates the relationship between SM cessation and well-being, depression, and anxiety. We randomly allocated 154 participants (mean age of 29.6 years) to either stop using SM (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok) for 1 week or continue to use SM as usual. At a 1-week follow-up, significant between-group differences in well-being (mean difference [MD] 4.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.0–6.8), depression (MD −2.2, 95% CI −3.3 to −1.1), and anxiety (MD −1.7, 95% CI −2.8 to −0.6) in favor of the intervention group were observed, after controlling for baseline scores, age, and gender. The intervention effect on well-being was partially mediated by a reduction in total weekly self-reported minutes on SM. The intervention effect on depression and anxiety was partially mediated by a reduction in total weekly self-reported minutes on Twitter and TikTok, and TikTok alone, respectively. The present study shows that asking people to stop using SM for 1 week leads to significant improvements in well-being, depression, and anxiety. Future research should extend this to clinical populations and examine effects over the longer term.

Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste - UT News #nature #ecology

An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days.

This discovery, published today in Nature, could help solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems: what to do with the billions of tons of plastic waste piling up in landfills and polluting our natural lands and water. The enzyme has the potential to supercharge recycling on a large scale that would allow major industries to reduce their environmental impact by recovering and reusing plastics at the molecular level.

How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide | Jason Tu #career

To summarize, we've gone over 4 ways to ignite motivation for your work, and love what you do:

1. Make time to be curious. Set aside time to let your mind wander, and journal questions you have about technology.
2. Imagine you are the CEO. For any business that employs you, sketch out its business model.
3. Frame your career as a series of questions. Look back on your previous roles and frame them as career questions. Then ponder what career questions you want to ask in your current role, and any future roles.
4. Try something new. Choose a hobby, and try it for 30 days.

Young people in Poland say the war in Ukraine has transformed them : NPR #world #war #ukraine #poland #europe

As Ukrainians were racing to the Polish border to escape the Russian invasion, countless Poles rushed directly to meet them and help.

And these experiences of coming to offer aid, of inviting people into their homes and bearing witness to the suffering of their neighbors, are having a profound effect on this generation of young Polish adults.

Basia Olszewska, Lilia Nguyen, Tomek Mądry are all Poles in their twenties. The war has changed how they see themselves, their government, and their roles in Polish society.

In their own words, they tell NPR what that transformation has looked like.

Engineers Investigating NASA’s Voyager 1 Telemetry Data #engineering #space

While the spacecraft continues to return science data and otherwise operate as normal, the mission team is searching for the source of a system data issue.

The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard.

If you would like to propose any interesting article for the next ReHacked issue, just hit reply or push this sexy “Leave a comment” (if not subscribed yet) button below. It’s a nice way to start a discussion.

Thanks for reading this digest and remember: we can make it better together, just leave your opinion or suggestions after pressing this button above or simply hit the reply in your e-mail and don’t forget - sharing is caring ;) Have a great week!

Dainius