How men and women spend their leisure time
This may not come as a complete surprise: women have less leisure time than men, as they are more occupied with chores and childcare. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says: ‘when not in leisure, women were more likely to be performing unpaid work.’ What is that? The ONS calls it anything that members of a household do for free, but which could be contracted out to a market service provider, such as childcare, adult care, volunteering or housework.Last year, ONS figures reveal that women carry out an average of 26 hours a week of unpaid work, as compared with 16 hours by men.
Who falls for scams these days?
Beware – you can fall for a scam at any age. It seems that under-25s are more likely to fall for ‘phishing’ scams, where criminals hack into their social media accounts and pretend to be their friends or family. But those aged 50 or over are also in peril: especially when a criminal pretends to be a company with a household name. A recent study done by Experian found that, after many years of older people being seen as the most gullible, the danger has shifted to people in their late 20s. As one expert explains, ‘young people are so comfortable with technology… they just don’t believe they could be caught out by a cyber-crime.’
Working too hard? An odd way to find out
Do you wonder if you are working too hard? There is a simple way to find out: how cold is your nose? Scientists have recently discovered that when people focus hard on demanding mental tasks, their nervous system diverts blood flow into the brain, and extremities like the nose suffer first. In tests using thermal imaging cameras, it was discovered that those feeling mentally overwhelmed had a nose temperature that had dropped by about one degree centigrade. The research was carried out by doctors from the Bioengineering Research Group at Nottingham University.So, if the old adage of ‘cold hands, warm heart’ is true, perhaps we could add another: ‘cold nose, warm brain’.
Bits and pieces