Is M eta going to make users pay for a no-ad experience on Instagram + Facebook? That’s what the Wall Street Journal suggests, reporting that Meta is proposing a monthly subscription service, Subscription No Ads (SNA), for European users. The subscription would be offered to European users who are unwilling to allow their digital activity to be used for targeted advertising. The proposed service — which would cost around EUR 10 per month for desktop users and EUR 13 per month for mobile users — is a bid to help Meta comply with EU regulations that require user consent before showing personalized ads.

REMEMBER- Earlier this year, Meta was fined EUR 390 mn due to breach of data privacy. Meta believes that a paragraph in a July EU court decision, which mentions charging a reasonable fee to users who decline targeted ads, supports the introduction of a subscription service.

2023 has so far been a good year for the travel industry, but high prices will probably discourage travelers from more “revenge travel,” according to a Morning Consult Pro report. The summer of 2023 saw travelers spending more on trips than they have in recent years — while the industry is finally recovering from the pandemic and a global slump, holiday makers’ faith in travel companies is not totally restored, the report notes. Even though travelers were willing to shell out a little during the high season, the coming months are likely to see spending decelerate in what is known as the shoulder season — or the period of time between the peak and off-seasons.

Younger people are traveling more, based on a study surveying a total of 14k adults between January 2021 and July 2023 in a host of countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US for this study. Meanwhile, millennials, followed by Gen-Z adults (who are probably going to travel more as their careers take-off) were the top travelers, based on the results of a survey of 2k American adults who were interviewed monthly from October 2021 to August 2023.

Prolonged sitting increases your chances of developing dementia, according to a recent study by JAMA. The study, which looked at data from the UK’s Biobank covering more than 49k individuals over the age of 60 — 54.7% of which are women — has found that time spent doing sedentary activities and the incidence of dementia were significantly (although non linearly) correlated.

A movement tracker and AI algorithms helped obtain the results. Over the course of nearly seven years, the study found that the chance of acquiring dementia was 8% higher for the individuals who sat for at least 10 hours per day, as many of them did. The risks increased to 63 percent for those who remained seated for at least 12 hours.

Move more, sit less and you can also check off heart disease, obesity, diabetes, a WaPo article reported, citing a number of previous studies. However, exercise alone, these studies show, is not enough to ward off disease if it is not accompanied by consistent movement during the day. In fact, extended sedentary habits can even cancel out the positive effects of working out.

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