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Rose Hartigan discusses the importance of podcasts in aiding relaxation, better mental health and education. She then follows with some of her top recommendations to help get you through the rest of the semester: Artwork by Alison Laing (IG: @alisonlaingart). A collective experience of university students, who were unlucky enough to start just as the pandemic hit, was that our lives removed revolved around computer screens. A remedy to this new digital life was a daily walk. It was my favourite time of the day, and to provide some company on what could be a lonely time, I discovered the benefit of podcasts. Taking a daily walk is a great way to unwind and escape. What better way to make your walk even more enjoyable than listening to an interesting podcast? From inspiring conversations to thought-provoking topics, there are plenty of podcasts that can make your daily walks more enjoyable. Here are some podcast suggestions you can listen to on your next wander through the streets of Edinburgh. Podcasts have become one of the most popular ways to consume content in recent years. They are easily accessible and can be consumed on the go, making them a great way to stay informed and entertained. If, like me, your digestion of world news has become nonexistent since leaving home (and the TV…) then quick snippets of news can keep you well informed and feeling clever enough to engage in the odd debate, because who doesn’t love to appear current? For major world news, try ‘The Globalist’ but for a more condensed, time friendly snippet try the 4minute Times news briefings. For us students, audiobooks can be a great way to keep up with our studies. For those who are slow readers, or who have difficulty focusing on text for long periods of time, audiobooks can make it much easier to get through course material. As a very slow reader, I have listened to the majority of my books this semester via free audiobooks. It makes the daunting volume of reading much more manageable, and can be done whilst doing tedious tasks and enabling learning on the go. With an increased focus on mental health, and the correlation between exercise and mental health, combining podcasts with your daily walk can be your new wellness commitment. Podcasts can be a great platform for people to talk about their experiences, and more importantly hearing about other people’s struggles can provide an outlet for people to connect with others who may be going through similar experiences. For something both serious and insightful, try ‘Mental’. For a manual of coping methods, (with the added bonus of an Australian accent). Try, ‘Lets talk about mental heath’ with Jeremy Godwin. Yet for something more conversational, my personal favorite is Fearne Cotton's “Happy Place”. For true crime fans, Chamelon productions have some intriguing, and at times thrilling, true stories. My favourite of these are Hollywood Con Queen, and Wild Boys. These are perfect for a listener who wants to be thrilled but as someone who is easily scared I can certify that they are wimp friendly! I’m not going to suggest any super scary ones because they creep me out too much. When I just really need a laugh, James and Fuhad’s ‘ShxtsNGigs’ never fails, and you may recognise them for their viral Ick videos on tiktok. Other great comedy podcasts include the “Joe Rogan Experience”, which is a must listen too. Being from a family of redheads, my favourite ginger funnyman, has to be Andrew Santino, joined by Bobby Lee, on “Bad Friends”. Last, but not least Podcasts have become a great supplement to sports entertainment. Whether your’e looking for a play-by-play, or a detailed analysis, there’s a podcast for every sports fan. Talk Sport is a popular podcast for sporting news and discussions. If you are a rugby fan, (as who in the UK isn’t?), try ‘The good the bad and the rugby’. Additionally if you're a fan of a less mainstream sport such as MMA, try Ariel Helenai’s MMA hour. It’s a favourite choice of fans, and there are plenty of other great shows in this area that provide exclusive interviews with fighters and trainers, as well as detailed breakdowns of fights. No matter what your interest is, there's a podcast out there that can make you laugh or cry, inform and entertain. Happy Walking!

A young girl, glasses, ginger hair, and a smile on her face, eating a chocolate bar. Brianna Ghey’s photograph circled UK newspapers and magazines for all the wrong reasons. Brianna was a sixteen year-old girl from Birchwood, Cheshire, England who was murdered on 11th February 2023. She was found by the public lying in a park with fatal stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. A boy and a girl, both fifteen years-old, have been charged with the murder and will go on trial in July. Artwork by Kate Granholm (IG: @Katesartthings). Brianna’s mourning family described her as a ‘larger than life character’ who was ‘beautiful, witty, and hilarious’. She deserved to live into adulthood and lead a peaceful, fulfilling life. Brianna will never see her dreams, goals and ambitions come into fruition. Brianna will never again share a meal, a laugh, or a hug with her loved ones. Brianna was just a girl with her whole life ahead of her. Her death is a tragedy. As any human being, Brianna was a three-dimensional person with a complex, multi-faceted personality. As any human being, she would have had her likes, dislikes, qualities and faults. Brianna happened to be transgender. Too many consider this characteristic the largest, defining aspect of a trans person’s life, and too often this leads to hate. The intention here is not to reduce Brianna solely to her transness, for she was much more than that. However, Brianna’s friends and family have stated that she suffered cruel bullying and marginalisation by her schoolmates because of her gender identity. One of her peers stated that Brianna had even spoken about ‘ending it all’. It is highly likely, if not a certainty, that Brianna’s murder was fuelled by transphobic hate. The 2010 equality act protects trans people’s rights to access single-sex spaces according to their gender identity rather than the one they were assigned at birth. However, trans people are far from being adequately protected in this country. In January, for instance, the UK government blocked Scotland’s gender reform bill which lowered the age trans people can apply to legally change their gender to from 18 to 16. This was the first time since the devolution that Westminster intervened in such a manner in Scottish law, demonstrating the lengths the government will go to obstruct trans rights. Transgender people also experience difficulties accessing the healthcare they need to live their lives authentically. While not all transgender people desire to go through hormone therapies and/or gender-confirming surgeries, those who do have to endure extremely long waiting lists to not only get the treatments they need, but even to just to receive referrals and assessment that will allow them to gain access to those procedures. The Chalmers Gender Identity clinic in Edinburgh is currently contacting people who were referred in September 2020, meaning that the wait-list is over two-years long. Additionally, many transgender people face marginalisation in the healthcare environment as a whole, with 70% reporting that they have endured transphobic discrimination from their provider. Systemic transphobia is embedded not only in the political, legal and medical sphere, but also within the population’s psyche. Transgender people are the most targeted group in the LGBTQ+ community, with two in five (41%) trans people being victims of hate crime attacks within a 12-month period. But this may not be an accurate statistic, as 88% of transgender victims do not report hate crimes due to dissatisfaction with police response and frequency of abuse. 64% of trans pupils in UK schools experience relentless bullying. A quarter of trans people experience homelessness in their lifetime. More than four in five young trans people have self-harmed, while two in five have attempted to take their own life. And this is just the start. Due to UK law impeding individuals under the age of 18 to legally change their gender to the one they desire, Brianna’s death certificate will likely refer to her by her deadname and use he/him pronouns. Even in death, Brianna will not get treated with the respect and dignity that she deserves. Her murder is a hate crime. Brianna deserved better. Transgender individuals deserve to live in a world where they are protected and valued to the same standards as cisgender people. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. Writing this article is not enough. As vigils are organised across the UK, we must remember that Brianna’s murder was not just committed by two perpetrators; It was the product of a transphobic society that systematically oppresses, marginalises and attacks transgender people for the sole fact that they want to be themselves. Say her name. Rest in power, Brianna Ghey. Donate to Brianna Ghey’s family here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/brianna-ghey Transgender and non-binary helpline: Mindline trans + – Emotional and mental health support helpline for anyone identifying as trans, non-binary, gender variant, and their families, friends, colleagues and carers. Their phone line is open Mondays and Fridays, 8pm to midnight. Ring 0300 330 5468.

Amy Norton discusses the negative effects TikTok has on our mental health and productivity levels, suggesting ways that we can gain control back: Artwork by Mariam Tovmasian (IG: @tomwunderbar). Was lowering your screen time on your list of resolutions this year? Me too. I think we’re all tired of being embarrassed by those statistics. When I break it down, I’m never shocked by the culprit of the most damage: TikTok. My relationship with this app has always been a love-hate one, I’ve lost count of the number of times it has yo-yoed on and off of my phone. Each time telling myself that moving it into a hidden folder or setting time limits is going to help, TikTok always wins. So where does the app’s power come from? What exactly is causing the problem here, and what can we do about it? TikTok has been cleverly designed to be a productivity vacuum. The ‘For You’ page presents us with a never-ending curated stream of bite sized content to absorb. A ten second clip turns into hours and suddenly it’s dark outside. TikTok works in the same way that slot machines do: you scroll until you experience that dopamine hit of a video you like, and then you scroll again. In psychological terms, it’s known as ‘random reinforcement’, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Either way you end up stuck in this unpredictable rewards cycle, a dopamine loop. Even when you eventually break free and go off the app, your brain begins to crave that pattern again and so you click back onto it throughout the day in order to satisfy it. For absolutely minimal effort, TikTok can be a hilarious, educational, and sociable experience. But are we in control? We know how easy it is to waste time on this app, it can put us in an almost hypnotic state where the sense of time passing seems warped. Sometimes, despite my full awareness of the minutes slipping through my fingers I can't seem to move, I’m stuck. This stolen time takes away opportunities for hobbies you might have once enjoyed. I think I move my book around my flat with the intention to read it more than I actually open the front cover. Even with the knowledge of my eaten-away hours on TikTok, I’m guilty of complaining about my lack of time to complete tasks. It can be difficult to hold yourself responsible and imagine what you could have done with those hours. Frequent users of TikTok would most likely agree that the app’s short and snappy videos have lowered their attention span. If we can't sit through a movie without scrolling, we’re certainly going to struggle staying focussed during a lecture– not ideal. Whilst TikTok’s sensitive algorithm can provide us with entertainment tailored to us, it can also repetitively show us content detrimental to our mental health. Our decision to simply watch a video to the end is enough to inform TikTok we want to see more like it. I know I have found myself in the past doom-scrolling through personally emotionally triggering videos, because TikTok delivered them especially to me. Instances like this can quickly cause depressive feelings and anxiety. It’s great that people are encouraged and feel comfortable enough to share very intimate and–more often than not–intense stories, but it can be overwhelming as a viewer. Our brains are just not used to being confronted with the sheer amount of varied content in one sitting. All that time spent viewing snippets of other people’s lives causes us to reflect on our own and typically in a critical way. We start to compare so many aspects of ourselves with what we see online, until our self-image becomes distorted from reality. Enough of the doom and gloom, what can we do about it? If you are somebody who feels like you have your TikTok usage under control already, firstly congratulations, and secondly this might still apply to you. I think it’s important to notice the way you feel when you are on the app, and how it makes you feel afterwards. Does spending a chunk of time scrolling make you feel better, or worse? If the answer is worse, then it is time to get a hold on it. I’m not suggesting everybody deletes TikTok, it’s worth trying to manage your experience using the app before resulting to that. Set time limits on your phone and press the “not interested” button to limit seeing content that you find triggering. Check in with yourself every now and then and remember that TikTok can function like every other social media: it is a highlight reel of people’s lives. So don’t waste your emotional energy on forming comparisons. But if this still isn’t working and you have been meaning to delete TikTok–then this is your sign, do it now! Then notice how life without the app makes you feel and what you manage to achieve. I think you’ll forget about it quicker than you might think. There are lots of other ways to increase dopamine– the mood-boosting chemical in our brains. Sleep is important, so replace scrolling on TikTok in the evenings with a healthier hobby that helps you wind down properly. As well as this, things like listening to music, interacting with people in real life, exercise and time spent outdoors all release dopamine. Taking part in any of these activities will leave you feeling more present, happier, and less embarrassed by those screen time statistics.

HOME FEATURES NEWS TRENDING CULTURE VOICES ARTS SCIENCE FASHION IN FOCUS CONTACT Search Results THE LATEST POSTS Rose Hartigan 4 minutes ago 3 min The role and relevancy of Podcasts Alessandra Messeri Feb 27 3 min The Legacy of Brianna Ghey Amy Norton Feb 19 4 min TikTok- Stolen Time Caroline Thirlwell Feb 14 3 min Pursuit: Showcasing Artist Development Izzy Mein Feb 11 4 min Is BookTok the New Book Club? Caroline Thirlwell Feb 6 5 min Monday Motivation: 10 Podcasts to get you Through Ella Feeley Jan 31 6 min Revealing Zeus’s Disguise: The Media’s Silencing of Women Eleanor Thornber Jan 27 3 min Propaganda 101: How Putin gives a speech

HOME FEATURES NEWS TRENDING CULTURE VOICES ARTS SCIENCE FASHION IN FOCUS CONTACT Search Results María López Penalva Apr 9, 2022 2 min Does wearing a suit make you a lesbian? An article from the New York Post has taken Tiktok and Twitter by storm, with its almost parodic commentary on the “stereotypical lesbian...

HOME FEATURES NEWS TRENDING CULTURE VOICES ARTS SCIENCE FASHION IN FOCUS CONTACT Search Results Georgia Bennett Jul 20 5 min When “Never Again” Happens Again In April, rumours of a leaked document from the American Supreme Court rescinding abortion rights began. This became a nightmare reality. Antony Haslam Feb 16 6 min Harriet Robson Showed Us The Real Greenwood - But That Was Just The Beginning Toxic 'untouchability', young and impressionable fans and why some men on Twitter just don't get it. fcd4eb0d-5c0d-49b7-8616-9edddc4198e5 Feb 4 6 min It’s All in a Day’s Work… According to Molly-Mae. Caroline Thirlwell shares the controversy surrounding Molly Mae's recent comments on The Diary of a CEO. Timur von Polach Oct 15, 2021 6 min The Mandate of Heaven: How and Why does China Control its (and the World’s) Most Powerful Companies? Timur explores how China tried to marry capitalist growth and prosperity with communist politics. Sylvie Dulson Oct 13, 2021 6 min Only-Fans: The Normalisation of Underage Sex Workers in Popular Culture Online sex work can be incredibly empowering but creators need a strong understanding of the job description. Isabelle Coates Oct 11, 2021 4 min Social Media Activism: The Positives and Negatives Isabelle Coates dives into ‘slacktivism’, black squares and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Kate Charlton Oct 4, 2021 4 min Edinburgh Students and Charity Shop Gentrification: A Tale as Old as Time? Kate Charlton explores the potentially harmful double standards regarding charity shop bulk-buying by those criticising fast fashion. Beatrice Casey, Celene Sandiford and Kirsty Tennant Sep 30, 2021 5 min Myanmar: An Evolving Crisis An accumulation of an A4 sheet describing the Myanmar crisis, a room of students and women finding solutions to global problems. Ana King and Frankie Moses Sep 29, 2021 8 min The Style Edit: Edinburgh the edi magazine sets out to document Edinburgh's quintessential style, interviewing its people and seeking advice for its newcomers. Lia Al-Khalaileh Sep 19, 2021 3 min Some Tips for Entering the New Academic Year Lia Al-Khalaileh shares her tips for new and old students entering university for the first time post-Covid restrictions. Amy Houghton Jul 10, 2021 3 min The Political is Personal: A Brief Introduction to Identity Politics Identity politics is a blurry and highly contested subject. Though there are compelling arguments for retiring the term altogether, there... Kirsty Thomson Jun 13, 2021 3 min Animal Testing at Edinburgh University ‘teaches us nothing’ about Depression Kirsty Thomson investigates the practice of immoral animal testing at Edinburgh University. Despite recent condemnation by animal rights... Chloe Lawson May 28, 2021 5 min The Problem with 'High Maintenance' The more sinister and frustrating connotations of the term 'High Maintenance' as described by Chloe Lawson. Chloe Lawson Apr 5, 2021 5 min The Myanmar Military Coup: What We Need to Know Since the start of February, increasingly horrific stories have come out of Myanmar following the Military’s seizure of power. In recent... Amy Houghton Mar 21, 2021 3 min Staying Engaged Without Being Overwhelmed: Five Podcast Recommendations Amy Houghton recommends her top five podcasts for keeping up to date with the latest news, while not letting pandemic get to you. Maddie Noton and Kirsten Provan Feb 27, 2021 8 min the edi Book Club Maddie Noton and Kirsten Provan collate some worthwhile books, which they believe will help those struggling to find the perfect read. Kirsty Thomson Feb 25, 2021 3 min I got the COVID-19 vaccine; here is why you should too. Kirsty Thomson writes about her experience receiving the Pfizer vaccine as a key worker in a Care Home. Lucy Gavaghan Jan 9, 2021 4 min Activism and the internet: A true power couple? Lucy Gavaghan takes a retrospective look at activism over the last few years. Kiera Mann Jan 6, 2021 4 min Gender Politics in The Queen’s Gambit Kiera Mann provides an interesting review into the series 'The Queen's Gambit', revealing where it falls short and where it may be... Rachel Watkins Dec 31, 2020 5 min In Conversation: Nayna Florence Rachel Watkins talks to 20-year-old influencer Nayna Florence about University, Youtube and her new Podcast.