Getting a Dog and the Banning of TikTok

Get a Dog

Dogs are great, and if you were on the cusp of thinking about getting one and just need a final piece of research to help make up your mind may I point you towards this latest piece of research . Pre-schoolers with dogs are less likely to have ‘conduct or peer problems’ and dog ownership has been linked to “responsibility, positive identity, empathy and trust”. This is partly to do with companionship during lockdown as well as a good excuse to get outside and exercise. Also, correlation doesn’t always show causation and it might just be that households who get dogs are more likely to have well-behaved children, but anecdotally our family dog has been a real companion for my two children so I can see how this research rings true.

TikTok Is Banned?

It’s been a busy few weeks for TikTok, they have recently enabled the UK and also other territories (US, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland of WrF territories) to be able to more easily self-serve ads but there are now growing rumours that they will be banned in a few countries.

The USA has aired a few concerns about TikToks very close ties with the Chinese Communist Party and worry about data privacy and security, TikTok recently admitted it was constantly copying the contents of your clipboard and sending it to a server in China, India has already banned the app. However last Thursday Tweens and Teens around the world had a collective freak out when the app had a glitch which meant their number of views and likes couldn’t be seen. This lead to widespread panic that it was the beginning of the ban and their beloved quarantine safe space was about to be ripped out of their hands. Thankfully it was a false alarm but it showed the level of passion there is for the app and also how real many people believe the ban is, despite it being a really bad idea in the run-up to an election to be known as the party that banned TikTok…