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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1h

I am happy to call it causation. We know social connection and community is really good for people’s health and wellbeing. It had its toxic side - hello status anxiety - and that was def part of the decline. But most platforms also made clear algorithmic choice to favour the entertainment model

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1h

So basically it all went to sh*t when social media platforms decided their purpose was entertainment not connection

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1h

We often call large fan/follower groups communities, and many provide community connection as a by product. Often between much smaller self-selecting sub groups. But they are way too large to consistently foster meaningful interpersonal relationships for the majority of participants.

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1h

The platform is then incentivised to push these larger, easier to monetise accounts - high volume, high ££ value, low social value - in preference to your lower volume, higher social value connections which have little monetary value to the platform. The platform can’t monetise warm fuzzies.

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 2h

The entertainment model, by contrast, encourages the super account. The influencer. Tens or hundreds of thousands, even millions of “connections” in form of fans and followers. Monetisation along a well trodden ad/page view model becomes more straightforward and easier to incentivise

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 2h

Connection and community are ofc constrained by Dunbars number. Most people will have a small number of high value (to them) connections. Dozens to low hundreds. But to the platform, value of any one account/post - assuming some form of $/view ad model - will be low.

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 2h

The responses to this really show how social media went to sh*t when platforms changed their purpose from connection and community, to entertainment and engagement.

All the best outcomes are about connection and community. Yes some people also grew a large audience, but that was really a by product

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 1d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Helen Salisbury @helensalisbury.bsky.social · 5h

How about approaching this from the other side- how do we incentivise employers to make the adjustments necessary to help people with disabilities into work. Rather than suggesting that if sick people just tried a bit harder they could not be sick, which is what this looks like

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1d

No wonder right wing leaning politicians are keen to emulate Gulf state migration policies: “It enables the citizens of the country to have huge amounts of leisure [and] a caste system, where mostly brown, dark-skinned people are running the society in terms of labour but not getting any benefit.”

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 1d

Or the maid, with the employer with grabby hands and nothing to eat but bread and noodles, no bedroom, and no way to leave.

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

‘Every day I cry’: 50 women talk about life as a domestic worker under the Gulf’s kafala system

Denounced as giving a ‘veneer of legality to slaveholding’, the kafala labour code persists, allowing employers to abuse women, who vanish from society. This is the testimony of some of those workers,...

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 1d

Or the maid, with the employer with grabby hands and nothing to eat but bread and noodles, no bedroom, and no way to leave.

www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

‘Every day I cry’: 50 women talk about life as a domestic worker under the Gulf’s kafala system

Denounced as giving a ‘veneer of legality to slaveholding’, the kafala labour code persists, allowing employers to abuse women, who vanish from society. This is the testimony of some of those workers,...

www.theguardian.com

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1d

Tom wins at Alt text, even when he forgets

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · Jul 19

Also, sorry, somehow forgot the alt text on pic 1. It's Harrison Ford with Sergio Mendes and his band. Harrison is wearing a cap and no shirt. What his grin says he is thinking is "Aren't I annoyingly talented and hot? But I am taking it easy today. It is 11am & I have only slept with seven people."

Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 1d

❤️ everything crossed

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 2d

** stands up ** applauds **

(sits down again quickly)

Wooo and indeed hooo

Go you

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 3d

I quite like:

Services: the mountains, the big promises an organisation makes.

Experiences: the paths people walk to access those services.

Capabilities: the tools, processes, and functions that make it possible.

Foundations: the bedrock: IT, data, infrastructure, governance.

Dave Briggs @da.vebrig.gs · 3d

This is really good: "Most of What We Call a ‘Service’ Isn’t One (and Why That Matters for Product People)" productinservice.substack.com/p/most-of-wh... by Scott Colfer (who I can't find on here)

Most of What We Call a ‘Service’ Isn’t One

Product in Service October 2025

productinservice.substack.com

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Rachel Burch @rachelburch.bsky.social · 3d

Read or don’t, up to you. 🙂❤️

Autumn is the season I fell ill twelve years ago. Legs buckling as a seventy year old outpaced me on a photography lesson I was supposed to be giving. I'd had these phases before, survived on a part time income for years. This was different. A huge invisible anchor bound my body to beds, even sitting up was difficult. My mobility collapsed in four weeks. And my micro business. I was hopeful to see a specialist who sadly was clueless, results normal.
I worked so hard on my own to build my business and that year I was invited to speak at the Bristol camera club, my heart broke as I had to decline, cancel, refund everything, everyone.
A few clients even wanted more than their refunds even though I told them I was now an electric wheelchair user. My heart shattered, my legs mired in mud unable to move.
Twelve years later here I am, still very unwell, I haven't been to a city for since 2013, too unwell to sit in a wheelchair to travel that far. The closest I got was the MRI At Derriford when lost my hearing in my left ear last year.
What do I miss most ? Bookshops, art galleries, exhibitions, I can't get to my local library but my partner collects books for me, which I love .
I miss it all, an active life, so much.
I can still hold a camera, visit places nearby, I love my NHS wheelchair, my social housing flat, my precious garden.
Autumn seeps in, and another year passes. I'm different from that 38 year old who fell to the ground all those years ago, stronger, older, more cynical, more compassionate, more cheerful.
I wear brighter colours, and bigger boots. And I swear even more spectacularly than I did before.

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 3d

“A full harvest moon is rising, though it is still only twilight”

Artist: CF Tunnicliffe
Writer: EL GrantWatson

A barn owl is perched on a wall at dusk. A full moon has risen in the still blue sky above a small village.

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 6d

I've decided to make this piece permanently unpaywalled, as a sample of the writing I do on my newsletter. If you like it, you might enjoy a subscription. If not, you probably won't.

P.S. It's significantly better if you read it to the end, I promise.

www.tom-cox.com/once-upon-a-...

Once Upon A Time On A Lane

A few of you - but probably not loads - will have read this before but, while I put a few finishing touches to a new piece ready for Sunday, I wanted to post it again, in slightly spruced up form, for...

www.tom-cox.com

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 5d

Yay! I love this for you. I also turned wage slave a couple years back after working for myself for 20 years and have to say, it was a great decision. Not sure what I was freaked out about with it for all that time tbh.

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Petra Meier @pmeierprof.bsky.social · 5d

35 years ago today this happened. I’d grown up in the belief it could never happen, but then it did. It’s not been easy and even now reunification is an ongoing process. However, it makes me wonder what good things may be just around the corner that we currently think are impossible.

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Pete Miles @petermiles.bsky.social · 5d

Lovely bit of practical moral philosophy for your weekend...

(Seriously, this has helped to clarify a key issue for me)

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 6d

The politics of drawing a moral line: When we need to call out racism for what it is open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

The politics of drawing a moral line

The politics of drawing a moral line.

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

daniel 🫠 @dholms.xyz · 7d

beautiful

we can just do things - underreacted

underreacted.leaflet.pub

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Nils 🥚 @1wayoranother.bsky.social · 8d

Perhaps because there are certain treatments, e.g. transgender medicine, pain management, types of dentistry, that are almost impossible to get on the NHS, and other areas where people go private because they don’t want to suffer while waiting for years. That isn’t a luxury like private schools are.

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 8d

Streeting rules out VAT on private healthcare.

Govt levies VAT on private school fees. Why not on healthcare? Billions can be raised.

Private sector freeloads on NHS trained staff, doesn't pay for training. Makes excessive profits from NHS contracts.

Streeting rules out VAT on private healthcare

The health secretary says

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Sophie Dennis

Greg Fell @felly500.bsky.social · Dec 13

What price is society willing to pay for new drugs?

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

1. in recommending the adoption of many new drugs, NICE's advice has had the unintended effect of reducing the total amount of health that the NHS has been able to deliver.

What price is society willing to pay for new drugs?

The purpose of England's National Health Service (NHS) is to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation through provision of health care.1 The money available to achieve this purpose is restricted and the cost of providing all possible health care to all possible citizens would vastly exceed the NHS budget. As new drugs emerge, decisions therefore need to be made about whether the health benefits that these drugs offer are sufficient to justify the health benefits that will be foregone elsewhere in the NHS to free up the resources required to pay for them.

www.thelancet.com

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 11d

“The NHS had failed Milly. It had made a misdiagnosis, allowed a child to struggle with a chronic illness for a quarter of her life – and wouldn’t pick up the pieces now.” There is hope for Milly; but only after her family spent £5k++ on private dr. This is medical negligence at systemic scale.

Simon Hattenstone @shattenstone.bsky.social · 11d

Please read this piece by @patrickbarkham.bsky.social
about his daughter Milly and Lyme Disease. It's important and impacts so many more people than most of us realise. Get well soon Milly ♥️

·

As my daughter got sicker and sicker, our quest for answers dragged on. How did we all miss the bacteria taking over her body?

I write about nature, but when Milly got sick with a mystery illness, it never occurred to me that a long-forgotten tick bite could be the cause

www.theguardian.com

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Sophie Dennis @sophiedennis.bsky.social · 11d

“What’s our North Star?” asks one Labour veteran. “People would be more reassured if they thought there was a plan, but they don’t think there is a plan.”

The New Statesman profile of Burnham also good I thought. He came across as much as wanting a vision for the country, as ambitious for himself.

Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 11d

observer.co.uk/news/columni...

A very good analysis of the reality of Labour’s “leadership” problems.

Andy Burnham taking Keir Starmer’s crown is pure fantasy

Leadership speculation is a distraction from Labour’s real challenge of restoring confidence and offering hope

observer.co.uk

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