apps

Apps that simulate purchases in exchange for dopamine open the door to something worse

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Who hasn’t finished a stressful day at work and have you decided to order food at home? Without a doubt, it is a good option when we don’t feel like cooking. But it’s not the only reason we tend to have the urge. The order, the same as when We buy clothes or any other product onlinetriggers the release of dopamine in the brain. That is the reason why dopamine apps have become fashionable in South Korea, a series of applications in which you search through a list of products and choose the one you most want, but it never reaches your home. To get the kick of pleasure, it seems to be more than enough. From South Korea, to the world. One of the first dopamine apps to be launched was Food Never Eats. Basically, it delivers what it promises. You can choose food from a wide variety of menus specialized by country. Do you feel like Italian food? Today your body asks for Mexican tacos? Or maybe you prefer a good burger? You have everything. Your brain prepares to savor. It is anticipated. But you never get it. This application is Korean, like most apps of this type. However, there are already some in other countries. This is the case of the American Dopamine Shopwhich presents a very wide range of products. The good thing about not having to spend the money is that even the Moon is on offer, for the modest price of 99 million dollars. These types of applications have recently become fashionable. However, in an article for The ConversationAustralian consumer behavior expert Gary Mortimer predicts that they will likely continue to spread around the world over time. The hooking hormone. dopamine is the central hormone of reward systems. These are brain mechanisms that, broadly speaking, seek to ensure that we repeat certain behaviors that are beneficial to us as a species. For example, sex generates pleasure through the release of dopamine, because it helps us perpetuate the species. The more sex we have, the more likely we are to reproduce. Eating chocolate is also pleasant, because it gives us a lot of energy. The brain does not distinguish between energetic and healthy. All of this is so pleasant that we are left wanting to repeat. Therein lies the evolutionary benefit. Unfortunately, not everything that activates reward systems is positive for us. Drugs, for example, have the same effect. And, in general, everything that engages as well. From gambling to shopping. In both cases, dopamine is released in anticipation of a reward; which, in the case of purchases, is the product that we are going to buy or the dish that we are going to taste. The point is that it has been observed that anticipation occurs even if we never receive the order. That’s why dopamine apps are causing a sensation. In them, almost all the steps of the purchase occur: anticipation, selection and a feeling of confirmation. Nothing ever comes, but we trick our brain anyway. The B side of dopamine apps. In his article, Mortimer warns that anything that generates this release of dopamine can cause the gateway effect. That is, it becomes the gateway to something worse. Much has been studied with games of chance. In 2014a study was published with 409 people playing games of chance without reward. It was seen that, 6 months later, 26% of the participants switched to betting. In 2016 A similar study was carried out with 521 people and the gateway effect was seen in 19%. It is even something that has been seen with electronic cigarettes. They are harmful in themselves, but it has also been observed that they serve as a gateway to conventional tobacco consumption. For all these reasons, we cannot rule out that these types of apps end up giving rise to compulsive purchases in search of a shot of dopamine that makes us feel good. The algorithm hunts you anyway. On the other hand, Mortimer remembers that false elections also feed the algorithm. Even if you don’t buy anything, you are still customizing your preferences through cookies and you will receive the response in the form of personalized advertising. There are people who don’t care about this, but others prefer to avoid it, so it’s good for them to be clear that it is not necessary to buy anything. The search is more than enough. Image | Magnific image, not the app in the article Xataka | When it comes to meat, science knows there’s something better than protein shakes: lean pork

apps that don’t sell anything

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There are few guilty pleasures as satisfying as online shopping: that exciting moment of searching until you find what suits you best and then put it in the cart. You’ll enjoy it later, when it reaches your hands. Or not, because in reality the process itself is almost more enjoyable than the product in question. Not to mention something obvious: to buy you need to have money in your account and not need it for other purposes, such as paying rent or eating. If you can’t afford the real experience, South Korea’s youth has found a way of tricking the brain into releasing that dopamine from shopping: apps that sell nothing. Fake it until you make it. What is happening. He Korean Times collects the phenomenon of dopamine sites and its operation in two types of apps: those for food delivery and those for smoking breaks, in which you have a virtual cigarette with other people with that banal conversation typical of the occasion. Thus, you can consult menus, select items to add to the cart and know delivery times or restaurant ratings without closing the transaction. And you can also say, if you prefer, something like “Tuesday, you’re sick of shit” in a virtual room. Kim Heon-sik, a professor at Jungwon University, connects these apps that do not sell anything with the culture of Muk Bangin which people watch other people eating tremendous amounts of food. Curiosity, voyeurism and satisfying the gluttony of whoever is on the other side of the screen without having to put anything in their mouth. The vicarious satisfaction at its finest. Tap to go to the post Why is it important. On the one hand, these dopamine sites function as a snitch on the mental health of a generation: in South Korea, digital exhaustion and smartphone dependence are already public health problems. documented with a star risk factor: anxiety. On the other hand, they reveal a disconnection between two worlds: the economic and the neurological. Delivery and ecommerce apps have been refining their interfaces and experience for years to enhance the impulse to buy: infinite scrolls, exclusive offers for a limited time (spoiler: they never end), incessant dripping of notifications… the “technology of persuasion” that coined Tristan Harrisformer Google designer. The result is that according to neurosciencedopamine is released in anticipation, not upon receiving the order. Dopamine sites do exactly the same thing, but at zero cost, something ideal for a generation that cannot afford that expense. Context. That deliberate design of apps and the release of dopamine can lead to a shopping addiction… if you have the money. The point is that Korean youth do not have it: a recent report from Bank of Korea portrays their dangerous situation. Every year that a young person spends without work reduces their future salary by 6.7%, their debt has increased and the proportion of them living in precarious housing went from 5.6% in 2010 to 11.5% in 2023. OECD confirms that the Korean youth employment rate is below average and that they practically wait in line to access large companies or the public sector. This structural problem already has a name: Sampo generationwhich refers to the three renunciations of this youth, love, marriage and being a father or mother, caused by unstable jobs and high educational debts. In detail. The psychological mechanism behind those apps that sell nothing It is well documented: The brain does not distinguish well between the process of asking for food and the simulation of asking for it, so dopamine acts mainly in that search and anticipation phase, not when receiving the reward. That’s why the fake app works: it gives the reward system what activates the process without having to swipe the card. Regarding smoking break apps, more of the same: this study on loneliness in Korean adults found that those young people most exposed to the digital environment reported significantly higher levels of loneliness than previous generations. Seeing that there are more people online at the same time, even if they are complete strangers and you don’t talk to them, activates the feeling of social presence, which reduces anxiety. Yes, but. The Korean Times report echoes few testimonies about this phenomenon, but there is no data on how many people use these apps or how frequently. Even if it were a trend, the million-dollar question is what effect these apps that sell nothing have: it is true that they have no impact on the wallets of those who use them and that they occasionally provide relief, but also that they do not help solve the problem behind: anxiety, loneliness and dependency linked to a precariousness of their life expectations. In Xataka | A Ferrari ‘on the go’: the trick of Generation Z in Japan to have a supercar In Xataka | The new fashion trend among Gen Z comes from South Korea and is called “Acubi”: a subversive minimalism Cover | Fish Huang and Gemini

AI has meant that so many apps have never been launched in such a short time. The problem is that almost no one is using them.

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A new research from MIT monitored the activity of thousands of developers before and after adopting the use of AI agents such as Claude Code or Codex. In their conclusions they have detected a singular “funnel effect”: many begin to use AI to “tinker” with the codebut few projects end in final software releases. Not only that: many more apps arrive in the application stores, but the interest they generate is practically zero. Hotfix blocks everything. When you start programming with Claude Codeeven without knowing how to do it, usually experience that feeling of “being able to do anything”, but although there are projects that manage to evolve and reach a successful conclusion, many remain in an attempt: the manual processes of quality control, code review or deployment They become bottlenecks for these projects, often carried out by people without a technical profile and without knowledge of software engineering. Producing more is not selling more. The MIT study, led by one of its economics professors, Mert Demirer, reveals another striking conclusion: producing more does not mean selling more. Although the volume of mobile applications that comes to the App Store or Google Play Store has grown spectacularly due to the ease of programming with AI, real consumption has not moved. There are many more apps, but the same consumers (and buyers), who are not downloading, trying or certainly buying more than they did. App failure. The vast majority of these new software products created with these tools fail spectacularly when it comes to capturing a minimum audience. The efficiency when creating them is not directly linked to the real usefulness of these tools or with the value that the market demands of them. The code surpasses us. Linus Torvalds already said it when speaking of how he saw the world of AI: “AI will be a tool, and it will make people more productive. I think vibe coding is great for getting people to start programming. I think (the code it generates) is going to be horrible to maintain… so I don’t think programmers will go away. You’ll still want to have people who know how to maintain the output.” His comment was a good prediction of what we are seeing now: too much code being distributed everywhere makes a review of that code necessary to validate it, but doing something like that at the rate that AI is adding code to these projects is unaffordable for human programmers, who are being overwhelmed. And costs are skyrocketing. The new AI agents that program consume a large number of tokens, which has made set off the alarms in companies like Uber or Microsoft. To mitigate the problem, a hybrid usage model is now being imposed: AI agents in the cloud, such as Claude Opus 4.8, are used to plan development, but then the code is written by cheaper cloud models, which are remarkably compliant, or even local models if the user/company has sufficient local computing capacity. Remembering the industrial revolution. Demirer remembers that something similar happened during the industrial revolution. The first factories that replaced steam engines with giant electric motors did not lead to a large increase in productivity. The real boost to efficiency came decades later, when engineers redesigned those factories from scratch by installing individual motors at each workstation. In Xataka | We believed that the AI ​​talent war is about engineers and developers. Actually, it’s about plumbers and electricians.

First it was a suspicious cake. Now China has discovered that thousands of restaurants on its delivery apps… do not exist

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One of the most famous stories of the internet era it happened in 2013when American journalists discovered that a supposed restaurant called “The Shed at Dulwich” became one of the best rated of London despite the fact that, for much of its existence, it did not even serve real food. The case demonstrated how a compelling digital presence can be more powerful than an authentic physical business. The cake that uncovered the cake. It all started with something seemingly trivial. A customer from Beijing ordered a birthday cake through a delivery application and received a decorated product with inedible flowers. The claim seemed like just another incident among millions of daily orders, but the subsequent investigation ended up uncovering one of the largest food fraud schemes in Chinese digital commerce. The business he had purchased from claimed to have nearly 380 stores spread across the country. Actually, I didn’t have not a single physical store. The licenses were fake and the company existed only within the applications. What started as an isolated complaint ended up opening the door to a national review that revealed a much deeper problem: “ghost kitchens,” thousands of restaurants that seemed real to consumers. They just didn’t exist.. Food delivery drivers start their workday for Kangaroo delivery service in Beijing The operation. Apparently, the BBC told this week that the so-called “ghost kitchens” were operating by taking advantage of the control gaps of the delivery platforms. These businesses advertised themselves as conventional restaurants, often using rented licenses, falsified documentation, or non-existent addresses. When a customer placed an order, the supposed restaurant I didn’t cook anything. In many cases the order was automatically transferred to intermediary platforms that organized auctions between different suppliers. The order ended up in the hands of whoever agreed to prepare it. for the lowest price possible. The consumer believed they were buying from a specific brand when, in reality, the food could come from any unknown kitchen, without knowing who made it or under what sanitary conditions. The figures of a monster. The national investigation carried out by the Chinese authorities revealed the magnitude of the phenomenon. Inspectors identified more of 67,000 ghost restaurants distributed among the main delivery applications in the country. In addition, they discovered a chain of illegal orders that only in the cake sector had been managed around of 3.6 million orders. The authorities they concluded that delivery platforms, middlemen and numerous sellers had built a parallel supply chain based on opacity and in mass subcontracting. What seemed like a set of isolated frauds turned out to be an industrialized system that operated on a large scale and moved millions of transactions. The price war behind the fraud. They remembered in Nikkei that the origin of the problem lies in the fierce competition in the home delivery sector in China. With almost 630 million users Using these services, platforms compete to attract customers through constant discounts, aggressive promotions and an ever-increasing range of establishments. In that context, the pressure to reduce costs It ended up generating a race to the bottom. An example cited by the investigations showed how a cake sold to the customer for $35 ended up being awarded to a supplier willing to manufacture it. for just 11 dollars. Between intermediaries, commissions and platforms, much of the money disappeared before reaching the chef who actually prepared the product. The consequence was a model that rewarded volume and price above quality, traceability and food safety. The platforms, in the garlic. The investigation was not limited to the sellers. The authorities they concluded that many platforms had deliberately relaxed their controls to accelerate their growth. According to regulators, companies they did not properly verify the licenses of the establishments and allowed the presence of unauthorized sellers because a broader offer helped to attract more users. Some employees they came to recognize that applying strict controls could cause merchants to migrate to rival applications. The result was a situation in which commercial incentives ended up trumping legal and health obligations. Historical fines. Beijing’s response has been one of the most forceful seen in years within the Chinese digital economy. The authorities imposed sanctions worth 3.6 billion yuanabout 500 million dollars, to large companies such as Taobao, JD.com, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Douyin and other platforms involved. Some businesses were temporarily suspended from recruiting new vendors and forced to eliminate detected ghost restaurants. Sector analysts have described the operation as one of the tougher regulatory sanctions imposed on internet companies since the entry into force of the current food legislation. The new digital surveillance. From now on, platforms must verify periodically that the licenses are valid, that the physical addresses exist and that the businesses actually correspond to the advertised establishments. Restaurants without in-person service will have to state it clearly to users. At the same time, some cities have begun to implement transparent kitchens equipped with cameras that allow you to follow the preparation of food live. They are also being deployed artificial intelligence systems capable of detecting fake photographs, supervising kitchens and analyzing possible irregularities. Even delivery drivers have been incorporated into the surveillance system through reward programs for those who report suspicious establishments. The end of uncontrolled expansion. Beyond food safety, the campaign reflects a broader shift in Chinese regulatory strategy. For years, platforms grew by prioritizing the number of users, sellers and orders. Now Beijing wants to replace this accelerated expansion with a model more controlled and predictable. The appearance of tens of thousands of non-existent restaurants showed the extent to which competition had distorted the market. What began with a simple cake purchased online ended up revealing an ecosystem where millions of consumers believed they were choosing between thousands of different restaurants when, in many cases, behind the screen there was no establishment, no dining room and, sometimes, not even a real company. Image | TurnOnTheNight, Tracy Hunter, SKWTAM8 In Xataka | Just Eat knows that we Spaniards are hooked on Delivery. This is how … Read more

What do they offer and how much do the paid versions of these apps cost?

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We are going to tell you the features and price of paid subscriptions for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp that have been announced by Meta. With them, in exchange for a small payment you will get a few extra functions, with which you have total control over how your content is displayed and who can see it. These subscriptions have already begun to roll out in the United States. However, We still don’t know when it will arrive in Europe nor the price that subscriptions will have in euros. However, we can already know the characteristics and the price in dollars, something that guides us to know what they intend to offer us. Features and price of Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus The paid versions of Instagram and Facebook are designed to give you greater control over your content. You will be able to decide much better how it is displayed and who sees it. These are its exclusive features. Stories Analytics: You will be able to know how many people have seen a story again. You can also search directly in the list of views. Flexibility and reach: It will allow your stories to last more than 24 hours, with an option to “Highlight” for a week to boost their views. Privacy: Currently in you can create a list of Best Friends. Well, if you pay you will be able to create other unlimited lists of users to control who sees what. In addition, you will be able to see other users’ stories invisibly, and make posts on your profile that do not appear in your followers’ feeds. Cosmetics– You’ll also get custom app icons, timeline fonts, animated reactions, and profile pins. Price: The price of this subscription is 3.99 dollars per month (approximately 3.50 euros) Features and price of WhatsApp Plus After years fighting against the famous application that installs viruses called WhatsApp Plus, Meta is going to use the same name for its paid version of WhatsApp. It will offer some of the most requested features by users in terms of customization. They are the following: Themes for the application. Custom ringtones for specific contacts. You can set up to 20 chats. List customization. Exclusive premium stickers. Meta One Features and Price Finally, you should know that there will also be a Meta One payment service, with new plans to be tested soon in some countries. They are plans designed for professionalswith artificial intelligence functions. These are the plans: Goal One Plus– Unlocks more advanced image and video generation capabilities. $7.99 per month. Meta One Premium: designed for the most demanding. It will offer access to a superior model and benefits linked to Meta Ray-Ban glasses. $19.99 per month. Meta One Essential– Includes the classic verification badge, phishing protection, and an improved links page. $14.99 per month. Meta One Advanced: the definitive plan for business. It offers increased visibility in search, prominent positioning in the feed, a large “Follow” button in Reels, competitor analytics, sending invitations, and moderator management tools. $49.99 per month. In Xataka Basics | Member labels in WhatsApp: what they are and how to use them to organize the members of a group

Android 17 launches Pause Point, a function to save us from addictive apps. It is the paradox of the arsonist firefighter

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Among all the news announced by Google a few days ago, without a doubt Gemini Intelligence It was the one that attracted the most attention, but it was not the only one. Android 17 also releases other changes Among which a function called ‘Pause Point’ caught my attention, an option that promises to save us from infinite scrolling by making us stop and think for a few seconds. When I discovered what Pause Point was, I did just that, stopped to think for a moment and realized the ironic of the situation. What is Pause Point “Have you ever spent 45 minutes scrolling and suddenly you realize that you don’t remember why you opened the phone?” This is how Google presents this new function that will arrive with Android 17 and that follows the line of others like Digital Wellbeing that was released with Android 9. Until now, if we wanted to limit the use of certain apps we could set timers or even block access completely, but according to Google this does not solve the problem: timers can be postponed and blocking sometimes makes it impractical if we need that app for something important. What they propose now is another different approach: when you open an app that usually distracts you, Pause Point is activated and makes you stop for 10 seconds to ask yourself “Why am I here?” During this break you can do a small breathing exercise or open the app, but setting a timer of 5, 15 or 30 minutes. It also offers you other apps to focus on, such as one for audiobooks. It makes sense: we have internalized certain patterns so much that we pick up our cell phone and open apps for no apparent reason, out of pure muscle memory. If we want to completely disable Pause Point, it is necessary to restart the phone. The goal is to make you stop and think before anything else. It makes sense and is something we have talked about before: we have internalized certain patterns so much, that we pick up our cell phone and open apps for no apparent reason, by Pure muscle memory. The arsonist who sells fire extinguishers In 2017 we were already talking about what was being set up an industry that promised to cure us of mobile addiction. There are all kinds of solutions that promise to reduce our screen time, from boring cell phones that make us use them lesseven accessories that They prevent us from opening certain apps. What is striking is when Those who offer the cure are the same ones who have created the problem. Recently, a judge in the United States has said that Meta, TikTok and Google They are guilty of having deliberately designed their products to generate addiction among young people, with functions such as autoplay or infinite scroll. Google defended itself arguing that “this case misinterprets YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social network.” It is true that the concept of “addictive” infinite scroll was born with apps like Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram, but let’s not forget that Google entered fully into this formula with YouTube Shorts and one is no less guilty for having committed the “crime” later than the rest. Google is not the only company that is offering the solution to a problem that they themselves are fueling. Instagram and TikTok also have features to help users disconnect from the app, but without leaving the appclear. As long as the metric that controls is usage time, these “detox” functions will be little more than a cosmetic patch in a system designed so that we never let go of our cell phone. One thing must be clear and that is that the business of these apps lies in Let us spend as much time as possible on them. Only then do we see more advertising and buy more products. We live in the attention economy and, as long as the metric that controls is the time of use, these “detox” functions will be little more than a cosmetic patch in a system designed so that we never let go of the mobile. Images | Google In Xataka | The psychology of doomscrolling: the trap our brain is programmed to fall into again and again

Google and Apple have been wanting to kill SMS for years. So they have signed peace between their messaging apps

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Apple and Google have been betting on their own protocols for years RCS messaging. Relevant solutions in territories like the United States, but that do not fully penetrate the rest of the world. Despite this, both companies have closed an important agreement, so that when chatting from an Android to an iPhone the communication is encrypted. The novelty. Google has announced an agreement with Apple to implement end-to-end encryption for RCSensuring that chats between Android and iOS are secure by default. Although both systems had encrypted device-to-device communication (Android to Android and iPhone to iPhone), this security measure did not apply when we communicated with a different operating system. Why is it important. From now on, if you are looking for a safe way to communicate without going through applications like WhatsApp or Telegram, use the native Messages app (have an iPhone or have an Android) is an excellent option. There is no need to download anything, files can be shared, and the information does not pass through the hands of anyone other than Apple or Google. It is not the perfect solution for those looking for absolute anonymity, but it is a great plan to do without giants like Meta. What is RCS?. RCS stands for “Rich Communication Service”. It is a protocol that came to succeed SMS, and allows communication to be carried out in an encrypted and fast way. Being a protocol and not an app, developers need to create them to use RCS. In the case of Google it is the Messages app and, on iOS, too. When you send a message via RCS, it goes through our operator’s server, and from there to a server certified by the GSMA. It allows you to send images and videos of up to 10 MB and, most importantly, it does not require an internet connection to work. SMS vibes. Why it fails. Apple and Google’s efforts with RCS have to do with a phenomenon that has been happening for years in the US: the overwhelming success of the iPhone and iMessage. In the United States, iMessage is used more than WhatsAppsomething unthinkable in our country. Spain is the country of absolute dominance of WhatsApp, with Apple representing just over 10% of the market share and making it impossible for iMessage to be a rival for the Meta app. Why will he still be alive?. Google, despite controlling 70% of the mobile market with Android, needs a direct way for its users to communicate. And that way is RCS. Apple was forced to adopt it due to European pressure and, although it may not be a massive protocol, it is a key alternative to rival services. Be that as it may, good news for those who want alternatives to WhatsApp or Telegram when communicating from one mobile phone to another without the need for a network connection. In Xataka | Meta will pay $1.4 billion to Texas for violating the privacy of its users. Used facial recognition without permission

The ‘vibe coding’ promised to democratize software. Your first gift is 5,000 apps with open sensitive data

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An investigation by the firm RedAccess has found more than 5,000 applications created with tools vibe coding which practically lack authentication. Anyone who stumbles upon its URL can enter. Of those 5,000, 2,000 appeared to contain private data upon inspection. The finding covers apps generated with Lovable, Replit, Base44 and Netlify, four of the platforms that have most popularized describing a program with words and letting a LLM write it. Why is it important. The promise of vibe coding is that anyone, without knowing how to program, can build software. The catch is that this same “anyone” also doesn’t know what questions to ask an application before releasing it on the Internet. The result is a new category of breaches caused not by careless employees or advanced attackers, but by people who have thrown together an internal tool in an afternoon without going through anyone on the security team. In detail. Researchers have located these applications by doing normal searches on Google and Bing, combining the domains of each platform with generic terms. Nothing of hacking: It’s more like reverse engineering a search engine. What appeared behind those URLs included hospital quadrants with doctor data, company strategy presentations, complete records of chatbot conversations with customers (with names and telephone numbers), and freight books from transport companies. In some cases, access even allowed them to gain administrator privileges and expel others. Between the lines. The platforms involved have responded with the predictable argument: it is the user’s fault. Replit remembers that its apps can be marked as private with one click. Base44 maintains that its access controls are robust and that disabling them is a conscious decision. Lovable points out that its role is to provide tools, not configure them for anyone. It is a valid argument and, above all, comfortable. It is also the same one that Amazon used with the buckets Misconfigured S3 leaking Verizon data or from WWE: the setting was there, but the user didn’t find it. The context. He vibe coding takes an old problem to a new level. Every time a layer of abstraction has democratized a craft (like spreadsheets, the wrappers of AI or web templates), the newly arrived group has arrived without the baggage of good practices that the previous one had. What changes now is the speed. Someone from a non-technical department can create a tool in two minutes and upload it to production without it going through IT. Yes, but. The AI ​​models that generate the code are not neutral agents. They do what is asked of them, no more, no less. If no one tells them “protect this in X way and implement Y,” they won’t do it. Security by default is still not a learned behavior in most of these tools, and that is a design decision of the platforms, not the end user. The consequence is foreseeable. There are going to be many more leaks like the ones RedAccess has caught before the industry internalizes that a “publish” button should not coexist with a privacy setting hidden three menus below. In Xataka | I have lived the “miracle” of vibe coding: this is how I programmed an Android TV app without having any idea about programming Featured image | Xataka

pay young people for dating apps

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To desperate problems, desperate solutions. In full demographic debaclethe authorities of Kōchi (a prefecture in southern Japan) have decided to help their young people find a partner a peculiar shape: paying for their subscription to dating apps. The aid is only aimed at residents under 40 years old, cannot exceed 20,000 yen (110 euros) and is limited to a list of certified social networks, but it gives an idea of ​​the extent to which the Administration is determined to reverse the birth crisis that is clouding the future of the country. That it has focused the focus on apps is not a coincidence either. Help to flirt. Japan is not willing to sit idly by while its birth rate declines at a rate record speed and the country is moving deeper and deeper into a demographic catastrophe of unpredictable consequences. Over the last few years, the Japanese authorities have launched millionaire programs to activate their birth rate, which includes from numerous ‘baby checks’ to job improvements that facilitate conciliation. In few places, however, have they been as imaginative as in Kōchi Prefecture. There the Government has decided help your young to pay dating apps. “Helping singles”. Kōchi’s idea is as simple as it is shocking. a few days ago the prefecture announced a “subsidy program to cover app usage fees.” Said like this, it may not seem too interesting, but things change when you go down to detail. Its objective is very specific: to lend a hand to young people in the region who want to register on dating platforms and, ultimately, “to help singles who want to meet someone or get married.” With small print. The measure, of course, has fine print. Only Kōchi residents between 20 and 39 years old can apply and must prove that the app began to be used on April 1. In fact, the aid is designed to pay for subscriptions between April 2026 and March 2027. Its amount is also limited: in no case can it exceed 20,000 yen, about 110 euros. The curious thing is that Kōchi is not the first to use this trick. In the region of Miyazaki They also launched a similar program in 2025, although with an aid of only 10,000 yen per year, and in Tokyo they have even promoted a dating app focused on a very specific user profile: people looking for a stable partner. Is any application worth it? No. That is another of the peculiarities of the Kōchi initiative. The prefecture subsidizes only subscriptions to certain apps preselected, although among them is Tapple, a platform very popular among singles in Japan. Curiously, just a year ago it incorporated a function that allows its users to verify officially their marital status, which allows the rest of the people in the network to know if they are married or not. In the list from Kōchi also includes Pairs, D3 or Omiai, among others. A well-calibrated bet. That the Kōchi authorities have decided to bet on dating apps is no coincidence. A few years ago the Government carried out a survey in which, among other questions, he asked the Japanese how they had met their partners. A quarter (25%) of those who had gotten married acknowledged that they contacted their better half through dating apps, which makes them the great matchmaker in the country. 21% said they had met their spouse at work and 10% at a school. How much does it cost to flirt? It is also no coincidence that Kōchi has set its subsidy at 110 euros per year. “The current price of annual membership fees is just over 20,000 yen, so we set the amount to cover most of it,” explains an official to The Sankei Shimbun. Those who benefit from the measure will only have to cover the rest of the costs. In its efforts to make it as easy as possible for singles, the prefecture even has a specific program which helps those who move to Kōchi to look for a boyfriend or girlfriend. Again it may seem like a strange initiative, but in Japanese society only a tiny percentage of babies are born out of wedlock. If Kōchi (or any other region) wants more children, it first needs more couples. Goal: more babies. Although Japan is not the only country suffering the effects of demographic winter, the situation there is particularly worrying. Their multiple efforts to reactivate their birth rate do not seem to be giving results (unlike what seems to happen in South Korea) and in 2025 the country recorded its tenth consecutive year of decline, reaching a new historic floor. The outlook is so discouraging that Japan is moving at a minimum demographics I didn’t expect to see until the 2040s. Kōchi is no exception. Macrotrends shows that takes years losing inhabitants. Images | Kochi Prefecture Victoriano Izquierdo (Unsplash) In Xataka | Japan wanted to know what bothers its citizens most about tourism. The answer is extremely Japanese

More and more women track and monitor it through mobile apps

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Applications to record daily steps, glasses of water we have drunk, books read, movies watched, progress in the language we are learning… Measuring and quantifying different aspects of our lives has gone beyond the workplace – where tasks, calls or overtime are recorded – to extend to the field of sport, culture or leisure. Technology today allows us to record activities, habits and daily changes that not so long ago were outside of any measurement. This logic has also been extended to the field of health, and especially women’s health. Applications to follow the menstrual cycle They are already common tools: some of the best known, such as Flo or Clue, exceed 100 and 50 million downloads, respectively. And that trend is not limited to women of reproductive age. In recent years, applications designed specifically for perimenopause and menopause have also begun to proliferate, a stage traditionally much less visible. Kala Health, My Menopause either Balance are some examples of this new niche – although many apps focused on the menstrual cycle also incorporate functions to detect hormonal changes or accompany the transition to menopause. From taboo topic to public conversation The menopause –biological event characterized by the permanent cessation of menstruation and the end of the reproductive period as a result of the loss of ovarian follicular activity– and perimenopause –transition stage before menopause– have historically been described by professionals as invisible periods in a woman’s life. There are research that delve into how “the stigma and taboos” surrounding these stages “foster a culture of silence and a marked lack of support.” However, professionals such as Juan José Escribano Tórtola, head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Service of the Severo Ochoa University Hospitalcelebrate the move from “absolute ostracism” – even among health professionals – a few years ago to “greater information about these periods of women’s lives.” He comments: “More and more women come to our consultations to find out about possible treatments and/or measures related to their health at this stage, and more and more professionals are concerned about finding complete solutions (…) to improve the quality of life of our patients.” (Pexels) Although media coverage continues to be scarce, according to Irene Mira, a journalist specialized in women’s health, social networks, specialized associations – such as Spanish Association for the Study of Menopause (AEEM)— and other dissemination channels – such as books, podcasts, websites or blogs – are facilitating the dissemination of information about menopause and perimenopause. And it is precisely in this increase in visibility (and greater predisposition of women to inform yourself) where the rise of applications that allow tracking these stages is framed. In fact, Dr. Pilar Valenzuela Mazo, a gynecologist specializing in menopause at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and creator and host of the podcast Menopause for everyonesees a clear trend in her patients: “More and more women come to the consultation using applications, either to record symptoms or to learn about menopause.” This is how menopause apps work Although each platform has its own focus, most apps focused on menopause and perimenopause share the same promise: helping users understand what is happening to them in this new stage of their lives. These tools usually combine several layers. The first is the symptom log: hot flashes, insomnia, menstrual irregularities, mood changes, vaginal dryness, changes in libido, pain, energy or sleep problems are some of the parameters that allow writing down to detect patterns. Added to this is a second, also common function: explanatory health content. Many include articles, guides or “encyclopedias” on menopause and perimenopause, with information on symptoms, treatments, healthy habits or sexual health. In addition to this offer, some applications include digital accompaniment. It is the case of Kala Healthone of the few tools available completely in Spanish. Talia Leibovitz, CEO of Kala Health, highlights the “community of support among women” and “the possibility of accessing professionals from different areas, such as gynecology, nutrition or mental health.” Explain to Xataka that the intention is to “offer reliable information, monitoring tools and professional support in one place” for a phase that can last years and affect both physical and mental health. Although these are applications with a very specific audience, some of these applications are beginning to show that there is real interest. In the English-speaking market, tools like Balance already have more than 100,000 downloads, while in Spanish the development is much more incipient: applications like Mi Menopause or Kala Health currently have around 10,000 and 3,000 downloads respectively. They can be useful (but not a substitute) For medical professionals and those in the technology sector, the main value of these applications is found in their ability to organize an experience that is often experienced as chaotic. In perimenopause, for example, symptoms can appear intermittently and be confused with stress, insomnia, anxiety or specific changes in the cycle. Recording them can help detect patterns and better understand what is happening in the face of a medical consultation. That’s where doctors and developers agree: digital tracking can be useful if it works as a support tool. The gynecologist specializing in menopause Valenzuela Mazo explains that keeping a record of symptoms helps women come to the consultation with the information “more organized” and, when the data is consistent, it can help the professional better understand the evolution of the condition. (Unsplash) Along the same lines, the head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Service Escribano Tórtola maintains that this type of monitoring can be “very useful” for doctors and that, in fact, it is already being implemented in many specialized units. The usefulness, furthermore, is not only clinical. In a field marked by the historical deficit of research in women’s health, the data collected by these applications is also beginning to have scientific value. Some are already being used as a basis for studies on quality of life during menopauseas occurs with research supported by the information collected by My Menopause, the app developed by the AEEM. And furthermore, beyond clinical … Read more

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