I love TV. Proper TV.
The sit-down, shut-up, let-it-breathe, multiple-season kind.

I could happily spend all day arguing whether Ross and Rachel were on a break (they were)… or defending THAT Sopranos ending (hated it then, love it now).

This is my comfort zone.

My kids? A different species.

Every spare second is YouTube Shorts, TikTok clips, screaming thumbnails (and screaming influencers), jump cuts, and finger swipes.

Old Disney films? “Too slow.”
(Poor Bambi never stood a chance.)

The squeal-inducing highlight of our Osaka Expo trip wasn’t robots or futuristic cities — it was a stage full of TikTokers I’d never heard of.

I aged ten years on the spot.

Yes, I sound like an old man. I know.
Then I saw this and felt… justified (definitely not preachy or smug.)

A 2025 review of 71 studies covering nearly 100,000 people found that heavy short-form video use is linked to measurable drops in attention, memory, and impulse control.

So not “kids these days” vibes. Actual data.

And these days, everything is television.

News, politics, education, fitness, therapy, even podcasts — all flattened into visual content and piped through our ever-present screens.

Designed to hook and scroll. Not to think (ChatGPT does that for us now.)

Long-form TV trained us to sit with complexity.
Short-form trains us to flee the second things slow down.

And me? I’ll be here defending three-hour movies to kids with fingers permanently glued to fast-forward.

Wish me luck…

💡 PRO TIP: For a change, ask how people watch (one episode, full binge, phone in hand?)

💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What was the last show that really hooked you?” Filters out the background TV we half-watch while folding laundry (~90% of Netflix.)

⛔ DON’T SAY: “Actually, I prefer reading.” (It may be true, enjoy the eye rolls.)

Turn headlines into talking points

The New Year isn’t really about resolutions (they rarely last).

It’s about predictions.

Suddenly, everyone becomes a half-qualified oracle, confidently declaring what this year will bring.

2025 was easy: AI everywhere.
Correct. Smug nods all round.

So what about the forecast for 2026?
Chaotic, with a 100% chance of instability?

Crystal ball? Tea leaves? Tarot cards?
What do they say?

The truth? Nobody knows. And that’s exactly why predictions make great conversation fuel.

They’re speculative, low-risk, and invite curiosity instead of combat. You’re not arguing facts — you’re swapping possibilities.
Optimism, pessimism, wildcards: all welcome.

Instead of asking what people want to happen this year, ask what they think will happen.

👇 Make your call in the poll.

We’ll all pretend we saw it coming.

“Those who have knowledge don’t predict. Those who predict don’t have knowledge.”
(Laozi, Chinese philosopher, 571 BC)

👇 Answer at the end

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Want to know if your relationship is doomed? (Gulp! 😰)

According to Gen Z, casually mention you saw a bird — then watch the reaction.

Curious follow-up questions? Safe.
Blank stare? Start checking those dating apps.

This is Bird Theory, one of many new ideas shaping modern love. Romance now comes with subtitles.

So, if you want to know your black cat girlfriend, from your monkey branching and microcheating, then check out this glossary.

Will any graduate to mainstream English? Hard to say. Ghosting made it.
Phubbing…probably not.

💡 PRO TIP: Slang builds cultural fluency, but deploy at your own risk. Nothing ages you faster than using yesterday's slang or today's incorrectly.

💬 YOUR TURN: What slang words did you use for dating? (Copping-off 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨)

🚫 DON’T SAY: Anything you said as a teenager to anyone younger than you. It never lands well.

Born January 2nd, 1920, Asimov was a biochemist-turned-sci-fi-legend who saw our robot future decades before Tesla Optimus existed.

In 1942, he wrote the Three Laws of Robotics:

Simple, elegant, designed to keep us safe.

Fast-forward to now: robots are walking, talking, and kicking people in…sensitive areas (see below). Has anyone even read page one?

Will 2026 be the Year of the Robots? Maybe.
But when conversations turn to AI ethics or robot overlords, dropping “Asimov’s Three Laws” makes you sound calm, informed — and not like you’ve built a bunker.

He warned us. We nodded. Then we built them anyway.

Tech hurts us because we’re idiots first.
Do we really need kung-fu-kicking Bruce Lee-bots?
If so, don’t forget the FIRST LAW (see above).

Bet he didn’t predict that.

Set in 2054, where crimes are predicted before they happen, a cop (Tom Cruise) runs from a system he helped build.

🌎 Cultural Impact: Predicted gesture-controlled screens, biometric scanning, targeted ads and predictive policing (like the UK’s ‘murder prediction’ tool.)

🧠 Deep Dive: Spielberg brought together 23 futurists to help design the tech for the film (probably why it feels so eerily accurate.)

💬 YOUR TURN: What’s your favourite film set in the future?

A) 🥷 Weekly (I’m basically a conversation ninja now) - 68%
B) 🗓️ Monthly (when I remembered) - 0%
C) 🛟 A few times (it saved me once or twice) - 21%
D) 😌 Never (but I enjoyed reading it) - 11%

💬 Your Two Cents

S.Y: “Usually refer to at least one of the topics weekly.”

Thanks for the comment. Are the films too easy?

That's it for #52.

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