Brain rewiring

Smartphones will be in the hands of half the population within six

years, Ofcom predicts.

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Welcome to the toilet-talking, midnight phone-junkie generation.

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We are all media junkies now. 

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We Britons spend more than four hours a day watching television , the highest level of consumption for at least five years

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Which is probably good news given that there are 510 channels to choose from. 

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We bought 9.55m television sets last year, fewer than in 2009, but twice the number sold back in 2002. 

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Of those 9.55m sets nearly a third were larger than 33 inches. 

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Let the boasting begin.

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Radio listening has never been greater either.

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 A record 91.6% of us listen to at least 15 minutes in a week. 

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Then there's internet use, up in 2010 by 17 minutes a day, to just over two hours a day.

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And then there's talking – well, on the telephone – which has become 20% more popular on the Ofcom measure since 2000.

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One might be forgiven for wondering how we fit it all in

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This wasn't what was supposed to happen. 

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The rising popularity of digital technology was, so the theory went, intended to displace traditional media. 

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But while Facebook may be so addictive, as Ofcom notes, that it takes up five times the amount of our time as the next most popular website.

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The impact of the internet is, if anything, economic. 

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Piracy has hit recorded music sales – down 8.6% to £1.2bn

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And now DVDs, whose sales fell by 5.7% to £1bn, even with the help of the first half of the last part of Harry Potter. 

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Newspaper sales are down, but online audiences are up. 

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Overall our desire to consume media has never been greater.

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Ofcom, though, gives us some clues as to the secrets of the new British efficiency. 

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So hopeless, for example, is our addiction to smartphones  that it turns out that a fifth of adults are prepared to admit they use their iPhone or BlackBerry on the toilet. 

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Nearly four in 10 of us will answer the phone if it wakes us while we are sleeping. 

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We have become the generation that is comfortable consuming two media at once: answering emails while watching the television.

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So much, indeed, for British manners

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What the deluge of official data also shows is how we come to expect technological change. 

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The faster-faster model of media and technology consumption is demonstrated by the fact that while it took 15 years for mobile phone ownership to reach half the population

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It is expected that internet-capable smartphones will reach the same proportion in just five years. 

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It took 13 years for radio to reach half the population when the National Programme (today's Radio 4) came on the wireless

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10 years for colour television in the era of Pot Black, and, Ofcom estimates

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It will take about six years for the same to apply to Kindles and iPads. 

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After all, 1.5m of these devices have already been sold in the UK

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Perhaps at some point the frantic pace of consumption and computing will stop

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But probably only after the last unwatched television programme has been deleted from the last Sky+ box. 

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Which will be on at least 3D.

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We spend more time watching TV, logged on or communicating by phone as the pace of consumption accelerates.

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Dan Sabbagh

Scent sells

Five companies in the US control around 80 per cent of the world market in scent marketing and an estimated 10-20 per cent of retailers in the US are their customers. 
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It is fairly widespread here, says Mike Gatti, the executive director of marketing at the National Retail Federation. 
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A lot of retail companies use it, and its purpose really is to keep customers in your store, to create this welcoming environment – and it works.
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It does keep people in your store longer. 
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It helps people feel better in their shopping, and in a lot of cases causes them to spend more money.
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Semoff says that a study run by Nike showed that adding scents to their stores increased intent to purchase by 80 per cent.
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While in another experiment at a petrol station with a mini-mart attached to it, pumping around the smell of coffee saw purchases of the drink increase by 300 per cent. 
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Numbers are pretty outrageous, he says
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It's thought that it works so well because the sense of smell is most directly connected to the parts of the brain responsible for processing emotions. "
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It goes directly to the limbic system, which is the emotional control centre of your brain, so you smell something and – bang – it triggers an emotion.
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Whereas all the other senses have to be processed first.
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But is it ethical, particularly in the case of businesses selling food? 
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Dispersing the scent of chocolate or bread through a store implies that those smells come from the products being sold, which is not the case. 
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Surely it reeks of deceit and manipulation? 
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Maybe not, according to Alex Hiller, an expert in marketing ethics from Nottingham Business School.
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According to him, marketing ethics frameworks usually take into account consumers' freedom, autonomy and well being, and making supermarkets more fragrant doesn't necessarily violate any of these tenets.
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Yes, changing smells is manipulative – this is the whole point.
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But it is mild, and it could be argued that consumers realise and accept that in all artificial, and especially retail, environments, some mild form of manipulation does take place and it in no way constrains anyone's freedom, autonomy or well-being.
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Compared to, say, fast-food outlets displaying photographs that bear no resemblance at all to the limp-lettuced burgers actually on sale, it comes out rather well. 
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A picture should provide a visual cue to the product you receive, and if you don't receive this then some form of deception has taken place, Hiller says.
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You're basically drawing attention to particular items, says Rachel Herz, a visiting professor in the department of psychiatry and human behaviour at Brown University in Rhode Island and the author of The Scent of Desire. 
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She gives the example of using the smell of cinnamon at the location where cinnamon buns are found in a store, which will make people more likely to buy that product. 
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If you have any appetite for sweets, it's an enormous draw, she says.
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Scents aren't just used to promote particular products, though. 
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Stores, hotels and clubs can use artificial smells more generally to create a more pleasant environment for the customer – and to reinforce a company's brand. 
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They're effectively adding a scent logo to their establishment. 
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Just as bits of music played on TV adverts can become irrevocably associated with the product they're being used to sell. 
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So too for smells – they can bring to mind the experience of, say, being in a hotel and, thanks to the strong link between smell and memory, work as a powerful reminder.
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To work positively, the experience being recalled would need to be a good one. 
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Smells don't have any meaning prior to being associated with an experience, then after they become experienced with something, that's what they represent. 
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If a lousy time was had by all, the associated smell would bring that to mind too. 
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So the technology is predominantly used by upmarket hotels and resorts, rather than budget accommodation.
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This more general application, rather than for specific food products, seems to be the principal use now that manufactured smells are beginning to waft over to the UK too. 
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There are few scented aisles on this sceptred isle
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But a number of other retail outlets and other enterprises do employ artificial smells. 
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ScentAir UK, Britain and Ireland's biggest distributor and a cousin to the American firm supplying that Brooklyn grocery store, has attracted around 600 clients since it set up in 2008
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Including developing the piña colada smell being used in children's toy shop Hamleys over the summer (it makes parents "linger longer" apparently)
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And supplying fragrances to celebrity-favourite nightspot Chinawhite. 
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One of their newest customers is the M& M World store in London's Leicester Square, which became the world's biggest sweet shop when it opened in June. 
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What they sell comes pre-packaged, says ScentAir UK's managing director Christopher Pratt. 
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So although it looked like the place should smell of chocolate, it didn't. 
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It does now.
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Pratt says the company provides a "full service" package to its clients, from supplying and installing the machines to replenishing the fragrances. 
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The monthly fees range from just under £100 to £250. "
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As a percentage of a typical marketing budget, it's tiny," he says, telling of hotels spending twice that on scented candles alone. 
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Particular smells can be bought off the shelf or custom designed – for between £5,000 and £10,000. "
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It's not about any scent: it's about the right scent," he says.
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The right scent can depend on several factors. 
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Research by Eric Spangenberg, the dean of the college of business at Washington State University, who has been researching the effect of smell on customer behaviour since 1996, has found that it affected everything from cultural norms, gender and appropriateness to the product. 
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Another area where we've seen effects is if you've got a scent that's congruent with a season. 
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So, for instance, shopping and the seasonal effects of scent – people expect Christmas to smell like cinnamon or something like that," he says.
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Comparing this with a scent more appropriate for Easter, he found positive effects for the seasonal smell and negative effects for the incongruous one. 
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Using the correct smell is crucial. "If you get it right, it's a good thing," says Herz. "
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If you get it wrong, it's worse than no scent at all."
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For businesses across many sectors, getting their fragrances right could mean the difference between the lingering stench of failure or the sweet smell of success.

Heredity

Heredity is a subject that puzzles.
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Why do children of the same mother and father so often have such totally different characters?
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Not once in a while but usually.
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Children of the same parents usually have different characters.
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Recent research shows this to be the norm rather than the exception.
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Just look at your own family or siblings.
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From it's earliest youth each child shows a character of it's own.
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One shows entire selfishness.
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A grasping propensity.
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A meanness, sneakiness.
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Another the opposite or open heartedness, honesty.
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Interestingly parents note the differences but seldom question them further.
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So what is the reason for this?
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Simple heredity is only genetic.
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Heredity only passes on DNA and genes.
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Heredity has no say or influence on character.
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Character is brought with it by the incoming soul.
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The incoming soul is yours from life to life.
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Simply put you bring your character with you into each new life.
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You enter your new body provided by your mother.
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Your mother who with your blueprint creates your body.
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And once you understand this then all the ideas of modern heredity are shown to be nonsense.
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Why?
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Because no one knows which soul will enter which body.
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No one knows.
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Which makes a joke of inheritance because you have idea which soul will inherit your assets.
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It could be a soul that in a previous life was of a different sex living on a different continent.
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A soul that has no relationship to you or your family.
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On the other hand it could be the despised wicked uncle.
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So think again about how you plan to leave those assets.

How money is created

A bank is able to extend more money than it actually has in its reserves. 
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That means, that if you want to borrow £10,000, the bank can write those digital numbers into your account even though it doesn't actually have £10,000
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What it does have is faith that you will pay £10,000 back...in real money...that you've worked for
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Now if you don't pay it back, if you default, then the bank has to mark that £10,000 down as a real loss. 
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So there is a risk there! 
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The bank can create money that doesn't exist, but if you don't pay it back then the amount will represent a very real loss for the banks. 
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That is what has been happening in the last few years. 
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Banks making big losses on bad loans
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This new money, created by the banks, exists simply as electronic digits in your account. 
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Today, around 97% exists only in electronic format.
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Created and lent electronically – in an intangible way – and spent largely with plastic cards.
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Banks have created all this new money, out of nothing, and loaned it into society, but they have done so imprudently, and now they are feeling the pain as the defaults start rolling in...and the banks have to account for them as real losses.
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Consequently, they are afraid to lend out (effectively create) any more.
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So...to recap...banks can extend more money than they have in reserves – 
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and this means they effectively create new money every time they make a loan...and they enjoy the privilege, profit and power which comes from creating the national money supply in this way.
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Every time banks extend new credit, they are effectively creating new money
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Are you sceptical of that claim?

Well, here is Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Editor at the Financial Times. He says, "The essence of the contemporary monetary system is creation of money, out of nothing, by private banks' often foolish lending." (The Financial Times, 9 November 2010.)

Here is President Obama: "…the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in $8 or $10 of loans to families and businesses. So that's a multiplier effect…" (President Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President on the Economy", Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2009.
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Britain's money supply is not, contrary to popular belief, created by the Bank of England.
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It is created overwhelmingly by the High Street banks, every time they make new loans...by multiplying upon the basis of their actual real reserves.

Banks creating this electronic money out of nothing...has become the way in which virtually all money is supplied to our economy.
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Now that has consequences for us all
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The first is a democratic consequence! 
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The natural state of our economy is to be held hostage to the banks!
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The health of our economy is utterly dependent upon the health of the banking sector.
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When the banks go down, as a consequence of their "often foolish lending", they take us with them.
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When the banks fail to lend, because they have decided they need to be more prudent...then – while that may be a sensible business decision for them, as companies – it means, for us, that no money comes into society! 
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Our economy goes into recession because there is no new money being created and entering society. 
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As a society we have no control over the financial decisions of these private companies. 
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Now, if banks were like all other private companies, then that would not,necessarily, matter so much...but when these companies represent the creators of our very means of exchange, the very life blood that our economy needs to function, then that is a serious problem.
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We have allowed them to be in a position where they can turn the tap on and off depending upon their own business decisions
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Fine for them as private companies, but bad for us as a society.
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It is a premise of the Positive Money proposal that we should not, as a society, be so dependent upon these companies in this way.
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In short, the Money Supply is a democratic issue.
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Let's be clear...the Positive Money proposal here is not to nationalise the banks (that wouldn't make any difference at all if we kept the system as it otherwise is), the proposal is to "nationalise" – which is so say, bring under public control – the money supply...and we have a fully worked out plan which will do exactly that...which I'll get to.
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And of course there are other consequences. The Positive Money website does a very good job of listing these. At present it is engaged in a research project which is detailing many of these..
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So three questions arise:

1. Is there some way that the national money supply can be publicly-owned by the people and for the people – rather than by the banks and for the banks?  In effect, this means, is there some way that it can be operated by a national institution owned by the public? 

2. Is there some way this money supply process can be made subject to democratic control and accountability, which in effect means through the mechanism of elected politicians and Parliament – unlike at present where there is no democratic control over the unaccountable corporations which create the money supply as a private, profit-making venture; and

3. Is there some way that we, the people, can enjoy the profit from creating the national money supply. In effect that means some way in which the profits can go directly to the public purse at the Treasury – rather than at present where the corporate banking system enjoys the privilege and profit of that power?
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And the answer, you'll be pleased to hear...is yes, there is a way!
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Let's summarise it in two steps... 
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Step 1. Commercial banks to be forbidden from creating money out of nothing. All money to be created by a national institution accountable to us democratically through Parliament.

This money will be created "debt-free", and accounted as such. That means, it will be created and simply spent into society by Parliament in the usual way, via spending in the public and private sectors.

That money will then circulate in society. 
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Step 2. The commercial banks will then compete with themselves to attract thatmoney so created, into their savings accounts, and lend out only that money which they have acquired in that manner.
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This will not result in inflation since the banks will be unable to multiply up new loans on the basis of any new money they receive.
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Our economy will be safe from the consequences of bank failure because we will no longer be relying upon the commercial health of the private banking sector for our national money supply.
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In time, it is possible that overall levels of personal and national debt may decrease, rather than rise exponentially as they do at present.

Furthermore, Positive Money, as a consequence of 2 years careful work, has assembled this reform in proper legislative format, as a potential draft Westminster Bill, which they have entitled "The Bank of England (Creation of Currency) Bill". 
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It is an astonishing piece of work, which represents the collective work of many dedicated people, and hard copies of this 60 page A4 Manual are available for a donation to Positive Money. It can also be read on its website...