Age Verification, Screen Time, Imposter Syndrome, and Shooting the Messenger

Weekly Review of News in Technology, UX and AI

Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:

• 📊 Engineering and Teams

• 🪪 Age Verification

• 🖥️ Tech Adoption

• 📱 Screen Time

• 🫥 Future of Design

• 😵 Imposter Syndrome

• 💩 Shooting the Messenger

Podcast

Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Evolving Teams - with Jason Monberg

In this episode of Prodity: Product by Design, Kyle chats with Jason Monberg, CEO of Presence, about the power of product thinking, the thrill of building from scratch, and the importance of team chemistry. With over 25 years of experience spanning engineering, product management, and entrepreneurship, Jason shares lessons from starting companies like Carbon Five and Presence, including how to find the right people, build resilient teams, and apply technology thoughtfully. We also dive into the hype and reality of GenAI, navigating constraints in enterprise organizations, and yes—even homemade pizza ovens. It’s a wide-ranging and insightful conversation you won’t want to miss.

News and Useful Reads

Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet

Age verification for certain sites sounds like a good idea. But the implementation in the UK has been chaotic as some sites are using third parties to verify ages, while others are pulling out of the UK entirely.

On July 25th, the UK became one of the first countries to widely implement age verification. Its Online Safety Act requires sites hosting porn and other content deemed “harmful” — including Reddit, Discord, Grindr, X, and Bluesky — to verify that users are over the age of 18. The early results have been chaotic.

Employees With Influence on Tech Adoption Are More Satisfied

Do you get to select the tools and technology in your role? If so, you may be much more satisfied with your job than those who don’t have any influence.

U.S. employees who say they have a lot of influence over which technologies are adopted in their workplace are more than twice as likely to report high job satisfaction as those who have no influence, according to initial results from the American Job Quality Study. Generally speaking, the more influence employees have on technology adoption, the higher their job satisfaction.

What screen time does to children's brains is more complicated than it seems

It seems like we have a long way to go before we fully understand the effect of screen time on kids. I know I grapple with the question of “how much is the right amount” when it comes to my own kids. And feel more comfortable with certain screen time uses over others (like just watching videos).

If screens really are damaging children, it might be years before the science catches up and proves it. Or if it eventually concludes that it isn't, we would have wasted energy and money and, in the process, tried to keep children away from something that can also be extremely useful.

Why I’m Giving Up My Design Title—And What That Says About The Future of Design

We need more people at the intersection. Builders who understand agentic flows and elevated experiences. Designers who can reason about trust boundaries and token windows. Researchers who can make complex systems usable—without dumbing them down to a chat interface.

How to Know You’re Not a Phony

If you’re like me, you feel like an imposter frequently. It is common among high achievers and successful people, especially as they move up in their careers.

You don’t even have to be a genius to feel like an impostor. In today’s environment, when people are assiduously cultivating an image on social media that accentuates the positive and buries the negative, anyone can be made to feel they’re a failure and a phony. If you worry about this too, I have some good news for you: The fact that you have the worry means you probably aren’t a phony; the true phony is convinced they’re not one.

Other Interesting Finds

Trump fires lead official on economic data as tariffs cause market drop

In a case of “shooting the messenger,” Trump fired the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after weak July jobs numbers along with downward revisions for the previous months. US jobs are much weaker than anyone expected, and likely to get worse as the awful Trump tariffs and travel policies continue to wreak havoc around the world. Brace yourself.

On social media Trump claimed that Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), had "RIGGED" jobs figures "to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad".