You’re standing in a supermarket aisle, weighing up whether to buy a microwave meal or a bunch of fresh carrots.

We all know making healthy eating choices can be tough. That’s especially true if you are hungry, or have a hungry household to feed.

There are so many reasons for this, and many are outside our control. But one you might not be aware of is a psychological concept known as “decision fatigue”.

So what exactly is decision fatigue? And could it help or hinder your healthy eating goals?

What is decision fatigue?

Decision fatigue, also known as choice overload, describes what happens when we make many effortful decisions over time.

Whenever you make a decision, you use a small amount of mental energy. As that energy runs low, you tend to make worse decisions.

This means you’re more likely to act without thinking, or simply choose what is easy or familiar. You might also find it harder to plan ahead and resist certain impulses.

This means you might be more likely to grab a takeaway instead of the ingredients to make a meal, or default to familiar comfort foods instead of making intentional, healthy choices.

Read more: Are we ever truly free to make decisions? New study tracks a universal process in the brain

How might it affect my eating habits?

The average person makes hundreds of food decisions each day.

You may think you’re just choosing a meal. But that one decision involves making many layered choices about what and how much you eat, as well as where, when and how you eat it.

You may make these choices subconsciously or automatically. But they each require to you weigh up various factors, such as taste, costs, time, expectations and more.

When decision fatigue sets in, you’re less likely to make thoughtful, health-focused choices. Instead, you may gravitate towards options that require less effort and offer quick rewards. You may also become more influenced by outside cues. An example of this is advertising that promotes convenient but high-calorie options such as fast food, snacks or indulgent treats.

Having too much information can make these decisions even harder. Nutrition advice often assesses the value of foods by how much protein, fat, fibre or vitamins they contain. This way of thinking, sometimes called nutritionism, can make food choices more complex. Instead of choosing food as food, we try to calculate and juggle many numbers at once.

Read more: Focusing on how and why you eat – not just what – may be the key to healthy eating

Not the only factor

Several other factors may affect your food choices.

One is stress. One study from 2022 showed parents who experience high levels of both stress and decision fatigue found it more difficult to stick to positive food-related behaviours, such as making meals from scratch or eating together as a family.

Another is tiredness. One 2017 study showed time of day affected meal choices. It found between mealtimes, and especially in the afternoon, people were more likely to choose the simpler default food choice than one that required more consideration. This suggests having lower blood sugar and less mental energy meant people made less considered decisions.

How can I reduce my decision fatigue?

Here are four tips.

Have healthy foods on hand

When we’re low on mental or physical energy, we usually turn to what’s easy or familiar. That’s why it’s important to have healthy food options within reach. Thankfully, this doesn’t need to be complicated. It could look like pre-cutting fruit or having some healthy frozen meals in the freezer. And research suggests removing unhealthy foods – for example from the pantry or fridge – can be just as helpful when you’re trying to make healthier food choices.

Plan your meals

Planning meals could help too. This may involve setting some weekend time aside to decide what meals you’ll cook and eat. That’s instead of making last-minute decisions at the supermarket or on the drive home. Meal kits and batch cooking, which both reduce the number of food-related decisions you have to make, may also reduce decision fatigue.

Read more: We know what to eat to stay healthy. So why is it so hard to make the right choices?

Reframe your eating choices

How you frame choices may also improve your eating habits. For example, you may be more likely to “eat a colourful meal” rather than simply telling yourself to “eat more vegetables”.

Outsource some of the decision-making

If you’re looking for healthy, tasty recipes, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel. You can find a wealth of free ideas on the Eat for Health, Heart Foundation and National Nutrition Foundation websites. And if making food decisions feels overwhelming, Accredited Practicing Dietitians and Registered Nutritionists can help you turn complex nutrition advice into manageable steps.

The bottom line

We often think eating should be simple and intuitive, but blame ourselves when it doesn’t feel that way. However, the concept of decision fatigue shows healthy eating is not just about willpower. It’s also about noticing when you’re tired, stressed or time-poor, and taking practical steps to make healthy foods the easiest option.

Emma Beckett has previously received funding for research or payment for consulting from Mars Foods, Nutrition Research Australia, FOODiQ Global, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the AMP Foundation, Kelloggs, Hort Innovation, and the a2 milk company. She is a member of the Australian Academy of Science National Committee for Nutrition, and the National Health and Medical Research Council Iodine Expert Working Group. She is a registered nutritionist and a member of the Nutrition Society of Australia, and the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology. She is the author of 'You Are More Than What You Eat'.

Australia’s schooling system is among the most highly segregated in the OECD. Public schools educate the majority of disadvantaged students, while there is concentrated advantage in private schools.

This situation can be attributed, in large part, to our school funding arrangements. Recent research from the Australian Education Union shows “over half of Australia’s private schools now receive more combined government funding per student from both the federal and state governments, than similar public schools”.

Review: Rich Kid, Poor Kid: The Battle for Public Education – Jane Caro (Australia Institute Press)

In her essay Rich Kid, Poor Kid, public education advocate Jane Caro provides a detailed historical excavation of Australia’s school funding policies, politics and policy ideologies over the past 65 years.

As its subtitle makes clear, her essay details the “battle” experienced by Australian public schools as they are often forced to compete with well-resourced private schools for enrolments. These private schools are free to charge uncapped school fees and receive government money.

At the same time, in states and territories other than the ACT, most public schools do not receive the minimum amount of their legislated government funding, known as the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS).

Caro contrasts this with the experiences of non-government or private schools (Catholic and independent schools), most of whom receive the full amount of their legislated government funding and more.

As the recently legislated Better and Fairer Schools Agreement – which seeks to address part of the funding inequality between sectors – comes into effect, Caro’s reflections and lamentations are timely.

A funding system unequal by design

Caro begins by opening the “black box” of Australia’s school funding arrangements to reveal their contents.

In order to explain the current inequalities in resource distribution, Caro takes readers on a funding policy journey. Public funding for private schooling began in the late 1960s. Until this point, the federal government played virtually no role in school funding. Initially, it began its involvement through one-off grants for government and non-government schools, to support the building of science laboratories and school libraries.

This funding expanded over time with successive federal governments, in response to a few intersecting factors.

Among these was the Catholic sector’s desperate call for financial aid from the federal government to assist with rapidly increasing enrolments, and simultaneously decreasing supply of labour and resources from its religious teachers and leaders (nuns and brothers). This call for “state aid” was politically contentious.

By 1975 – under a Whitlam Labor government – recurrent federal funding for private schools was in full swing. As Caro explains, Whitlam positioned this decision as “educationally necessary”: that is, funding based on need for both public and private schools.

But this move also served dual political purposes – it helped address the “state-aid” issue and appealed to Catholic parent voters.

Caro documents what she describes as the schooling system’s “shift from an emphasis on the public good towards the private and positional”. Subsidies for private schools continued, and even expanded, but were no longer justified by needs. Rather, a right to choice came to predominate.

This was reinforced by the next federal government under Malcolm Fraser, who embedded a “basic grant model” for private schools based on entitlement and choice, rather than need. Ultimately, these decisions provided the basis for our current system: government funding for both public and private schools – a funding system that is internationally unique.

Caro moves through funding policy agendas and reforms of successive federal governments, explaining the politics, policy principles and policy levers that created and sustain deep inequalities in Australia’s school system.

Among many examples, Caro refers to the commissioning and release of the 2011 Review of Funding for Schooling, conducted by an expert panel headed by David Gonski AC. The “Gonski Review” revealed (among other things) the concentration of disadvantage in Australia’s public schools. In an attempt to address inequalities in Australia’s existing funding arrangements, it proposed a new funding model based on the concept of student need: the Schooling Resource Standard.

Here, Caro points to the infamous promise made by then Labor prime minister Julia Gillard, that “no school will lose a dollar” as a result of the review or the implementation of the new funding model. This meant the possibility of a fully needs-based approach was compromised from the outset.

Caro also explains the various concessions offered to private schools, despite them being publicly funded.

For example, private schools are free to select and exclude students, including on the grounds of gender and sexuality, and to charge uncapped school fees. Many private schools also have “charitable status”, providing a range of tax exemptions, including incentivised donations. While not explicitly stated in the essay, these factors also undermine the extent to which the Schooling Resource Standard can be understood to function as a true “needs-based” funding model in practice.

It is important to note that not all private schools are high-fee paying or elite. Indeed, there is some diversity in the sector. However, Caro confesses she sometimes “cannot help wondering whether divide and conquer was the plan all along”. Her essay reminds readers the current situation is by no means accidental. Rather, it is constructed through particular policy decisions and values that have created a class-based schooling system.

Challenging ‘business as usual’

Part of Caro’s contribution is her discrediting of arguments often used in defence of the current system. For example, governments often argue for the need to fund private schooling, to provide parents with accessible options. However, as Caro shows, private schools remain out of reach for many.

Referring to a recent study, she explains that even “after decades of publicly funding private schools”, Australia’s secondary schools are some of the most costly among developed economies of the OECD.

The result of unequal access to an unequally resourced “market” of schools, Caro shows, is the concentration of social advantage and disadvantage. Schools compete to attract the same set of privileged students, who will boost their market position for top results. At the same time, they compete to exclude students with higher needs and less potential to blitz tests.

Caro addresses other commonly evoked rationales for supporting school choice policies, too. These include: “Private school parents pay taxes, so their child is entitled to be subsidised.” And: “Public funding of private schools saves the government money.”

In response to these arguments, Caro suggests that “taxation is not a deposit account that we can draw on to ‘buy’ whatever service we choose”. (In this case, parents are buying what is “perceived as an educational advantage”.) The “glaringly obvious problem” with the tax argument, she writes, “is that when a large part of that choice involves fee-charging schools, only parents with money have choice”.

The battle for public education

Across all of these arguments, we see the tensions within Australian school funding on full display: entitlement and a right to parental choice operating at the expense of school funding based on the principle of “student need”. Underpinning Caro’s argument is a belief in

the ideal of a strong public education system funded by everyone, for the benefit of everyone, originally developed alongside the ideal of representative democracy […] for the benefit of everyone.

She opens her essay reminiscing about her own experience with New South Wales public schooling in the 1960s and 70s, which, she explains, provided her and her peers various opportunities. This included the chance to mix with a socially diverse group of students, irrespective of their socioeconomic or cultural capital. It is this version of public schooling, she argues, that has been lost.

Caro argues that “public schools are an expression of a public good: the common good.”

As professor of education Jessica Gerrard writes, there is a danger in idealising the public schools of the past, which had their fair share of exclusionary practices and prejudice. Fighting for public education requires acknowledging that it hasn’t always been inherently democratic. Public schools have also been sites of harm and exclusion for some.

The democratic potential of public schooling is connected to ongoing political struggles over whose knowledge, identities and futures are recognised and supported within public schooling – including through funding.

Where to from here?

How might we imagine and achieve a more just approach to school funding policy? Rich Kid, Poor Kid draws to a close by addressing this question, providing a list of “solutions” for a “more equal” schooling system.

Caro suggests various changes to current funding arrangements, such as reconsidering private school tax exemptions and having all schools that receive public money subject to the same standards and compliance measures. Certainly, these would go a long way toward addressing the frightening inequalities laid bare in her essay.

Caro considers what she refers to as the “political possibility” for these solutions. It is difficult to see how such solutions and more just funding policy approaches might emerge until there is a deeper reckoning with what she identifies as Australia’s unwavering political and cultural fidelity to school choice and entitlement. How this might occur must also be a core part of the discussion.

Other terms of the debate must also shift. For example, it is problematic to hold discussions about school funding in terms of the “cost” to the taxpayer, “cost” to the system, or referring to students who are the “the most costly to educate”. Narratives like this (political and otherwise) can perpetuate marginalisation and stigmatisation. They reduce student need to a bottom-line, cost-benefit analysis.

Rich Kid, Poor Kid reinforces the urgency and devastation of the school funding problem in Australia. Caro delivers the story in a way that should propel readers into action.

Elisa Di Gregorio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

There’s a growing awareness policy works best when shaped by the people and communities who have lived through the issues it aims to address.

If we don’t listen to and learn from those who have experienced issues such as homelessness, family violence, distress or trauma, we risk building systems that misunderstand the harm and the hope within those realities.

Across social and public sectors, new roles are being created for people with what is often called “lived expertise”.

These are people whose personal experience informs work to improve policy, practice and research. They are advising government departments, helping to design services, informing inquiries and guiding community initiatives.

But while lived experience is often invited into the room, we still know little about what it is like to work from that experience across distinct issue areas – and about the emotional toll, risks and challenges of trying to make change inside systems that actively resist it.

To explore this further, we spoke with ten lived experience leaders as part of our research, released today.

Deep commitment

The lived experience leaders we spoke with work alongside a range of communities – for example, First Nations peoples, incarcerated women and girls, those experiencing mental distress, young people, people from LGBTIQA+ communities and those impacted by family violence.

Our research revealed that these lived experience leaders are deeply committed to structural change. They carry hard-won knowledge and a strong determination to ensure others have better experiences.

One told us:

I came in with the motivation that there were so many people that this had happened to, and I wanted to change it.

Another said:

I don’t feel accountable to dominant systems […] What I feel accountable to feels greater than me – accountable to my ancestors and to those who come after me.

Influencing from the inside and outside

These leaders work across, between and beyond institutions – sometimes from the inside to influence change, other times building power outside them.

As one leader said:

I believe we need to build power ourselves and then the system will come to us for the answers, rather than us trying to fit into their structures and processes.

Moving between these spaces is not easy.

Another leader said:

We hold one shield that’s fending off the system and another shield that’s fending off the organisations we have to work with, and then another that’s defending victim-survivors. Then we don’t have anything left to protect ourselves.

Leaders are often drawing on collective experience, not just their own, and feel deep accountability to others, particularly those who share experiences of injustice and harm.

As one said:

I am accountable to the people at the end or the bottom – to service users and the people who have the most to lose.

Their approach intentionally challenges dominant hierarchies. They lead alongside others, guided by the quality of relationships they build – and by care, accountability and connection. One person told us:

I would never speak about women and girls in cages if I’m not being held accountable by the women and girls in cages […] Otherwise, you’re operating from a position of “power over” – and that’s not true leadership.

Hazards, harms and hope

Lived experience leadership can also carry risks. Many leaders spoke about being invited to contribute or “have a seat at the table” without being genuinely heard, or seeing action taken from their insights.

Participation often feels like a compliance exercise. Tokenism, they said, is still common. One person told us:

Something we don’t talk about enough is the price we pay for sharing our lived and living experience.

Another said:

We choose to do it because we genuinely care about people we’ve never met – because we want people to live, because we want the systems that continue to fail them to change.

The toll that takes – the exhaustion, the trauma that’s constantly brought up, the feelings of not being valued or considered – and yet still choosing to fight each day for the right reasons, is more than anyone could ever possibly imagine.

And yet, many leaders also spoke about hope. One person told us:

I do have some sort of hope most days […] This is love for, and belief in, our community. My hope is kept alive through contact with and service to my community.

Where to from here?

Our research shows lived experience leadership holds real potential to address the complex problems traditional approaches struggle to solve.

But this potential can only be fully realised when institutions recognise their own capacity to cause harm and begin to share power with those most affected.

Real progress means more than inviting lived experience into rooms or at tables – it means taking responsibility, acting on what’s heard and being changed by it.

As one leader urged:

Sometimes we have to demand the impossible […] Let those with institutional power worry about how they’re going to hold us back […] Most of the time, you sit at the table because collaboration is essential – but sometimes, you do have to flip it.

Lived experience leadership isn’t about earning a seat at someone else’s table.

It’s about questioning who built the table in the first place – and creating new spaces where power, decision-making and design are genuinely shared.

Morgan Cataldo's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Kelsey Dole's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Perrie Ballantyne's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Robyn Martin's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Suzi Hayes' research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.

Monday May 4

Can AI evolve?

“This article seems to overlook that evolution of anything needs a physical mechanism for reproduction that can be influenced in some way (deliberately or otherwise) by the entities that are evolving. Decades ago I read a sci-fi short story about a planet populated by extremely intelligent horse-like creatures whose four limbs ended in razor-sharp hooves. Great for fighting (and the story) but without the ability to manipulate objects and their environment they were stuck forever in the lifestyle of ordinary horses. Sounds to me like AI.”

Peter Tuft, Kettering TAS

The problem with going to Antarctica

“I applaud the thoughtful article on Antarctica. I considered a trip there this year, knowing that at 81 I don’t have many chances left. And then I considered the number of people now going there, with commercial benefits to the many cruise lines, and the consequent environmental impact, and decided such a trip would not be ethically acceptable. So I am going to the Eastern Mediterranean instead – where ancient civilisations have already trashed the place!”

Julie Lake

Tuesday May 5

Speed cameras or revenue machines?

“The driving public has been assailed by many automated enforcement systems for quite some time. There needs to be more pressure placed on state governments to rein in their desires to raise revenue in the name of road safety. As the author stated, there needs to be more context and consideration of the appeal process. I would posit that if I took a photo with my security camera of someone breaking into my house they wouldn’t take the person identified in the camera into custody without further evidence. It seems like we have a situation with road safety that is very much akin to ‘big brother’. What is obvious to me is the notion we are considered ‘guilty’ until we can prove otherwise. Doesn’t that go against the underlying tenet of our legal system? I would also like to point out that even with all the automated enforcement systems, the number of road fatalities has not dramatically decreased. They do not work for the purpose intended or stated, and I suspect the authorities know that.”

Bob Sibson, Adelaide, SA

Bearing the brunt

“Why is raising interest rates the only way to manage inflation? Home owners carry the burden. Why have we not looked at a variable rate of superannuation? Some industries are not affected by interest rate increases (some even benefit from them) so why not flip the script and change superannuation to be variable and the reserve bank can choose to change interest rates, superannuation contribution rates, or both?”

Melita Kemp, Nipaluna/Hobart

Fashion vs fine art

“The question of whether fashion is an ‘art’ is a fascinating one. Activities included in the ‘arts’ have varied throughout history, and have included such things as saddle, tent, hat and glove making. The current list of ‘fine’ arts, along with the distinction between ‘fine’ and ‘decorative’, was only settled in the 19th century: ‘fine’ art is essentially the product of the uncoupling of the production of ‘art’ objects from church, court and state, and the development at the same time of auction houses. The number of activities included in the category ‘art’ needs to be kept small and rarefied (one-off items, hand produced by an ‘artist’) to maintain high values. In broad terms, fashion doesn’t fit in because it’s mass-produced and available to pretty much anyone: it would undermine the art market to start including such things as fashion as a ‘fine art’.”

Gavin Oakes, West Melbourne

Over the past 15 years, I have witnessed university students’ shrinking patience for reading – especially for reading “long” books. Increasingly, students also opt for audiobooks. While speeding up the reading experience, these fundamentally change what is noticed.

The neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf suggests many students no longer have the “cognitive patience” to read long books due to the complexities of thought and sustained attention required.

One explanation for this shift is the dominance of digital technology in our daily lives, which has rewired our brains for surface-level scanning and multitasking, weakening our capability for prolonged attention. Another is our culture of instant gratification.

Some studies into the “screen inferiority effect” suggest when we read on paper (rather than on screens such as smartphones) the brain often processes more deeply and comprehension is better. Memory and information recall are also stronger.

So where does this leave the classics?

Millions of Australians, both children and adults, struggle with literacy.

In this series, we explore the challenges of reading in an age of smartphones and social media – and ask experts how we can become better readers.

Many books considered “classics” are long. Masterpieces such as Middlemarch or Les Misérables might seem intimidating because in physical form they resemble door stops and they often have complex, demanding language and long, convoluted sentences.

But reading the classics can deliver cognitive, social, emotional and even ethical benefits, helping us strengthen habits of thoughtful attention and develop the skills to communicate with clarity and empathy.

Extending our attention spans increases our ability to connect thoughts and ideas, challenges memory and recall and perhaps helps us attend more patiently to our own lives and the lives of others. In reading Robinson Crusoe, for instance, we share in the patience of the title character, stranded on a desert island. We, too, pay careful heed to details and signs in the world around him.

The complex language of classics can help us discern meaning amid a multitude of voices. When working through multiple sentence clauses and the layered sentences of a meaningful paragraph we need to suspend judgement until we have the fuller picture. Following complex and interwoven narratives also helps us to understand human complexity in real life.

Here are some tips for reading the classics – and some shorter ones to start with.

1. Follow your instincts

Find out which classic novels influenced the development of your favourite genre and you might find a natural fit. My brilliant English teacher at school, Mr Taylor, knew I loved detective fiction, so he kept recommending Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone as an early example of crime mystery. Eventually taking his advice, I loved it and followed it with Collins’s other classic, The Woman in White.

2. Remove distractions

It can help to set aside dedicated reading time, such as 20–30 minutes a day in which phones, smartwatches and other devices are out of the way. There is an added benefit: research by Mindlab International has shown reading for only six minutes reduces stress levels by 68%.

3. Make a note of memorable sentences

You don’t need a teacher to notice powerful moments or startling language. For example, Charles Dickens’s opening to A Tale of Two Cities (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”) famously captures the coexistence of extremes in the world – of hope and despair, of wisdom and foolishness. Dickens has crafted an enduring truth of human experience.

4. Ask yourself questions

Why is this considered a classic? Why do I dislike this particular character? Why does this scene make me feel uncomfortable? Usually, the author wants you to consider why things were written the way they were (rather than, for example, with a different vocabulary or narrative voice). Asking questions deepens comprehension.

5. Embrace the unknown

If longer sentences or old-fashioned language trip you up, go over them again and then keep going. Kindles offer instant definitions at the touch of the screen but sometimes looking up every word in the dictionary can interfere with the opportunity to deduce meaning from context.

6. Be ready to laugh

Some classic novels are downright funny. I am currently reading Anthony Trollope’s The Warden. The sentences may be long, but they are almost always punctuated with hilarious insights into the hypocrisies of human beings and the naming rights the author deploys are childishly funny.

7. Read aloud

Classic novels were often serialised and read aloud in instalments in families or community groups. As a teenager, some of my most memorable early forays into the classics were shared with a dear cousin while staying with our grandparents in the Blue Mountains, when we would read aloud to each other on wintry, windy nights by the fireplace. Here, I first encountered Daphne Du Maurier’s evocative West Country mystery Rebecca and Dodie Smith’s eccentric and funny I Capture the Castle. Begin your adventure into the classics by reading aloud with a friend or in a book club.

8. Don’t feel too daunted

Remember that getting started with the story, getting to know the writer’s style, gradually piecing together the world of the novel can be the hardest stage. Take your time, be patient and persist. The further you get into a novel like War and Peace, the easier it is to continue because you simply want to know what happens.

Here are three short classics worth the journey.

George Eliot’s Silas Marner

A heartwarming study of the “inward life” of Silas, the weaver, exiled from his fellowship of narrow religious sectarians. He finds purpose in life, first in money and then in the fatherly love he develops for Eppie, the child who wanders into his home. Silas Marner is an accessible taster of Eliot’s longer experiments exploring emotion and “fellow feeling”.

James Joyce’s Dubliners

This book is, strictly speaking, a collection of 12 short stories. Together they form a masterpiece of brutal Anglo-Irish realism interrupted by moments of epiphany. The book contends with questions of action and inaction, betrayal, political idealism and pragmatism. The story of Eveline, who is on the cusp of eloping with the “very kind, manly, and open-hearted” Frank on a night-boat to Buenos Aires to escape the ill-treatment of her ageing, abusive father, leaves the reader astonished by the sudden departure in the final lines from her earlier rational self-analysis.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway

An experimental novel set on one summer’s day in London, 1923. The socialite Clarissa Dalloway prepares a party but the absence of any chapter breaks in the book creates for the reader a sense of the stifling impact of war that still lingers over British family, social and political life. In the trauma of returned soldier Septimus Smith we read an early fictional exploration of shell shock.

Johanna Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Words escape you. Your skin tingles. You are overwhelmed by how small and insignificant you really are, bursting with a feeling that is hard to define. This is awe.

Awe is a complex emotional state we experience when the enormity of what we see or feel transcends what we understand. It can be positive or negative.

Astronauts report this feeling when confronted with the vastness of space and Earth’s puny place within it. This experience – sometimes known as the “overview effect” – can change forever how people who’ve seen Earth from afar think about life here.

But you don’t have to travel to the moon and back to experience awe. Beautiful art, a walk in nature or dancing in a crowd can give you this overwhelming, transcendent feeling.

Neuroscience suggests experiences of awe can be good for your mental health – when they’re positive. So, when is awe good for us? And what exactly is going on in the brain?

Awe can be both positive and negative

Positive awe is what probably comes to mind when most people think of awe. If you’ve ever been moved by something immense and beautiful – such as a majestic mountain or sunset – you’ve likely experienced this sense of calm and wonder.

However, psychologists sometimes describe awe as an experience at the boundary of pleasure and fear. Both pleasure and fear can result in similar bodily arousal – racing heartbeat, goosebumps and chills – but the way we interpret this as an emotion will depend on the context. It can be the same when we experience something vast and overwhelming.

Negative awe may occur when we feel threatened or a lack of control, such as during an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Imagine standing in front of a tsunami and seeing it come towards you. You may feel powerless and filled with dread, while also overcome with a sense of insignificance in the face of nature’s majesty and power. This is the complexity of awe.

Trying to make sense of the unexpected

Our brains are constantly making predictions and integrating our experiences into what we already know.

We tend to “filter out” sensory signals that match our expectations, to instead focus on being ready to respond to information that is surprising.

New information is processed by parts of the brain that help to fit it within our pre-existing understanding of the world, knowledge frameworks known as schemata (or schemas).

According to schema theory, we either assimilate this new information into an existing schema, or have to change the schema to fit the new knowledge.

Not all new experiences will evoke awe. It occurs when we experience both the inability to assimilate an experience into current knowledge and a sense of vastness.

For example, you might have a schema for “waterfall” – a mental framework of what you expect (rocks, water, beautiful). But confronted by the roar of Victoria Falls, its size and velocity, the way the sun hits the spray, you experience awe; it’s unlike any waterfall you have ever seen and is beyond your expectations.

What happens in the brain when we experience awe?

When we feel awe, activity decreases in the brain regions associated with internal or self-referential processing. This network is what drives our memory and understanding of our place in the world.

When activity in these regions decreases, there is a shift away from yourself towards processing external information. This may explain why you tend to “feel small” when you experience awe.

But positive and negative awe may have different effects on our nervous system.

Negative awe is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, which drives our “fight or flight” response.

Positive awe, however, is associated with increased parasympathetic activity. This reduces heart rate and arousal, which is why we may feel calmer.

How awe can be good for us

If you’re someone who seeks out experiences bigger than yourself – hiking for breathtaking views, enjoying meditation, art or losing yourself in the roar of a crowd – you probably already know awe can make you feel fantastic.

Now, research is exploring why. Emerging evidence suggests awe may be good for mental health and wellbeing in five ways:

1. improving your nervous system’s ability to relax
2. diminishing self-focus
3. making us more likely to help other people
4. connecting us to others
5. increasing sense of meaning.

More work needs to be done before we can say whether awe results in long-lasting benefits. But purposefully seeking awe may help you feel less stressed, more satisfied and happier.

Finding awe in the everyday

What evokes awe will likely be different for different people. But we know some things are more likely to induce this complex feeling, such as experiences of art, music and natural environments that move us.

Many people also find awe in collective experiences, especially those involving shared music or movement, or religious rituals. These help us transcend ourselves and become part of something bigger. Contemplating inspiring and complex “big” intellectual ideas by learning something new may also have this effect.

So, can you actively cultivate awe? One way to start is by taking “awe walks”. These involve walking with the intention of noticing beauty, vastness and wonder. Connecting with your own sense of spirituality – even if you are not religious – can also evoke awe.

In many cases, the vast and overwhelming experience of awe can start with simple acts of noticing.

Nikki-Anne Wilson has previously received funding from the Australian Association of Gerontology and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.

Music superstar Taylor Swift has applied to trademark her voice and image to head off the threat of AI-generated impersonations. But the problem extends much further than pop royalty.

Anyone can be manipulated by the powerful technology: AI-created videos of you endorsing a politician you despise, images on social media of you in a skin-tight Spiderwoman outfit you never wore, a simulation of your voice allowing users to indulge their sexual fantasies … all possible.

The rapid development of deepfakes is amplifying calls for better legal protections for individuals’ images and likenesses. The notorious rollout of new picture-editing capabilities by X’s Grok chatbot in late 2025 only added to their urgency.

And the law has begun to respond. Australia now criminalises creating and sharing sexually explicit material online, including digitally created material.

In the US, the 2025 Take it Down Act prohibits non-consensual publication of intimate depictions of individuals, including “digital forgeries”.

In New Zealand, proposed amendments to the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act will improve criminal law responses to sexual deepfakes.

But another legal front is opening up, too: victims are turning to tort law. Part of the civil (rather than criminal) law, tort claims do not require the state to act. People can seek damages and injunctions to shut down or block access to the harmful and humiliating material.

Misappropriation of personality

Some countries, including Canada, South Africa and India, recognise a common law tort of misappropriation of personality.

This targets unauthorised use of a person’s name, likeness and voice, usually for commercial purposes. About half of the states in the US recognise some version of this tort.

Now, the Indian courts are taking the lead in extending the tort to include deepfakes.

Bollywood stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Anil Kapoor have used tort law to shut down websites and other online platforms where deepfakes have been posted – including fake pornographic videos and chatbots.

Elsewhere, including in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia, the law is much more piecemeal because the common law does not recognise a specific tort of misappropriation of personality.

This means protections need to be cobbled together from more established legal claims, including defamation, breach of confidence and and “passing off”.

A court battle is currently raging in the UK over whether a digitally-assisted resurrection of Peter Cushing in the 2016 Star Wars movie Rogue One is a form of “unjust enrichment”. (Cushing starred in a previous Star Wars episode but died in 1994.)

The right to live with dignity

In the Bollywood cases, the courts explained that deepfakes affect victims’ “right to live with dignity”. The judges linked these tort principles to constitutional protections for “life and liberty”.

Canadian judges have said similar things, linking protections for individuals’ personality to rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights.

Human dignity – essentially the right not to be a means to others’ ends – is at the core of these protections and it recognises the inherent worth of all people. Deepfakes cut right across these fundamental legal commitments.

In the case of Anil Kapoor, the court acknowledged additional harms beyond those he suffered. The legal protections were also for “the sake of his family and friends who would not like to see his image, name and other elements being misused, especially for such tarnishing and negative use”.

This recognises an emerging legal concern with connections between people, not only with the rights of individuals. It also aligns with the increasing role of Māori tikanga (law and custom) in New Zealand’s common law.

Another welcome development in the United States is proposed legislation that would enable non-celebrities, not just the rich and famous, to bring damages claims and seek injunctions against deepfakes.

A bill introduced to Congress in April would extend protections to US citizens’ “DNA sequences or traits” that could be used to replicate or misuse identity in commercial applications.

Protecting victims of deepfakes will require an array of legal responses: criminal, civil, technological and regulatory – including trademark law, as Taylor Swift is using.

Unfortunately, few of us have the financial means to bring a torts claim. Even so, the emphasis on human dignity in the Bollywood cases reminds us of what’s at stake: the inherent worth of all people – celebrities and non-celebrities alike.

Graeme Austin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Everyone on earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press? BE HONEST.

This question is the latest thought experiment to set off waves of controversy on social media, following classic examples such as the trolley problem and the prisoner’s dilemma.

Most people think the choice is extremely obvious. However, not everyone agrees whether the obvious answer is blue or red – and they want to argue about it.

What’s going on here? From the point of view of philosophy and game theory, the question shows two different intuitions and views of decision-making with starkly contrasting results. And the very popularity of the question highlights the fraught existential stakes many of us feel in modern life.

Red or blue? It’s complicated

The case for red seems simple. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, red pressers survive. If not, red pressers survive anyway. So basic self-interest leads to red.

In game theory, this choice leads to what is known as the Nash equilibrium. This is the best choice for a participant looking to advance their own interests.

However, in several polls, the majority of respondents pick blue. At first glance, this may seem irrational and self-destructive.

Why would anyone stake their own life on the collective decisions of others? This is where, as with any good thought experiment, the real value of the provocation shows itself, as we ponder the “why” behind the choice.

Blue pressers might proffer a diverse set of responses: “I’m worried my family and friends might pick blue and I want them to survive”; “I’m concerned people might find out if I pick red and judge me”; “If I picked red I would feel responsible for the potential deaths of others”; “I believe humanity is inherently good”, and so on.

Such responses hint at what game theorists call the Pareto-optimal outcome, where the least potential damage is done by one’s choice.

Why now?

What’s also interesting is why such a thought experiment has gone viral in 2026. In any society, what cultural theorist Raymond Williams called a “structure of feeling” holds sway: an affective atmosphere, a set of moods and emotions that are most visible in its symbolic output.

We can here point to popular culture. Shows such as Netflix’s hit series Squid Game, the glut of Survivor-style reality TV shows, the digital game Among Us and the Hunger Games books and films rely on similar setups.

The fundamental questions tend to remain the same. Who can be trusted? How do incentives change our moral stance? Do systems reward altruism or selfishness?

More than at any time in human history, we are interdependent on a global scale: politically, economically, militarily, technologically, culturally. When a domino falls on one side of the planet, we now see it, hear it and feel it on the other side.

This engenders a distinct sense of vulnerability and precarity. We are bombarded every day with information from all around that can stress, enrage, and exhaust us.

Why here?

The specific formulation of the thought experiment, condensed down into a simple binary choice, is also perfect for social media, where hot takes dominate and extremity is rewarded by the algorithm: yes or no, right or wrong, gold-and-white dress or blue-and-black.

It’s also where similar questions are often asked of influencers, who might sacrifice their own moral viewpoints in pursuit of attention and visibility. It’s a perfect quick moral apocalypse for a doomscrolling public.

Another useful idea here is the “Promethean gap” described in 1956 by philosopher of technology Günther Anders. The idea is that the more technological capacity grows, the less humanity can comprehend emotionally, intellectually and morally.

We have, in a sense, outsourced too much of ourselves to technology. In doing so, we have let some crucial competencies atrophy, and so the gap grows.

Under rapidly advancing technology, our capacity for action exceeds our capacities for moral imagination.

This fear is readily apparent in the thought experiment: the world ended at the push of a button. By comparison, the stakes of the prisoner’s dilemma or the trolley problem seem positively quaint.

Steven Conway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The Chinese-owned firm that operates the Port of Darwin isn’t happy about the federal government’s push to return it to an Australian owner. Now, the situation is escalating, with the stage set for an international legal showdown.

The Albanese government has been in talks with Landbridge Group, whose parent company is headquartered in Shandong province, China, to return the port to an Australian owner, following an election promise.

But in late April, Ye Cheng, the Chinese billionaire who founded Landbridge, initiated proceedings against Australia at a World Bank tribunal, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The government has said it will defend the claim.

This case may take years to resolve. But it’s not the only example of a Chinese company taking on a national government, claiming to be unfairly excluded based on national security or other concerns.

Right now, many of these cases are still pending. But these rulings could have major financial implications if they provide a route for Chinese firms to demand compensation from governments for any losses caused by political decisions.

How we got here

Back in 2015, Landbridge secured a 99-year lease to operate the port from the Northern Territory government, in a deal worth A$506 million.

The decision was not opposed at the time by the Turnbull federal government, although US President Barack Obama raised concerns, with US marines on rotation through the port.

Other groups also raised concerns about leasing the strategically important port to a Chinese firm. In the lead-up to the last federal election, both Labor and the Coalition committed to returning the port to an Australian owner if elected.

In a statement on the new proceedings, Landbridge said the move to return the port to an Australian owner was “discriminatory”. The company said it was “inconsistent with Australia’s obligations” under a major bilateral trade pact, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

In a statement, the federal minister for transport and infrastructure, Catherine King, said the government was “disappointed” by the decision to lodge a case. King said the government has been in “good faith discussions” to reach a “mutually acceptable deal” with Landbridge, and intended to continue these discussions.

An international investment umpire

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes was established in 1966.

Headquartered in Washington, this body exists to settle disputes between international investors and nation-states under bilateral investment treaties. This includes the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement at the centre of this case.

The centre provides an independent arbitration panel for each dispute, not including the two countries involved.

The panel ultimately decides whether there has been unfair treatment. If so, it rules on whether a government’s proposed action should be halted or reversed, or if a company deserves compensation.

Pending cases

Since 2021, 11 cases have been brought by Chinese companies against different governments around the world. Eight of these are pending.

Many of these cases centre on purely economic claims of being treated unfairly. For example, in one case, a Chinese-owned lithium company is seeking compensation following the Mexican government’s decision to nationalise its lithium mining industry and expropriate the company’s planned mine in Mexico.

But others, like the Landbridge case, centre on claims a government has overreached by excluding a company based on national security concerns.

One of the most high-profile is a case launched by Huawei against the Swedish government in 2022. This came after Sweden banned Huawei and ZTE (another Chinese telecom company) from participating in the country’s 5G rollout, citing national security concerns.

Huawei is seeking compensation of US$569 million (about A$790 million) for the market losses it claims will result from this exclusion.

If the tribunal finds in favour of Huawei in this case, it could lead to further actions launched against countries (including Australia) where Huawei was banned. It could also impact other Chinese companies that have lost markets due to national security concerns.

The question of fairness

In its statement on the new proceedings, Landbridge said it had won the lease through a “fair, open and competitive process”.

It said the government’s own reviews did not find a national security risk.

Landbridge is likely to argue this means the government’s decision to exclude them is arbitrary. They are also likely to argue a forced sale would bring a lower price, and the government therefore owes the company compensation.

Compensation, if awarded, can include not just the current value of the port lease but also potential future earnings that have been forfeited due to a forced sale.

The rules-based order

The increase in Chinese companies using panels like the World Bank’s to resolve their disputes demonstrates their commitment to this international institution that was established with US and Australian support to enforce the rules-based international trading system.

These disputes may not prevent governments from making decisions based on national security. But they may cause them to think twice about the financial implications of those decisions.

Colin Hawes is a research fellow at the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute.

Over the decades, journalists and activist groups have revealed horrendous animal cruelty using covert recordings. A 2011 Four Corners investigation of abuse of Australian cattle in Indonesia is among the most well-known examples.

Many attempts to record agricultural operations have involved activists breaking the law to do it. Court cases are not uncommon.

But the most recent case, being heard by the High Court of Australia this week, is different. In this instance, an abattoir has been awarded copyright ownership of footage shot by animal welfare activists. As a result, the footage, which the activists say depicts animal cruelty, can’t be made public.

In the case, Farm Transparency International v The Game Meats Company of Australia, the court will consider whether the activists’ illegal conduct disqualifies the future use and release of the footage.

The proceedings could be highly significant for both humans and animals, with potential implications for press freedom and the public’s right to know.

Trespassing for transparency

Founded in 2014, the Australian animal advocacy organisation, Farm Transparency Project, seeks to “force industry transparency and educate consumers” about routine operations in the animal agriculture industry.

Controversially, this has involved members of the organisation trespassing on commercial properties.

In 2024, several Farm Transparency employees gained access to a Victorian slaughterhouse operated by the Game Meats Company on seven occasions. These trespasses involved the installation of cameras in the ceilings of Game Meats Company’s goat slaughter sites.

The footage of slaughtering processes at the abattoir was then used to produce a short film. Farm Transparency alleges the vision depicts breaches of animal welfare laws.

As the Federal Court judge observed in the initial case ruling, some of the goats “are shown being manhandled after escaping from a restraint apparatus” while others “appear not to be unconscious (or, perhaps, wholly unconscious) at the point that they are [killed]”.

Game Meats has denied any wrongdoing.

The case before the High Court

Copyright is a type of intellectual property right founded on a person’s skill and labour. Under the Copyright Act, the general position is that copyright vests with the footage-maker. In this case, that’s Farm Transparency.

But in a novel legal argument, Game Meats has argued copyright should be assigned to them.

This was first considered by a single Federal Court judge. The judge concluded “the court should proceed with caution”, suggesting that assigning copyright to Game Meats was better left to a higher court.

That’s what happened when the ruling was appealed. Three Federal Court judges found copyright of the footage and film should be assigned to Game Meats via a trust because of the circumstances in which the footage was obtained.

In reaching its decision, the appeal court drew analogies between the response to Farm Transparency’s “surreptitious intrusion” on Game Meats’ property, and the need to return property obtained by a “fraudster or thief”.

Farm Transparency appealed against that decision. The case will now be heard by the High Court, which will determine who should hold the copyright.

Private dispute, profound implications

This is not the first time a case involving Farm Transparency has been brought before the High Court.

In 2021, the organisation challenged New South Wales’ Surveillance Devices Act, arguing that it impermissibly infringed on the freedom of political communication recognised in the Australian Constitution. It was unsuccessful.

The current High Court appeal has potentially far-reaching implications. In its written submissions to the High Court, Farm Transparency argues the Federal Court’s evaluation of the “moral calibre” of the group’s conduct is “transformative of legal relations not just between the parties but the world”.

The Human Rights Law Centre and the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom are making advisory submissions as “friends of the court”.

Both groups are concerned about how the High Court decision may impact the legitimate work of journalists and whistleblowers.

The case is also an example of “ag-gag” (agricultural gag) laws. Ag-gag refers to laws whose common feature is to “keep evidence of the unflattering, and sometimes criminal, practices of farms and slaughterhouses from public view”.

Such laws are increasingly being used in Australia to curtail the speech of animal advocates who seek to expose conditions in animal production industries.

The Game Meats Company’s case is the first time copyright law is serving as a form of ag-gag. Using copyright law in this way prevents footage of alleged harm to farmed animals being shared with the public.

Ends justifying the means?

The activities of Farm Transparency’s predecessor, “Aussie Farms”, were a key driver for a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the potential impacts of animal activism on the state’s agriculture industries.

At the inquiry, farmers and industry groups expressed concern about being targeted, and at times intimidated, by activists.

At the same time, Farm Transparency has done much to share the realities of animal agriculture with the Australian public. The organisation produced the 2018 award-winning documentary, Dominion. It featured covert footage primarily from Australian animal agriculture operations, shot by members of Farm Transparency.

In 2023, Farm Transparency’s covert filming of pigs being suffocated to death with carbon dioxide gas formed the basis of a high-profile media report, and sparked another parliamentary inquiry into pig welfare in Victoria.

If the High Court accepts Game Meats’ argument, similar releases in the future could be prevented by law.

Uncertainty abounds

Animal welfare is an issue Australians care about. The way to ensure strong animal welfare in the animal agriculture industry is certainly not to encourage trespass or covert filming on private property.

However, the reality is that farmed animal welfare is woefully under-regulated. Scandals surrounding the mistreatment of animals are regularly uncovered by activists, journalists and whistleblowers, rather than in the course of standard compliance processes.

So the High Court must now decide whether the law should allow for such vision to be made public, potentially uncovering grave suffering, or keep it safely out of sight.

Lev Bromberg previously received a Commonwealth Government Research Training Program Scholarship. He is affiliated with the Australasian Animal Law Teachers and Researchers Association.

Serrin Rutledge-Prior received a Commonwealth Government Research Training Program Scholarship during her doctoral studies, and previously volunteered for the Animal Defenders Office, a non-profit legal service.

When he was elected pope on May 8, 2025, Robert Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV, greeted the crowd with Christ’s words to his disciples: “Peace be with you.”

Peace has become a central theme of the pontificate of the first American pope. In recent months, opposing the war in the Middle East, Leo has said that the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.” He led a “Prayer Vigil for Peace” on April 11, 2026, in which he criticized how the name of God has been used to justify war and death. He has also said that “military action will not create space for freedom” because true freedom can come only from patient dialogue.

Combined with his calls for peace is Leo’s equally outspoken emphasis on human dignity. In an age where power is concentrated in the hands of a few, the pope has urged Christians to make a “radical choice in favor of the weakest.” Technological advances, especially the rise of artificial intelligence, also endanger human dignity by threatening to override “human creativity, imagination and intellect,” he has cautioned.

In my view as a scholar of global Catholicism, the themes of peace and human dignity are crucial for understanding Leo’s first year as the 267th leader of the Catholic Church.

Calls for peace

During his speech for the 59th World Day of Peace, on Jan. 1, 2026, Leo echoed remarks he made after his election by saying the world should look to Jesus Christ as “our peace.” He called for “unarmed and disarming peace, humble and persevering,” contrasting peace built on military strength versus peace built on love.

In advocating for peace, Leo is echoing his predecessors. Pope Francis invited Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority to pray for peace in 2014. Benedict XVI condemned “the useless slaughter of war” when recalling Benedict XV’s condemnation of World War I nearly 100 years earlier. Pope John Paul II also argued that war should be “part of humanity’s tragic past” when he visited Coventry, England, which had been devastated during World War II.

Leo has specifically criticized war in Gaza by rejecting the “collective punishment” and “forced displacement” inflicted on Palestinians after Hamas’ attacks on Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

Although he is repeating condemnations of war made by other popes, Leo has been drawn into an unprecedented conflict with a U.S. president. In criticizing the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, the pope has condemned the loss of life and the failure of negotiations.

In response, President Donald Trump has called the pope “terrible for Foreign Policy.” For his part, Leo has said that he does not look at policy through “the same perspective” as the U.S. president and his words should not be interpreted as a personal attack.

The Catholic Church does have a tradition of “just war theory,” which argues that war can be waged ethically. Vice President JD Vance has stated that the pope is ignoring this tradition. After World War II, however, the Catholic Church has stated its opposition to war clearly and consistently, since modern warfare is so destructive.

Affirming human dignity

In response to ongoing violence between and within nations of the world, Leo has called for dialogue and respect for humanitarian law. His emphasis on human rights affirms the God-given dignity of all people, especially those whom society has cast aside.

Human dignity has been an important theme among the popes who have come before Leo. John Paul II spoke about the dignity of the unborn and the elderly in his 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life. Benedict XVI emphasized how each and every human being has dignity because they are made in the image of God. Francis called attention to “throwaway culture” that ignores the poor.

Leo has reiterated all these themes in various contexts.

Overall, however, Leo is most clearly following the teachings of Francis on human dignity and applying them more specifically to ongoing international crises.

He has spoken about the challenges to human rights and dignity in conflicts in many areas of the world: Ukraine, Venezuela, the Great Lakes region of Africa, the Caribbean Sea and Myanmar. As a missionary, teacher and bishop for over two decades in Peru, Leo’s perspective is shaped by his understanding of issues facing the Global South and how they relate to larger political and economic dynamics.

During his yearlong papacy he has given sustained attention to the challenges faced by migrants and the poor. Following his trip to Africa in April 2026, he stated that migrants and refugees are “treated worse than … house pets or animals.” His focus on migration is also reflected in his appointment of Evelio Menjivar-Ayala – a former undocumented migrant – as bishop of the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia.

In his Oct. 4, 2025, apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te – “I Have Loved You” – Leo says that “in every rejected migrant, it is Christ who knocks at the door of the community.” Using the words of Francis, Leo describes the Catholic Church’s mission to migrants as “welcome, protect, promote and integrate.”

Dilexi Te’s main focus is the conditions facing the poor. In criticizing the pursuit of wealth at “all costs,” Leo argues for a cultural change that removes the social and economic aspects of poverty. In making this argument, Leo identifies Jesus as the “Poor Messiah” who has a special love for those rejected by the world. The poor have dignity, the pope observes, precisely because they show society the face of Jesus.

The challenge of technology

An emerging concern for Leo is how advances in artificial intelligence also relate to peace and human dignity.

The pope has said that he is not against technological progress that aids human development. But, at the same time, he argues that society should be aware how technology can diminish human responsibility and true intimacy between people. For example, Leo has observed how social media algorithms create “bubbles of easy consensus and easy indignation” that prevent authentic dialogue.

For Leo, the struggle for peace and human dignity is not just a matter of war or economic systems. It is also shaped by the way people lead their everyday lives along with increasingly powerful technology.

Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Canada’s health systems began shifting from paper charts to electronic health records decades ago. These records hold patients’ critical health information, including medications, diagnoses, clinical notes, test results, specialist consults and plans for care.

Our research, published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, raises major concerns about the state of these electronic health records nationwide.

In most provinces and territories, information is currently siloed in separate software programs in different offices, designed by multiple vendors with differing standards. This fragments patients’ health records across services and leaves clinicians without the information they need to provide safe care.

This is harming patients, costing taxpayers $9.4 billion annually and hindering health-system improvement.

Canada’s missed opportunity

Ideally, patients’ health information should follow them over time and across locations. Some might assume that’s how it works now. After all, hotel chains remember whether we prefer foam or feather pillows, no matter what country we are in. Uber ratings follow us everywhere.

Unfortunately, in health care, things aren’t so seamless. In the rush to abandon paper charts and transition to electronic records, Canada missed a major opportunity for standardization.

Without an overarching plan, clinics, hospitals and jurisdictions chose from dozens of incompatible platforms sold by vendors competing for market share, without considering the need for personal health information to follow the patient.

A provincial and territorial legislative focus on the privacy of patient records has also fostered an environment that splinters patient information between health services.

The Connected Care Scorecard

Collecting, tracking and exchanging patients’ health information is key to safe, co-ordinated care. In some jurisdictions, like Taiwan, electronic health records from different vendors dock securely together. If a family doctor changes a medication, then pharmacy, hospital and specialist records are automatically updated. A treatment plan from a specialist lands directly in a family doctor’s electronic record, without need for faxing, scanning or uploading.

In Canada, hospitals, specialists and primary-care services still rely heavily on fax machines and mail, rather than automated, instant, accurate data exchange.

As part of our research, we created a Connected Care Scorecard that reveals where each province and territory stands in connecting its health records.

In British Columbia, for example, dozens of incompatible electronic health record systems are used in community clinics alone. Hospitals, even within the same health authority, run on different platforms. A patient who visits an emergency room in downtown Vancouver will have to tell their story again if they later seek care in Burnaby. Clinicians may end up retesting for illnesses already ruled out.

Prince Edward Island does much better — with one electronic health record uniting all hospitals and a single platform for primary-care clinics. The hospital record feeds information into primary care so details are available for follow-up.

Interoperability matters

Connected, integrated electronic health records allow all clinicians to work together on a common plan. Sharing patient information is critical for team-based care. It improves outcomes like medication safety and enables patients’ access to records, making them part of the care team.

Most jurisdictions do have patient portals where some people can see portions of their health information, like lab results or prescriptions. However, a 2025 study found that only 13.2 per cent of adult Canadians have electronic access to such records.

Despite tremendous hype and opportunity to improve care through artificial intelligence, most health systems can’t use it at scale. That’s largely because the opportunities it offers — assisting with diagnoses and prompting clinicians to order the tests and treatments patients need — are wholly dependent on ready access to comprehensive, accurate patient health data.

Interoperable electronic health records would also help health systems access population-based information to inform planning. Data could help predict disease outbreaks and spot bottlenecks in hospital flow. It could improve cancer care and ensure patients with the greatest needs are prioritized.

Our research shows that although most jurisdictions use some hospital data for planning, information in electronic health records, especially from primary care, rarely gets used to improve health systems. This has long-term implications: you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

All of this adds up to massive costs for taxpayers, patients and clinicians.

Common health data standards

The federal government recently reintroduced the proposed Connected Care for Canadians Act, which would require vendors to adopt common standards for exchanging information across systems. It’s a solid first step, but more is needed.

Most importantly, governments must establish clear accountability — nationally, provincially and territorially — for health data oversight. This must balance minimizing privacy breaches with limiting all other forms of harm arising from disconnected records, including damage to patients, clinicians and health systems.

Jurisdictions must also establish common health data standards, tools and incentives to improve data coordination.

Our challenge is not adopting electronic health records, but connecting them. Without that, our investment simply won’t pay off. Care will continue to suffer.

Dr. Ewan Affleck, physician, senior medical advisor in health informatics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta and chair of Networked Health, co-authored this article.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.