What is Tourette’s Syndrome? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

So moving on to the psychology news section, we're reading from the British Psychological Society Research Digest.

And the first one is, "Over-reliance on AI leaves students distressed.

For better or for worse, generative AI tools are now widely used across academia.

Their use is so widespread that some figures suggest over 90% of students use AI in one way or another, be that creating summaries, conducting searches, or completing essays.

As these tools become more and more embedded, researchers are asking whether there may be downsides to relying on them too heavily.

In a new study published in BMC Psychology, researchers found that students who rely more heavily on AI tend to have less confidence in their ability to succeed, a pattern that was linked to high levels of burnout and anxiety.

The findings suggest that using such tools to help cope with the stresses of the workload may inadvertently undermine confidence and leave students more vulnerable to distress." Okay.

So in an effort to be balanced, 'cause even though I am flat-out against AI in terms of, like, these regards, I do want to try and understand it from the other side.

Because, like, let's face it, at university, there is a lot of pressure, and there is a lot of workload, from assignments to essays to exams, et cetera.

You do have to do a lot of work, and most of this involves doing a lot of reading, a lot of researching, and trying to un- understand topics really in depth on your own.

And AI tools can be flat-out brilliant for that.

I won't deny that.

But if you over-rely on it, and if you think that the key to your success is AI...

So when you think that the key to your success or any chance of you being su- successful is down to an external source, that is not good.

That can be very harmful.

And I guess this also comes back to the topic of locus of control.

Because if you believe that your success is outside of your control, so it doesn't matter how good you are personally, but how good these AI tools are and any other sort of external resources that you're using, then that leaves you very vulnerable.

And there are a lot of mental health downsides to having external locuses of evaluation, but also control.

And going back to external sources of evaluation, so this is when, like, you think about, "Right, how do I evaluate myself? How do I understand if I am a good person or not?" So whether it is done by your grades or anything that is external, so if the opinion of other people makes you sort of feel good, then that's not sustainable, and that's not healthy for the long term.

And the reason why I talk about that in particular is that, again, like, if you've got an external source that makes you feel good, then that will serve you very well in the short term, but not for the long term.

Therefore, at the end of this psychology news article, I would just say that if you do use AI in your academic work, one, check if it's allowed.

Also, I would say that just be reflective and think, "Right, how much do I use AI for? And if it goes away tomorrow, how will I feel?" And how does that impact my ability to succeed? If you personally believe there is no chance you could succeed without AI, then that is a warning sign, and that will not be nice to experience, but it does show that you need to work on your self-confidence and making sure you can do really well in, uh, instead of relying on these external sources.

It's just something to think about.

So the next one is, "The hidden trauma of house clearances.

When a home becomes dangerously cluttered, landlords or public authorities sometimes step in and re- and, uh, remove possessions against the occupants' wishes, an act referred to as forced clearance.