Twenty-nine states are taking Meta to court, and the target is not just money, it is the design itself. We dig into what regulators say keeps kids and teens stuck in engagement loops on Instagram and Facebook, including endless scroll, autoplay, recommendations, like counts, and appearance-altering filters. Then we argue through the harder part: what should platforms be forced to change, what can parents realistically control, and why “addictive by design” is a cultural problem as much as a legal one.

From there, we shift to AI in the workplace and ask whether AI monitoring tools actually improve productivity or just create stress and turnover. We break down why surveillance often backfires, when monitoring can help in safety-critical roles, and why trust and clear communication beat dashboards full of activity metrics. For a quick curveball, we react to the White House releasing arcade-style online games and what that says about gamification and branding in 2026.

Gwen Way joins us with a nostalgia-powered gadget: Sweekar, an AI pocket pet that feels like a next-gen Tamagotchi. It learns words, stores “memories,” can connect to the internet, and even claims to develop personality traits, which raises the obvious privacy and cybersecurity questions. Mike the AI Guy brings a cautionary story about hikers using Google Gemini to climb Mount Shasta, plus we hit a major airport data breach that exposes millions of records. We also taste and pick a winner in our blind whiskey bracket, because tech goes down smoother with a little bourbon on the side.

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