This Daily Activity Might Be the Reason You Can’t Sleep 

We’re used to answering the usual questions when we’re at the doctor’s office, like if we eat our veggies and work out, and how much we drink (there’s only one serving in a bottle of vino, right?), but new research might have our docs asking us a new one: How often are we checking social media?

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Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that young adults who spend a lot of time on social media during the day or check it frequently throughout the week are more likely to suffer sleep disturbances than their peers who use social media less. Which has us asking, who are these peers and why aren’t they following us on Instagram?

Led by Dr. Jessica Levenson, she and her colleagues studied questionnaires from more than 1,700 young adults, ages 19-32, and found that on average, participants used social media for 61 minutes a day and visited social media accounts 30 times per week. But the real kick? Thirty percent of participants had high levels of sleep disturbances. Apparently liking, favoriting, sharing and commenting can keep you up at night, even after you’ve shut it down.

The biggest social butterflies of the group — those who checked social media the most throughout the week — had three times the likelihood of sleep disturbances. Dr. Leveson says, “This may indicate that frequency of social media visits is a better predictor of sleep difficulty than overall time spent on social media.”

But let’s be honest: When you can’t sleep, getting lost in your Facebook newsfeed is the easiest way to pass time. And researchers know. Dr. Brian Primack, assistant vice chancellor for health and society in University of Pittsburgh’s Schools of the Health Sciences, said, “Difficulty sleeping may lead to increased use of social media, which may in turn lead to more problems sleeping. This cycle may be particularly problematic with social media because many forms involve interactive screen time that is stimulating and rewarding and, therefore, potentially detrimental to sleep.”

To figure out if this is some cyclical nightmare of never getting sleep without giving up our online lives, there’s more research that needs to be done. Until then, we’ll all just keep double tapping during the day and counting sheep at night.

Do you think using social media is keeping you up at night? Tweet us your thoughts at @BritandCo!

(Photos via Getty)

In our Take 5 series, sponsored by Verizon, we ask women in business about unexpected challenges, their inspirations, recent wins, and how the free Verizon Small Business Digital Ready Program has helped propel their business forward.


In this segment, Paige Wiese, founder & CEO of Tree Ring Digital in Denver, CO, walks us through some of the ways she encourages clients to double down on marketing when business is slow. Paige built her business as a solopreneur graphic designer to a team of 15, helping clients with SEO, online ads, and social media management. Here’s her Take 5, plus more tips for surviving the business lulls below!

What's a recent small win for you and your business?

Paige: A recent small win has been just seeing business pick up again. I am seeing businesses start to engage with their marketing efforts and really trying to get to the root of why their website might be underperforming. We look at what they can be doing to see their money actually go to a place that it should be going.

What's a big piece of advice that you give to your clients?

Paige: A lot of them want to back off anytime there's a little bit of scarcity. I really think that's the time to double down, whether it be your digital presence, your website, or just adjusting how you're spending your money. But instead of just saying, ‘Hey, we're going to stop [investing in marketing],’ ask ‘How do we double down in the correct way and make sure we're seeing measurable results out of it?’ I do it myself anytime business is a little slow. I think we have to either change or we need to be doubling down. A lot of clients come to us when the pipeline is already dry and money is tight and they’re hoping for a quick fix. Marketing, unfortunately, isn't a quick fix.

See more tips for surviving business lulls below!

What's an unexpected business challenge you’ve faced and how did you overcome it?

Paige: I think one of the bigger challenges that we've run into has been more on the employee side, some of the retention or the hiccups that come along the way and then just learning from them. So how can we be a better, stronger company coming out of this and how do we use it as a growing opportunity?

How has the Verizon Small Business program helped propel your business forward?

Paige: I learned about the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready program through the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). It's a free resource that’s self-paced and very digestible. The variety of topics it covers is a large gamut for any size business. The Selling with Storytelling course, especially, was really valuable to me, just really getting your messaging out there. I laugh that I sometimes enjoy the marketing ones a little bit more just because it is a refresher or another take on how we do this.

Thanks Paige!

Here Are More B+C Tips For Surviving The Small Business Lulls

Photo by Kampus Production

  1. Refine Your Strategy
    • Review your business plan and goals. Are you on track? What can be improved?
    • Analyze customer feedback and sales data to spot trends and areas where you can grow.
  2. Boost Your Marketing Efforts
    • Refresh your website or social media profiles. Verizon Small Business Digital Ready’s free Put Your Website to Work course will help you get started with best practices for building your business website.
    • Create engaging content through blogs, videos, and newsletters. Verizon’s free Creating Compelling Content course can help you create consistent, quality content for your target customers.
    • Offer promotions or limited-time discounts to attract new customers.
  3. Invest in Learning
    • Take an online course related to your industry, like Verizon’s free Planning for the Unexpected course for building resiliency in your business.
    • Stay updated on industry trends and innovations.
    • Engage with customers too. Send personalized emails to loyal customers or clients. Ask for reviews!
  4. Improve Your Processes
    • Streamline operations or explore new tools to increase your efficiency.
    • Organize your workspace and declutter your digital files.
  5. Self-Care and Rest
    • Take advantage of the slower pace to recharge. A refreshed mindset is exactly what you need to bring forth fresh ideas!

Learn more about the free Verizon Small Business Digital Ready Program and Tree Ring Digital.

Illustration by Daniela Jordan-Villaveces.

Trader Joe’s has all the best festive flavors for St. Patrick’s Day, and their shelves are undeniably stocked up with seasonal gems you won’t want to miss. From Irish-inspired cheeses to sweet treats with a lucky twist, there’s no shortage of fun (and delicious!) ways to celebrate this year. If you're looking to add some festive energy to your grocery haul, these TJ’s finds are the perfect way to get into the spirit.

Scroll on for 13 epic Trader Joe's finds you need to add to your cart for St. Patty's Day!

Trader Joe's

Kerrygold Irish Cheddar With Chili Peppers

Whether you use this spicy grass-fed cheddar for a charcuterie board, on top of steaming-hot baked potatoes, or for bite-sized grilled cheeses, your St. Patty's party will be so glad you grabbed it.

Trader Joe's

Corned Beef Brisket

Corned beef is a St. Patty's classic. This brisket comes pre-seasoned with plenty of mustard, coriander, bay leaf, red chili pepper, and dill seed for a unique, yet super familiar flavor profile.

Trader Joe's

Pie Crusts

These readymade pie crusts can be easily transformed for on-theme Shepherd's Pies and desserts alike.

Trader Joe's

Beer Bread Mix

Soda bread is another can't-miss traditional St. Patrick's Day snack, and this bread mix (where all you have to do is add beer and butter) makes enjoying the snack extremely easy. You could even top it with a medley of other ingredients to enhance a certain flavor profile.

Trader Joe's

Breaded Mozzarella Cheese Sticks

Any holiday party involving beer (AKA St. Patrick's Day) calls for some fried food. Skip the drive-thru and prep these cheesy sticks right at home for just $5!

Trader Joe's

Beef Rib Eye Steak

If grillin' is on the docket for your St. Patty's Day plans, opt for one of TJ's fancy steak cuts like this nice $15 rib eye to feed a crowd!

Trader Joe's

Soft Pretzel Twists

These soft pretzel twists are just as tasty as the bites you'd get at the stadium – salt and all!

Trader Joe's

Garlic Gondolas

These "very garlicky" bread boats can host a wide array of fillings like stews, soups, and salads. Just cut 'em up for a finger food that's definitely worthy of your St. Patrick's celebration!

Trader Joe's

Dark Chocolate Covered Caramels

When it comes to the sweet stuff, you simply can't go wrong with these dark chocolate-covered caramel bites.

Trader Joe's

Brownie Truffle Baking Mix

This brownie mix includes notes of fudgy chocolate that's sure to cure any sweet tooth. You could totally serve small bites of this using toothpicks for your party – easy!

Trader Joe's

Apple Blossoms

These apple-filled snacks are like mini apple pies: individual pastries filled with sweet, cooked apples and topped with a tasty bit of cinnamon crumble! They bake very quickly in the oven so you don't have to wait long for your St. Patty's dessert.

Trader Joe's

Yellow Mini Sheet Cake

Trader Joe's sheet cakes are perfect for sharing. Luckily, this new flavor is gluten-free, so everyone can get a taste of its moist crumb and decadent chocolate frosting.

Trader Joe's

Chocolate Hazelnut Ground Coffee

Got Irish coffee on the menu? Step it up using this chocolate-hazelnut coffee that'll enhance every single flavor note.

Subscribe to our newsletter to discover more epic Trader Joe's finds!

Whether she’s choosing the perfect ‘fit for a movie premiere, choreographing a music video, running a marathon, or sparking viral TikTok trends like “I don’t want it,” Anna Sitar brings authenticity, humor, and a genuine positivity to everything she does. It’s no wonder she has built a community of nearly 12 million followers on TikTok, or as she calls them, “friends,” and more than a million on Instagram.

Anna has always been passionate about staying true to herself and maintaining authenticity in her content creation. By doing so, she’s fostered a community that connects with her genuine self. Over time, she’s discovered various tools and techniques that help her share her best creative ideas with her audience. Anna attributes her ability to bring her creative visions to life in a way that represents her, to having full creative control when working with tools like Photoshop.

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Replying to @laurenashleygibbs ask and you shall receive 👀 spooky season is upon us so unleash that creativity with @Photoshop !! Update or download Photoshop using the link in my bio. #AdobePhotoshopPartner

10 million new friends

Anna first learned about Photoshop in high school. It fueled her passion for bringing her creative visions to life. Then, at the beginning of her grad school career, an exciting new opportunity to express herself came along when a friend told her about this new app called TikTok that was blowing up.

Anna was getting a masters in film and television production in Los Angeles, which, she says, “was a full 180 switch” after graduating in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

“My mom and dad always instilled in me that you should take chances while you're young,” says Anna, who has always had a passion for multimedia.

She started playing around and making content on TikTok that felt natural to her creativity and sense of humor. Six months later, COVID hit, and she was sent back home to Michigan to study online.

“I was like, ‘you know what? I should really try this TikTok thing,” Anna recalls. It marked the beginning of her journey to establish herself as a content creator and commit to producing content consistently on the platform. She started doing fashion and makeup GRWM videos, and. music became a big inspiration for her during this. “I would create morning musicals where I make a music video out of my morning routine. Then, I started making these “I don't want it” videos,” she recalls, which ultimately took off as a major social trend.

While she says she was “mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to be some director's assistant for the next 10 years,” before she knew it, she had over 10 million friends on the app.

“It was such an incredible way to not only connect with people, but to share creativity and feel so freely self-expressive too. I'm so happy to be here,” she says. “TikTok reignited that creativity that I had as a kid,” she told us.

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out with brat summer, in with feral girl fall 🍂 whats your aesthetic this fall? @Photoshop #adobephotoshoppartner

It’s all about the (creative) process

Anna admits that she’s not really a planner. “My mom always jokes, ‘I get my best ideas when I'm sleeping,’ and I feel the same way,” she says. Her creative process always starts with whatever inspires her when she wakes up in the morning. Then she’s able to turn a creative idea into something that’s fun and silly and resonates with her audiences. And that’s why she works with tools like Photoshop, the ultimate image editing and design app, that lets her bring her creativity to life at the speed of her imagination whenever and whenever her inspiration strikes.

“Photoshop allows me to just have such creative freedom. It's such a powerful app and allows me to not only have precision and creative control, but it lets me bring ideas in my head to life. I love that it's something that connects all of us,” she says.

She’s able to take a photo or video and elevate it in a way that makes it even more beautiful and powerful than it was before. Photoshop can be used in so many ways during the creative process beyond photo editing – creating mood boards to kick off the creative process, graphic design for marketing and even for storyboards for videos. Photoshop has a diverse set of features that help with inspiration too. So what is her latest obsession with Photoshop?

“I'm obsessed with making collages – that's my new little love right now in life,” she says. When we spoke, she was getting ready for a spec shoot, and using Photoshop to put all of her ideas in one place, making sure colors worked well together and idealizing and expanding images. She was focused on building the flow of her video through inspirational imagery, so she could execute the perfect setups, fashion, theme and a plan to film her video. As a creator, she doesn’t just shoot and post, but loves to get creative with tools like Photoshop to bring a larger concept to life. “I love that I have an app that just allows me to expand further from just taking a photo and posting it on Instagram versus really bringing different ideas to life,” she adds.

Anna Sitar

Social media Dos and Don’ts

Anna is known for herrefreshing down-to-earth personality – you can feel it throughout her content. She’s really just herself and living her best life.

“Authenticity is an absolute DO,” she says. But that doesn’t mean you have to focus on just one aspect of yourself. “People often say to try to fit into a niche and I disagree. I don't think you should make content that's catered toward one idea. I think that YOU are the exciting idea, and everything that you have – all of these passions and things that you love – are a mosaic of what makes you creative,” she adds.

Another major DO? Finding the creative tools that most authentically support your content creation process. As an avid Photoshop user from a young age, Anna has continued to utilize the app for creative design across her channels to create content that is undeniably HER, without limits.

For all the chatter about posting multiple times a day to gain an audience, you might be surprised by Anna’s Don’ts. “You make your best content when you feel creative and when you feel like posting and making things that you're enjoying. If you're in a creative block, one, two, three days of rest are actually only going to benefit you in the long run,” she says. And along the lines of authenticity, “don't feel the need to make what everybody else is making to make something good,” she adds.

Adobe Photoshop tips and tricks

Anna has had a passion for photography since childhood. “I loved making little home movies out of our family vacations, and I grew up really loving photography,” she says. Photoshop is a tool that seamlessly fits into her life as a professional and in her day-to-day.

“I think when people think Photoshop, they think, ‘oh my gosh, I have to be doing these major changes to whatever I'm creating.’ But the truth is, I really do use it for everything from my Instagram post for my podcast page to giving a photo a different color scheme, or resizing or creating a little collage to inspire whatever I want to do next,” she says.

While talking about her community, Anna mentioned how much her Instagram community loves the black and white posters she creates withPhotoshop. “Even for the simplest tasks, the first app that I reach for is Photoshop. I really enjoy having an app that makes me feel like I can have my creativity at my fingertips. It has so many uses beyond just being a tool for elite creatives. It really is a great app for day-to-day life as well,” she adds.

Anna Sitar

Finding inspiration as a creator

As a creator, it can be easy to live your life online. Anna avoids that way of life and it makes her content even stronger for it. “When you're on a phone all the time and creating content, it's so easy to get lost in filming 90 percent of your life, and filming every time you go to a coffee shop, every time you have a hang out with a friend, every time you wear a good outfit that you're proud of. But my greatest inspiration comes from actually what I'm truly firsthand living and not documenting my life. And then the lessons that I learned and the things that I see and the value that brings to my life is only further elevating the content that I make,” she says.

Anna’s advice

If you’re someone who aspires to have a creative outlet, Anna has some advice for you.“Even if it's little baby steps that you take a photo every single day, or you make a video every single day, or you brainstorm every single day, I think action is the best way that you're going to learn,” she says.

Anna also recommends doing what she does, tinker with different tools and apps, this helps make her content shine. “You can learn so much by just testing out different features to edit photos, different ways to expand and add text and ways to make your creativity really come to life,” she says

“I think the best advice is to play and do what makes you happy."

Thanks Anna! Learn more about how Adobe Photoshop empowers big and small businesses to create without limits.

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco have made headlines again, but now Hailey Bieber— and all the alleged drama with her — is back in the picture. We were under the impression she was excited for the couple's engagement, but one fan claims she's back at her shady behavior...and it's making people look at her sideways all over again. Here's what allegedly happened, plus what Hailey had to say about it all!

Scroll to find out if Hailey Bieber actually threw shade at Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco...

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Hailey Bieber can't seem to catch a break in the news. Though we reported she liked Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco's engagement post last year, there was a suggestion she may have other thoughts about them. It's no secret she and Selena allegedly aren't the best of friends, but we never would've suspected she'd do what one person claims she did.

According to TikTok creator @courtneypresto, Hailey liked a video where she admits to being "a little shady to Selena Gomez." She also shared a couple of interesting pictures of her and Benny's Interview Magazine feature with one of them showing Benny smiling while the singer's two feet are on his cheeks.

But Hailey apparently thinks the creator's claim is "fake news" because her rep told Page Six, "This never happened." To make things slightly worse, the rep also threw @courtneypresto under the bus. "This entire story has been fabricated by a content creator looking to capitalize off of an old, tired narrative." You can't see us, but this statement made us choke on our lattes.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Buzzfeed reports the model also shared a personal statement on Instagram, but it's unclear who she was referring to. The message started off with, "pastors and preachers really love to put words together with the same letter and act like it's HITTING so crazy..." before she signed off with "...sh-- drives me bananas."

As for Selena & Benny? They're in their own paradise and the singer's recent post dedicated to the producer proves it. She shared a sweet Instagram carousel that captured intimate moments of their love to celebrate his birthday. "I’m not sure what I did to deserve you but damn am I glad you were born.. happy birthday baby ♥️."

Maybe Hailey Bieber liked the original shady TikTok by accident? Whatever the case, we hope the girls aren't fighting again!

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Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively just premiered their new movie Another Simple Favor at the 2025 SXSW Festival (you can stream it on Prime Video May 1), and aside from buzz about the movie itself, the internet is going wild for one simple reason. Anna Kendrick got a little sassy when asked what it was like to reunite with Blake for the film, and while the drama surrounding Blake's It Ends With Us legal battle didn't delay the movie, social media users can't stop talking about Anna's reaction.

Here's what Anna Kendrick said about working with Blake Lively on Another Simple Favor.

Anna Kendrick's comments about Blake Lively just went viral.

@entertainmenttonight Anna Kendrick arrives to the premiere of 'Another Simple Favor' at SXSW. #annakendrick#blakelively#anothersimplefavor♬ original sound - Entertainment Tonight

While greeting fans at the movie premiere, Anna was asked what it meant to be working with Blake again, to which Anna doesn't even stop. She just responds, "Oh, you know."

"'Oh you know' are the exact words I say when someone asks me how I am and I am barely hanging on," one TikTok user jokes in the comments, while another speculates, "I think she hates the hate Blake is getting and how the media is out to get click bait from her about it."

@varietymagazine How is the release of "Another Simple Favor" being affected by everything going on in the world? Anna Kendrick: "Why, what happened? I did ayahuasca and the last year of my life is just gone." #SXSW♬ original sound - Variety

The actress was also asked about "everything going on" (undoubtedly alluding to the It Ends With Us drama), to which Anna responded, "Why, what happened? I did ayahuasca and the last year of my life is just gone."

Anna is known for her sense of humor, and TikTok users commented saying this "was a phenomenal answer" and that she's "effortlessly funny."

Anna opened up about reuniting with Blake for the sequel, telling People in October 2024 that getting cast members from the first A Simple Favor back together again was "a little bit like riding a bike."

"She lives on the East Coast, I live on the West Coast, so we don't get to see each other often," she says. "But it was lovely, and I think that those characters have such weird chemistry that it's so fun to just get the gang back together."

And when someone tweeted that Blake Lively was "terrified to walk the carpet" and Anna Kendrick was "pissed and never wants to work with her again," director Paul Feig retweeted with a simple, "Um … you’re wrong." And I'll take his word for it.

Check out why Blake Lively's Another Simple Favor Trailer Is All About “Revenge”