When do you stop sharing your location with someone?

Hailey Todhunter is walking me through all of the people she shares her location with on Apple's Find My. Before counting her mutuals, she guesses she has around 30 people on Find My. At the end of the tedious process, the 23-year-old marketing specialist from New York City realizes she actually has 97 people following her location, a discovery she finds "really scary."

"There's a lot of them that probably should not have my location, but the one that sticks out is the phone number I don't even have saved as a contact," she tells Mashable.

Todhunter is one of many young people who grew up sharing their location with friends. As she moved through different stages of life, she exchanged locations with those she was closest to, mostly for safety reasons. For high school and college students, Find My is a tool that helps streamline making plans with friends. And keeping someone on Find My is a low-effort way to keep in touch and maintain a sense of closeness. With the holidays approaching, many young people will rely on Find My to determine which of their friends are around to hang out with in their hometowns.

Find My, originally Find My Friends, launched in 2011 for iOS devices. Since its launch, the feature has become a staple of Gen Z relationships, despite lingering privacy concerns(Opens in a new tab). In 2021, the feature was combined with Find My iPhone into a singular app. It was predated by Dodgeball, a social media service founded in 2000 that gave users the ability to text their location to the service in order to receive a list of registered friends nearby. Dodgeball was bought by Google(Opens in a new tab) in 2005 and later integrated into Google Latitude in 2013 and Google Maps in 2017. Location-sharing became even more entwined with social media in 2017 when Snapchat launched Snap Maps, which allowed Snapchat users to share their location with all of their friends, select friends, or no one. Gen Z fave BeReal also has the option to post your precise location to your friends or publicly on the app.

Location-sharing is a fixture of digital intimacy, much like finstas and close-friends Stories on Instagram. Rather than giving another person access to your unfiltered thoughts, however, you're allowing them access to your every move. 

And this can be useful in making plans to hang out or to monitor when your friends arrive home safely. A survey conducted by ADT(Opens in a new tab) in 2020 found that, on average, respondents reported sharing their location with approximately four people, and those people are mostly significant others, friends, parents, and siblings. It also found that 41 percent of women felt safer after sharing their location.

But what happens when your Find My is full of people you were once close to? "It starts out with someone just going, 'Oh, we're both going to be at the same event, here's my location.' Then, you never bother to un-add them from those circles," Francesca Hodges, a 22-year-old communications coordinator in San Francisco, tells Mashable. 

When you share your location with someone, you have the option to share it for one hour, 24 hours, or indefinitely. That spur-of-the-moment decision to share your location indefinitely with someone out of practicality could lead to having someone's location for years. Hodges still has a friend from a study abroad program on Find My. She doesn't even know their last name.

With people like Hodges' friend and the unsaved number haunting Todhunter's Find My maps, it's important to determine when it's appropriate to stop sharing your location with someone. Some draw strict boundaries. For others, the app design makes them hesitant to remove their friends no matter how far they've drifted apart. "It's either a falling out, previous girlfriends, or people that I don't talk to as much," Cole Parker, a 21-year-old student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, tells Mashable. "But it's generally like I don't really want you to know where I am at all times. You don't really need to know this information."

If you break up with your partner, removing them from Find My is an obvious decision, but for friends that come in and out of your life it's less cut and dry, especially when Find My is a tool young people use to enable seeing their friends.

Sinead Swayne, a 22-year-old student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, has 100 contacts on Find My, the maximum number of people the feature can support. "From hitting the maximum number [of people on Find My], I'll go back through and remove somebody who is not close to me. It's nothing personal," Swayne tells Mashable. "[Sharing my location] is something natural. If I share my location with you, it's because I think it will help facilitate something and basically everybody who I have on Find My Friends has shared their location back with me."

If you remove someone from Find My, you not only stop sharing your location with them, but they stop sharing their location with you. While the other person doesn't receive a notification when you remove them, a line does come up in your texts that reads, "You stopped sharing location with X person" or "X person stopped sharing location." Parker doesn't mind that aspect. "If I'm not texting this person on a daily basis, and if I don't want your location, you probably don't want mine," he explains. "It's a mutual ghosting, essentially."

"I delete people from Find My Friends pretty much just when I’m not close friends with them anymore," Emily Clarke, a 22-year-old teaching assistant in Spain, tells Mashable. "I've kept people on the app for longer than I would've thought was ideal just to avoid drama, but most of the time I'll take people off the next time I notice they're on it and I'm not as close with them anymore." 

Even Todhunter draws the line somewhere with her 97 mutuals. She removed a friend she had a falling out with in college. "For me it was like, I need to move on from this, and it's weird that this person that hurt me can see where I am at all times," she shares. 

As strange as it may seem that Todhunter and Swayne have so many people on Find My, it's an established part of the social media landscape and a convenient tool for making plans. "I'm an extrovert with a lot of friends, so I like the efficiency of Find My Friends and not having to text people for them to respond, 'Oh, I'm working,'" said Swayne.

It's also a way for young women to feel safe and look out for their friends. Clarke only actively checks Find My when she goes out with friends or when her roommate is on a date with someone new. Most of the people Todhunter shares her location with are women from college because she felt safer with her friends knowing where she was — and knowing where her friends were.

For some, like 23-year-old Zade Kaylani, Find My is just another social media platform. "I check it in the same way that I check other apps," the UX designer says. "I find it entertaining. I like seeing where everyone is, who is closest to me, and which two friends that don't know each other are like right next to each other."

Hodges feels similarly. "At times, for me and for a lot of my friends, we've turned it into another form of social media. And it produces this Sims-like world – even though it's the world that we're living in – of seeing all these little characters floating around on your screen, in one built environment, which is really funny. I don't think about it as surveillance. That's the thing," explains Hodges.

"I have a lot of people [on Find My], and would I say all those people are my close friends? Absolutely not. And they would say the same thing about me."

Make me.

This is the trademark saying for brats. A "brat" is a delightfully disobedient sub within the Dom/sub dynamic in BDSM. "Brats enjoy questioning dominance, as well as like for dominance to be proven to them," says Emerson Karsh(opens in a new tab), a kink educator.

Why would you want to be a brat during sex? Why wouldn't you? Being cheeky, disobedient, and naughty is fun. It creates a sense of playfulness that is often missing in sex. Being a brat is a very fun way to engage with your submissive side, without being a stereotypical sub. Brats are mouthy, badly behaved, and keen on punishment. 

In BDSM, not all submissions look the same. Playing with power dynamics gets very creative in the kink world. "Brats get great enjoyment from playing [a game of] cat and mouse, defying authority, and in turn receiving a ‘punishment’ from their Brat Tamer," explains Julieta Chiaramonte(opens in a new tab), a kink instructor and sex expert. 

If you’re turned on by disobedience, this might be something you want to explore. 

Let’s break down what it means to be a brat in BDSM, how you can approach it safely and consensually, and some tips to get you started on your merry way.

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What it means to be a 'brat.'

The brat is a very fun, quite cheeky submissive persona. It’s a submissive with a twist, Chiaramonte says.

A brat intentionally misbehaves in order to get a rise out of their Dom, often eliciting "punishments." The brat enjoys driving the Dom a bit mad with their naughtiness. It’s all centered around defying authority, which can be very hot. 

The brat "may taunt, push boundaries, and really test their partners' limits in hope of causing a reaction," Chiaramonte explains. "This is very playful, and can be adjusted to your needs." This all happens with enthusiastic consent. Everyone is on board. We’ll get into the nitty gritty of consent a bit later.

You might be asking how this is submission because, well, you’re being quite the brat. Karsh tells us that "brats express their submission in a way that is amusing, consensual, and done for a reaction." You’re not being obedient in the classic Dom/sub way, but the brat will submit when their Dom decides to punish them.

The Dom is the 'brat tamer.'

The brat tamer? You guessed it: This is the Dominant partner. They may choose to go by a different name (like sir, daddy, mommy, etc.), but the brat tamer is their style of Domination. 

"Their 'role' is to put their brat in their place, remind them of the rules, and enforce punishments/order that they have created together," Chiaramonte explains. "This is an authority role, and a brat tamer must be comfortable with taking control and being taunted by their bratty partner."

Dr. Lee Phillips(opens in a new tab), a psychotherapist and certified sex and couples therapist, offers an example of the Brat/Brat Tamer dynamic in a scene: "In a role play, the sub (a brat) takes on the role of a subordinate to a moody boss. The ultimate goal is for the brat tamer to earn the brat’s respect because the brat enjoys pushing the brat tamer’s buttons by provoking them. In order to earn this respect, [the] Dom needs to tame or control the brat."

This role is anything but soft, Karsh says. "A brat tamer is not afraid to put their foot down," she says. 

This role takes a lot of skill and development. Karsh continues, "A brat tamer is skilled in giving their brat space to be a brat and figuring out how to express and prove their dominance to their brat in response to their bratting — whether that be a punishment, orders, ignoring the behavior, or something else."

Of course, all of this provoking and giving out punishments is 100 percent consensual in this dynamic.

How brats 'act out' (and how they get punished).

There is no clear-cut way to fully express the breadth of punishments and behaviors that can go into the brat dynamic, but we can certainly distill a few common examples. 

Bratty dialogue. 

Brats use "bratty" language with the explicit intention of provoking their Dom. Some common phrases include: 

• Make me.

• That’s all?

• You can do better than that. 

• You can’t make me.

• Oh, yeah? What’s the worst that can happen?

• Prove it.

Additionally, Philips says "a brat may act out by talking back to them by calling their tamer names, turning down a command, have a temper tantrum, ignore the tamer to provoke them, and speak when they are supposed to remain quiet."

Bratty behavior.

Bratty behaviors run the gamut, but they're usually done in a lighthearted, naughty way, Karsh explains. For example, if a Dom told the brat to "Come over here right now." The brat might just sit down on the ground and refuse to move. Another example could be defying authority, Chiaramonte tells us. A brat tamer may tell their brat to be home at a certain time and the brat purposely comes back late. To be a brat is to be disobedient. And it’s all part of the fun.

Punishments for bratty little brats.

The ways a Dom can punish their brat are truly expansive. Punishments are negotiated before play takes place and everyone is always on the same page about what is on and off the table.

Some example of punishments:

• Spankings. 

• Orgasm denial.

• Forced silence.

• Getting walked like a puppy.

• Forced orgasm.

• Bondage.

• Tickling.

• Being put in a cage.

How to engage in brat play in a safe way.

Do your research.

We can’t just jump into a role play without knowing what we’re doing. This can be a disaster. "Read articles and speak to others who are brats and submissives in your BDSM community," Philips says. "If you are seeing a kink and BDSM-affirming therapist, they can help you explore BDSM as a part of your sexual identity or an aspect of sexual exploration."

If you’re looking for a qualified therapist to help you explore this side of yourself, search for a kink-affirming therapist on the COSRT website(opens in a new tab). Be sure to check out their website and confirm that they are explicit about their work with kink.

Communication and consent.

If you want to have a good brat/Brat Tamer experience, you have to be on the same page as your partner. "Talk about your expectations, boundaries, limits, and what you hope to get out of this dynamic," Chiaramonte says. "When you create this structure, you can play within the ‘lines’ and avoid unnecessary hiccups."

Communication and consent are at the heart of positive BDSM dynamics. Scenes need to be thoroughly discussed so that everyone feels respected and taken care of. This takes a lot of trust.

"Talk to your Dom about your bratty interests first and discuss what the play will look like," Philips says. "For example, will you be consenting to spanking if you misbehave? How hard do you want to be spanked for acting out? Do you want to be spanked over your tamer’s lap?"

Pick a safe word.

A safe word is a non-sexual word used in kink to denote that a boundary has been met. If you’re in a brat/Brat Tamer scene and something has crossed the line, you can invoke the safe word and stop the play. This gives you time to reconnect and figure out how you’d both like to move forward.

Go slowly.

This one truly cannot be emphasized enough. "All kink is a marathon, not a sprint," Karsh says. 

If you’re a brat beginner, you have to be willing to take your time and figure out what does and does not work for you. "Think and explore how brattiness will show up in your relationship. Being a brat can often come naturally [to some], so use that energy in exploring this in BDSM play."

Don’t be afraid to get creative. 

Your brat/Brat Tamer dynamic may grow and shift over time. Once you start getting comfortable in your role, you can test new and exciting ways to play with your brat side. "Don’t be afraid to get funky with it — your turn to do the dishes tonight? Have your partner find you drinking a glass of wine on the couch instead," Chiaramonte says. As long as everyone is aware that this is role play, it’s all good.

BDSM is all about exploring different sides of yourself and having fun. If you want to embrace that bratty side of yours, go for it. There is no wrong way to play as long as everyone is having a good time.

Asia Argento closed out her 2018 Cannes Film Festival experience with a powerful speech about Harvey Weinstein.

On Saturday, while on-stage presenting with director Ava DuVernay at the festival's closing ceremony, Argento spoke of her past Cannes experiences, telling the audience that Weinstein — who's been hit with accusations(opens in a new tab) of sexual harassment and assault from more than a dozen women, including Argento — had previously raped her there.

"In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes," Argento bravely said into the microphone. "I was 21 years old. This festival was his hunting ground. I want to make a prediction: Harvey Weinstein will never be welcomed here ever again. He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes."

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"And even tonight, sitting among you, there are those who still have to be held accountable for their conduct against women, for behavior that does not belong in this industry, does not belong in any industry or workplace," the Italian actress went on. "You know who you are. But most importantly, we know who you are. And we’re not going to allow you to get away with it any longer."

Argento received an overwhelming amount of support for her fearless speech, and many took the time to praise her for addressing not only Weinstein but the harmful culture that exists within the festival and entertainment industry.

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Argento, who was one of the first women to publicly speak up about Harvey Weinstein, had her story detailed in the scathing (opens in a new tab)New Yorker(opens in a new tab) piece(opens in a new tab) back in Oct. 2017 and received so much backlash for coming forward that she temporarily left Italy.

Then, in Nov. 2017, as more and more women spoke up about their negative experiences with the Hollywood producer, Argento shared a list of more than 100 of his accusers on Twitter.

The emotional speech comes days after 82 women, including Kristen Stewart, Marion Cotillard, Ava DuVernay, and Salma Hayek, locked arms to walk the Cannes red carpet in a call for equal pay and gender representation in the film industry going forward.

Chase bank tried to be relatable on Twitter and got absolutely dunked on

Brands, may we remind you for the umpteenth time, that if you're trying to get #relatable on Twitter, you're opening yourself up to being completely and utterly owned.

People have a lot of strong feelings about when and where brands can interject their own witty repartee in online discourse. No matter how seemingly wholesome (woke soap, anyone?) or unbelievably tone deaf (Sunny D's faked mental health crisis(Opens in a new tab)), the response is usually a resounding SILENCE BRAND.

JPMorgan Chase was the latest brand to get shut down over a failed attempt at reaching the masses with a tweet that has since been deleted. However, the internet always keeps the receipts.

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People agreed that Chase had gone too far, trying to reach into the sensitive territory of people's personal finances all for the sake of the meme.

Along with mentioning Chase's fees which can often take advantage of its struggling customers, many were quick to point out that the Federal Reserve had to bail out JPMorgan Chase in 2008 (Opens in a new tab)to the tune of $25 billion.

Maybe they should have made their coffee at home.

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Brands (and social media marketing managers) this is a learning experience for you all — don't dish it out if you can't take it. Or at least have the decency to actually be funny.

Mashable has reached out to JPMorgan Chase for comment.

UPDATE: April 29, 2019, 3:25 p.m. EDT After reaching out for comment, JPMorgan Chase responded by redirecting us to their most recent tweet below.

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UPDATE: April 29, 2019, 4:07 p.m. EDT Even Senator Elizabeth Warren got in on the dunking with a tweet that mocked Chase's meme format.

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UPDATE: April 29, 2019, 5:19 p.m. EDT An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Federal Reserved bailed out Chase for $12 billion. The actual number is $25 billion.

New Yorks JFK Airport turns into a mob scene as disasters pile on

It's rare for a single airport to make headlines, but that's what happens when a cascading series of events shuts down one of the world's biggest transit hubs.

John F. Kennedy International Airport is in a state of disarray on Sunday as nasty weather, blistering cold, and human error conspired to create a logjam that's left travelers stranded and planes grounded or redirected. Not a great mixture for people moving into or out of New York this weekend.

Troubles started last week, when the terrifyingly named "bomb cyclone" dumped snow and windy weather across the eastern United States on Wednesday and Thursday. The inclement weather was followed immediately by a lingering cold snap that's slowed down cleanup and recovery efforts.

Those two events alone caused heavy delays and cancelled or redirected flights that piled on top of each other as the week wore on. The issues were then further exacerbated over the weekend by instances of human error(opens in a new tab), unexpected disasters(opens in a new tab), and downright bad behavior(opens in a new tab).

Taken together, this confluence of events led to a mob scene at JFK on Saturday and Sunday as distraught, angry, and, in some cases, stranded travelers coped with disrupted travel plans and the inevitable frustrating hold-ups that come about when thousands of people are stuck in the same physical space, with the same fundamental problems to solve.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey attempted to sum up the situation and what led to it in a lengthy Twitter thread (for a state agency, at least) posted on Saturday.

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That final tweet in the thread is notable. While some of the traffic jam was unavoidable given the nature of the storm and its after-effects, observers have noted that there was plenty of advance warning here. The storm was a known threat before it had even fully formed, and the intense period of cold that followed was expected.

All of which is to say: preparations at JFK could have been more thorough, airlines could have done a better job of anticipating flight disruptions, and the lines of communication to passengers all throughout could have been clearer.

Port Authority followed up those tweets on Sunday with a longer statement, confirming that the airport's runways and taxiways are "fully operational" while airlines "remain in recovery mode" as they deal with rebookings and lost luggage.

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Predictably, much of this has been documented on social media. Take a look, and spend some time scrolling through FlightRadar24's Twitter feed(opens in a new tab) to see the long lineup of JFK-related delays and redirects.

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UPDATED Jan. 7, 2018, 4:22 p.m. ET with Port Authority's Sunday statement.

Dutch soccer referee accidentally scores a goal... and counts it

Congratulations to the referee in the Netherlands who scored a goal against the Harkemase Boys football club on Saturday.

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During a match between the Harkemase Boys and HSV Hoek in the Netherlands, the Harkemase Boys' defense were scrambling to stop the Hoek offense from scoring inside the penalty box. One of the defenders tried to clear the ball away from the goal but kicked it right at the referee and the ball bounced back into the goal.

After a second, the referee signaled that the goal counted much to the dismay of Harkemase players.

Unfortunately for the Harkemase Boys, the referee made the correct call. FIFA considers referees to be part of the field of play, so balls that touch them are still in play.

The official wording from FIFA(Opens in a new tab) is: "If, when the ball is in play, it touches the referee ... play continues because the referee and the assistant referees are part of the match."

Given this rule, it's up to the player to avoid the ref even if the ref is way closer to the goal and action than he probably should be.

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This won't be the rule for long, though. It's changing on Saturday, June 1 -- one week after this incident -- so that if a referee interferes with the ball like this, it will result in a dropped ball, according to ESPN's Dale Johnson.

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Luckily for the Harkemase Boys, the team still walked away with a victory.

The first words Max Greenfield says to me are veiled under a thin layer of playful sarcasm: "Looks like you got some cool pens back there." Indeed, I do; we're chatting over Zoom, and on the wall behind me are dozens of pens and colored pencils, sorted into cups by color. The setup is a little on-the-nose, given that we're here to discuss the actor and author's collaboration with stationery giant Paper Mate.

Greenfield is probably best known for portraying the delightfully neurotic Schmidt on Fox's New Girl, or good-natured Midwesterner Dave Johnson on CBS's The Neighborhood, which is now in its fifth season. But at the beginning of the pandemic, Greenfield became a favorite among the teaching-from-home set when he posted videos of him struggling through daily school lessons with his ebullient daughter, Lily. He ended up writing two children's books based on that experience — I Don't Want to Read This Book and This Book Is Not a Present — and teaming up with Paper Mate(opens in a new tab) to donate $20,000 to Los Angeles's Accelerated Charter Elementary School as part of his celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week.

He spoke to Mashable about the partnership, his kids' TikTok habits, and, of course, Schmidt. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mashable: I'm sure you've heard this a lot, since it's a pretty career-defining role for you, but I'm a huge fan of Nick Pepper. 

Max Greenfield: [Laughs] Oh, wow, thanks!

I'm kind of joking, but I really did love Ugly Betty. As I grew up, New Girl became my show because, whether or not they say it outright, Schmidt has OCD, and I have OCD. It was nice to see that reflected in a character.

My favorite episode we've ever done was episode six, I think, Season 1. It was called "Control," and it was that one with the hutch. I was like, "Oh, this is easy to play."

Oh, yeah. It's real serious: Street trash does not enter the house.

It's a whole thing.

It's a whole thing! New Girl was about a teacher, and you've since had to become a teacher at home with your daughter. 

Well, what I really discovered is that I'm definitely not a teacher. I was forced to become one and realized, "I'm not cut out for this," and then had such a great appreciation for teachers and what they do. What I was doing [as a parent] over the pandemic was just so new to everybody. No one knew what they were doing. The school just said, "Here's a curriculum." It wasn't even online at that point, it was just submitting assignments by email. There weren't classes or anything. They eventually figured it out, but from March to June nobody knew what they were doing. And why would they? 

[My daughter and I] were making those [Instagram] videos during that time, and so many teachers reached out to us to express how grateful they were for the videos. They felt like, "Oh my God, this reminds me of my students, this reminds me of my class! I miss it so much. It's killing us that we're not there." And being in it at the time with one student — sometimes two when a friend of Lily's would FaceTime to do homework together — I was like, "You miss this!?"

Fifteen of these kids in one room?

I mean, 15 at minimum. And you realize that they do [miss it] and that the really good teachers love what they do.

Is there a teacher you had or lesson you learned in school that really stands out in your memory?

I wish I had been smart enough to listen to any.

I did see a TikTok(opens in a new tab) where you were asked about your GPA, and you said it started with a "point zero."

By the way, I wish it was that good.

It's OK, you have other talents. Your daughter has such an amazing sense of self. What is something about her that makes you proudest to be her dad?

Every day there's different stuff. She started a new middle school this year, so the journey through that has been really exciting and scary and, ultimately, rewarding. She's involved in all these different things. [At] one point we were like, "Do you… like cheerleading?" She's like, "I don't really care." And I go, "Well, can you not do it? Because you're doing too many things." And she was like [imitates daughter shrugging apathetically], "OK!" Her ability to do so many things and be a part of everything that's going on at her school, I just love, love that. Though, it's a lot of driving for dad.

You've made videos with her(opens in a new tab) on your TikTok account but have said she isn't allowed to have her own. At what age will she be able open one?

I think when she's 36 she can have one. She knows there's a couple of rules now that we're not bending on, and that's one of them. She asks [to open an account] every once a while, and she's tried to access TikTok on my phone, so I've deleted it. But she can get back into it! So she's not allowed to have my phone now. She's hacking into everything.

What about your son?

He's not a big TikTok guy. He likes YouTube a lot, though. He likes to watch people play video games. They all love MrBeast. He's real into the idea that MrBeast is rich. We try to explain it to him like, "Well, you know, he's giving back," and he's like, "No, no, no, he's so rich, dad."

Has he asked you to order him a MrBeast burger yet?

There's been a couple of mentions of merch, but...I'm not interested. I wish I could speak on it more articulately, but I'm not well-versed in MrBeast.

Did you know that, on TikTok, more than 89,000 videos have been made to the the audio snippet of Schmidt saying, "I would rather sit naked on a hot grill than wear something off the rack."

I heard that! I'm surprised it was that one out of all the quotes.

There are certain Schmidt phrases like that that itch a special part of my brain with their musicality. Is there a quote that does that for you?

There are moments where I'll think that a person said something in a funny way, where maybe 95 percent of the people in the world would say it the way you think it would be said, right? There was a line on Succession this week.

Oh my God, I watched...

What an episode. Tom throws out a joke when Logan's girlfriend [Kerry] sees what had happened, and he mentions it feels like she just "caught a foul ball at Yankee Stadium."(opens in a new tab) But the way he said it, he bent it in a different way. He said "a foul ball at Yankee Stadium." And I was like, "You... you don't play baseball." The rhythm of it was so funny. That whole show is amazing, but I love him so much. He's so great on that show.

It's perfect for the character, too, because he's supposed to be so high up in the world that he doesn't even understand the everyman's baseball.

No, that guy rowed his whole life, he rowed crew. And so for him it's called "a foul ball."

OK, back to teachers: You said you weren't cut out for teaching. What was the hardest topic that you had to work through with your kid?

I found that the things that you struggled with when you were a kid you still struggle with as an adult. Science was a really difficult thing for me, and now my daughter will bring home her science homework and I'll go, "I can't even read this, let alone explain any of it to you."

Yeah. That's what Google is for. I saw you caption a photo of your daughter on Instagram noting she dislikes reading out loud.

I myself had a really difficult time reading, and still do sometimes. My two books, I Don't Want to Read This Book and This Book Is Not a Present, try to find a different way to give a voice to a child who might not necessarily feel comfortable with reading but doesn't know how to advocate for themselves. It's a real conversation starter. Reading tends to be something that kids think that they're just supposed to do, like breathing or eating, it's supposed to just come naturally but that was not my experience with it. So to be able to laugh at the idea that this is something that we're learning was really fun and exciting. And I think it takes some of the pressure off having to be good at it.

I was totally in when Paper Mate asked me to be a part of this Teacher's Appreciation Week campaign, to visit an underserved school and donate a bunch of their products. I can see that you probably have some behind you. [Laughs] Looks like a really good collection of Flair Pens.

Is that your favorite product?

Great product. It's unbelievable.

Oh yeah, the Flair Pen?(opens in a new tab)

They come in all different colors. It's the best. Anyway, the books were inspired by my experience during the pandemic, but are really supposed to be used in the classroom. And it's so much fun to see teachers read books about not wanting to read books for kids who are really embracing reading and learning to read.

Usually, I go to these schools, and I'll read the books aloud to a big group of kids. It's really fun and interactive, and there are big words in the books and they get to scream them. In Don't Want to Read This Book there's this big word, "infinitesimal," spread across two pages, and I always go "What is this word?" And they all try to guess it, and it's amazing. Sometimes, one kid will get kind of close.

In one of the classes, a child in second grade took the book and started reading it, and he was just in that place where he could read enough of it, where he was getting through it and it was so much fun to watch. He was like right there. I stepped aside, and his teacher sat with him in that moment and they started reading the book together. And you go, "This is the most rewarding part of writing those books." You know, they were really meant to be in the classroom for teachers and to see the way that teachers have embraced them has been so, so fulfilling. So [I look for] any way to give back and to celebrate teachers because they know how to use this stuff better than I do.

Hitting that snooze button is a relationship killer. Heres how to quit.

Having trouble sleeping? Hit Snooze is Mashable's deep dive into how we cope with our collective insomnia and the many ways we can achieve a more peaceful slumber.

There are two types of sleepers in this world.

On one side, there are the people who repeatedly hit snooze in a bid to squeeze out just five more minutes of blissful slumber, who cannot tear themselves out of bed for love or money. On the other side are those who open their eyes the moment their alarm sounds, spring out of bed, and start their day.

I fall into the former category, and any attempt to share a bed with another human has always resulted in my bleary-eyed companion groaning loudly at my inability to rouse my weary head in the morning. "Rachel!" they cry out in exasperation. "Your alarm keeps going off!" Eyes closed and head firmly resting on the pillow, I whisper, "Just press snooze. I need another five minutes' sleep." Five minutes turns into 15 minutes, which in turn becomes half an hour. For me, it's just another morning. But for anyone sharing a bed with me, it's disruptive and annoying. Cue: loud sighs, audible groans, and secret eye rolls.

Snooze-button-hitting is a surefire way to kill any glimmer of romance. So, how do you prevent all hell breaking loose when your other half happens to hate your sleepyhead habits in the morning? Thankfully, you don't need to break up to keep the peace. There are actionable things you can do to salvage your relationship, without getting shortchanged out of feeling well-rested.

When it comes to snoozing versus waking, there's quite a considerable divide. In the UK, 37 percent of people hit snooze at least once in the morning, and 14 percent do it three times or more, according to(Opens in a new tab) YouGov research. But, that same research found that 41 percent of Brits don't touch the snooze button at all. One in five Brits don't even bother setting an alarm in the morning.

Radio presenter Olivia Jones is in a relationship with a snooze-button-hitter. "She has done it for our entire relationship," says Jones, who's chatted to her partner about it to try to remedy the problem. "She used to have a really harsh, high-pitched noise; she's since changed it to like a wind chime, sea-breeze-style noise, which is much easier to cope with," says Jones. Her partner gets up earlier than she does, and Jones has learned to view that in a positive light: "If she does wake me up and I can't get back to sleep, I see it as an opportunity to watch something, or have a nice coffee, which I look forward to each morning, anyway."

If Jones' partner notices that her multiple alarms have woken her up, she'll hand her some earplugs. These little fixes have made the snooze button less of a contentious issue for Jones and her partner. "Now it's just a case of empathy for how tired she is," she says. "I can't resent someone for being tired when I have the opportunity to sleep a lot more."

Chatting about it and acknowledging the problem head-on is a start. But if your snoozing habits are quite deep-rooted (mine definitely are) then there are techniques you can adopt to sort yourself out once and for all. Here's how...

Why hitting snooze might not be such a great idea

Your relationship isn't the only thing suffering at the hands of your snooze button. According to(Opens in a new tab) Dr. Reena Mehra, director of sleep disorders research at Cleveland Clinic, snoozing prevents your body from getting restorative sleep. "Much of the latter part of our sleep cycle is comprised of REM sleep, or dream sleep, which is a restorative sleep state. And so, if you’re hitting the snooze button, then you’re disrupting that REM sleep or dream sleep," says Mehra. That can prompt a "fight or flight" response from your body, which can lead to raised blood pressure and a surging heart rate. Per Mehra, repeated snooze-hitting could be a sign that a person isn't getting ample sleep, or that they could have an underlying sleep disorder.

Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, advises(Opens in a new tab) against hitting the snooze button, stating that "interrupted sleep is not good-quality sleep." He argues that repeatedly setting off alarms in the morning can have an impact on your heart. "You are literally alarming your heart," says Walker. "Set the alarm for when you need to get up, then turn it off and get up."

Gradually reduce the number of alarms you set

If you pre-empt your snoozy state by setting multiple alarms for yourself, then you might need to reconsider this decision for the sake of your relationship. Sally Fox is a morning person who barely needs an alarm. Her partner, however, happens to be a "multiple alarms guy." She says, "He's always had earlier starts than me, so this was a big bone of contention when we first moved in together. Those beeping sounds go right through me."

Fox and her multiple alarms guy survived, though. "A year and a half later, and we're down from four alarms to one. We reduced one at a time and started getting earlier nights so that he wasn't so sleepy in the mornings."

"I think I screamed at him one morning," she says. "Then I went back and did what I should have done — broach the topic from a calm place and promise him that I would wake him if he fell back to sleep. Essentially I became the backup alarm for a bit. But now he is just better at waking up the first time, so we got there in the end."

Remove the bedcovers when your alarm goes off

Many of us snooze-hitters have conditioned ourselves to do exactly that each morning. Dr. William Van Gordon, associate professor in contemplative psychology at the University of Derby, suggests(Opens in a new tab) an alternative to the long, drawn-out battle with the snooze button. "Try to get up as soon as possible after the wake-up alarm has sounded," he says. "Gently remove the bedcovers and sit on the side of the bed before taking a few conscious breaths in and out. This is a new day of your life. Inhale and enjoy it."

You don't need to suddenly pivot into a high-energy state once you've sat up. Van Gordon suggests "being gentle and aware as you go to the bathroom and perform your ablutions. Then make a hot drink and enjoy every sip of it." He explains that "Waking up in this manner helps to prepare the mind for the day ahead, as well as prevent it from becoming over-active, which could have a negative impact when the time comes to sleep at the end of the day."

Ditch your weekend lie-ins

This one might be painful. Leading sleep expert James Wilson (aka The Sleep Geek(Opens in a new tab)) says some slight changes can help in eliminating what he calls Snooze Button Syndrome.

"Ditching the long lie-ins at the weekend, where you convince yourself you are 'catching up' would help," says Wilson. "A consistent wake up time all week allows your body to have better quality sleep. I know many people don’t like this idea, so, as I am not an evil man, a lie-in of less than an hour and a half is fine. Any more than this, and your body starts to struggle."

Buy an old-fashioned alarm clock

Dr. Chris Etheridge, phytotherapist and medical herbalist practitioner and adviser to Puressentiel, which makes essential oils, says that pressing snooze repeatedly can have an indirect impact on your partner's sleep.

"It can also be quite irritating to be in and out of sleep, so may also affect their mood through the day — and even though it is slight disturbance, their health and wellbeing can also be affected," says Etheridge. If that isn't enough to prompt you to change your habits, then he suggests ditching your phone alarm for something more difficult to reset. "If you use your phone as an alarm, invest in a traditional alarm clock or keep the phone outside the bedroom door. This will also encourage you to get out of bed instead of hitting the snooze button," says Etheridge.

You could also try a light-emitting clock or dawn simulator. Wilson recommends replacing your audible alarm for a sunshine alarm clock, which you can find on Amazon, and big retailers like John Lewis.

"These clocks mimic the sun, raising over a set period, to gently pull you out of sleep. Even if your alarm still needs to go off, your body is more prepared to wake up and stay awake," says Wilson.

Make sure you're getting enough sleep

In order to de-condition ourselves from relying on the snooze button, Dr. Mehra from Cleveland Clinic says, "Make sure you’re getting seven to eight hours of sufficient sleep and good quality sleep. Prioritizing 7 to 8 hours of sleep for our overall well-being and health is very important, so that we can optimize functioning during the day and have healthy relationships with our loved ones," she added. If, after 7 to 8 hours, you still find you need to snooze repeatedly, she recommends consulting a physician to make sure you don't have an undiagnosed sleep disorder that could be contributing to the need to hit the snooze.

Hitting snooze might feel like a luxury item when we're being unceremoniously plucked from our sleep each morning, but the person you're sleeping next to might have other ideas. Think about the bigger impact of this small and seemingly inconsequential habit on your health and your loved one's happiness. Is five minutes of extra sleep really worth it? Though it pains me to say it, the answer is: probably not.

Sleep well, friends. And steer well clear of the snooze button.