The Top 5: Toxic algorithms, indoor loneliness, university pluralism, & learning loss
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Welcome to the latest edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation!
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The Top 5 articles for your week:
“Algorithms Hijacked My Generation. I Fear For Gen Alpha.” (Substack - GIRLS and After Babel)
Because a 23-year old member of Generation Z, Freya India, writes about how the algorithm serves up inner conflict, confusion, and strife for her generation and warns parents of Gen Alpha of what is to come.
Algorithms act like conveyor belts. Show even the slightest interest, fear, or insecurity about anything—hover over it for half a second—and you will be drawn in deeper. Little by little, the algorithm learns what keeps you watching. And since the most negative and extreme posts get the most engagement, very often your feed will become an endless stream of content that makes you feel worse about yourself. You’ll find yourself on a continuous conveyor belt of apps, products, services, pills, and procedures to fix you.
“Universities Are Failing At Inclusion” (NYT)
Because David Brooks looks at the battles being waged on college campuses and through the work of Interfaith America’s Eboo Patel, offers up a solution: pluralism.
“A job? Check. A place to live? Not so much.” (Washington Post)
Because Rachel Siegel investigates how “No one thinks a lack of housing is enough to spoil momentum in the labor market. Employers have added workers for 34 consecutive months, after all, and the job market is still churning. But some economists still worry about the knock-on effects of the country’s housing challenges. Until enough homes get built in the places that need it most, more companies will have to get creative — through higher pay, remote work options or other perks — to ensure their workers can find a place to live.”
“America Is Getting Lonelier and More Indoorsy. That’s Not a Coincidence.” (The Atlantic)
Because Hannah Seo argues, “Psychologists know that lonely individuals tend to think more negatively of others and see them as less trustworthy, which encourages even more isolation. Although our relationship to nature and our relationships with one another may feel like disparate phenomena, they are both parallel and related. A life without nature, it seems, is a lonely life—and vice versa.”
“The Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In” (NYT)
Because Michael and I have been concerned about the effects of the COVID-19 education landscape, and NYT’s Editorial Board delivers a sobering summary of the profound damage done by pandemic.
The learning loss crisis is more consequential than many elected officials have yet acknowledged. A collective sense of urgency by all Americans will be required to avert its most devastating effects on the nation’s children.
ICYMI on Wear We Are
Episode 88: Serious Times and Unserious Politics
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