The Top 5: Tuned out Americans, how to increase the birthrate, Google's internet, influencer-marketing
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!
The 2024 election begins in earnest tomorrow, and we will be putting a lot of thought into our coverage and analysis. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber if this is one of those newsletters you open up all the time or look forward to each week. We couldn’t do this work without our paying subscribers and encourage you to make the switch from free to paid. We have a student/educator discount as well!
The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life comes out in 9 days.
The Top 5 articles for your week:
“Tuning Out: Americans on the Edge of Politics” (Pew)
Because Pew Research conducted six focus groups of adults who have soured on politics and political news and how they view the state of our politics.
“The Pulse of Natality—What We’re Missing About Falling Birthrates” (Fusion)
Because Catherine Ruth Pakaluk explores the nexus between childbirth rates, tax/monetary incentives, and the soul-deep reasons why people have kids or do not.
Leah’s story made it excruciatingly obvious why child subsidies won’t raise the birth rate. Cash incentives can’t answer what needs to be answered: a reason to give up dreams and aspirations that can’t hang on past one or two kids. We know we can incentivize moving away from oil, cigarettes, and Big Gulps. But can we incentivize moving away from careers and interests we’ve prepared women to fulfill from their earliest school days? My research suggested that such a choice comes from deep within. It must be wanted for its own sake, counted as worth the costs which are personal and subjective.
“The Perfect Webpage” (The Verge)
Because Mia Sato writes about Google’s immense power over the internet and how the internet is conformed to it.
Google’s preferences and systems don’t just guide how sites run: Search has also influenced how information looks and how audiences experience the internet. The project of optimizing your digital existence for Google doesn’t stop at page design. The content has to conform, too.
“Our Kids Are Living in a Different Digital World” (NYT)
Because Emily Dreyfuss reveals:
Smartphones are taking our kids to a different world. We know this, to some extent. We worry about bad actors bullying, luring or indoctrinating them online — all risks that have been deeply reported on by the media and that schools and public agencies like the Federal Trade Commission are taking great pains to address. The social-media giant Meta has been sued on allegations that using its platforms is associated with issues including childhood anxiety and depression. Yet all of this is, unfortunately, only part of what makes social media dangerous.
The whole issue of influencer-marketing to youth, even for addictive products regulated by the government, falls into a legal and technical canyon so vast that the next generation is being lost in it.
“Epitome? Pity me, I thought it was pronounced eh-pih-tome.” (WaPo)
Because Benjamin Dreyer asks - do you have a word you always mispronounce or a word where it was only later on in life that you discovered you didn’t know the meaning? It’s common!
Human beings have an unsettling ability to hang on to mistaken definitions and even mistaken pronunciations of their own language, remaining oblivious to information that might save them.
ICYMI on Wear We Are
The Morning Five: January 8, 2024
The Morning Five: January 9, 2024
The Morning Five: January 10, 2024
The Morning Five: January 11, 2024
Episode 94: All about the Iowa caucus. Are the polls accurate? What happens next in New Hampshire?
Re: #5 -- for me it was "genre" -- took me until my AP English class in high school to learn that it's not pronounced like "Jenner"!