The Top 5: Virtual assistants, happiness trinity, IV nutrition, silence, commissary prices
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:
“Insatiable: A Life Without Eating” (Longreads)
Because Andrew Chapman explores how the act of eating food affects us neurologically and socially, especially for those with diseases that require IV nutrition.
Paul Smeets, a nutritional neuroscientist at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, told me that part of the problem is that patients on enteral and parenteral nutrition receive the infusion over such a long period. “They sneak nutrition into people so slowly that the brain is never aware it’s happening,” he told me. The homeostatic feedback produced from eating a meal, that allows the brain to feel satisfied, is missing. TPN and enteral nutrition are, in effect, a form of sensory deprivation. My hunger was a natural neurological reaction that could be traced back for millennia.
“Locked In, Priced Out” (The Appeal)
Because Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg and Ethan Corey ran a 9-month investigation into the exorbitant prices at prison commissaries.
“Variations on the Theme of Silence” (The Common Reader)
Because Jeanette Cooperman writes about different forms of silence. (n.b. a bit of cursing in this piece.)
“The Happiness Trinity” (The Atlantic)
Because Derek Thompson talked to a lot of happiness experts to figure out if marriage, social fitness, or money is the biggest factor. Instead, he found this:
But the subtler truth seems to be that finances, family, and social fitness are three prongs in a happiness trinity. They rise together and fall together. Low-income Americans have seen the largest declines in marriage and experience the most loneliness. High-income Americans marry more and have not only richer investment accounts but also richer social lives. In this light, the philosophical question of what contributes most to happiness is just the beginning. The deeper question is why the trinity of happiness is so stratified by income—and whether well-being in America is in danger of becoming a luxury good.
“How a Virtual Assistant Taught Me to Appreciate Busywork” (NYT)
Because Amanda Hess writes about her experiences with a virtual assistant.
She made me start to believe that the busywork I might delegate to a machine is actually more human, and valuable, than I realized…. The apps transform parents from workers into consumers, translating our to-do lists into shopping lists.
ICYMI on the podcast
The Morning Five: April 23, 2024