Eric Readers, I’m begging you: send me anything—evidence, studies, reports, something—showing that social media has positive effects. Heck, find me something to suggest that it’s even just neutral. Because the more I look into the growing body of research on social media, the more it looks like a full-scale public health disaster in the making, … Read more
We at Sightline share our favorite organizations to help inspire your end-of-year giving. We imagine these organizations will need our support more than ever in the coming years and want to amplify the great work that is happening in Cascadia and beyond. Have a favorite organization you’re giving to this year? Share it in the comments … Read more
Kristin How can we combat growing wealth and income inequality: With a social wealth fund, a pool of investment assets that pays out dividends to everyone. Lessig’s latest, touting candidates who are making their platform more about fixing broken democracy than about toeing the two-party line: We see our tribes first, and truth a distant … Read more
Kristin Why is it so hard to act on climate change? Maybe because humans are not good at acting to avoid a loss (faced with possible loss they freeze). But they are good at acting to gain something positive, which could be why campaigns to gain a clean energy future work better than campaigns to … Read more
Kristin A program that helps students develop social and emotional skills like self-control, empathy, and self-efficacy leads to higher voter turnout when those kids become adults. Researchers hypothesize that: “Those who are able to put themselves “in someone else’s shoes” may be more motivated to mobilize and vote on behalf of others. The ability to self-regulate emotions … Read more
Eric When Shakespeare eulogized Julius Caesar, he wrote: “His life was gentle; and the elements; So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up; And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!” That passage came to me when I learned this week of the death of Northwest climbing legend Fred Beckey. He was, … Read more
Eric At City Lab, a good story on researchers zeroing in on social isolation—loneliness—as a major emerging public health threat, especially among the elderly. It puts me in mind of a rather bone-chilling recent article by Jean Twenge at the Atlantic, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” She writes: Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, … Read more
Eric On the side of my desk, I’m compiling evidence about the effects of social media on our emotional states, our cognitive faculties, and our communities. The summary version, so far, is that there is very little evidence that it does anything good for us, and a growing body that it’s bad. Perhaps very bad. … Read more
Aven This week, two different groups of scientists have found two different, currently undeveloped sources of renewable energy that have the potential to power large chunks of civilization single-handedly. One study, led by the Carnegie Institute for Science, calculated the amount of off-shore wind energy theoretically available over the open oceans, finding enough there to … Read more
Tarika The most interesting and thought-provoking thing I’ve read all year is a CNN Money story on a small Macedonian town that played a big part on the 2016 American election. The Fake News Machine: Inside a Town Gearing up for 2020 takes readers inside the fake news economy of Veles, Macedonia. In 2016, Veles … Read more
