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According to myth, Helen of Troy was “the face that launched a thousand ships” — her abduction having incited the Trojan War. Most of us can only dream of inspiring such passion, though studies show American women will spend over $200,000 on cosmetics in their lifetimes, and plastic surgeons report they are seeing “catapulting demand for facial plastic surgery and aestheti...
Hate groups and hate-fueled incidents are spiking in America. The Southern Poverty Law Center, through aggregating media reports and gathered submissions from its website, recently catalogued 1051 acts of intimidation and hate in the first month after Trump won the presidency. What is the evidence of this rising tide, and what does it look like in our communities? What gro...
Does it feel like the quality of our national discourse has gone down in the last several years? You’re not the only one who’s noticed. It’s not individuals who have gotten stupider, says NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, but it’s our collective intelligence that’s suffering. Institutions aren’t getting as much done, and leaders are making rash decisions under the pr...
What if when you posted something on Twitter or Instagram or another service, the platform gave you feedback? For example, “You just upset 10,000 people.”
Has a movie ever changed your mind, the way you act, what you eat? Leads from Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah and other media experts discuss how films are changing public conversations and capturing the attention of citizens and elected officials. Is the medium of the movie essential to societal progress? This panel will compel you to consider how films disrupt...
Today’s young people have not seen a lot of good examples of adults working together to solve problems. Generation Z is coming of age amidst daunting issues like climate change, gun violence, and a teen mental health crisis, and trusted adults seem few and far between to many of them. The rift goes both ways — Baby Boomers and Generation X also report distrust and dislike...
Neurologist Anjan Chatterjee explains why humans evolved to enjoy beauty, how sociocultural contexts shape our aesthetic preferences, and the "beauty is good" stereotype.
Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist, author, and a senior advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University. We caught up with her about how psychologists understand mental health and solicited her advice on how parents can encourage healthy social media use for their teens.
Meet Gitanjali Rao, a 2022 Aspen Ideas: Health speaker with a goal to create global change by starting an innovation movement of teens looking to make a difference.
How are social media platforms contributing to the polarization and radicalization of the Internet? Can we reestablish control over our own information and digital society?
Zuckerberg believes government regulation of social media platforms is the best way to handle the complex moral decisions private companies are trying to make on their own.
This session considers the importance of trust, and a healthy distrust, in the well-being of a democracy and the role of the press in this equation drawing on the report of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy released Feb. 5, 2019 titled, “Crisis in Democracy: Renewing Trust in America.” What measures should local journalism, social media, and the public ta...
Community health workers, social media networks, and local residents serve as the first line of defense against global health risks, especially infectious diseases and bioterrorism. While top-down initiatives provide essential resources to detect looming threats, including sophisticated surveillance and diagnostic tools, outbreaks are most likely to be detected first at th...
Gen-Z for Change's Aidan Kohn-Murphy on youth-led movements, his advice for young activists, and why it's impossible to lose hope.
James Madison would be horrified to see how social media has helped unleash populist passions.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently released an advisory stating that social media can pose a risk of profound harm to children’s and adolescents' mental health and well-being. Those who agree claim that excessive social media usage can make children experience low self-esteem and negative body image, while cyberbullying and online harassment can contribute to incre...
Around the world, a free and independent press stands as one of the last lines of defense against rising autocracy and democratic backsliding. Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, who faces persecution at the hands of the Philippines government, addresses the stakes and what can be done. (Book signing to follow.)
If the First Amendment’s protections against government intrusion are a core tenet of American democracy, what happens when the chief regulators of speech are private technology companies? What is protected, who gets to decide, and what are the implications for our democracy?
Most of us are repulsed by hateful actions and feelings, and it often seems that the easiest — and most just — way of getting rid of hate is by getting rid of the speech that promotes it. Nadine Strossen has dedicated her career to the defense of civil liberties, and as a champion of the First Amendment, she cautions us to remember that speech, painful as some of it might...
One in two girls say toxic beauty advice on social media causes low self-esteem, and seven in ten have felt better after unfollowing idealized beauty content. This research — and wider conversations surrounding social media use and its impacts on teens’ mental wellness — make this conversation more urgent than ever. Join creative and cultural expert Jess Weiner for #DetoxY...