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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...
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...
Americans across the country will go to the polls and cast their ballots next week, but they won’t all do it in exactly the same way. The U.S. has 8,800 voting jurisdictions, which allows for local adaptation, but presents a challenge when it comes to standardizing elections. That variability might be part of what’s fueling a wave of mistrust about voting integrity, and a...
James Madison would be horrified to see how social media has helped unleash populist passions.
Technology has changed the way we think and interact with one another, and social media platforms are intentionally engineered to be addictive and manipulative. Those messages are in the documentary "The Social Dilemma," which was created by Jeff Orlowski's filmmaking company Exposure Labs. "Big social," says Orlowski, is transforming our information ecosystem. He tells Vi...
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the social media giant needs the government’s help when it comes to making certain decisions.
Is the internet loosening our collective grasp on the truth?
Last year Russia infiltrated the digital networks of federal agencies and many of America’s largest corporations, and last week’s armed insurrection on the US Capitol was fomented through disinformation campaigns on social media.
How will emerging technologies continue to impact a new generation of Americans?
With so much misinformation on social media, how can we recognize what's true?
What are newsrooms and technology companies doing to combat false news? What did journalists learn in 2016 that they can apply to political coverage in 2020?
Across the industrialized world, millions of people live with sparse human contact.
It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to put the generative artificial intelligence genie back in the bottle. But we might still be able to prevent some potential damage. Tools like Bard and ChatGPT are already being used in the workplace, educational settings, health care, scientific research, and all over social media. What kind of guardrails do we need to prevent...
It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to put the generative artificial intelligence genie back in the bottle. But we might still be able to prevent some potential damage. Tools like Bard and ChatGPT are already being used in the workplace, educational settings, health care, scientific research, and all over social media. What kind of guardrails do we need to prevent...
For many people, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown became an unexpected opportunity to take stock of our relationships. Some friendships deepened and transformed, some slipped away, and many social circles shrank. Which isn’t always a bad thing.
Maajid Nawaz shares his remarkable journey from Islamist extremism to liberal democratic values.
America’s Founders didn’t envision activist groups mobilizing on social media and disinformation spreading across the internet. Thanks to the web, new threats to democracy — like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol — have emerged. Nate Persily, professor of law at Stanford, talks with Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center, about why passion may...
Writers Tara Westover and Sarah Smarsh say the damaging stereotypes of people living in rural America need to be stamped out.
The architecture of how we live our lives is badly in need of renovation and repair.
Primary season is around the corner. How will the spread of misinformation be mitigated?