Why Are American Teens So Unhappy? How Do We Solve This Crisis?
This is our second installment of happiness week on the Plain English podcast. On Tuesday, I spoke with the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development about what makes a good life, based on their 80-year longitudinal study. Today’s episode is about the phenomenon of rising teenage unhappiness. What's actually happening? Why is it happening? What theories make sense, and what theories don't? How can we fix this problem? Today's guest is Matthew Biel, the chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center, and chief medical officer at Fort Health. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Matthew Biel Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
3 Mar 202355min
Happiness in America, Part 1: The Secret to a 'Good Life,' According to an 80-Year Study
Americans have never had more access to social technology. It’s easier to talk to friends and family members hundreds of miles away; easier to see their faces; and easier to find single people to date. But if you ask them, Americans today will say they are as lonely as or lonelier than any time on record. The amount of time all Americans spend alone has increased every year for about a decade. What's going on? Today’s episode is about the longest study on happiness in U.S. history — the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Our guests are the study's director and associate director, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. They are the authors of a new book, 'The Good Life,' about what their study should teach all of us about the secret to a long and fulfilling life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
28 Feb 202358min
The Science of How Music Hits Have Changed in the Last 60 Years
How does technology shape art? Why has songwriting become more of a visual skill in the 21st century? Why are today's hit songs shorter than songs from any period since the Beatles? What happened to the guitar solo intro—and the classic rock genre in general? How did rap and hip-hop take over the charts? Derek welcomes the musician, writer, and data analyst Chris Dalla Riva to discuss the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that music hits have changed since the 1960s. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Chris Dalla Riva Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
24 Feb 202352min
Bing Chatbot Gone Wild and Why AI Could Be the Story of the Decade
Large language models like ChatGPT and Bing’s chatbot can tell stories. They can analyze the effects of agricultural AI on American and Chinese farms. They can pass medical licensing exams, summarize 1,000-page documents, and score a 147 on an IQ test. That’s the 99.9th percentile. They’re also liars. They don't know what year it is. They recommend books that don’t exist. They write nonsense on request. Today's guest, New York Times journalist Kevin Roose, spent a few hours last week talking to Bing. The conversation quickly went off the rails in the strangest of ways. I am convinced that AI is going to be one of the most important stories of the decade. We are looking at something almost like the discovery of an alien intelligence. Except, because these technologies are trained on us, they aren’t extraterrestrial at all. If anything, they’re intra-terrestrial. We’ve taken the entire history of human culture—all our texts, all our images, maybe all of our music and art too—and fed it to a machine that we’ve built. Now it’s talking back to us. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't it kind of scary? Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Kevin Roose Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
21 Feb 202351min
UFOs and Aliens and Drones and Balloons: Understanding the U.S. Sky Wars
Since a big white Chinese spy balloon floated across the ocean and into U.S. airspace, the United States has shot down four objects over North American skies. What are we looking at, and what are we shooting at? Are these objects American? Are they Chinese? Are they human? To tell the full story of this bizarre month in aerial objects—from the balloon to the aerial shoot-out to the UFO freak-out—we’ve got two guests: former Atlantic correspondent and Substack writer James Fallows and the science writer and noted extraterrestrial-object researcher Mick West. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guests: James Fallows & Mick West Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
17 Feb 202350min
Why Everybody Is Wrong About a Recession and Housing’s Great Comeback
Last fall, three-quarters of voters told CNN that the U.S. was in a recession. A Bloomberg economic model said that the odds of a recession by the fall of 2023 were 100 percent. But we’re not in a recession. The unemployment rate is lower than any month since the 1960s. Real disposable income is growing. The economy is expanding. Consumer spending is strong. Even housing seems to be rebounding. In today's episode, Derek explains the origins of the great American recession myth, and Bloomberg writer Conor Sen breaks down the housing turnaround that could define the 2023 economy. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Conor Sen Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
14 Feb 202334min
The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Fake Meat in America
For the past 50 years, Americans have basically responded to the case against eating animals by eating more animals. The share of Americans who call themselves vegan or vegetarian hasn’t increased in the past 20 years. But a few years ago, I was certain that we were near peak meat, thanks to the rise of plant-based “meat” products—like Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meat sausages. In 2019 and 2020, I looked like a genius, as meat-substitute products surged. But then came the crash. Beyond Meat’s publicly traded stock is down more than 80 percent from its all-time high. Impossible Burger has announced layoffs of more than 20 percent of its staff. So what happened? Today’s guest is Deena Shanker, who wrote a blockbuster story for Bloomberg on this very topic. We talk about the spectacular rise and fall of fake meat—and what it tells us about food, taste, politics, and technology. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Deena Shanker Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
10 Feb 202338min
China’s Spy Balloon Is Down. Cold War 2.0 Risks Are Rising.
If we’re being honest, the whole thing is kind of funny. A Chinese spy balloon floated across the U.S. Nobody died, unless we count the balloon itself. In a saner age, this story would be over. But balloongate offers a useful hook to evaluate the relationship between the U.S. and China during a period of extraordinarily high tensions. These are the most powerful countries in the world, the two largest economies in the history of the world, and they are currently undergoing a kind of conscious uncoupling that is having a huge effect on our economies, politics, and planet. Juliette Kayyem is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and former government official. James Palmer is the deputy editor at Foreign Policy. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Juliette Kayyem & James Palmer Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
7 Feb 202343min
