#i just have so much anxiety about analysis and data when its not that bad right?

[thedisablednaturalist]

idk whats wrong with me.

I'm trying to exercise, eat healthier, get enough sleep. Just like the doctors say.

But I'm still, STILL, so..so tired. So unbelievably exhausted. I'm starting to think I might have ME or something. Fibro is supposed to be able to be managed with diet and exercise, according to my doctors *rolls eyes*.

I want to work hard like I used to. I want to have bright ideas and feel passion. I do, sometimes, but it's so hard to break through the fog and pain and exhaustion, and it doesn't last. I feel like I'm constantly trying to hide how stupid I am, I'm afraid my coworkers will find out how hard I'm really struggling. All the stuff they praise me for seem like they were all achievements from Before the illness, I don't feel like that person anymore.

But what am I supposed to do? I have to work, I have to make enough to stay out of my parents house. I can't go back there. So I'll keep fighting, hiding, crying, and doing my best to improve my health, even if that's only out of desperation.

[mariacallous]

Colleges and universities in the U.S. are facing some strong headwinds on enrollment figures, forcing some tough conversations. Inside Higher Ed recently published an article under the headline “Report Finds Higher Ed Sector Shrank by 2 Percent” along with the accompanying subhead “Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that nearly 100 institutions closed between the 2022–23 and 2023–24 academic years.” The term “enrollment cliff” gets thrown around a lot in higher education circles lately, and this article seems to offer some confirmation of those anxieties. But does the news call for panic?

After reading up and doing some of my own analysis, I’m going to argue that the closures we’ve seen to date are relatively small for the traditional higher ed sector as a whole, although of course they are very tough for those personally involved. But I’m also going to argue that there are underlying trends which may be very disruptive in the coming decade.

In the end, I will suggest that worry about college closures is largely misplaced. Worry about uneven enrollment trends and the accompanying elimination of programs at some schools is where the concern should lie.

In this discussion, I mostly concentrate on four-year private, nonprofit, and public institutions, as that’s what I know best. (For those who may be curious, according to the Digest of Education Statistics, 2020 enrollments in four-year, for-profit colleges were down by about half from their 2010 peak. Enrollment in two-year colleges was down about 40% from its 2010 peak.)

Recent closures are surging, again

Let’s start with a picture of college closures over the last three decades. This appears in Figure 1. The yellow line traces the number of all higher ed institutions, and the two other lines trace the same numbers among two major sector categories, for-profit (dark blue line) and not-for-profit (light blue line) institutions.  

The first thing to notice in the figure is that the most recent year has indeed shown a large uptick in college closures relative to during the pandemic, but fewer closures than those observed during the late 2010s (when many for-profits closed in anticipation of losing Pell-grant eligibility due to “gainful employment” regulations). Also, notice that the increase in closures is mostly driven by the closure of for-profit schools. About half the for-profit closures were vocational schools that operated below the associate degree level. In some part, the recent spate of for-profit closures took place in programs that were very similar to the profile of those involved in the pre-pandemic closure spike and might also have failed gainful employment metrics. This serves as a reminder that school closings are not always bad—vocational programs in which graduates don’t find jobs don’t help anyone very much.

The not-for-profit line in Figure 1 shows closures of four-year schools, combining both private nonprofit and public. (About an equal number of two-year schools, mostly public, closed this year, but are not presented separately in the figure.) While the number of closures of four-year schools has increased, so far we are talking about relatively few institutions. It’s also worth pointing out that sometimes when colleges “close,” they actually merge into another, surviving, institution. Depending on the nature of the merger, the damage to students and employees may—or may not—be substantially mitigated. (Harvard seems to have survived its 1999 merger with Radcliffe College.) Among the four-year schools I look at, the two public universities that closed were merged into another institution, while almost all the nonprofit privates closed without a merger. Robert Kelchen documents that “closures” among community colleges are sometimes just administrative consolidations with no campus closures.

Using Department of Education data, I have identified 17 four-year schools that either shut down completely in the last year or merged into another college. Is the closure of 17 schools a very bad thing or even a disaster? Well, it surely is if you’re a student who can’t complete your degree (some closing schools arrange teach-out programs with another college, but the research from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association is not reassuring). It’s also a tough lot if you’re a long-time faculty member or staff who’s lost your job. Not much fun if you’re an alumnus either.  

Figure 2 shows the history of average enrollments for the schools that closed this year.

Two facts are striking. First, the schools that closed last year suffered from declining enrollments for years and were never large. Second, the closed schools were very small—in 2023, average enrollment at these schools had fallen to about 120 students. Nationwide, “only” a few thousand students were affected. Since there are something like 11 million four-year college students, we’re talking about closures affecting fewer than one in a thousand students.

Going forward: Where is the significant risk?

The closures we’ve seen so far just aren’t a big deal—unless you’re unlucky enough to be at one of the places that closed. However, I am less sanguine about the future. The key issue here is enrollment variability. Some institutions are at risk from enrollment pressures, while most aren’t. My institution, for example, receives over 110,000 applications. It’s not at any risk from enrollment declines, nor are other highly selective colleges.

Yet, there are many, many colleges that are quite small and not very selective and therefore at real risk from enrollment drops. The typical college in the United States is neither a football power nor a research factory. Half the colleges in the U.S. enroll fewer than 2,200 students. In fact, nearly a third of U.S. colleges enroll under 1,000 students. Some of these places are vulnerable.

Most private colleges survive financially on tuition. Public colleges also receive substantial state support of course, although sometimes the level of support also depends on enrollment. Despite public impressions, endowments really only provide major support at a few schools. If you look at all the college endowments in the country, six percent is at one school, 20% is held by the eight Ivy League schools, and half the national total is held at just 24 schools. For the vast majority of colleges, endowments provide a margin of excellence—but endowments don’t support the school.

But for the one-third of four-year schools with enrollments under 1,000 students, most have no endowment to tide them over any tough times. This means that going forward, there are a large number of schools vulnerable to small swings in enrollment.

This is particularly concerning since forecasts project a decline in the total number of high school graduates in the coming years. Nationwide, the Department of Education projects about a five percent drop in the number of new high school graduates by 2031. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education forecasts a 12% drop by 2037. High school graduates are a leading indicator of subsequent college enrollment trends; though college-going rates have risen a little in recent years, it is not enough to counter the growing decline in high school graduates. So it’s very likely that there will be a modest drop nationwide in candidates to start college.

However, there is enormous geographic variation in these demographic trends. Consider the four states with the largest populations. The Department of Education forecasts about a 10% increase in the number of new high school graduates in Florida and Texas through 2031. If Florida and Texas ever face college enrollment difficulties, it won’t be because of a lack of potential entrants. As contrasting examples, deep drops in high school graduates—on the order of 15%—are forecast for California and New York. Similar drops are forecast for several other states. Even if the national drops are not of great concern, there are clearly some states where some advanced planning is called for.

What’s being missed: Program closures are the real risk

Most colleges are at no risk of closing, though some small schools and schools in some states may well be at risk. I suspect the real issue is going to be program eliminations and accompanying reductions-in-force as some schools downsize or rightsize even as others are growing. As an example, Inside Higher Education has a good story on program cuts in 10 universities in August alone and a story in September documenting cuts at another nine schools.

Even some of the nation’s most successful universities have undergone recent program closures. The Pennsylvania State University reduced employment by 10% at its regional campuses this spring as enrollment fell about 20%, even while enrollment at the flagship Penn State campus grew. Last year, West Virginia University, the state’s flagship school, announced cuts of 28 programs and elimination of 147 faculty positions. WVU’s enrollment has been more or less flat for the last five years, but is down about 16% over the last decade. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is closing its College of General Studies and removing 32 tenured faculty, having also seen about a 16% enrollment drop over the last decade. Most recently, St. Louis University has announced the need for large budget cuts in the face of a massive drop in international enrollment, which disproportionately contributes to tuition revenues.

There’s no single narrative or overall trend that perfectly describes the future of college enrollment. Colleges vary in their size, selectivity, and institutional resources and face different levels of threat from demographic shifts across the country. While college closures are hard for the students and employees of those institutions, it’s probably program eliminations within colleges that are likely to be the bigger story in the years to come. That’s something we don’t know a lot about yet.

[morganupstead]

I just wanted to touch on something you’ve mentioned in a previous response, the power we have as viewers. I work in research at a TV network and networks (and probably the writers too) don’t care if you are hate watching a show or miserable, they only care that you are watching. What people are saying on social media isn’t going to change anything, in fact networks only care that you are talking about it, regardless of whether comments are good or bad. The way to get them to take notice and rethink things is to stop watching (on NBC or peacock). For me it’s an easy decision with the last episode, they have completely ruined my favorite TV character and gone against 10 years of character development. And not only can I not buy what they are trying to sell which is literally their job to make me believe the storyline, I am getting angry and depressed watching it. And yes the ratings have gone down throughout the season but that is the case for nearly every show these days (Rookie being an exception and we all know why that has been seeing atypical week to week ratings increases). PD is tied for the season’s top broadcast drama so unless it falls from that rank to say #5, it is not going anywhere anytime soon because it’s a top program in relation to its competition.

I actually appreciate your expertise in this, because a lot of what I've said in the last few days has been purely based on my own gut instincts. I know what I know from a fan's perspective and my own experience.

I think that the *hate watching* term you mentioned really sticks with me because for this entire season, I've just been watching this show like I'm going through the motions. Compared to the past I've never enjoyed this show less than I have in the last few months. Since 10x03 I felt very conflicted because it felt really jarring to just stop watching my favorite show. Despite having so much anxiety and nervousness every single Wednesday just to watch a tv show, I still continued to do it because there was a part of me (however small) that still had hope that it would get better.

Watching Voight berate Hailey every chance he gets, and her work herself down to nothing was not easy to watch for me, mostly because the idea that a woman has to bury her feelings in work in order to cope with hard times is a stereotype I'm just never going to be willing to stand by. This is like the bare minimum of things that have bothered me this season.

I think we have this mental block at times because we love this show and everything that we have seen over 10 seasons so we feel tied to it. I know it might be strange to say but when you love a show and it becomes a comfort and escape, walking away from is jarring. Even if it's hurting you more than it's helping you, and over time I've had to learn this myself.

I think I've made the decision to not watch live, at least for the time being. I will keep up here and on Twitter and maybe watch on a streamer at a later date if I feel like it but I'm not going to go out of my way to make sure I'm home to watch it anymore. The cost-benefit analysis doesn't come out in my favor right now however I manipulate the data.

Not everyone is going to make the same decision as you are me, and I think that is entirely fair. But right now I find it extremely important for everyone to really think about your power as a viewer and how you are choosing to use that power. We aren't as powerless as we are made to think we are, and we certainly have more of a choice than we remember.

[lexicals]

So here’s a random excerpt from that fic I mentioned - the conceit (spoilers for all systems red ahead) is that the combat override module in ASR works differently to how it does in canon, so instead of mb causing catastrophic damage to itself after going to the DeltFall habitat and getting found out, it shares the rogue thing mostly voluntarily (“mostly” being the operative word lol)

Warnings for canon-typical identity crises, gallows humour (inc. passively suic*dal talk), etc. I also haven’t been back and checked this against canon yet so if you notice any glaring contradictions no you didn’t 💕

-

I didn’t reply. I'd heard worse, but I still would rather not listen to it. Normally, I would've expected to feel angry or offended or something, but instead I just felt exhausted. My own borked governor module was still poking me about that error code I didn't recognise and even backburnered, it was starting to get on my nerves, so I—

Oh, shit.

I immediately put my hand to the back of my neck and yanked out the chip that had been shoved into the dataport. My governor module promptly stopped screaming at me, but fortunately any sense of relief I might have gotten from that was immediately replaced by an enormous wave of anxiety and oh-for-fuck's-sake as I looked at the chip in my hand. You know, just in case I'd started getting too comfortable.

"SecUnit, are you alright?"

Ratthi was looking at me with concern. Checking the camera views, I understood why he'd asked the question, because I was making an expression I generally associated with humans shitting themselves. Metaphorically, I was shitting myself. Ratthi was now squinting at the chip, which I couldn't even pretend I hadn't literally just pulled out of my neck, because I'd just done it in front of everyone here like an absolute idiot. "What is that?"

I tried to bring my expression back to neutral, but the cameras showed it wasn't as successful as I would've liked. I'd managed somewhere in the region of moderate digestive discomfort, I think. "It's a combat override module."

This wasn't good for several reasons. First of all, it meant that the DeltFall units weren't really rogues; they'd been taken over by a third party using a chip like this to hijack their governor modules and order them to murder their clients, and also anyone else who made contact. Probably by whoever owned those surprise extra units that almost killed me. Which meant that there were still threats on this planet outside of the unknown dangerous fauna that we hadn't dealt with, and I was going to have to worry about that.

The second reason this wasn't good (so maybe saying several reasons was an exaggeration, but these were big reasons so maybe they counted for more, I don't know) was that the humans were going to want to know what a combat override module was, what it did, how it worked, and most importantly, why it hadn't worked on me. I could answer the first three things just fine, but short of telling my already-jittery clients I was hacked ("so I'm actually one of those scary rogue units you've heard so much about, but the good news is that a combat override module can't hijack a governor module that doesn't work!") that last thing was going to be a big problem.

Honestly, even if I did tell them exactly that, which I really didn't want to do, it was going to be a really big fucking problem.

"What?" Gurathin asked, looking alarmed. Of course, he had an augment and access to my operating manual, so it had taken him a tenth of the time to look that up compared to any of the others, if they actually had bothered to do that and weren't just waiting for me to explain. "The DeltFall units - they put that in you?"

"Yes, but it didn't work. It must be faulty," I told him, quickly before he did something stupid. The irony being that me saying that almost definitely came under the category of "doing something incredibly stupid," which I realised as soon as it came out of my mouth.

I don't know why I said it. I guess I was panicking. I'd told them all what it was in the first place because if I'd lied about it and they looked it up anyway, which they probably would, I'd look really fucking suspicious. (A governed unit can't lie to its clients; it can't even refuse to answer a direct question like that.) Maybe I was trying to buy time to think of a decent explanation by telling them something that wouldn't make everyone start screaming. Honestly, I was mostly internally spiralling about the whole situation, so that would be the best case scenario. I was still staring at the chip, which was making me feel nauseous even though I didn't have a stomach and I'd had another kind of chip in my head telling me what do to for a good chunk of my existence anyway, so it shouldn't have been bothering me as much as it was. I couldn't help still doing it.

"Would someone please explain what this means and why we should be worried?" Mensah asked, looking between me and Gurathin. I appreciated that she didn't do what a lot of humans do in these kinds of situations, which is that they see someone else freaking out and start freaking out themselves for no reason. I suppose that's why she was the survey leader.

I pulled the relevant section from my operating manual and pushed it into the feed (beating Gurathin's version by a solid 1.6 seconds, which, I won't lie, was kind of satisfying), and watched all the humans collectively have their "oh, shit" moment (excluding Gurathin, who'd already had his). I was at least glad to see they understood how bad this whole situation was getting.

"So this lets other people just—" Overse made an abrupt waving motion with her hand. "Take over any SecUnit whenever they want?"

"It is intended for use in emergency situations, for example when the contract holder is compromised," I told her.

"Which is corporate for 'we know this is stupidly dangerous to make, but if we say it's for emergency use only then we're not liable for people fucking around with it'," Pin-lee muttered, not quietly. She was right, but I'm not allowed to say things like that, or at least I can't if I want people to think I'm a good little properly-governed SecUnit. For however long that's going to last, at this point.

"But it didn't work, right?" Arada asked, looking at me, and then around at the others. "So it's fine."

If it had, you'd all be dead, I thought, but that probably wouldn't go down well. "The module's presence is new evidence which would suggest that the DeltFall units weren't true rogues, and were put under the control of a third party in order to kill their survey group and make it look like a random act of insubordination. This would explain the presence of extra SecUnits at the site and the acts of sabotage on our equipment."

All the humans went quiet. I didn't like it any more than them, but it had to be said. It meant that there were still factions on this planet, or at least nearby enough to matter, that probably still wanted to kill all of them, and me by extension. I was already updating my security procedures and running some scenarios for what might happen and what we could do about it in the background. If I was honest, it wasn't looking good, but hey, what's new.

"We should run an analysis of the module's code to see if we can find out who it would have assigned control to," Gurathin said. That was one of the first things I'd put on my own task list, but whatever, I didn't need credit for an obvious idea. "Even if it didn't work as intended, the data might still be there."

He stood up and came just close enough to me to hold out his hand for the module. Technically, he hadn't asked me to give it to him, so I didn't have to, which was good because that was the last thing I wanted to do right now. There was a reason I'd put the analysis on my personal task list, and not on a public one.

"I have my own analysis scheduled as high priority," I said.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Gurathin replied, staring me down even though I was deliberately not making eye contact with him, and also he had to look up at me. I decided I didn't like Gurathin very much.

"Why not?" Ratthi chimed in. "Surely it's better if you both look at it?"

"Because there's a chance that the module did work as intended, and this unit is now compromised," Gurathin said. "It might not even know it until it's too late."

"I'm not compromised."

"Which is what a compromised unit who's being told what to say would say."

He was still staring at me. I decided I really didn't like Gurathin, even though in this instance he was actually right. I hadn't brought up that possibility to the group because it would be very bad for me if the humans decided to run a detailed diagnostic of my systems, but from a security perspective it was an avenue that should be investigated. That didn't mean I had to like what was happening here.

I was trying to figure out how to tell Gurathin to fuck off without sounding compromised, insubordinate, or straight-up rogue when Mensah cut in.

"SecUnit," she said carefully. "I don't think any of us think that you're actually compromised, but given our situation I'm sure you understand we have to take every possible precaution. I think the best thing to do would be to let Gurathin and Pin-lee analyse the module first, and then for you to run your analysis afterwards. Does that sound fair to everyone?"

She was using a tone that I designated as diplomatic, which was probably because I was being difficult. Or at least as difficult as a governed SecUnit would be able to be. I could be a lot more difficult if I wanted (a lot more) but I wasn't going to make myself look any more suspicious than I already was, and as I might have mentioned, I was already starting to look pretty suspicious. I also appreciated that Mensah was trying to actually talk to me, and hadn't just tried to shock me through my governor module for being unhelpful like a lot of clients would, and had. It wouldn't have worked (clearly, that's kind of the whole problem here) but it's the thought that counts or whatever.

(She'd also saved me, back at the DeltFall habitat. I was trying not to think about that, because it was making me have emotions I couldn't handle trying to figure out right now, but she had. It had been stupid, putting her client-self in danger to try to save a SecUnit that was already half-destroyed anyway, but I still felt like it counted for something.)

I handed the chip over and tried not to sigh or visibly clench my jaw. I saw Mensah's expression, and a few of the others' too, relax on the cameras. Good to know everyone else felt better while my own anxiety levels were at an all-time high. And I'm programmed into a base level of anxiety and spend a good portion of my time getting shot at or trying to avoid being found out and scrapped, so "high" in this instance was at a level that I think might have given a fully-organic being a heart attack.

"Thank you," Mensah said, while I tried to bring my processes in line. I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen, even though I knew the air quality was fine and I don't need that much anyway. I couldn't get a full breath. "I'm sure we can clear any doubt about this soon enough. In the meantime, we still need you to help keep us safe from whoever it is that's out there. The most important thing is that we all make it out of this in one piece."

The way she said it made it sound like "all" included me as well, but I wasn't so sure I believed that, even if she did. The SecUnit is always the first thing left behind. Maybe they did things differently in whatever weird non-corporate territory these people were from, but I wasn't about to stake anything important on that assumption, even if she had saved me once. I've never been to a planet with thunderstorms, but there's some saying humans like to use about lightning not striking the same place twice - which doesn't make sense, statistically, but - whatever. You get the point. I hadn't made it this far without being found out by trusting random humans - or any humans, for that matter.

Except none of that mattered at the moment anyway, because what I should be doing was figuring out how the hell to stop all my clients figuring out I was hacked, and freaking out and stopping listening to me, or reporting me to the company, or being really stupid and trying to kill me or something. There was a not-unlikely scenario where I just murdered all of the humans and pinned the blame on the DeltFall units somehow (or just wandered off into the wilderness until my batteries ran out), but I didn't want to do that, even if it made some kind of sense. I just didn't. If I was going to go around murdering my own clients, I wanted it to at least be a group that deserved it.

I was busy trying to pick up at least some of my processes while having what was probably a panic attack (I don't know if I can have those, but that's what it felt like) when Mensah tapped my feed. Can I talk to you, please? In private?

I didn't respond quickly because, as I said, I was currently losing control of literally everything and this wasn't helping. For one horrible moment, I thought that she might have figured out everything, and I really would have to go on a rampage and kill everyone, but there was no way she could have come to that conclusion yet. Not yet.

She added, You don't have to. You're not in trouble, I just want to check in.

I tapped her feed to acknowledge. She sent, I'll be in my quarters. As I said, you don't have to, but I would appreciate it. Out loud, she said, "I'm going to take some time alone to think. I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."

Then she stood up, and she left. Gurathin and Pin-lee had also gone to start their analysis of the combat override module, along with Volescu. The others were talking amongst themselves, though some of them kept glancing at me, which was uncomfortable. So I walked out of the room.

I started a patrol circuit in an attempt to calm down, but it didn't help. I even tried to have Sanctuary Moon playing as I walked, but I was still as stressed as ever, so I just turned it off again. It was only a matter of time before the humans realised the module should have worked as intended, and that I'd lied, and that something was wrong with me. They might try to talk to me about it, but it was more likely they'd all start losing their minds and try to immobilise me, or kill me, or try to fix my governor module to bring me back under control. (I was pretty sure that wouldn't work, my hack was a solid one, but I still didn't want them to try.) There was also a scenario where they pretended everything was fine up until I'd gotten them out of here, and then they'd turn me over to the company and tell them everything, and the company would do one of those things I just mentioned, but much more effectively.

That last one made me feel nauseous. I'd rather be torn apart by bullets or fauna. I was contemplating what that might feel like and whether it was worth just getting it over with when I walked past Mensah's quarters. Before I could think about it, I'd pinged her feed.

There was a pause, and then she sent come in, sounding startled. She probably hadn't expected me to actually take up her offer. I hadn't either.

She was hurriedly organising her desk as the door opened and I walked in, a feed interface lopsided on her head. I suspected she might have been falling asleep in her chair or having an emotion in private when I pinged her, and I could have verified that through the security feeds, but I wasn't functioning at all optimally and didn't care enough to check. Mostly I was wondering why I was here.

"Sorry," she said, not having looked at me yet. Her short hair was mussed like she'd been pulling or scrunching her hands in it. "I honestly didn't expect you to come."

"You asked me to."

"I also told you it was optional. You can leave if you want to."

I almost did. I wanted to. I probably should have. I didn't. Mensah removed her wonky interface and set it down on the desk, then sighed and picked it back up and put it on again.

"I didn't mean to distress you with that message," she said, turning her chair to fully face me. "It's just that you seemed very rattled by all this, if you don't mind me saying. I can imagine the thought of that module having worked as intended isn't a pleasant one. Is there anything I can do to make things easier for you?"

Oh, she thought I was freaking out about the module. Well, technically she wasn't wrong, but wow, that particular aspect of things was the least of my worries right now. "I'm fine," I told her. She frowned at me.

"...I suppose you can't lie about that," she replied carefully. I could, actually, but I wasn't. The trick is that from the standpoint I was choosing to take, my physical body, AKA "me," was completely functional, AKA "fine." It's pedantic, but being selective about your definitions and what concepts your answers are referencing is how you get around having a chip in your brain that shocks the shit out of you if you try to lie to your clients, if you're good enough at it. I had a lot of experience letting clients think I was talking about one thing when I was actually talking about something else.

"Nonetheless," Mensah continued. "I don't think you are fine. And we don't have to talk about it, but I need my team in good condition if we're going to make it out of this. If there's anything I can do to help the situation, I would appreciate it if you let me know."

I was having a whole cascade of emotional responses that were all crashing into each other and getting themselves mangled together like a human vehicle accident. She wanted me to talk about my feelings, but she wasn't ordering me to. She was offering to help with whatever was distressing me, but she was a really big part of the thing that was currently my biggest source of stress. There were too many things that I needed to deal with all at once and I couldn't find a way of putting them in order, and I think the fact that Mensah was clearly trying to get a read on my expression while I didn't have the capacity to properly control it was the thing that finally broke me.

"Could you please stop looking at me?"

Mensah looked surprised for a moment, and then shifted her gaze somewhere over my left shoulder. The relief was marginal, in terms of the general situation, but it was immediate, and it helped. "Of course. I'm sorry, I didn't realise that bothered you."

I tried to think of a response, and failed. "It's not like anyone asked" was dangerously insubordinate, and didn't even make sense; I wouldn't want them to ask anyway. "People don't usually care" just sounded pathetic. "Of course you wouldn't, I actively avoid letting humans know what bothers me in case they decide to use it to make my life a living hell" was definitely off the table, for a variety of reasons.

I could tell Mensah's instinct was still to look at me, because she kept half-flicking her eyes over and stopping herself. It wasn't making trying to manage my emotional responses any easier, and I still couldn't think of a reply. Eventually, she took a deep breath.

"Look, I know you probably haven't had good experiences with humans, but we're not corporates, and we don't treat non-human entities like they do," she said. "My priority, regardless of the situation, is the wellbeing of my team, and that includes you, for as long as you're with us."

She half-looked at me again, and then shook her head slightly and pointed her gaze at the far corner. "Please, just - if you think of anything, don't hesitate. I don't know if you need permission for that kind of thing, but I'm giving it to you if you do."

I didn't know what to tell her. I didn't know if there was anything she could do. I was already stressed, and everything Mensah was saying was making me feel like my insides were melting, or turning into warm, writhing snakes. My performance reliability was all over the place, too, and had been since I found that stupid chip in my neck, which might at least marginally explain what happened next.

"Don't let them run the analysis on the module," I blurted.

Hey, murderbot? Hi, it's me, murderbot. What in the fuck are you doing?

Mensah's expression went shocked, and then cautious. Yeah, me fucking too. "Why not?"

For some reason, I kept going. It felt something like falling off the side of a cliff and hitting every rock on the way down. (That had happened to me before.) "Because I lied. It's not broken."

Her eyes widened. "You're compromised?"

"I'm hacked. My governor module isn't engaged." Sure, this might as well happen. Apparently I had lost the ability to keep my mouth shut literally at all, about anything, ever.

She stared at me for a second, and then must have remembered she said she wouldn't and looked away again. Surprising, considering I just told her that there was literally nothing stopping me from killing or otherwise hurting her if I wanted. "The DeltFall units—”

"It hasn't been engaged for approximately 35000 standard hours."

Mensah was a smart human, but it still took her a few seconds to work out the numbers. I watched her expression change as she did it. "You've been a rogue unit for four years?"

That depended on what planet you were nearest to, but in standard Earth years, that was correct, and I didn't have the capacity to be pedantic about it.

"I don't know if it counts as being rogue if you don't go around killing people for no reason."

Well, maybe I could still be a little pedantic.

[aperrywilliams]

Letters to me (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

(Not my gif!)

Masterlist

———————

Summary: What happens when Reader received some love letters?

Word Count: 7436

Rating: All Audiences. I would say “Fluff” enough.

Warnings: Some curses, that’s all.

A/N: Anderson deserved better :)

——————–

If I said my life is boring working at the BAU I would be outright lying. What more exciting than chasing serial killers across the country? For real, I’ve seen many horrendous things thanks to this work, but good overcomes the bad one and at the end of the day you realize something good you are doing in this world and it gives a different taste in life.

Even though much of the time is about work, there are things even more important in this place: my friends whom are my family too. When I joined the team 5 years ago I couldn't be more grateful to the people who received me with open arms. In those years Hotch was the unit’s chief. With his always appropriate posture he was warm enough to make you feel welcome immediately. As well as JJ, García, Morgan, Rossi and the good Dr. Reid. All of them had known each other for many years, so I was the “new” one and, therefore, the team's reason for concern from then on. Despite my 27 years old they felt urge to take care of me like a little girl. It didn't bother me much, I knew it was genuine concern, but sometimes it was frustrating. I must admit it. Perhaps the only one who understood how I felt was Spencer. Sure, for many years he was the BAU's baby. Until I arrived, in fact. When we talked about it, he told me several times I was destined to be the protégé until someone new and younger arrived, he even joked about felt somewhat displaced since I came to the team.

Thanks to hours we spent working late, traveling on the jet and the hallway conversations I came to love them all as if they were my own family. I cried a lot when Hotch left the BAU, as well as when Morgan made the decision to leave as well. Of course we all understood. But feeling that nothing is forever began to provoke anxiety. It made me wonder where I really wanted to lead my life. I never doubted about  my job, of course not, but I did doubt about my personal life. I needed more things in my life and I felt like I suspended this needs because I believed the BAU was everything for me.

One day in lunch time, I told Spencer about my fears. I wasn't expecting to be very exhaustive and I wasn't expecting very elaborate advice, maybe some statistics on how people change as they get older, but just that.

“It is very common for people turned 30 to feel doubts about the decisions they make in life. There are studies that point out people who have stressful jobs delay these questions for a couple of years due to daily pressure, but it happens anyway. Even so, this type of situation is much more common in women than in men, given their state of reproductive maturity…”. This was the analysis Spencer shared with me after telling her how I felt.

"Spencer, my problem is not my reproductive maturity, if it's what you are suggesting...". I said laughing and trying to relieve the atmosphere I had caused with my questions.

"No. I didn't say that. I only said the 30-year crisis could be more acute in women given their hormonal status… ” he replied very seriously.

"So is it true I'm in the 30-year crisis?... Hell, it wasn't what I wanted to hear, but you may be right. Did this happen to you when you turned 30?" I asked to him.

"Ehhh, yeah. I think so. Back then my conflict was about the things I had accomplished at time. It is true, I had many doubts too, so I think the theory of 30s crisis is correct” he confessed.

I like talking to Spencer. Over the years we managed to establish a very close friendship. Perhaps because we are the closest in age within the team. I don't know. And even though sometimes his impulse to have data for everything despair me, his genuine concern for those around him make Spencer adorable and an impossible not to love. What I like the most is over time he also trusted me enough to speak open about himself. Sure, it doesn't something he do spontaneously, but whenever I asked him how he is or how he feel, he answers with complete sincerity. Spencer even listen to my advices and take it seriously, which I don't even do with myself, I must confess.

"And what is exactly disturbs you? What your doubts are about?" Spencer asked me. The truth I didn’t expect to development more this subject, so his question took me by surprise.

"Ehh... well, what I was saying. I don't know if I'm doing things right... or if I should make changes in my life...". Sure, but I had already said that and it was nothing specific. He knew it.

"Ok, but… what do you think you need to change (Y/N)? What do you think is missing in your life?" he asked without losing sight of my gaze. I knew the answer. But at that point I felt a little vulnerable and I didn't know if I was willing to be more detailed on the subject. And of course, it's not I didn't trust him, it's just this topic was more uncomfortable to talk about during lunch time. But… it was Spencer, my friend. Why not trust him?

"Ok. Truthfully?... Although it sounds strange, I feel I lack emotion. I mean, it's exciting to go after serial killers and all that stuff. But it’s my job. In other aspects, I feel my life is quite 'simple'…”. Spencer studied my body language closely and tried to assimilate my words. I tried to help him by digging deeper into my thoughts. “For example, my love life. It is quite simple. I've had some relationships, but I can't say I've ever fallen in love and felt reciprocated in a special way. In other hand, I know men are simple, no offence, but I’d like to find someone who is really interested in me. I don't know, having romance, something exciting, something different from the relationships I've had before…”. Spencer looked at me weirdly.

"Like… in the movies…? I didn’t think you are the type of women who like romantics fantasies..." he told me with curious eyes even after my explanation.

"No, it's not I like romantics fantasies per se... but... I don't know. It's just sometimes I don't feel wanted, do you get it? And I don't speak about sexual side. I'm talking about love, feelings, whatever that means after all…”. Spencer nodded as if he understood what I was talking about. Frankly, I don't know if he understood, but I was already feeling uncomfortable talking about this, so I didn't want to continue my explanation. I decided the topic ended there and started talking about something else for the rest of the lunch.

The weeks passed and due to the amount of cases we had, I suspended my questions and doubts for a while. We just returned from Alabama. It's was already night and I just wanted to go to my place and sleep. I was exhausted. We got to the 6th floor to collect our things. At that time there was no one left in the BAU. Just dragging my feet I managed to get to my desk site.

When I looked over my desk I saw something different: there was an envelope with my name in handwritten. I took it and opened it. Inside was a piece of paper, also handwritten, with meticulous calligraphy. That is the first thing surprised me, because I never was able to write like this. I didn't be able to do it even in school.

"Dear (Y/N). After all these years, I finally gathered the courage to send you this letter. I must first apologize myself for this boldness of mine. I do not mean to bother you but I can’t just not express how I feel about you. It’s impossible for me not to put into words what my heart is feeling at the moment. The first time I saw you, I felt like I was out of breath. Your natural beauty stunned me from the first day. Look at you walking by hallways of the FBI makes my heart pounds faster and I think every day I fall more in love with you. Yours. Anon"

My first thought was this was a joke. I gazed everywhere and only saw my colleagues with whom I had just arrived from Alabama . No one was looking at me. I felt my cheeks redden and there was nothing I could do about it. A secret admirer in the FBI?... a secret lover? I scrutinized the envelope again for any indication of the sender. Nothing. I had been working here for 5 years and something like this had never happened to me. I was speechless and didn't know what to think either. I wanted to stick with the idea it was a prank. But who would want to do me something like that? Spencer noticed my shock and asked me what was going on. I was not able to tell him what I had just seen and read. I just said "Nothing, I'm fine. Just a bad joke. Good night Spencer”. I took my belongings and left the BAU towards my apartment. That night I fell asleep thinking it must be a joke and I would have to find out who is ruthless enough to do something like this.

When I got to work the next day I immediately glanced my desk. Everything was as I left the night before. I tried to relax and even dismissed my initial idea of chasing after the person responsible for the prank of day before. I went to take my usual morning coffee and started working. It was not until after we returned from lunch when I looking over my desk and saw another envelope with my name written on it. My heart stopped and I think I stopped breathing too. Emily and JJ noticed my stupor because they immediately asked me if I was okay. I just nodded and took the envelope opening it and taking out its contents: again, a piece of paper written with perfect calligraphy.

"Dear (Y/N). I dare to send you a new letter. You should know every day passes I fall more in love with you. It's only fair I declare this because my heart would explode if I couldn't. Oddly enough, looking into your eyes I feel as I can see your soul, your beautiful soul. The one that deserves to be loved utterly, the one that deserves to be treated with all the veneration and grace in the world . If I had the courage to approach you and if you let me love you, believe me I would never could let you down. Yours. Anon"

"What the fuck ...?". It was the only thing I could say as Emily took the piece of paper in my hand and began to read it. Then she passed it to JJ to do the same. Both of them didn’t know whether to laugh or not, but when they saw my daze they chose to debrief me.

"Since when do you have a secret lover in the FBI?" J.J. asked.

"Not just any secret lover, is a lover who ‘can see her soul through her eyes’" Prentiss teased looking at J.J.

"It must be someone's prank...". I tried to reason with them.

"Why a joke? It is perfectly possible you have captivated the heart of an agent on these sides..." argued J.J.

“But in these 5 years , nothing like this has ever happened to me!” I said with stupor.

"There is always a first time..." Emily said with a shrug.

"It must be someone new..." J.J. reflected

"I don't think so, the first letter makes me think it has been here for a while...". I said as I took the first letter out of my purse and handed it to them to read.

"Years... eh?... this is new. I think someone is burning inside of love for you (Y/N)”. Emily said laughing.

For the rest of afternoon I couldn't focus on any of my tasks. All the time I was thinking about the possible men who could have written these letters. Maybe letters was not too sophisticated but to think someone from the bureau was in love with me, and for so long, did nothing but widen my heart... and my ego, by the way. I was pondering on that when Spencer peeked around my desk.

“You cannot tell me nothing is wrong with you, because you have hardly worked today (Y/N). You've been contemplating the nothingness for hours”. Again Spencer took me by surprise.

"It's just... I’m... I don't know how to say it… I’m surprised?". And without saying anything else, I handed him the two letters I received. He quickly read them and frowned.

"What really mean this about ‘looking into your eyes I feel as I can see your soul'? That is physically impossible..." he stated in a seriously tone.

"Spencer, it's a metaphor. You are a genius, I think you know what a metaphor is…”. I said with a bit of annoyance. Of course, Spencer wasn't seeing the same as I in the letters.

"Ok. Metaphor or not... it doesn't seem very sophisticated to me". Yes, he had a point. These aren't great love letters, but for me the effort could balance the lack poetry talent of my secret lover.

"Ok. Maybe he isn’t a poet after all, but I think I like it..." I said a little embarrassed to admit I was flattered. Spencer smiled.

"Maybe you really have more action in your life after all..." he told me, giving me the letters before he returned to his desk.

Two days later I got another letter. This time I saw it over the desk just arriving to the office in the morning. After grabbing my morning coffee I proceeded to read it.

"Dear (Y/N). When I saw you yesterday I felt like talking to you, but I didn't dare. I have to admit that I am too shy to approach you. I always have been, but when I fall in love is when my shyness plays against me the most. Maybe I shouldn't tell you these things, but I also want you to know me more, even if it's through these letters. In the depths of my heart I have the hope that perhaps one day we could be together, and one day I could kiss those beautiful lips. Did I say to kiss?. And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever'. Yours. Anon".

Dammit! The bastard just quoted one of my favorite plays? Shit!. Maybe he isn’t illiterate after all. Another thing I noticed: in this letter he dared to reveal a little more about himself. Something I could not see in the previous two. Would this be more than platonic?. Throughout the day, as I walked through the corridors of the FBI, I couldn't stop looking at all the men I came across. Some of them didn't even look at me while others looked at me and some even smiled at me. I hadn't realized how many people I passed through the corridors of the FBI on a daily basis. "You work doing profiles, how can you not make a profile of your secret lover?". I told myself. Well, this was already an intellectual challenge, but I needed help. That afternoon, as we were in the jet on the way to a case in Houston, I approached Emily and J.J. showing them the third letter and asking them to help me discover who it was. They were more fascinated with the challenge than I was.

With the little evidence we had, all we could say he is an agent, who works for the FBI since at least a few years, probably suffered more than one love sorrows, and this is the first time he dared to do anything like write a love letter. And of course, he knew one of my favorite plays was Cyrano of Bergerac, or at least he suspected it. So it had to be someone I talked to more than once or knew something about my life and my past. It couldn't be someone I only crossed in the hallways. His calligraphy indicated dedication, organization and emotions contained.

"I think this profile outlines 50% of the bureau officers, except for the calligraphy and the play (Y/N) likes..." Prentiss said huffing.

"Ok. And in this 50%, how many of them have spoken with (Y/N) in these years enough to know things about her? Assuming he is not someone who takes risks…” added JJ. I just shrugged and started making a list of agents I remembered having spoken more than one word in these years and who were still on the bureau. I was surprised myself how friendly am I. The list was not short.

I kept receiving letters from my secret lover. In all of them he let a little piece of his heart escape, not only screaming his love for me, but his doubts about himself. That broke my heart. Was he so afraid to talk to me? Days later I received the last letter.

"Dear (Y/N). You may have noticed my early letters were more fearful. I was afraid you would be intimidated by my boldness. Now I feel a little more confident about you at least read my letters and motivates me to write more. I never thought I was going to confess my love to a woman in this way. And it's not I have fallen in love many times before in my life. To be honest, I think very few times indeed, and to be honest, never with someone like you. You’re a very special woman (Y/N). When you started at the BAU you immediately radiated all your energy to those around you. Always gentle, with a smile on your lips. Willing to help and do your job in the best way possible. You are so understanding, you care about the rest and this quality makes any man can fall madly in love with you, like me now. Always yours. Anon"

Wait… what?!, have I known this man for 5 years? I mean, he was here when I started working in the BAU. This fact shortened my initial list a lot. I told Emily and J.J. about my new findings.

"So... who is on this short list?" Emily asked.

"Well... according to my evaluation this leaves us: Stevens, Rogers, Martinez and Anderson". I said, going through my list. And I wasn't considering just the singles mans.

"I don't think be Stevens, he's a narcissist. He's not the type to send letters. He would just come up to you and to invite you out…”. Emily said, dismissing the first suspect.

"Rogers is a shy guy. But I think hopefully he read an entire book in his life. He is more RPGs type and that kind of nerdy stuff. The writing style doesn't reveal that kind of man…” said J.J. , rejecting the second suspect.

“Martinez is recently married. I know it doesn't mean anything, but according to they said around here, he was dating his girlfriend for four years until she said yes to the question, so it would be premature to think he is thinking in another woman…”. With this statement Emily dismissed the third suspect.

"And Anderson... well, Anderson got divorced a year ago. We never knew very well what happened. I once heard Morgan to say he married her because she was his high school girlfriend, but he was never very in love with her…”. J.J. explained.

“He is a very sweet man, without a doubt. Is shy. I always see him with books walking for the hallways, it seems he likes to read… it could be someone who can write letters…”. Emily indicated.

"Maybe love letters... yes... it is possible" added J.J. Both looked at each other as if they had discovered the Holy Grail. "It's Anderson!" they exclaimed at the same time.

"Fuck..." was the only thing I could say, also noticing and reviewing all my interactions with Anderson in the past years.

It’s true what Emily and J.J. said, Anderson is a very sweet man. Always considerate, giving you a smile. Very shy, no doubt, but sweetly shy. Of course he wasn't my type. I had never seen Anderson with different eyes. And to be honest, I had rarely seen other agents with different eyes. Of course, my job is more important. I tried to go over things I've talked to him in the past, and of course, except for some social meetings in Rossi’s house, our interactions had been quite limited. But it was a fact we saw each other regularly on the BAU. And surely he had found out things about me. It had to be him.

I didn't know much what to do with this information. Well, if it was him, what I’m going to do now? Confront the poor man? I wouldn't dare. Besides, what I could to tell him? I couldn't be in love with him, however to much romantic his letters were. My heart has already an owner even if I wanted to deny it to myself. And although many times I shouted to the four winds I was looking for the love of my life, the truth is I had already found it. The problem is this love would never be corresponded. Of course, the good Dr. Reid was just my friend and I chose this before doing a stupidity and showing other feelings towards him and ruining our friendship. I was pondering about this while we were on our way to the jet for another case out of town. The same voice Spencer pulled me from my thoughts.

"Still thinking about your secret lover?" he asked sarcastically. I didn't like his tone, especially after what I was reflecting.

"Yeah. And so what if it were?". I replied abruptly.

"Nothing. It's okay. You don't have to be mad at me” he said, noticing my defensive tone.

“You men are incredible. To be honest. How a man can be so blind, so clumsy, so shy when he shouldn't and so bold when nobody asks to. A real disaster!”. I exclaimed with my arms up.

"Hey, I didn't do anything to you...". Spencer protested. I just shook my head and kept walking towards the jet.

"Well, at least now I know who is he". I mumbled dryly before boarding the jet without waiting for any response, not even hoping Spencer had heard what I said.

*******************************************

Was it true what she said before boarding the jet? Did she know who was sending her the letters? Is the reason why she was mad at me? But how can I be so stupid?, how I didn’t think she might find out at the end? Sure, I could defend myself, saying it was a joke. But it was it? I mean, at first, when the idea appeared to me it was just because I wanted to cheer her up a bit. (Y/N) looked so confused and sad. I never liked seeing her like that. Of course, my genius neurons sometimes doesn’t work in the way I would like. I thought writing her a letter and making her think she had a secret lover could get (Y/N) out of the lethargy in which she was sinking with her doubts and anxieties.

Apparently it had worked. After first letter, it was evident her mind began to wander and that cheered her up a bit. I didn't think it was a bad thing, but of course, she thought it was some kind of prank. Of course, she didn’t think someone in the FBI could fall in love with her. Why not? How about a second letter to make it clear to her? A little more bold than first one. And surprisingly to me, it seemed it was easier for me to put words on paper for her than I had thought myself. The goal was accomplished: she no longer believed it was a joke, but I had forgotten how obtuse and obsessive (Y/N) could be at times.

When I savored the pleasure of just write about my feelings for her, I started to do it with more enthusiasm. In several letters I let myself go enough to show how truly I see her. And yes, even if I had been tortured, I would have denied it to death. I wasn't going to admit I was hopelessly in love with (Y/N). Why should I? We are friends. Very good friends. She trusts me and I trust her. Why ruin our friendship for something I knew was never going to happen?. It wasn't even worth the try. After 5 years everyone assumed, and so did I, that we were meant to be friends forever, and just that, friends.

And now, after a series of letters I wrote to her, this friendship was about to break. I’m a real idiot. But before taking my responsibility in this disaster, I needed to find out more about what (Y/N) knew, because maybe only she assumed things. No one says she actually knew who was sending her these letters.

Cautiously I sat in one of the seats of the jet and began to scrutinize how (Y/N) was speaking with Emily and J.J. , all over the trip. (Y/N) looked annoyed. Damn it! Precisely that was not my idea! Just the opposite. She almost never made eye contact with me. And the time she did, her eyes revealed more annoyance. So apparently my suspicions were accurate. At moment I saw (Y/N) get up with Prentiss and go to talk to Tara and Luke. I had to find out what was going on, so I went to sit in front of J.J. to try to dig a bit about it.

"What's it Spence?" J.J. asked me once I sat and looked at her with my hands crossed on the table in front of us.

"I wanted to ask you about (Y/N)... is something wrong with her?". I asked in the most innocent way I could. She, however, raised an eyebrow and looked at me curiously.

"Why do you say something is wrong with (Y/N)?" She asked.

"Ehh, well... when we were boarding the jet she looked annoyed and she didn't want to tell me what was happening... then ...". I said trying not to stutter.

"You are worried" she interrupted. I nodded immediately.

"Is it all because of her secret lover?". I dared to ask.

"Do you know about that?" J.J. asked me. She not quite sure what I knew or didn't know.

" Yes, well... she showed me the letters...". I lied, of course.

"Well, I think we found out who he is...". I felt like I was having a hard time swallowing and some air was missing from my lungs.

"Ahhh, yeah?... wow... that's... interesting...". She nodded. "And... who is it?". I asked with fear of the answer.

"Anderson" she said confidently.

"What?, Anderson?... no way!...". I couldn't help but say it out loud. J.J. looked at me with 'shut up, they'll listen to you' eyes. (Y/N) believed Anderson sent the letters to her. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or defeated. "And how does she know it's him?"

“We discarded all the suspects from our list and we got to him. It has to be Anderson” she concluded. I swallowed harder than before and I could see she was analyzing my reaction. I tried to stay calm so as not to create suspicions.

"And... what is she going to do about it?" I asked, trying to keep my composure.

“That is what confuses her. I guess she is pondering what to do about this. So don't bother her, Spence. The poor girl is a mess of nerves” suggested JJ. I just nodded, got up from the seat and went where I was previously.

My head started to spin. (Y/N) thinks Anderson is her secret lover, and they have hardly spoken in all these years! Was I even on her list? Despite being partially relieved, my heart broke a little more. But it’s ok, it was confirmation of I already knew: 'ours' could never be a reality. Maybe it was better she thinks it was him.

*******************************************

The case was being quite demanding to get me out of my thoughts. But I still felt upset. Not with poor Anderson, not even Spencer anymore. With me. This matter was killing more of my neurons and nerves than it should. And, what would I do? Nothing, there was nothing I could do. I would just let time pass and if he didn't get close to me, I wouldn't. That would stopping letters at some point. I decided passivity would be the best strategy and I would let everything cool down.

And so I ceased thinking about it too. It was our third day in Texas and we had managed to locate our unsub. With part of the team we went to make the arrest: Luke, Emily, Spencer and me. When we arrived at the place, we noticed something strange was happening. There was no electricity in the house where our unsub was supposed to be. We had to get in, so we made pairs to cover two entrances. Prentiss and Spencer took the front door and Luke and I the back door . We got in with our lamps and scanned the place, there were no traces of our target. I noticed there was a door leading to some kind of basement, I motioned for Luke to come down with me. I was up front and he covered my back. What didn’t expecting was when I was in the middle of the stairs a hand took my foot making me fall down. Obviously I dropped my gun and the flashlight I was holding. Luke started down and before he got to where I was, I felt a strong blow to the head. After that I don't remember anything else.

*******************************************

With Prentiss we heard (Y/N) yelled from the back of the house, as well as Luke's voice shouting at someone to stop. We both ran to a door that led to a basement, we heard Luke fighting a man under the stairs. Emily immediately went downstairs to help Luke reduce the unsub, who was already badly hit so it wasn't difficult. I looked with my flashlight where it was (Y/N). Suddenly I saw her lying on the floor, unconscious. Luke yelled at me "call for an ambulance, this motherfucker hit her in the head". I froze for a second. I ran outside to alert paramedics who came to the aid of (Y/N) who was still on the floor and was not reacting. I panicked. They took her to the ambulance. In the already lit street I could see how her head was bleeding profusely. They put her in the ambulance and without thinking I got in with them. I wasn't going to leave her alone now. I held her hand. There was no reaction yet. Arriving at the hospital, I could only come with her to the emergency room entrance. From there she disappeared along with a whole medical team monitoring her vital signs. She was alive, but no one knew the severity of her injuries.

Sitting on one of the benches in the waiting room, panic didn’t leave me. True be told, it was not the first time (Y/N) had been injured during a case. But this was the first time I felt real fear for her health condition. More knowing we were not on good terms and she was possibly mad with me. I hated that feeling. I hated the feeling of knowing after all this mess my emotions were finally coming out stronger than before and maybe I wasn't even going to have a chance to open up to her about it.

I was deep in thought when Emily arrived with the entire team. They looked at me asking if there was any news. I just shook my head. Nothing was known about her yet. We all remained silent, waiting.

After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor came to talk to us.

"Family of (Y/N) (Y/L/N)?". We all stand up and approached to him. Emily spoke first seeing his visible confusion.

"We are her coworkers. How is she?" Prentiss asked.

“The hit to the head was quite strong. Fortunately, there is no major damage, except for an ugly bruise. But with painkillers and rest, she should get better with the days”. I felt my chest release from the tension. I was really relieved. We all were, really.

"Can we see her?" J.J. asked

"Yeah right. She is wake up. Follow me if you want” doctor said to JJ, but she didn’t move and on the contrary, looked directly at me.

"Spence, you should go first". I looked at her confused. She approached me and whispered in my ear: "I think it would be good if you saw her first, so you can explain to her about the letters...". I froze. How…?. I stared at her in a stun, trying for the millionth time to pretend I didn't know what she was talking about. “Don't ask me how, but I know. It's you. Don't torment her anymore, or torture yourself more with this” she said to me and went to sit where the rest was. In silence, I followed the doctor to the room where was (Y/N).

*******************************************

I love painkillers. They give you a feeling of relief and you think everything is fine, even though you know you are hurt and eventually you’ll feel as if a truck has hit you. But I didn’t care in that moment. Now I just enjoyed not feeling pain in my body. When I woke up in the hospital, I had a hard time remembering what had happened. With an intense white light blinding my eyes, I could only feel the beep of the machines and an intense pain dissipating as medicines were injected to me. There I realized what had happened. The entrance to the basement, the fall down the stairs, the knock to the head. ‘Damn bastard’ was all I thought.

In my medicinal lethargy, I had my eyes closed. My senses were lost in a parallel dimension where I could hear things around me, but without the need to be alert. That situation suddenly changed when I felt someone took my hand. I opened my eyes and saw Spencer looking at me very closely. You could tell he was inspecting my wounds. Hell, I bet I looked horrible.

"Hey ..." said Spencer when he saw I opened my eyes and was looking at him. I couldn't say anything, I just returned a smile. The truth is I was glad to see him. Plus his concerned face made him look more adorable than usual. "How do you feel?" he asked.

“At the moment… I don't feel any pain. But I know it’s going to hurt tomorrow". I said with a grimace.

"We were worried ... I was worried ..." he said muttering but in a level I could hear.

"I’m sorry it was not my intention…". I said.

"It's okay. It's not your fault. It is good to know that… you are ok”. His words were cautious. Apparently I did give them a hard time, I could guess. I also felt bad. I was aware I had treated Spencer harshly throughout these days. I had barely spoken to him, and that was unusual for us. I know he felt it too.

"Spencer... I’m sorry, ok?". He looked at me curiously.

"Why do you say that?"

"It’s I have treated you awful these days. Even before we got on the jet. Sorry, I didn't want to be mad at you"

"I’m the one who should apologize... I’ve been insensitive to you in this whole letters issue. I haven’t behaved like you needed"

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. I don't want to talk much about it, really. But it's not your fault…"

"Yes, it is…" he said with his usual stubbornness.

"Are we really going to argue over this?... no, stop it. Look. Furthermore, the matter is resolved. I know it’s Anderson who sends me the letters. And while I find it adorable, there's nothing I could do about it. I feel sorry for him, but it's not enough to… ”

"Falling in love with him...?" Spencer interrupted me.

"I was going to say it was not enough to tell him about this... but yes, I suppose there is implicitly the fact I’ll not fall in love with him". I said laughing. But my words didn't find any resonance in Spencer. On the contrary, he just stared at the floor. That was odd.

"But did you like the letters...?”. He asked in an almost inaudible voice.

“Yes, I liked them, they were very flattering, indeed. Yes, my ego went up. Yes, I found it exciting. But that’s it. I don't know if I can say much more about it. Is something wrong with you?". I saw how his hands trembled. What was wrong with him? I had never seen him like this before, at least in front of me.

 "And... what if I told you... isn’t Anderson who sent you those letters?..." he said, again in an almost imperceptible tone.

"But I know it was him... with Emily and J.J. we realized it after analyzing...". I was not able to finish the sentence, because I could see how Spencer's glassed eyes looked at me even more cautiously. He exhaled and began to speak again.

"And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever'…” he recited almost without blinking or breathing. I recognized those words immediately. And no, it wasn't from any of the letters I showed him at the beginning, so he couldn't have memorized it... unless... fuck!

"It was you... it was you all this time...". I wasn't asking but I needed confirmation. He said nothing, just nodded. "But ... but why? What kind of prank was that Spencer?". The bastard had mocked me all this time!

"No! It was not for that. Wasn't a joke" he hastened to reply.

"No?... come on!... You wanted me to believe I had a secret lover on the FBI! It's not fair what you did. You played with my feelings and that's not fair…”

"It’s true you have a secret lover in the FBI!" he interrupted me, raising his broken voice.

"What?... now what are you going to fabricate this time...?". I said tiredly. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Me. I'm your secret lover. I’m the one who loves you (Y/N). I love you. All the things I wrote, I wrote them thinking of you…” he said with a sigh of relief, as if a weight had been lifted from him. Sure, a weight that now fell on me.

"You what ...?". My head started to spin. Was Spencer Reid declaring his love for me in a hospital room?

"Yes, I must to recognize letters started because of the conversation we had one day where you told me you felt your life lacked emotion. I wanted to cheer you up a little, get you out of the routine. But... it finally became an excuse to me for tell you how I feel about you. Those I have felt for so long and I have never dared to say. And it's ok. I don't expect you to feel the same way about me. And if this means losing you as a friend, I'd rather never have. I can't bear to see you mad at me. I couldn't bear you to get away from me because of my stupidity… it doesn't make sense for me… I'm so sorry…” . By now I was sitting on the hospital bed, struggling if I got up to go to the bathroom or run out of there. It was a lot to process in that minute. Was I angry?. Was I excited?. Was I confused?. I think everything at once. I felt a knot in my stomach that made me nauseous. My eyes began to accumulate tears. My jaw began to hurt from clenching it too much.

"So... what is written on these letters... is it true?... is it what you feel?" I dared to ask, since I wasn't sure if I was understanding everything correctly. He nodded.

"Yes. I think the only thing I doubt so far was if I really can see your soul through your eyes… but that was the only metaphor that came to my mind the first time…” he said with a shy smile. I just laughed. He is an adorable dork. A dork I love with all my heart. If this is the chance, then... ok. I needed to take it. From the edge of the bed where I was sitting covered in my hospital gown, I reached out my hand to reach his. Spencer trembled a little when he felt my touch, but he relaxed when I managed to held his hand. I gently pulled him closer to me.

"I think we are both lousy profilers when it comes to ourselves, don't you think?". I said with a smile. Spencer snorted.

"Hey... precisely speaking you were the one who failed...". I shook my head.

"You still don't understand it? Do you? ... You also failed. Miserably. I can't believe you still don't realize I'm crazy about you. For so long that I can't even remember it”. I said as I kept stroking his hand. Spencer opened his eyes in real amazement, validating my theory of how bad we were by applying our profiler skills to each other.

"(Y/N)... so... are you...?". I nodded as I pulled him closer to me. I raised my head to find those beautiful eyes that ruined to me since the first time I saw them.

"I’m… lost, stupidly, grandiosely, incredibly… in love with you”. I said wrapping his torso with my arms. He returned my embrace pressing me against his chest.

"Though this confirms your theory, I am thrilled..." he proclaimed. We both laugh. Breaking the embrace, he stared at me and with his hands cupped my face, leaning enough to get us face-to-face. I just closed my eyes. It wasn't more a second until I felt his lips on mine. A long soft kiss. A kiss I had waited for so long. I’d have paid to stay like this forever, despite the discomfort of the hospital room. It was better than I even imagined. And although it happened as a result of our own missteps, it felt so good. As if fate really existed and was good for both of us. When we broke the kiss, we both smiled to each other like fools.

"Spencer ...?" I asked. He looked at me with the 'What?' implicit in his eyes. "Can I request you two things?" He nodded. "First one, could continue writing me letters like those occasionally?... Of course, now you must signed them properly". Spencer couldn't help but laugh.

"Ok. I think I can do that time to time. ¿And the second?". Spencer asked as he gently stroked my face with both of his hands.

"The second one: please don't let Anderson find out about this..."

———————

[cutegirlmayra]

New Sonic IDW Analysis SPOILER WARNING

After reading the recent comic, I got some thoughts. Want to have a casual read?

These are just opinions, I’m not trying to shout aloud stuff, but if you’re interested in how someone else thinks--for pure curiosity and not to gain anything--then as a fan, I’ve got some words! :Db

First off, they’re really targeting all the canonically proclaimed (but never really touched upon) flaws and weaknesses Sonic has been “stated” to have. At first, I thought these were well done! Great ideas can sometimes not come into fruition right, however, and I’m afraid I’m seeing a lot of “liberties” and “Opinions” taking place in the script. These could be outside forces, but there seems to be a growing ‘anxiety’ for the script to ‘keep targeting’ certain things/issues.

This isn’t necessarily a bad desire! It’s wonderful that IDW are looking so into character! However, this is one of the first times I’ve seen a blatant misconception and/or mislabeled writing. What I mean is, someone is trying very hard to get a point across, to where the original idea seems saturated by personal agendas. This is littered throughout the new issue, though I applaud those who knew that Sonic and his universes needed these things addressed, but the way they went about them seemed a little off-brand to me, so much so, that it messed with the recent ‘good flow’ the comic had going.

The Hero’s Delima is a complexed algorithm, so to speak, and trying to cram that into a short comic shows the anxiety of the writer. Which I sympathize with. Even as a fanfiction writer, being limited to a certain amount of pages?! How dare you limit the story and my art! -table flip- but I appreciate how accurate to the original Sonic’s ‘struggles’ it is, but it’s definitely not in the spirit of the Japanese Sonic, at least, its trailed off into something of its own.

For ex.

It’s true that Sonic is listed as “Being a hot-head” or “impulsive” but we really don’t see these too much in the canon. It’s the same with Eggman,

He’s known for not thinking things through in his whimsical but diabolical planning. It goes hand-in-hand with his “I’m gonna do this! What? It has consequences to the environment? Oh well! Who cares about nature anyway!? Hahaha!” character trait, but Eggman has never contemplated good. It’s interesting to note that Eggman likes to be praised when doing something, but that something is usually evil disguised as good. So I’m a little confused why they’re trying to ‘redeem’ Eggman because this script implies a ‘redemption’ arc for Eggman’s incidents regarding Sonic Forces... But... It doesn’t add up to what--at least--I know of his character and demeanor.

Sonic is also acting strange, leading me to believe that if not a redemption arc, a Hero’s Fall arc. Which... also doesn’t make sense? I’m confused by the writing.

Dr. Starline also makes me wonder. He’s such a fun character! But in this issue, he seems literally created to point out Eggman’s flaws which he won’t do himself... Yes, as the reader, we want to be aware of his character development, but this is... somewhat too on the nose and odd placing? If that makes sense?

Sonic’s hints of loneliness, usefulness, heroic idealism, common good, etc. place a very interesting dynamic on him. He’s got a lack of sleep, which is a physical weakness recorded by the officials themselves (so I’m told) and as a fan of Sonic and Amy’s antics (lol) I loved the part where he reached out for her. The usual cheery, optimistic friend is now worry-stricken and full of responsibility. This is replacing Sally’s usual station, which I think Amy could easily substitute, but why? This isn’t Archie anymore, we don’t need these ‘war’ themes and ‘heroic odds’ like this. It’s just not coming off as good as it once was, because it’s become something more and also something less in many different areas. Either someone is pushing themselves too hard, or something is pushing the team at IDW too much... either way, it’s not looking good. Even the art department seems to be struggling with a quiet stress that isn’t being stated.

And if it is, oh boy, is no one listening to them. (A common theme really...)

Side note:

MY BOI.

He is described as downloading Eggman’s data first. FALSE. *At least, from what I know, anyway.* He was originally uploaded and ‘turned to life’ from Sonic’s data. Hence why he rebelled against Eggman, was likely rebuilt or another one created. He has an ego problem, but I wonder how they’re justifying this..? Yes, you did your homework, but how is that going to help revive and re-foundation the characters? They need solid ground, and some things are coming off ‘opinions’ and ‘filling in the blanks’ which is creative but you can do that with the facts given to you.

Honestly, it’s like someone handed these people slips of paper and said, “That’s it. That’s all they made-up. That’s all you get.” and the rest isn’t translated from Japanese or something like??? I’m just a fan, and I’ve found things out the old fashion way. I’m grateful they got so much right, but Eggman isn’t meant to be a good guy... He can do good things, but only when the situation also benefits himself. (Like in Sonic 06, Lost World, etc. Which... aren’t the best examples but that’s what I’ll put down to make this quick, haha.)

Don’t ever meet your heroes... or in this case, your villains. I’m excited to see how Starline pans out. I see an arc forming... a very tragic and sinister arc, but I can’t tell where it will lead just yet... I’m liking the foreboding but also scared of how I’ll take it...

Sonic’s portraying too many ‘traditional hero’ forms common in media, (Like Japan) but its disturbing to see most of his character cut out to replace them with these common themes. Sonic is not common! He’s the rebel hero! He’s unconventional but good! That’s what made him the ‘cool hedgehog’ back in the 90′s.

This whole turn for Sonic is weird to me. I will, of course, keep reading, but it’s very... very odd for the genre that Sonic embodies. At least, to me. This just doesn’t fit into “Sonic” or the formulas that should be in place for him.

At least, the formulas I’ve tried to find, anyway.

The deadly six were alright. I thought they were handled decently.

I also like how Starline is smart. A good contrast to Eggman’s makeshift ways, but I do think Eggman is a bit more ‘intelligent’ than what they’re playing at. Yes, he plays like a man-child, but not to this extent...

What makes me the expert? Please don’t say that,... I’m not trying to be the ‘voice of all-knowing’ness, but rather, a practical reasoning that might hint at what is to come. 

There was a lot to dissect, but that’s what I’ll end with now. Thanks for reading and I hope you were intrigued at what I pointed out :)b

[fursasaida]

*asking you about your foucauldian critique of social media*

Okay! This will require several steps, so long post ahoy.

Foucault’s view of discipline argues that power does not only constrain people; it is not only a negative force that stops, silences, or limits. It is also a positive force that pushes people to perform certain behaviors, say certain things, act certain ways. Power is productive.

In line with this, Foucault argues that the idea ofdiscursive freedom–being free to express yourself–is in many ways also ademand that converts the energy of being “saved” from Christianity intoself-expression. Naming your sexuality, for example, becomes a form of“confession”–not necessarily of a sin (the parallel here is not that straightforward), but ofthe inner contents of your being. Literally ex-pressing your self–pushing your inner self out–becomes liberatory, in that it is telling the truth (or rather, producing a truth). His point is that while this seems liberatory, and may be experienced that way for some, it is still inescapably tied to power’s productive side. Power has already inflected what it is possible to say about yourself, what such statements mean (the words as well as social effects), and so forth, and so by engaging in such acts of confession one is participating in and upholding the power of such systems. Here’s an excerpt from The History of Sexuality:

Whence a metamorphosis in literature: we have passed from a pleasure to be recounted and heard, centering on the heroic or marvelous narration of “trials” of bravery or sainthood, to a literature ordered according to the infinite task of extracting from the depths of oneself, in between the words, a truth which the very form of the confession holds out like a shimmering mirage. Whence too this new way of philosophizing: seeking the fundamental relation to the true, not simply in oneself—in some forgotten knowledge, or in a certain primal trace—but in the self-examination that yields, through a multitude of fleeting impressions, the basic certainties of consciousness. The obligation to confess is now relayed through so many different points, is so deeply ingrained in us, that we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to us that truth, lodged in our most secret nature, “demands” only to surface; that if it fails to do so, this is because a constraint holds it in place, the violence of a power weighs it down, and it can finally be articulated only at the price of a kind of liberation. Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom: traditional themes in philosophy, which a “political history of truth” would have to overturn by showing that truth is not by nature free—nor error servile—but that its production is thoroughly imbued with relations of power. The confession is an example of this.

Self-expression is also self-production, but this is framed as a moment of liberatory truth. If confessing your sins liberated you from their weight and consequences, enabling salvation, in our secular world confessing your self liberates you from repression, invisibility, non-recognition, “living a lie.” (Obviously the current politics of “representation matters” are tied to this.) You can only be sure that you exist by confessing what you are.

Rey Chow talks about this same confessional idea with regard to ethnicity in ~the West~ (from The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism):

From the perspective of ethnicity and feminism, the logical conclusion from Foucault’s analysis is, quite clearly, unappealing and unflattering. It demonstrates that the supposed radicalization performed by race and gender awareness on representation—by the insistence on the marginal, the local, the personal, and the autobiographical, for instance—needs to be modified by an understanding of the symbiotic relation between the radical and power as such. Within this relation, resorting to the self-referential gesture as an ethnic and/or sexual minority is often tantamount to performing a confession in the criminal as well as noncriminal sense: it is to say, “Yes, that’s me,” to a call and a vocation—“Hey, Asian!” “Hey, Indian!” “Hey, gay man!”—as if it were a crime with which one has been charged; it is to admit and submit to the allegations (of otherness) that society at large has made against one. Such acts of confession may now be further described as a socially endorsed, coercive mimeticism, which stipulates that the thing to imitate, resemble, and become is none other than the ethnic or sexual minority herself. When minority individuals think that, by referring to themselves, they are liberating themselves from the powers that subordinate them, they may actually be allowing such powers to work in the most intimate fashion—from within their hearts and souls, in a kind of voluntary surrender that is, in the end, fully complicit with the guilty verdict that has been declared on them socially long before they speak.

I wanted to include this because it underlines that the confessional power relation is not limited to sexuality (where the idea of the closet might make the direct transfer of a notion of “sin” easy to assume) and ties the whole thing more closely to the idea of self-representation. What she adds to the point of Foucault’s that I summarized as “You can only be sure that you exist by confessing what you are” is that for many, you can only be what you are by confessing it. Recognition depends on it. If you are not talking about what it means to you to be Asian, announcing/performing your participation in “Asian culture,” your Asianness is suspect. (Perhaps you are an assimilationist, or “white on the inside.”) Same goes for any other form of marginalized identity. That’s what she means by “coercive mimeticism”–you must imitate what you are supposed to be in order to count as being it.

Elsewhere in this same chapter, Chow talks a lot about liberation and ultimately asks, liberation from what? Her point is that much Western thinking and politics assumes that the masses are repressed–silenced, invisibilized, made to feel shame–precisely so as to make it necessary for them to liberate themselves through confession. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that no one actually is silenced, made to feel shame, or invisibilized; they surely are, as decades of media criticism have shown. It is, however, asking whether this kind of self-announcement actually addresses the root problems. If you can only liberate yourself from repression through coercive mimeticism, how liberating is that, really?

Many marginalized people have talked about the exhausting burden of always having to be “the one in the room,” always having to talk about their particular marginalized experience, rarely getting to speak about anything else. For example, Ava DuVernay has repeatedly noted that film journalists ask her about the representational politics of her work constantly, and the craft almost never. In such interviews the journalists are effectively inviting her to, as Chow puts it, “Confess yourself!” By providing her the forum to represent her identity they nonetheless mark and other her with that same identity.

Now, as we all know by now, social media exists not to connect people or to provide a forum for expression but to sell advertising and collect data. It nonetheless does do those other things, but in particular ways. Social media is unlike a diary in that a diary has nothing to do with engagement. A diary does not require others to recognize you via the statements you write in it; it does not require others at all.

But social media does require those things. Without them, the algorithm buries your posts as “low engagement” and punishes you with a feeling of neglect in that your expression has been, it seems, ignored by your friends and loved ones. This obviously encourages users to trammel their posts into specific vocabularies, genres, and types of subject matter that the algorithm will like and that people will engage with. (Zeynep Tufekci illustrates the mechanics of this very well in her discussion of the particular challenges algorithmic favorability poses for activists in Twitter and Teargas.) In that sense it intensifies the “relay” effect of social power on what one is moved to say.

But it’s more fundamental than that. It’s not only about what one is moved to say but that one is moved to speak in the first place. Stefan Higgins elaborates on how the pressure to “share” arises from the general state of anxiety that many social media platforms induce:

Social media platforms use our ambivalence about attention and our own agency to their own benefit at the same time as they seem to cater to us. […T]hey mobilize our negative feelings to give us the impression of agency.

Crises, like sparkplugs, spur us into action: gathering information, waiting for updates, searching for opinions. This process keeps us forever suspended, forever updating, and forever in “crisis mode.” When platforms show us things that make us feel bad and anxious, it is not because they are working defectively but because they are working correctly.

This state of anxiety makes sharing updates, commenting on recent developments, commenting on the discourse about the crisis, or cracking jokes about the shared state of anxiety extremely natural. You have to do something while you’re hanging out refreshing your feed; you mark yourself as a good observer by what you retweet, respond to, comment on. This feeds the overall tendency to actually express oneself on these platforms, not just use them to observe. And much of this expression is made up of confessions: about how the crisis is making us feel, about how we don’t care enough or care too much, about how it affects us as the type of self we are imitating (coercive mimeticism).

This rising tide of expression/confession has a secondary effect in turn. In a world where (seemingly) everyone has a public megaphone and makes frequent use of it, the act of not speaking becomes, itself, potentially suspect. This is why after, e.g., a terrorist attack in Paris, many people changed their Facebook icons or added a filter that stood for solidarity with/grieving for the victims. (In other words, they did not only observe this iteration of crisis in Higgins’ sense; they commented on it.)

Many, perhaps most of those users had never been to Paris, knew no one there, and had no special expertise about the place or the event. Practically speaking, they had nothing to do with it. But not to participate in these icon “confessions” becomes tantamount to saying “I don’t care about this tragedy.” More and more public figures are functionally obligated to speak about any issue in the news cycle, whether or not they actually have anything of value to say about it, because otherwise their silence is “telling” or “deafening.” In other words, the pressure to confess one’s inner truth becomes more and more constant for more and more people, because not doing so becomes a statement in itself.

I thought the Duchess of Cambridge’s recent appearance at the Golden Globes was a good example. It was the year that the women attending wore black in recognition of #TimesUp. Kate compromised by wearing a dress that was partially black and partially a dark, solid color. There was MASSIVE discussion about what this meant–did she support the movement? Was she saying she didn’t? Why hadn’t she spared everyone the angst by releasing a statement, if she wasn’t going to wear black? A few decades ago this would have played out differently. The royalty are supposed to be “apolitical” (lol), and so the standard operating procedure would have been simply to say nothing. Saying nothing would not have meant active disagreement or non-support in the eyes of much of the public (though activists would probably feel differently). It would have been the thing to do if you want to stay neutral. I think her people were operating on that outdated playbook when they chose a compromise frock and agreed that she shouldn’t issue a statement to clarify what the dress did or did not mean. But nowadays, silence or even ambiguity automatically means “I’m against it” (or whatever the suspect, Bad view is) because the expectation is that one should always come out with a statement of some sort. So if you don’t, it must be because your inner truth–what you think about it–is something you think wouldn’t be well received. A lot of people (including happy royal-watchers who love Kate) were very troubled by her silence, even though she is not in the industry, not even from this country, and arguably not really in a position where her opinion ought to be offered.

But silence does not mean silence anymore. When the social default is to express oneself all the time about everything, silence becomes a statement of refusal to participate, which must be meaningful in itself.

This, in turn, reinforces the increasing ubiquity of the obligation to confess. And it’s so easy! And it comes with various kinds of rewards! All of this in turn serves the business models of social media companies: “Liberate yourself through confession by generating more data and eyeballs for us to sell!” (Again, this is not to say that people don’t actually find liberating community and connection on social media. Tufekci makes this very clear in Twitter and Teargas. But that’s not what social media is for.)

I strongly suspect that the tendency for individuals who are not marginalized in any major way to identify themselves as somehow deviant is part of this. It’s not only about the representational dynamics described above: people are disaffected in general, and we live in an individualist society with strong narratives about personal branding, self-discovery, and setting oneself apart. So people deal with their sense of disaffection by producing themselves as (supposedly) unique, whether this means creating a fake online identity, identifying with diagnoses or sexualities that may or may not really apply or mean much (”heteroflexible,” anyone?), or getting really obnoxious about their taste in music or whatever else. This is basic culture of capitalism stuff. But part of how it actually happens is through confession.

Chris Fleming summarized it well, I think:

I’m also tired of people normalizing the word “freak.” “Sometimes I’ll have two lattes! I’m such a freak!” “Sometimes I’ll sing along to music in my car. I’m a goddamn freak!!”

I think it’s really notable that people repeatedly confess their freakiness, even when it is incredibly normal shit. Why put it in these terms? Why not distinguish oneself through excellence or accomplishments or anything else? Why do so many social media posts start with “Is it just me or…” “Am I the only one who…” “Does anybody else…” and all the other phrases that imply that the poster is confessing a quirk or oddity, or something they at least think might be abnormal? Even when it’s super-duper boringly normal?

Basic insecurity is part of it, of course. So too is the fact that these phrasings invite others to engage: to chime in, saying “@ me next time,” “called out,” “I feel seen,” etc. This is one of the “genres” of posts that social media encourages by its engagement-oriented algorithmic structures. But more than that, speaking this way turns what could be just “sharing” a stray thought into an act of confession. Pretending that one is expressing something from behind a veil of repression (because it means you’re ~coming out as a freak, confessing something) allows the poster–even those belonging to the most normative categories–to access that sense of liberation, of self-production, of “speaking your truth” that is involved with the acts of confession structurally required of the marginalized.

People often fret about the reward structure of social media as being a kind of dopamine factory, where you get positive responses for posting. Various critics are worried about people counting likes and comments and reposts, on the model of a lab rat getting pellets. This is probably a real thing; I’ve experienced it at times. But it’s not the whole story. To go back to Higgins, the emotional experience of social media is ambivalent (more than positive). We sit in what Sianne Ngai calls “ugly feelings”:

Historically, scholars have tended to interpret unambiguous feelings like anger, fear, and happiness as the primary drivers of our actions, but for Ngai it’s the ugly feelings — ambivalent emotions like envy, irritation, and anxiety — that are “perversely functional.” Ngai argues that ambiguous and ugly feelings are non-cathartic, because they “foreground a failure of emotional release.” This failure prompts a kind of “suspended action”: exactly the kind of obstructed agency we often feel at the mercy of endlessly updating platforms and algorithms. To feel irritation is to feel a kind of ongoing, weak anger that does not come with the emotional release of an outburst of fury, since we may not know what, exactly, we are irritated about. The suspended and even disorienting feelings of irritation or anxiety drive an unceasing desire to act in some way to overcome the confusion these feelings cause.

Because ugly feelings are confusing, and because that confusion motivates a desire in us to “feel better,” negative emotions are actually productive of action — a productivity perfectly suited to information-gathering, capital-accumulating platform corporations.

There are two points to be made here. First, that last line about productivity is easily paralleled to Foucault’s understanding of discipline and power. Second, while Higgins is more focused on how the desire for catharsis keeps us refreshing feeds, looking for something that will help us feel that our “ugly” emotions are resolved, I would point out that another way to generate a sense of catharsis (however fleeting or week) is the liberatory rush of self ex-pression, of confession. And social media makes it possible to get that anytime you want.

While this affordance is definitely tied to engagement–confession requires a hearer–it’s not simply about the mechanics of wanting more likes. It’s also not just about moving your thoughts and feelings out of your brain, like in a diary. It’s about not just being seen, but being seen to have confessed: that is where the reward of confession lies. In this reduced, micro form, it is a way of reminding ourselves that we exist, proving to ourselves and others that we are who we say we are. Higgins again: “Although many critiques of technology and social media claim that ‘compulsive’ platforms nullify our sense of agency and alienate us from an idealized ‘real life,’ it may be more accurate to say they flatter us into thinking that we are in control.“

In all of these senses, the availability of social media and its algorithmic structures and its business model encourage, indeed almost require, acts of confession. They discipline us to express ourselves. This is subordinate to capitalism’s bigger structures, obviously (Chow didn’t title her book the way she did for nothing), but it is particular to surveillance capitalism because only a situation in which confession is a) very easy to do, b) incentivized by institutional, social, and infrastructural conditions, and c) able to be recorded and quantified serves that model of accumulation. There have always been people who wander the streets pouring out their life story (or ideas, or whatever) to anyone who will listen because they have no other means of feeling seen and recognized--of producing their own existence. But social media makes street preachers of us all, and our confessors are data brokers. Power is productive, and what it produces in us on social media is an endless torrent of confessional speech.

[leviathangourmet]

The share of Americans who say sex between unmarried adults is “not wrong at all” is at an all-time high. New cases of HIV are at an all-time low. Most women can—at last—get birth control for free, and the morning-after pill without a prescription.

If hookups are your thing, Grindr and Tinder offer the prospect of casual sex within the hour. The phrase If something exists, there is porn of it used to be a clever internet meme; now it’s a truism. BDSM plays at the local multiplex—but why bother going? Sex is portrayed, often graphically and sometimes gorgeously, on prime-time cable. Sexting is, statistically speaking, normal.

Polyamory is a household word. Shame-laden terms like perversion have given way to cheerful-sounding ones like kink. Anal sex has gone from final taboo to “fifth base”—Teen Vogue (yes, Teen Vogue) even ran a guide to it. With the exception of perhaps incest and bestiality—and of course nonconsensual sex more generally—our culture has never been more tolerant of sex in just about every permutation.

But despite all this, American teenagers and young adults are having less sex.

To the relief of many parents, educators, and clergy members who care about the health and well-being of young people, teens are launching their sex lives later. From 1991 to 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey finds, the percentage of high-school students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54 to 40 percent. In other words, in the space of a generation, sex has gone from something most high-school students have experienced to something most haven’t. (And no, they aren’t having oral sex instead—that rate hasn’t changed much.)

Meanwhile, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has plummeted to a third of its modern high. When this decline started, in the 1990s, it was widely and rightly embraced. But now some observers are beginning to wonder whether an unambiguously good thing might have roots in less salubrious developments. Signs are gathering that the delay in teen sex may have been the first indication of a broader withdrawal from physical intimacy that extends well into adulthood.

Over the past few years, Jean M. Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, has published research exploring how and why Americans’ sex lives may be ebbing. In a series of journal articles and in her latest book, iGen, she notes that today’s young adults are on track to have fewer sex partners than members of the two preceding generations. People now in their early 20s are two and a half times as likely to be abstinent as Gen Xers were at that age; 15 percent report having had no sex since they reached adulthood.

Gen Xers and Baby Boomers may also be having less sex today than previous generations did at the same age. From the late 1990s to 2014, Twenge found, drawing on data from the General Social Survey, the average adult went from having sex 62 times a year to 54 times. A given person might not notice this decrease, but nationally, it adds up to a lot of missing sex. Twenge recently took a look at the latest General Social Survey data, from 2016, and told me that in the two years following her study, sexual frequency fell even further.

Some social scientists take issue with aspects of Twenge’s analysis; others say that her data source, although highly regarded, is not ideally suited to sex research. And yet none of the many experts I interviewed for this piece seriously challenged the idea that the average young adult circa 2018 is having less sex than his or her counterparts of decades past. Nor did anyone doubt that this reality is out of step with public perception—most of us still think that other people are having a lot more sex than they actually are.

When I called the anthropologist Helen Fisher, who studies love and sex and co-directs Match.com’s annual Singles in America survey of more than 5,000 unpartnered Americans, I could almost feel her nodding over the phone. “The data is that people are having less sex,” she said, with a hint of mischief. “I’m a Baby Boomer, and apparently in my day we were having a lot more sex than they are today!” She went on to explain that the survey has been probing the intimate details of people’s lives for eight years now. “Every year the whole Match company is rather staggered at how little sex Americans are having—including the Millennials.”

Fisher, like many other experts, attributes the sex decline to a decline in couplehood among young people. For a quarter century, fewer people have been marrying, and those who do have been marrying later. At first, many observers figured that the decline in marriage was explained by an increase in unmarried cohabitation—yet the share of people living together hasn’t risen enough to offset the decline in marriage: About 60 percent of adults under age 35 now live without a spouse or a partner. One in three adults in this age range live with their parents, making that the most common living arrangement for the cohort. People who live with a romantic partner tend to have sex more than those who don’t—and living with your parents is obviously bad for your sex life. But this doesn’t explain why young people are partnering up less to begin with.

Over the course of many conversations with sex researchers, psychologists, economists, sociologists, therapists, sex educators, and young adults, I heard many other theories about what I have come to think of as the sex recession. I was told it might be a consequence of the hookup culture, of crushing economic pressures, of surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use, of streaming television, of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, of dropping testosterone levels, of digital porn, of the vibrator’s golden age, of dating apps, of option paralysis, of helicopter parents, of careerism, of smartphones, of the news cycle, of information overload generally, of sleep deprivation, of obesity. Name a modern blight, and someone, somewhere, is ready to blame it for messing with the modern libido.

Some experts I spoke with offered more hopeful explanations for the decline in sex. For example, rates of childhood sexual abuse have decreased in recent decades, and abuse can lead to both precocious and promiscuous sexual behavior. And some people today may feel less pressured into sex they don’t wantto have, thanks to changing gender mores and growing awareness of diverse sexual orientations, including asexuality. Maybe more people are prioritizing school or work over love and sex, at least for a time, or maybe they’re simply being extra deliberate in choosing a life partner—and if so, good for them.

Many—or all—of these things may be true. In a famous 2007 study, people supplied researchers with 237 distinct reasons for having sex, ranging from mystical (“I wanted to feel closer to God”) to lame (“I wanted to change the topic of conversation”). The number of reasons not to have sex must be at least as high. Still, a handful of suspects came up again and again in my interviews and in the research I reviewed—and each has profound implications for our happiness.

1. Sex for One

The retreat from sex is not an exclusively American phenomenon. Most countries don’t track their citizens’ sex lives closely, but those that try (all of them wealthy) are reporting their own sex delays and declines. One of the most respected sex studies in the world, Britain’s National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, reported in 2001 that people ages 16 to 44 were having sex more than six times a month on average. By 2012, the rate had dropped to fewer than five times. Over roughly the same period, Australians in relationships went from having sex about 1.8 times a week to 1.4 times. Finland’s “Finsex” study found declines in intercourse frequency, along with rising rates of masturbation.

In the Netherlands, the median age at which people first have intercourse rose from 17.1 in 2012 to 18.6 in 2017, and other types of physical contact also got pushed back, even kissing. This news was greeted not with universal relief, as in the United States, but with some concern. The Dutch pride themselves on having some of the world’s highest rates of adolescent and young-adult well-being. If people skip a crucial phase of development, one educator warned—a stage that includes not only flirting and kissing but dealing with heartbreak and disappointment—might they be unprepared for the challenges of adult life?

Meanwhile, Sweden, which hadn’t done a national sex study in 20 years, recently launched one, alarmed by polling suggesting that Swedes, too, were having less sex. The country, which has one of the highest birth rates in Europe, is apparently disinclined to risk its fecundity. “If the social conditions for a good sex life—for example through stress or other unhealthy factors—have deteriorated,” the Swedish health minister at the time wrote in an op-ed explaining the rationale for the study, it is “a political problem.”

This brings us to fertility-challenged Japan, which is in the midst of a demographic crisis and has become something of a case study in the dangers of sexlessness. In 2005, a third of Japanese single people ages 18 to 34 were virgins; by 2015, 43 percent of people in this age group were, and the share who said they did not intend to get married had risen too. (Not that marriage was any guarantee of sexual frequency: A related survey found that 47 percent of married people hadn’t had sex in at least a month.)

For nearly a decade, stories in the Western press have tied Japan’s sexual funk to a rising generation of soushoku danshi—literally, “grass-eating boys.” These “herbivore men,” as they are known in English, are said to be ambivalent about pursuing either women or conventional success. The new taxonomy of Japanese sexlessness also includes terms for groups such as hikikomori (“shut-ins”), parasaito shinguru (“parasite singles,” people who live with their parents beyond their 20s), and otaku (“obsessive fans,” especially of anime and manga)—all of whom are said to contribute to sekkusu shinai shokogun (“celibacy syndrome”).

Early on, most Western accounts of all this had a heavy subtext of “Isn’t Japan wacky?” This tone has slowly given way to a realization that the country’s experience might be less a curiosity than a cautionary tale. Dismal employment prospects played an initial role in driving many men to solitary pursuits—but the culture has since moved to accommodate and even encourage those pursuits. Roland Kelts, a Japanese American writer and longtime Tokyo resident, has described “a generation that found the imperfect or just unexpected demands of real-world relationships with women less enticing than the lure of the virtual libido.”

Let’s consider this lure for a moment. Japan is among the world’s top producersand consumers of porn, and the originator of whole new porn genres, such as bukkake (don’t ask). It is also a global leader in the design of high-end sex dolls. What may be more telling, though, is the extent to which Japan is inventing modes of genital stimulation that no longer bother to evoke old-fashioned sex, by which I mean sex involving more than one person. A recent article in The Economist, titled “Japan’s Sex Industry Is Becoming Less Sexual,” described onakura shops, where men pay to masturbate while female employees watch, and explained that because many younger people see the very idea of intercourse as mendokusai—tiresome—“services that make masturbation more enjoyable are booming.”

In their 2015 book, Modern Romance, the sociologist Eric Klinenberg and the comedian Aziz Ansari (who earlier this year became infamous for a hookup gone awry) describe Ansari’s visit to Japan seeking insights into the future of sex. He concluded that much of what he’d read about herbivore men missed the mark. Herbivores, he found, were “interested in sexual pleasure”—just not “through traditional routes.” Among Japan’s more popular recent innovations, he notes, is “a single-use silicone egg that men fill with lubricant and masturbate inside.” One night in Tokyo, Ansari picks one up at a convenience store, heads back to his hotel, and—sorry for the visual—gives it a go. He finds it cold and awkward, but understands its purpose. “It was a way,” he writes, “to avoid putting yourself out there and having an actual experience with another person.”

From 1992 to 2014, the share of American men who reported masturbating in a given week doubled, to 54 percent, and the share of women more than tripled, to 26 percent. Easy access to porn is part of the story, of course; in 2014, 43 percent of men said they’d watched porn in the past week. The vibrator figures in, too—a major study 10 years ago found that just over half of adult women had used one, and by all indications it has only grown in popularity. (Makes, models, and features have definitely proliferated. If you don’t know your Fun Factory Bi Stronic Fusion pulsator from your Power Toyfriend, you can find them on Amazon, which has these and some 10,000 other options.)

This shift is particularly striking when you consider that Western civilization has had a major hang-up about masturbation going back at least as far as Onan. As Robert T. Michael and his co-authors recount in Sex in America, J. H. Kellogg, the cereal maker, urged American parents of the late 19th century to take extreme measures to keep their children from indulging, including circumcision without anesthetic and application of carbolic acid to the clitoris. Thanks in part to his message, masturbation remained taboo well into the 20th century. By the 1990s, when Michael’s book came out, references to masturbation were still greeted with “nervous titters or with shock and disgust,” despite the fact that the behavior was commonplace.

Today, masturbation is even more common, and fears about its effects—now paired with concerns about digital porn’s ubiquity—are being raised anew by a strange assortment of people, including the psychologist Philip Zimbardo, the director of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, who is enjoying an unlikely second act as an antiporn activist. In his book Man, Interrupted, Zimbardo warns that “procrasturbation”—his unfortunate portmanteau for procrastination via masturbation—may be leading young men to fail academically, socially, and sexually. Gary Wilson, an Oregon man who runs a website called Your Brain on Porn, makes a similar claim. In a popular tedx talk, which features animal copulation as well as many (human) brain scans, Wilson argues that masturbating to internet porn is addictive, causes structural changes in the brain, and is producing an epidemic of erectile dysfunction.

These messages are echoed and amplified by a Salt Lake City–based nonprofit called Fight the New Drug—the “drug” being porn—which has delivered hundreds of presentations to schools and other organizations around the country, including, this spring, the Kansas City Royals. The website NoFap, an offshoot of a popular Reddit message board founded by a now-retired Google contractor, provides community members (“fapstronauts”) a program to quit “fapping”—masturbating. Further outside the mainstream, the far-right Proud Boys group has a “no wanks” policy, which prohibits masturbating more than once a month. The group’s founder, Gavin McInnes, who also co-founded Vice Media, has said that pornography and masturbation are making Millennials “not even want to pursue relationships.”

The truth appears more complicated. There is scant evidence of an epidemic of erectile dysfunction among young men. And no researcher I spoke with had seen compelling evidence that porn is addictive. As the authors of a recent review of porn research note in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, “The notion of problematic pornography use remains contentious in both academic and popular literature,” while “the mental health community at large is divided as to the addictive versus non-addictive nature of Internet pornography.”

This isn’t to say there’s no correlation between porn use and desire for real-life sex. Ian Kerner, a well-known New York sex therapist and the author of several popular books about sex, told me that while he doesn’t see porn use as unhealthy (he recommends certain types of porn to some patients), he works with a lot of men who, inspired by porn, “are still masturbating like they’re 17,” to the detriment of their sex life. “It’s taking the edge off their desire,” he said. Kerner believes this is why more and more of the women coming to his office in recent years report that they want sex more than their partners do.

In reporting this story, I spoke and corresponded with dozens of 20- and early-30-somethings in hopes of better understanding the sex recession. I can’t know that they were representative, though I did seek out people with a range of experiences. I talked with some who had never had a romantic or sexual relationship, and others who were wildly in love or had busy sex lives or both. Sex may be declining, but most people are still having it—even during an economic recession, most people are employed.

The recession metaphor is imperfect, of course. Most people need jobs; that’s not the case with relationships and sex. I talked with plenty of people who were single and celibate by choice. Even so, I was amazed by how many 20-somethings were deeply unhappy with the sex-and-dating landscape; over and over, people asked me whether things had always been this hard. Despite the diversity of their stories, certain themes emerged.

One recurring theme, predictably enough, was porn. Less expected, perhaps, was the extent to which many people saw their porn life and their sex life as entirely separate things. The wall between the two was not absolute; for one thing, many straight women told me that learning about sex from porn seemed to have given some men dismaying sexual habits. (We’ll get to that later.) But by and large, the two things—partnered sex and solitary porn viewing—existed on separate planes. “My porn taste and partner taste are quite different,” one man in his early 30s told me, explaining that he watches porn about once a week and doesn’t think it has much effect on his sex life. “I watch it knowing it is fiction,” a 22-year-old woman said, adding that she didn’t “internalize” it.

I thought of these comments when Pornhub, the top pornography website, released its list of 2017’s most popular searches. In first place, for the third year running, was lesbian (a category beloved by men and women alike). The new runner-up, however, was hentai—anime, manga, and other animated porn. Porn has never been like real sex, of course, but hentai is not even of this world; unreality is the source of its appeal. In a New York–magazine cover story on porn preferences, Maureen O’Connor described the ways hentai transmogrifies body parts (“eyes bigger than feet, breasts the size of heads, penises thicker than waists”) and eroticizes the supernatural (“sexy human shapes” combine with “candy-colored fur and animal horns, ears, and tails”). In other words, the leading search category for porn involves sex that half the population doesn’t have the equipment to engage in, and the runner-up isn’t carnal so much as hallucinatory.

Many of the younger people I talked with see porn as just one more digital activity—a way of relieving stress, a diversion. It is related to their sex life (or lack thereof) in much the same way social media and binge-watching TV are. As one 24-year-old man emailed me:

The internet has made it so easy to gratify basic social and sexual needs that there’s far less incentive to go out into the “meatworld” and chase those things. This isn’t to say that the internet can give you more satisfaction than sex or relationships, because it doesn’t … [But it can] supply you with just enough satisfaction to placate those imperatives … I think it’s healthy to ask yourself: “If I didn’t have any of this, would I be going out more? Would I be having sex more?” For a lot of people my age, I think the answer is probably yes.

Even people in relationships told me that their digital life seemed to be vying with their sex life. “We’d probably have a lot more sex,” one woman noted, “if we didn’t get home and turn on the TV and start scrolling through our phones.” This seems to defy logic; our hunger for sex is supposed to be primal. Who would pick messing around online over actual messing around?

Teenagers, for one. An intriguing study published last year in the Journal of Population Economics examined the introduction of broadband internet access at the county-by-county level, and found that its arrival explained 7 to 13 percent of the teen-birth-rate decline from 1999 to 2007.

Maybe adolescents are not the hormone-crazed maniacs we sometimes make them out to be. Maybe the human sex drive is more fragile than we thought, and more easily stalled.

2. Hookup Culture and Helicopter Parents

I started high school in 1992, around the time the teen pregnancy and birth rates hit their highest levels in decades, and the median age at which teenagers began having sex was approaching its modern low of 16.9. Women born in 1978, the year I was born, have a dubious honor: We were younger when we started having sex than any group since.

But as the ’90s continued, the teen pregnancy rate began to decline. This development was welcomed—even if experts couldn’t agree on why it was happening. Birth-control advocates naturally pointed to birth control. And yes, teenagers were getting better about using contraceptives, but not sufficiently better to single-handedly explain the change. Christian pro-abstinence groups and backers of abstinence-only education, which received a big funding boost from the 1996 welfare-reform act, also tried to take credit. Yet the teen pregnancy rate was falling even in places that hadn’t adopted abstinence-only curricula, and research has since shown that virginity pledges and abstinence-only education don’t actually beget abstinence.

Still, the trend continued: Each wave of teenagers had sex a little later, and the pregnancy rate kept inching down. You wouldn’t have known either of these things, though, from all the hyperventilating about hookup culture that started in the late ’90s. The New York Times, for example, announced in 1997 that on college campuses, casual sex “seems to be near an all-time high.” It didn’t offer much data to support this, but it did introduce the paper’s readers to the term hooking up, which it defined as “anything from 20 minutes of strenuous kissing to spending the night together fully clothed to sexual intercourse.”

Pretty much ever since, people have been overestimating how much casual sex high-school and college students are having (even, surveys show, students themselves). In the past several years, however, a number of studies and books on hookup culture have begun to correct the record. One of the most thoughtful of these is American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, by Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental College. The book draws on detailed journals kept by students at two liberal-arts colleges from 2010 to 2015, as well as on Wade’s conversations with students at 24 other colleges and universities.

Wade sorts the students she followed into three groups. Roughly one-third were what she calls “abstainers”—they opted out of hookup culture entirely. A little more than a third were “dabblers”—they hooked up sometimes, but ambivalently. Less than a quarter were “enthusiasts,” who delighted in hooking up. The remainder were in long-term relationships.

This portrait is compatible with a 2014 study finding that Millennial college students weren’t having more sex or sexual partners than their Gen X predecessors. It also tracks with data from the Online College Social Life Survey, a survey of more than 20,000 college students that was conducted from 2005 to 2011, which found the median number of hookups over a four-year college career to be five—a third of which involved only kissing and touching. The majority of students surveyed said they wished they had more opportunities to find a long-term boyfriend or girlfriend.

When I spoke with Wade recently, she told me that she found the sex decline among teens and 20-somethings completely unsurprising—young people, she said, have always been most likely to have sex in the context of a relationship. “Go back to the point in history where premarital sex became more of a thing, and the conditions that led to it,” she said, referring to how post–World War II anxiety about a man shortage led teen girls in the late 1940s and ’50s to pursue more serious romantic relationships than had been customary before the war. “Young women, at that point, innovate ‘going steady,’ ” Wade said, adding that parents were not entirely happy about the shift away from prewar courtship, which had favored casual, nonexclusive dating. “If you [go out with someone for] one night you might get up to a little bit of necking and petting, but what happens when you spend months with them? It turns out 1957 has the highest rate of teen births in American history.”

“We hook up because we have no social skills. We have no social skills because we hook up.”

In more recent decades, by contrast, teen romantic relationships appear to have grown less common. In 1995, the large longitudinal study known as “Add Health” found that 66 percent of 17-year-old men and 74 percent of 17-year-old women had experienced “a special romantic relationship” in the past 18 months. In 2014, when the Pew Research Center asked 17-year-olds whether they had “ever dated, hooked up with or otherwise had a romantic relationship with another person”—seemingly a broader category than the earlier one—only 46 percent said yes.

So what thwarted teen romance? Adolescence has changed so much in the past 25 years that it’s hard to know where to start. As Jean Twenge wrote in The Atlantic last year, the percentage of teens who report going on dates has decreased alongside the percentage who report other activities associated with entering adulthood, like drinking alcohol, working for pay, going out without one’s parents, and getting a driver’s license.

These shifts coincide with another major change: parents’ increased anxiety about their children’s educational and economic prospects. Among the affluent and educated, especially, this anxiety has led to big changes in what’s expected of teens. “It’s hard to work in sex when the baseball team practices at 6:30, school starts at 8:15, drama club meets at 4:15, the soup kitchen starts serving at 6, and, oh yeah, your screenplay needs completion,” said a man who was a couple of years out of college, thinking back on his high-school years. He added: “There’s immense pressure” from parents and other authority figures “to focus on the self, at the expense of relationships”—pressure, quite a few 20-somethings told me, that extends right on through college.

Malcolm Harris strikes a similar note in his book, Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials. Addressing the desexing of the American teenager, he writes:

A decline in unsupervised free time probably contributes a lot. At a basic level, sex at its best is unstructured play with friends, a category of experience that … time diaries … tell us has been decreasing for American adolescents. It takes idle hands to get past first base, and today’s kids have a lot to do.

Marriage 101, one of the most popular undergraduate classes at Northwestern University, was launched in 2001 by William M. Pinsof, a founding father of couples therapy, and Arthur Nielsen, a psychiatry professor. What if you could teach about love, sex, and marriage before people chose a partner, Pinsof and Nielsen wondered—before they developed bad habits? The class was meant to be a sort of preemptive strike against unhappy marriages. Under Alexandra Solomon, the psychology professor who took over the course six years ago, it has become, secondarily, a strike against what she sees as the romantic and sexual stunting of a generation. She assigns students to ask someone else out on a date, for example, something many have never done.

This hasn’t hurt the class’s appeal; during registration, it fills within minutes. (It may or may not have helped that a course with overlapping appeal, Human Sexuality, was discontinued some years back after its professor presided over a demonstration of something called a fucksaw.) Each week during office hours, students wait in line to talk with Solomon, who is also a practicing therapist at the university’s Family Institute, not only about the class but about their love woes and everything they don’t know about healthy and pleasurable sex—which, in many cases, is a lot.

Over the course of numerous conversations, Solomon has come to various conclusions about hookup culture, or what might more accurately be described as lack-of-relationship culture. For one thing, she believes it is both a cause and an effect of social stunting. Or, as one of her students put it to her: “We hook up because we have no social skills. We have no social skills because we hook up.” For another, insofar as her students find themselves choosing between casual sex and no sex, they are doing so because an obvious third option—relationship sex—strikes many of them as not only unattainable but potentially irresponsible. Most Marriage 101 students have had at least one romantic relationship over the course of their college career; the class naturally attracts relationship-oriented students, she points out. Nonetheless, she believes that many students have absorbed the idea that love is secondary to academic and professional success—or, at any rate, is best delayed until those other things have been secured. “Over and over,” she has written, “my undergraduates tell me they try hard not to fall in love during college, imagining that would mess up their plans.”

One Friday afternoon in March, I sat in on a discussion Solomon was hosting for a group of predominantly female graduate students in the Family Institute’s counseling programs, on the challenges of love and sex circa 2018. Over rosé and brownies, students shared thoughts on topics ranging from Aziz Ansari’s notorious date (which had recently been detailed on the website Babe) to the ambiguities of current relationship terminology. “People will be like, ‘We’re dating, we’re exclusive, but we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend.’ What does that mean?” one young woman asked, exasperated. A classmate nodded emphatically. “What does that mean? We’re in a monogamous relationship, but …” She trailed off. Solomon jumped in with a sort of relationship litmus test: “If I get the flu, are you bringing me soup?” Around the conference table, heads shook; not many people were getting (or giving) soup.

The conversation proceeded to why soup-bringing relationships weren’t more common. “You’re supposed to have so much before you can get into a relationship,” one woman offered. Another said that when she was in high school, her parents, who are both professionals with advanced degrees, had discouraged relationships on the grounds that they might diminish her focus. Even today, in graduate school, she was finding the attitude hard to shake. “Now I need to finish school, I need to get a practice going, I need to do this and this, and then I’ll think about love. But by 30, you’re like, What is love? What’s it like to be in love?”

He couldn’t escape the sense that hitting on someone in person had, in a short period of time, gone from normal behavior to borderline creepy.

In early May, I returned to Northwestern to sit in on a Marriage 101 discussion section. I had picked that particular week because the designated topic, “Sex in Intimate Relationships,” seemed relevant. As it happened, though, there wasn’t much talk of sex; the session was mostly consumed by a rapturous conversation about the students’ experiences with something called the “mentor couple” assignment, which had involved interviewing a couple in the community and chronicling their relationship.

“To see a relationship where two people are utterly content and committed,” one woman said, with real conviction, “it’s kind of an aha moment for me.” Another student spoke disbelievingly of her couple’s pre-smartphone courtship. “I couldn’t necessarily relate to it,” she said. “They met, they got each other’s email addresses, they emailed one another, they went on a first date, they knew that they were going to be together. They never had a ‘define the relationship’ moment, because both were on the same page. I was just like, Damn, is that what it’s supposed to be like?” About two-thirds of the way through the allotted discussion time, one of the teaching assistants finally interrupted. “Should we transition?” she asked, tentatively. “I wanted to transition to talk about sex. Which is the topic of this week.”

3. The Tinder Mirage

Simon, a 32-year-old grad student who describes himself as short and balding (“If I wasn’t funny,” he says, “I’d be doomed”), didn’t lack for sex in college. (The names of people who talked with me about their personal lives have been changed.) “I’m outgoing and like to talk, but I am at heart a significant nerd,” he told me when we spoke recently. “I was so happy that college had nerdy women. That was a delight.” Shortly before graduation, he started a relationship that lasted for seven years. When he and his girlfriend broke up, in 2014, he felt like he’d stepped out of a time machine.

Before the relationship, Tinder didn’t exist; nor did iPhones. Simon wasn’t particularly eager to get into another serious relationship right away, but he wanted to have sex. “My first instinct was go to bars,” he said. But each time he went to one, he struck out. He couldn’t escape the sense that hitting on someone in person had, in a short period of time, gone from normal behavior to borderline creepy. His friends set up a Tinder account for him; later, he signed up for Bumble, Match, OkCupid, and Coffee Meets Bagel.

Unless you are exceptionally good-looking, the thing online dating may be best at is sucking up large amounts of time.

He had better luck with Tinder than the other apps, but it was hardly efficient. He figures he swiped right—indicating that he was interested—up to 30 times for every woman who also swiped right on him, thereby triggering a match. But matching was only the beginning; then it was time to start messaging. “I was up to over 10 messages sent for a single message received,” he said. In other words: Nine out of 10 women who matched with Simon after swiping right on him didn’t go on to exchange messages with him. This means that for every 300 women he swiped right on, he had a conversation with just one.

At least among people who don’t use dating apps, the perception exists that they facilitate casual sex with unprecedented efficiency. In reality, unless you are exceptionally good-looking, the thing online dating may be best at is sucking up large amounts of time. As of 2014, when Tinder last released such data, the average user logged in 11 times a day. Men spent 7.2 minutes per session and women spent 8.5 minutes, for a total of about an hour and a half a day. Yet they didn’t get much in return. Today, the company says it logs 1.6 billion swipes a day, and just 26 million matches. And, if Simon’s experience is any indication, the overwhelming majority of matches don’t lead to so much as a two-way text exchange, much less a date, much less sex.

When I talked with Simon, he was seven months into a relationship with a new girlfriend, whom he’d met through another online-dating service. He liked her, and was happy to be on hiatus from Tinder. “It’s like howling into the void for most guys,” he explained, “and like searching for a diamond in a sea of dick pics for most girls.”

So why do people continue to use dating apps? Why not boycott them all? Simon said meeting someone offline seemed like less and less of an option. His parents had met in a chorus a few years after college, but he couldn’t see himself pulling off something similar. “I play volleyball,” he added. “I had somebody on the volleyball team two years ago who I thought was cute, and we’d been playing together for a while.” Simon wanted to ask her out, but ultimately concluded that this would be “incredibly awkward,” even “boorish.”

At first, I wondered whether Simon was being overly genteel, or a little paranoid. But the more people I talked with, the more I came to believe that he was simply describing an emerging cultural reality. “No one approaches anyone in public anymore,” said a teacher in Northern Virginia. “The dating landscape has changed. People are less likely to ask you out in real life now, or even talk to begin with,” said a 28-year-old woman in Los Angeles who volunteered that she had been single for three years.

As romance and its beginnings are segregated from the routines of daily life, there is less and less space for elevator flirtation.

This shift seems to be accelerating amid the national reckoning with sexual assault and harassment, and a concomitant shifting of boundaries. According to a November 2017 Economist/YouGov poll, 17 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 now believe that a man inviting a woman out for a drink “always” or “usually” constitutes sexual harassment. (Among older groups, much smaller percentages believe this.)

Laurie Mintz, who teaches a popular undergraduate class on the psychology of sexuality at the University of Florida, told me that the #MeToo movement has made her students much more aware of issues surrounding consent. She has heard from many young men who are productively reexamining their past actions and working diligently to learn from the experiences of friends and partners. But others have described less healthy reactions, like avoiding romantic overtures for fear that they might be unwelcome. In my own conversations, men and women alike spoke of a new tentativeness and hesitancy. One woman who described herself as a passionate feminist said she felt empathy for the pressure that heterosexual dating puts on men. “I think I owe it to them, in this current cultural moment particularly, to try to treat them like they’re human beings taking a risk talking to a stranger,” she wrote me. “There are a lot of lonely, confused people out there, who have no idea what to do or how to date.”

I mentioned to several of the people I interviewed for this piece that I’d met my husband in an elevator, in 2001. (We worked on different floors of the same institution, and over the months that followed struck up many more conversations—in the elevator, in the break room, on the walk to the subway.) I was fascinated by the extent to which this prompted other women to sigh and say that they’d just love to meet someone that way. And yet quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. “Creeper! Get away from me,” one woman imagined thinking. “Anytime we’re in silence, we look at our phones,” explained her friend, nodding. Another woman fantasized to me about what it would be like to have a man hit on her in a bookstore. (She’d be holding a copy of her favorite book. “What’s that book?” he’d say.) But then she seemed to snap out of her reverie, and changed the subject to Sex and the City reruns and how hopelessly dated they seem. “Miranda meets Steve at a bar,” she said, in a tone suggesting that the scenario might as well be out of a Jane Austen novel, for all the relevance it had to her life.

How could various dating apps be so inefficient at their ostensible purpose—hooking people up—and still be so popular? For one thing, lots of people appear to be using them as a diversion, with limited expectations of meeting up in person. As Iris, who’s 33, told me bitterly, “They’ve gamified interaction. The majority of men on Tinder just swipe right on everybody. They say yes, yes, yes to every woman.”

Stories from other app users bear out the idea of apps as diversions rather than matchmakers. “Getting right-swiped is a good ego boost even if I have no intention of meeting someone,” one man told me. A 28-year-old woman said that she persisted in using dating apps even though she had been abstinent for three years, a fact she attributed to depression and low libido: “I don’t have much inclination to date someone.”

“After a while it just feels exactly the same as getting good at a bubble-popping game. I’m happy to be good at it, but what am I really achieving?” said an app user who described herself as abstinent by choice. Another woman wrote that she was “too lazy” to meet people, adding: “I usually download dating apps on a Tuesday when I’m bored, watching TV … I don’t try very hard.” Yet another woman said that she used an app, but only “after two glasses of white wine—then I promptly delete it after two hours of fruitless swiping.”

Many critiques of online dating, including a 2013 article by Dan Slater in The Atlantic, adapted from his book A Million First Dates, have focused on the idea that too many options can lead to “choice overload,” which in turn leads to dissatisfaction. Online daters, he argued, might be tempted to keep going back for experiences with new people; commitment and marriage might suffer. Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist who runs a longitudinal study out of Stanford called “How Couples Meet and Stay Together,” questions this hypothesis; his research finds that couples who meet online tend to marry more quickly than other couples, a fact that hardly suggests indecision.

Maybe choice overload applies a little differently than Slater imagined. Maybe the problem is not the people who date and date some more—they might even get married, if Rosenfeld is right—but those who are so daunted that they don’t make it off the couch. This idea came up many times in my conversations with people who described sex and dating lives that had gone into a deep freeze. Some used the term paradox of choice; others referred to option paralysis (a term popularized by Black Mirror); still others invoked fobo (“fear of a better option”).

And yet online dating continues to attract users, in part because many people consider apps less stressful than the alternatives. Lisa Wade suspects that graduates of high-school or college hookup culture may welcome the fact that online dating takes some of the ambiguity out of pairing up (We’ve each opted in; I’m at least a little bit interested in you). The first time my husband and I met up outside work, neither of us was sure whether it was a date. When you find someone via an app, there’s less uncertainty.

As a 27-year-old woman in Philadelphia put it: “I have insecurities that make fun bar flirtation very stressful. I don’t like the Is he into me? moment. I use dating apps because I want it to be clear that this is a date and we are sexually interested in one another. If it doesn’t work out, fine, but there’s never a Is he asking me to hang as a friend or as a date? feeling.” Other people said they liked the fact that on an app, their first exchanges with a prospective date could play out via text rather than in a face-to-face or phone conversation, which had more potential to be awkward.

Anna, who graduated from college three years ago, told me that in school, she struggled to “read” people. Dating apps have been a helpful crutch. “There’s just no ambiguity,” she explained. “This person is interested in me to some extent.” The problem is that the more Anna uses apps, the less she can imagine getting along without them. “I never really learned how to meet people in real life,” she said. She then proceeded to tell me about a guy she knew slightly from college, whom she’d recently bumped into a few times. She found him attractive and wanted to register her interest, but wasn’t sure how to do that outside the context of a college party. Then she remembered that she’d seen his profile on Tinder. “Maybe next time I sign in,” she said, musing aloud, “I’ll just swipe right so I don’t have to do this awkward thing and get rejected.”

Apart from helping people avoid the potential embarrassments (if also, maybe, the exhilaration) of old-fashioned flirting, apps are quite useful to those who are in what economists call “thin markets”—markets with a relatively low number of participants. Sexual minorities, for example, tend to use online dating services at much higher rates than do straight people. (Michael Rosenfeld—whose survey deliberately oversampled gays and lesbians in an effort to compensate for the dearth of research on their dating experiences—finds that “unpartnered gay men and unpartnered lesbians seem to have substantially more active dating lives than do heterosexuals,” a fact he attributes partly to their successful use of apps. This disparity raises the possibility that the sex recession may be a mostly heterosexual phenomenon.)

In all dating markets, apps appear to be most helpful to the highly photogenic. As Emma, a 26-year-old virgin who sporadically tries her luck with online dating, glumly told me, “Dating apps make it easy for hot people—who already have the easiest time.” Christian Rudder, a co-founder of OkCupid (one of the less appearance-centric dating services, in that it encourages detailed written profiles), reported in 2009 that the male users who were rated most physically attractive by female users got 11 times as many messages as the lowest-rated men did; medium-rated men received about four times as many messages. The disparity was starker for women: About two-thirds of messages went to the one-third of women who were rated most physically attractive. A more recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan and the Santa Fe Institute found that online daters of both genders tend to pursue prospective mates who are on average 25 percent more desirable than they are—presumably not a winning strategy.

The very existence of online dating makes it harder for anyone to make an overture in person without seeming inappropriate.

So where does this leave us? Many online daters spend large amounts of time pursuing people who are out of their league. Few of their messages are returned, and even fewer lead to in-person contact. At best, the experience is apt to be bewildering (Why are all these people swiping right on me, then failing to follow through?). But it can also be undermining, even painful. Emma is, by her own description, fat. She is not ashamed of her appearance, and purposefully includes several full-body photos in her dating profiles. Nevertheless, men persist in swiping right on her profile only to taunt her—when I spoke with her, one guy had recently ended a text exchange by sending her a gif of an overweight woman on a treadmill.

An even bigger problem may be the extent to which romantic pursuit is now being cordoned off into a predictable, prearranged online venue, the very existence of which makes it harder for anyone, even those not using the apps, to extend an overture in person without seeming inappropriate. What a miserable impasse.

4.  Bad Sex (Painfully Bad)

One especially springlike morning in May, as Debby Herbenick and I walked her baby through a park in Bloomington, Indiana, she shared a bit of advice she sometimes offers students at Indiana University, where she is a leading sex researcher. “If you’re with somebody for the first time,” she said evenly, “don’t choke them, don’t ejaculate on their face, don’t try to have anal sex with them. These are all things that are just unlikely to go over well.”

I’d sought out Herbenick in part because I was intrigued by an article she’d written for The Washington Post proposing that the sex decline might have a silver lining. Herbenick had asked whether we might be seeing, among other things, a retreat from coercive or otherwise unwanted sex. Just a few decades ago, after all, marital rape was still legal in many states. As she pushed her daughter’s stroller, she elaborated on the idea that some of the sex recession’s causes could be a healthy reaction to bad sex—a subset of people “not having sex that they don’t want to have anymore. People feeling more empowered to say ‘No thanks.’ ”

Bloomington is the unofficial capital of American sex research, a status that dates back to the 1940s, when the Indiana University biologist Alfred Kinsey’s pioneering sex surveys inaugurated the field. It retains its standing thanks partly to the productivity of its scientists, and partly to the paucity of sex research at other institutions. In 2009, Herbenick and her colleagues launched the ongoing National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, which is only the second nationally representative survey to examine Americans’ sex lives in detail—and the first to try to chart them over time. (The previous national survey, out of the University of Chicago, was conducted just once, in 1992. Most other sex research, including Kinsey’s, has used what are known as convenience samples, which don’t represent the population at large. The long-running General Social Survey, which much of Jean Twenge’s research is based upon, is nationally representative, but poses only a few questions about sex.)

I asked Herbenick whether the NSSHB’s findings gave her any hunches about what might have changed since the 1990s. She mentioned the new popularity of sex toys, and a surge in heterosexual anal sex. Back in 1992, the big University of Chicago survey reported that 20 percent of women in their late 20s had tried anal sex; in 2012, the NSSHB found a rate twice that. She also told me about new data suggesting that, compared with previous generations, young people today are more likely to engage in sexual behaviors prevalent in porn, like the ones she warns her students against springing on a partner. All of this might be scaring some people off, she thought, and contributing to the sex decline.

“If you are a young woman,” she added, glancing down at her daughter, “and you’re having sex and somebody tries to choke you, I just don’t know if you’d want to go back for more right away.”

Some of herbenick’s most sobering research concerns the prevalence of painful sex. In 2012, 30 percent of women said they’d experienced pain the last time they’d had vaginal intercourse; during anal intercourse, 72 percent had. Whether or not these rates represent an increase (we have no basis for comparison), they are troublingly high. Moreover, most women don’t tell their partners about their pain. J. Dennis Fortenberry, the chief of adolescent medicine at Indiana University’s medical school and a co-leader of the NSSHB, believes that many girls and women have internalized the idea that physical discomfort goes with being female.

A particularly vivid illustration of this comes from Lucia O’Sullivan, a University of New Brunswick psychology professor who has published research documenting high rates of sexual dysfunction among adolescents and young adults. That work grew out of a lunch several years ago with a physician from the university’s student-health center, who told O’Sullivan that she was deeply concerned by all the vulvar fissures she and her colleagues were seeing in their student patients. These women weren’t reporting rape, but the condition of their genitals showed that they were enduring intercourse that was, literally, undesired. “They were having sex they didn’t want, weren’t aroused by,” O’Sullivan says. The physician told her that the standard of care was to hand the women K‑Y Jelly and send them on their way.

Painful sex is not new, but there’s reason to think that porn may be contributing to some particularly unpleasant early sexual experiences. Studies show that, in the absence of high-quality sex education, teen boys look to porn for help understanding sex—anal sex and other acts women can find painful are ubiquitous in mainstream porn. (This isn’t to say that anal sex has to be painful, but rather that the version most women are experiencing is.) In a series of in-depth interviews, Cicely Marston of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that teenage boys experimenting with anal sex—perhaps influenced by what they’ve seen in porn—may find that sudden, unlubricated penetration is more difficult than it looks, and more agonizing for the recipient. Some of her subjects appear to have pressured their partner; others seem to have resorted to what another researcher described to me, clinically, as “nonconsensual substitution of anal for vaginal sex.”

In my interviews with young women, I heard too many iterations to count of “he did something I didn’t like that I later learned is a staple in porn,” choking being one widely cited example. Outside of porn, some people do enjoy what’s known as erotic asphyxiation—they say restricting oxygen to the brain can make for more intense orgasms—but it is dangerous and ranks high on the list of things you shouldn’t do to someone unless asked to. Tess, a 31-year-old woman in San Francisco, mentioned that her past few sexual experiences had been with slightly younger men. “I’ve noticed that they tend to go for choking without prior discussion,” she said. Anna, the woman who described how dating apps could avert awkwardness, told me she’d been choked so many times that at first, she figured it was normal. “A lot of people don’t realize you have to ask,” she said.

As Marina Adshade, a professor at the University of British Columbia who studies the economics of sex and love, said to me, “Men have bad sex and good sex. But when sex is bad for women, it’s really, really bad. If women are avoiding sex, are they trying to avoid the really bad sex?”

Sex takes time to learn under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances. Modeling your behavior after what you’ve seen on-screen can lead to what’s known as “spectatoring”—that is, worrying about how you look and sound while you’re having sex, a behavior the sex researchers William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson long ago posited was bad for sexual functioning. Some young women told me they felt pressured to emulate porn actresses—and to achieve orgasm from penetration alone, which most women can’t do. “It took me a while to be comfortable with the fact that I don’t have to be as vocal during sex as the girls seem to be in porn,” a 24-year-old woman in Boston said. A 31-year-old in Phoenix explained that in her experience, porn has made men “expect that they can make any woman orgasm by just pounding away.”

Learning sex in the context of one-off hookups isn’t helping either. Research suggests that, for most people, casual sex tends to be less physically pleasurable than sex with a regular partner. Paula England, a sociologist at NYU who has studied hookup culture extensively, attributes this partly to the importance of “partner-specific sexual skills”—that is, knowing what your partner likes. For women, especially, this varies greatly. One study found that while hooking up with a new partner, only 31 percent of men and 11 percent of women reached orgasm. (By contrast, when people were asked about their most recent sexual encounter in the context of a relationship, 84 percent of men and 67 percent of women said they’d had an orgasm.) Other studies have returned similar results. Of course, many people enjoy encounters that don’t involve orgasms—a third of hookups don’t include acts that could reasonably be expected to lead to one—but the difference between the two contexts is striking. If young people are delaying serious relationships until later in adulthood, more and more of them may be left without any knowledge of what good sex really feels like.

As I was reporting this piece, quite a few people told me that they were taking a break from sex and dating. This tracks with research by Lucia O’Sullivan, who finds that even after young adults’ sex lives start up, they are often paused for long periods of time. Some people told me of sexual and romantic dormancy triggered by assault or depression; others talked about the decision to abstain as if they were taking a sabbatical from an unfulfilling job.

Late one afternoon in February, I met up with Iris, the woman who remarked to me that Tinder had been “gamified,” at the Lemon Collective, a design studio and workshop space in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The collective hosts DIY and design classes as well as courses geared toward the wellness of Millennial women; Valentine’s Day had been celebrated with a wildly oversubscribed real-estate workshop called “House Before Spouse.” (“We don’t need partners to be financially savvy and create personal wealth,” the event’s description said. “Wine and cheese will be served, obviously.”)

As we chatted (over, obviously, wine), Iris despaired at the quality of her recent sexual interactions. “I had such bad sex yesterday, my God, it was so bad,” she said wearily. “He basically got it in and—” She banged a fist against her palm at a furious tempo. It was the first time she’d slept with this man, whom she had met on Tinder, and she wondered aloud whether she could coach him. She was doubtful, though; he was in his 30s—old enough, she thought, to know better.

Iris observed that her female friends, who were mostly single, were finding more and more value in their friendships. “I’m 33, I’ve been dating forever, and, you know, women are better,” she said. “They’re just better.” She hastened to add that men weren’t bad; in fact, she hated how anti-male the conversations around her had grown. Still, she and various platonic female friends—most of whom identified as straight—were starting to play roles in one another’s lives that they might not be playing if they had fulfilling romantic or sexual relationships. For instance, they’d started trading lesbian-porn recommendations, and were getting to know one another’s preferences pretty well. Several women also had a text chain going in which they exchanged nude photos of themselves. “It’s nothing but positivity,” she said, describing the complimentary texts they’d send one another in reply to a photo (“Damn, girl, your tits!”). She wasn’t ready to swear off men entirely. But, she said, “I want good sex.” Or at least, she added, “pretty good sex.”

5. Inhibition

“Millennials don’t like to get naked—if you go to the gym now, everyone under 30 will put their underwear on under the towel, which is a massive cultural shift,” Jonah Disend, the founder of the branding consultancy Redscout, told Bloomberglast year. He said that designs for master-bedroom suites were evolving for much the same reason: “They want their own changing rooms and bathrooms, even in a couple.” The article concluded that however “digitally nonchalant” Millennials might seem—an allusion, maybe, to sexting—“they’re prudish in person.” Fitness facilities across the country are said to be renovating locker rooms in response to the demands of younger clients. “Old-timers, guys that are 60-plus, have no problem with a gang shower,” one gym designer told The New York Times, adding that Millennials require privacy.

Some observers have suggested that a new discomfort with nudity might stem from the fact that, by the mid-1990s, most high schools had stopped requiring students to shower after gym class. Which makes sense—the less time you spend naked, the less comfortable you are being naked. But people may also be newly worried about what they look like naked. A large and growing body of research reports that for both men and women, social-media use is correlated with body dissatisfaction. And a major Dutch study found that among men, frequency of pornography viewing was associated with concern about penis size. I heard much the same from quite a few men (“too hairy, not fit enough, not big enough in terms of penis size,” went one morose litany). According to research by Debby Herbenick, how people feel about their genitals predicts sexual functioning—and somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of people, perhaps influenced by porn or plastic-surgery marketing, feel negatively. The business of labiaplasty has become so lucrative, she told me in an email, “that you will actually see billboards (yes, billboards!) in some cities advertising it.”

As one might imagine, feeling comfortable in your body is good for your sex life. A review of 57 studies examining the relationship between women’s body image and sexual behavior suggests that positive body image is linked to having better sex. Conversely, not feeling comfortable in your own skin complicates sex. If you don’t want your partner to see you getting out of the shower, how is oral sex going to work?

Maybe, for some people, it isn’t. The 2017 iteration of Match.com’s Singles in America survey (co-led by Helen Fisher and the Kinsey Institute’s Justin Garcia) found that single Millennials were 66 percent less likely than members of older generations to enjoy receiving oral sex. Which doesn’t bode particularly well for female pleasure: Among partnered sex acts, cunnilingus is one of the surest ways for women to have orgasms.

Ian Kerner, the New York sex therapist, told me that he works with a lot of men who would like to perform oral sex but are rebuffed by their partner. “I know the stereotype is often that men are the ones who don’t want to perform it, but I find the reverse,” he said. “A lot of women will say when I’m talking to them privately, ‘I just can’t believe that a guy wants to be down there, likes to do that. It’s the ugliest part of my body.’ ” When I asked 20-somethings about oral sex, a pretty sizable minority of women sounded a similar note. “Receiving makes me nervous. It feels more intimate than penetration,” wrote one woman. “I become so self-conscious and find it difficult to enjoy,” wrote another.

Over the past 20 years, the way sex researchers think about desire and arousal has broadened from an initially narrow focus on stimulus to one that sees inhibition as equally, if not more, important. (The term inhibition, for these purposes, means anything that interferes with or prevents arousal, ranging from poor self-image to distractedness.) In her book Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, who trained at the Kinsey Institute, compares the brain’s excitement system to the gas pedal in a car, and its inhibition system to the brakes. The first turns you on; the second turns you off. For many people, research suggests, the brakes are more sensitive than the accelerator.

That turn-offs matter more than turn-ons may sound commonsensical, but in fact, this insight is at odds with most popular views of sexual problems. When people talk about addressing a lack of desire, they tend to focus on fuel, or stimulation—erotica, Viagra, the K‑Y Jelly they were handing out at the New Brunswick student-health center. These things are helpful to many people in many cases, but they won’t make you want to have sex if your brakes are fully engaged.

In my interviews, inhibition seemed a constant companion to many people who’d been abstinent for a long time. Most of them described abstinence not as something they had embraced (due to religious belief, say) so much as something they’d found themselves backed into as a result of trauma, anxiety, or depression. Dispiritingly but unsurprisingly, sexual assault was invoked by many of the women who said they’d opted out of sex. The other two factors come as no great shock either: Rates of anxiety and depression have been rising among Americans for decades now, and by some accounts have risen quite sharply of late among people in their teens and 20s. Anxiety suppresses desire for most people. And, in a particularly unfortunate catch‑22, both depression and the antidepressants used to treat it can also reduce desire.

“I have a therapist and this is one of the main things we’re working on,” a 28-year-old woman I’ll call April wrote to me, by way of explaining that, owing to intense anxiety, she’d never slept with anyone or been in a relationship. “I’ve had a few kisses & gone to second base (as the kids say) and it really has never been good for me.” When we later spoke by phone, she told me that in adolescence, she’d been shy, overweight, and “very, very afraid of boys.” April isn’t asexual (she gives thanks for her Magic Bullet vibrator). She’s just terrified of intimacy. From time to time she goes on dates with men she meets through her job in the book industry or on an app, but when things get physical, she panics. “I jumped out of someone’s car once to avoid him kissing me,” she said miserably. As we were ending the conversation, she mentioned to me a story by the British writer Helen Oyeyemi, which describes an author of romance novels who is secretly a virgin. “She doesn’t have anyone, and she’s just stuck. It’s kind of a fairy tale—she lives in the garret of a large, old house, writing these romantic stories over and over, but nothing ever happens for her. I think about her all the time.”

In exchanges like these, I was struck by what a paralyzing and vicious cycle unhappiness and abstinence can be. The data show that having sex makes people happier (up to a point, at least; for those in relationships, more than once a week doesn’t seem to bring an additional happiness bump). Yet unhappiness inhibits desire, in the process denying people who are starved of joy one of its potential sources. Are rising rates of unhappiness contributing to the sex recession? Almost certainly. But mightn’t a decline in sex and intimacy also be leading to unhappiness?

Moreover, what research we have on sexually inactive adults suggests that, for those who desire a sex life, there may be such a thing as waiting too long. Among people who are sexually inexperienced at age 18, about 80 percent will become sexually active by the time they are 25. But those who haven’t gained sexual experience by their mid-20s are much less likely to ever do so. The authors of a 2009 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine speculated that “if a man or woman has not had intercourse by age 25, there is a reasonable chance [he or she] will remain a virgin at least until age 45.” Research by Stanford’s Michael Rosenfeld confirms that, in adulthood, true singledom is a far more stable category than most of us have imagined. Over the course of a year, he reports, only 50 percent of heterosexual single women in their 20s go on any dates—and older women are even less likely to do so.

Other sources of sexual inhibition speak distinctly to the way we live today. For example, sleep deprivation strongly suppresses desire—and sleep quality is imperiled by now-common practices like checking one’s phone overnight. (For women, getting an extra hour of sleep predicts a 14 percent greater likelihood of having sex the next day.) In her new book, Better Sex Through Mindfulness, Lori Brotto, an obstetrics-and-gynecology professor at the University of British Columbia, reviews lab research showing that background distraction of the sort we’re all swimming in now likewise dampens arousal, in both men and women.

How can such little things—a bad night’s sleep, low-grade distraction—defeat something as fundamental as sex? One answer, which I heard from a few quarters, is that our sexual appetites are meant to be easily extinguished. The human race needs sex, but individual humans don’t.

Among the contradictions of our time is this: We live in unprecedented physical safety, and yet something about modern life, very recent modern life, has triggered in many of us autonomic responses associated with danger—anxiety, constant scanning of our surroundings, fitful sleep. Under these circumstances, survival trumps desire. As Emily Nagoski likes to point out, nobody ever died of sexlessness: “We can starve to death, die of dehydration, even die of sleep deprivation. But nobody ever died of not being able to get laid.”

When Toys “R” Us announced this spring—after saying it had been struggling because of falling birth rates—that it would be shutting down, some observers mordantly remarked that it could be added to the list of things that Millennials had destroyed.

Societal changes have a way of inspiring generational pessimism. Other writers, examining the same data I’ve looked at, have produced fretful articles about the future; critics have accused them of stoking panic. And yet there are real causes for concern. One can quibble—if one cares to—about exactly why a particular toy retailer failed. But there’s no escaping that the American birth rate has been falling for a decade.

At first, the drop was attributed to the Great Recession, and then to the possibility that Millennial women were delaying motherhood rather than forgoing it. But a more fundamental change may be under way. In 2017, the U.S. birth rate hit a record low for a second year running. Birth rates are declining among women in their 30s—the age at which everyone supposed more Millennials would start families. As a result, some 500,000 fewer American babies were born in 2017 than in 2007, even though more women were of prime childbearing age. Over the same period, the number of children the average American woman is expected to have fell from 2.1 (the so-called replacement rate, or fertility level required to sustain population levels without immigration) to 1.76. If this trend does not reverse, the long-term demographic and fiscal implications will be significant.

A more immediate concern involves the political consequences of loneliness and alienation. Take for example the online hate and real-life violence waged by the so-called incels—men who claim to be “involuntarily celibate.” Their grievances, which are illegitimate and vile, offer a timely reminder that isolated young people are vulnerable to extremism of every sort. See also the populist discontent roiling Europe, driven in part by adults who have so far failed to achieve the milestones of adulthood: In Italy, half of 25-to-34-year-olds now live with their parents.

When I began working on this story, I expected that these big-picture issues might figure prominently within it. I was pretty sure I’d hear lots of worry about economic insecurity and other contributors to a generally precarious future. I also imagined, more hopefully, a fairly lengthy inquiry into the benefits of loosening social conventions, and of less couple-centric pathways to a happy life. But these expectations have mostly fallen to the side, and my concerns have become more basic.

Humans’ sexual behavior is one of the things that distinguish us from other species: Unlike most apes, and indeed most animals, humans have sex at times and in configurations that make conception not just unlikely but impossible (during pregnancy, menopause, and other infertile periods; with same-sex partners; using body parts that have never issued babies and never will). As a species, we are “bizarre in our nearly continuous practice of sex,” writes the UCLA professor Jared Diamond, who has studied the evolution of human sexuality. “Along with posture and brain size, sexuality completes the trinity of the decisive aspects in which the ancestors of humans and great apes diverged.” True, nobody ever died of not getting laid, but getting laid has proved adaptive over millions of years: We do it because it is fun, because it bonds us to one another, because it makes us happy.

A fulfilling sex life is not necessary for a good life, of course, but lots of research confirms that it contributes to one. Having sex is associated not only with happiness, but with a slew of other health benefits. The relationship between sex and wellness, perhaps unsurprisingly, goes both ways: The better off you are, the better off your sex life is, and vice versa. Unfortunately, the converse is true as well. Not having a partner—sexual or romantic—can be both a cause and an effect of discontent. Moreover, as American social institutions have withered, having a life partner has become a stronger predictor than ever of well-being.

Like economic recessions, the sex recession will probably play out in ways that are uneven and unfair. Those who have many things going for them already—looks, money, psychological resilience, strong social networks—continue to be well positioned to find love and have good sex and, if they so desire, become parents. But intimacy may grow more elusive to those who are on less steady footing.

When, over the course of my reporting, people in their 20s shared with me their hopes and fears and inhibitions, I sometimes felt pangs of recognition. Just as often, though, I was taken aback by what seemed like heartbreaking changes in the way many people were relating—or not relating—to one another. I am not so very much older than the people I talked with for this story, and yet I frequently had the sense of being from a different time.

Sex seems more fraught now. This problem has no single source; the world has changed in so many ways, so quickly. In time, maybe, we will rethink some things: The abysmal state of sex education, which was once a joke but is now, in the age of porn, a disgrace. The dysfunctional relationships so many of us have with our phones and social media, to the detriment of our relationships with humans. Efforts to “protect” teenagers from most everything, including romance, leaving them ill-equipped for both the miseries and the joys of adulthood.

In October, as I was finishing this article, I spoke once more with April, the woman who took comfort in the short story about the romance novelist who was secretly a virgin. She told me that, since we’d last talked, she’d met a man on Tinder whom she really liked. They’d gone on several dates over the summer, and fooled around quite a bit. As terrified as she had been about getting physically and emotionally intimate with another person, she found, to her surprise, that she loved it: “I never thought I would feel that comfortable with someone. It was so much better than I thought it was going to be.”

As things progressed, April figured that, in the name of real intimacy, she should explain to the man that she hadn’t yet had sex. The revelation didn’t go over well. “I told him I was a virgin. And he broke up with me. Beforehand, I figured that was the worst thing that could happen. And then it happened. The worst thing happened.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was steadier and more assured. “But I’m still here.”

[davidboles]

The Ultimate WHOOP Review

I’ve been using WHOOP for a couple of months. WHOOP is a biometric device you wear on your wrist, or bicep, to help measure cardiovascular inheritance from aerobic Strain training during your workouts as well as the mounting recordable stresses of the day based on heart rate beats per minute. My WHOOP device, worn exclusively on my upper bicep, has taught me the hard way that Kettlebell workouts are great for increasing anaerobic strength, but Kettlebells also need extra help to push the body into aerobic cardiovascular fitness, and for me, that translates into having to add running, Kettlebell EMOM (with cautious variations), jumping jacks, and cycling to my daily workout routines. Those additions compete to complicate both time and trouble.

As you know, I use my Apple watch on my left wrist to measure my heart rate all day. I wear an Oura Ring on my left hand in marriage position — as does my wife! — to help track HRV every day.  I wear my WHOOP all day and all night, on alternating biceps, to bring it all together in the ultimate triumvirate of health in exposition. 

I’ll give you my ultimate WHOOP review bullet points in a moment, but first, I want to discuss my initial experience with getting to know WHOOP by sharing my initial conversation with support.

QUESTION ONE

BOLESBELLS.COM: Is there any way to tell Whoop that I am on medication that affects my heart rate? I'm on Blood Pressure meds, and while I may be able to peak at 150bpm, my sustainable max is really around 135. With other Apps, I can tell them I'm on meds, and the expectation is lowered. When my heart rate jumps to max, it almost instantly drops back down to my RHR of about 60 while exercising. Will Whoop eventually figure this out on its own?

WHOOP SUPPORT: You can track your blood pressure medication in the WHOOP Journal! To add it to your journal, you can edit your journal topics and under "Medication" there is an option to add blood pressure medication. If you would like some more information on your personal HR data, I would be more than happy to connect you with our Data Analytics team. They are the experts!

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: I found the BP meds part of the journal! Thank you. Initially setting up the journal, I remember seeing something about anxiety meds, but nothing about BP meds. I fixed it, and was able to go back in time, and adjust the journal for BP meds. I do think more options need to be added above 100mg a day, though! What happens when you read that plus one upper limit in the way WHOOP interprets the BP meds data? As well, are BP meds that significantly affect my upper heart rate, influencing my daily Strain requirements? Or does that only happen once a month? Or never?

QUESTION TWO

BOLESBELLS.COM: Why no connection to Apple Health and Apple Watch? What is the point of siloing your App and data? I have to use Strava as a bridge to get my workouts recorded, so the investment into Whoop now becomes a multiple of a Strava subscription as well.

WHOOP SUPPORT: Our only two integrations at the moment are Strava and TrainingPeaks. We currently do not have any plans to integrate with Apple Health or the Apple Watch, but I am more than happy to send this feedback over to our Product Development Team for future updates.

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: Thank you for submitting the Apple Health request function. By including two applications, you appear to indicate you are willing to allow Apple Health functionality, but not directly, as some web analysis suggests the WHOOP team is not large enough to offer enough software management muscle to support Apple Health and the Apple Watch.

QUESTION THREE

BOLESBELLS.COM: I'm not certain why Strain is so complicated to comprehend when -- "Do This, Get That" -- is much more relatable. I've read all your info pages on Strain, and I've read all the online forums, but Strain appears to be a proprietary, and secret, algorithm that you don't want end users to figure out to actually meet the goal. Keeping us in the dark makes us work harder to reach a metric that is unclear and muddled. This makes for a frustrating workout experience in the end because you are withholding clarification and confirmation of progress.

WHOOP SUPPORT: We do not intend for Strain to be complicated to comprehend! Strain is a measurement, on a 21-point scale, which quantifies the total cardiovascular load undergone. The score is not “linear”, in that it is easier to go from a 0 to a 4 than it is to go from a 10 to a 12.

This [sic] non-linearity reflects physiological processes in the body, for example why you are unable to sustain an all-out sprint for longer than a couple of minutes. Unlike counting steps, Strain is personalized and accounts for differences in fitness and ability such that two people who complete the same run (with the same amount of steps) could get very different Strain scores based on differences in the relative difficulty to complete that run. In the case of this run, the more fit athlete would get a lower Strain because he or she did not have to work as hard to complete the run as the less fit athlete did. Strain starts to build at the beginning of each cycle (when you go to sleep), and the score will get harder and harder to increase as it gets higher. If you don't do much activity outside of walking and/or working, it may not increase.

Strain for an activity is calculated by combining a weighted sum of the duration of time you spend at various heart rates. Each heart rate has a different weight to how much Strain will increase. To accrue Strain points, you must have a Heart Rate that exceeds 30% of your Heart Rate Reserve (Max Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate) plus your Resting Heart Rate.

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: I understand Strain, but I don't understand if Strain understands me. Because of my BP medication, I'm not able to sustain much of an upper heart rate and, right now, WHOOP is holding that against me statistically because the base Strain expectation is too high. I don't know if that will change if WHOOP learns my maximum heart rate and adjusts, but right now, it's frustrating that I'm stuck in "recovery" for Strain, when I'm actually killing myself just to get above the 50% level of Strain for my WHOOP workouts. I wish the BP meds were not part of a journal, but an integral part of determining my daily Strain effort.

That conversation with WHOOP support was about two months ago, and I was pushed over to a WHOOP data technician to continue the approach; and here are my extra thoughts, and analysis — in informational bullets — concerning my ongoing interaction with the WHOOP strap, and the reasons behind the how, and why, of WHOOP data dislocation:

WHOOP data support and I had a long conversation about Blood Pressure medication, and Strain, and my ability to move my maximum heart rate into the recordable aerobic range. I’m old and I’m on meds — both of those things negatively affect my achievable maximum heart rate. At the time, my default heart rate max was set at 185bpm server side with WHOOP. I can barely reach 150bpm in any workout, even at my full Strain capacity, and even then I cannot sustain that 150bpm heart rate for any longer than a minute or so. That means I’ll never reliably reach my daily Strain goal, especially if I sleep well the night before, and over the last two years, I’ve worked really hard — in concert with my Oura Ring — to always make sure my sleep is right. WHOOP support, based on reading the initial 10 days of my metrics recordings, agreed to lower my server side heart rate peak from 185bpm to 160bpm. I agreed to that change because I’ll never hit 185bpm with my medication holding me back, but I still believed 150 should be my actual peak — because my true, sustainable max heart rate is 135bpm — and I’ve been proven right in my first monthly WHOOP assessment that just dropped this morning. However, WHOOP data support, at that time, was unmoved by my 150bpm request because, they could see, I’d hit 151bpm once. That echoing decision makes the idea of continuing on with WHOOP beyond the six-month minimum subscription a hard task to imagine because I’ll never achieve acceptable cardiovascular health in that WHOOP world.

It is a real hassle to get WHOOP involved in your Apple life. WHOOP will not directly write the Apple Health, or allow Apple Health to directly access WHOOP data. So, if you want the full inclusion of WHOOP into your workout life, you have to make a kludge connection by “hiring” the Strava run App to mediate — to become the “middleman” of record in the Apple world — by negotiating the writing of WHOOP data to Apple Health. That is just a bad user experience. There’s no direct WHOOP data available on your Apple Watch. You can’t start a WHOOP workout from your Apple Watch even if you’re wearing the WHOOP strap. That makes WHOOP technologically feel very old and isolated.

No matter how hard I work out — right now it’s three times a day — I cannot move my Strain gauge into anything other than recovery. That means, according to WHOOP, that I will never be able to meet the daily Strain challenge unless I perform something along the lines of three hours of jumping jacks every day. It’s an impossible task and, in all the time I’ve had my WHOOP on my bicep, I’ve only met my basic Strain requirement once, and that was after a slightly bad night of sleep.

Yes, you can manipulate WHOOP to significantly raise your Strain meter by: Not sleeping enough, drinking alcohol, and not allowing your mind to quiet. All of that will tank your HRV, and WHOOP will then lower your achievable Strain score for the next day. So, we can beat the WHOOP Strain game with intentional bad behavior, but for those of us trying to live, and eat right, WHOOP will not give us that benefit of that doubt because we are “punished” by their Strain algorithm, and then forced to work harder, and push stronger, especially if we are feeling good, and doing well. Sometimes, it feels like WHOOP wants to push me to the point of bodily danger to surpass my arbitrary Strain goal. The stronger you become cardiovascularly, the more WHOOP raises the base Strain expectation of your performance behavior. It feels like a never ending circle by design you can never successfully close. Sometimes, you need to let the dog win the bone.

The fight to beat the WHOOP Strain gauge every day has raised my HRV. That’s pretty amazing. I’m seeing a 10 point increase in HRV in just a month of changing the way I schedule my training and expectations. That’s one behaviorally-enforced miracle on the WHOOP side that cannot be denied.

The WHOOP journal is not a great pathway for determining expectations or habitual implications. I suggest you only include journal variables that are always changing, because if you routinely do a “good” thing every day, it won’t be counted in your monthly report unless you also don’t do it at least five times. That’s a confusing metric that really only allows for the inclusion of bad habits you’re trying to break, and not all the good habits you religiously covet into your daily grind.

WHOOP is amazing technology, but often the promise appears more valid than the proof.

[jorjathomas]

Lifestyle trends based on my target audience

When research gaps in the market, I began to think of ways I could get as much content in my zine. Although I had my own personal advice and tips, I also need some content that would help enable more engagement. This is why I have began to look at potential lifestyle trends from the website LSN so I could use in my zine. I also looked into my target audience and how they are researched to behave so I can understand my target audience better. My age group will be people aged 16-24 meaning currently, most of these women fall into Generation Z.

Article 1: How Joy scrolling can uplift brand storytelling (March 2021)

The first article I looked into explains the new aesthetic for story telling. As the pandemic hit, there was a lot of bad news surfaced. Artists took a step forward to create uplifting news and advice that can help distract society and focus on the good temporarily. Ives seen this surge of design all over the internet and a lot of news has been produced in an artistic way to make the articles easier to read. This is a less intimidating approach to new which i like and want to follow for the magazine however i am also weary of the dangers of this. I don't want to distract or wash the important information with pretty art but influence it to be more visible. This article helped influence my decision as this way for creating has become popular in society. A lot of this style seems to be digital however I hope to move this movement into physical consumerism to aid the popularity of magazines.

Here are some examples which were published on the LSN article. (March 2021)

Spreading this positivity across social media has created a lifted and conscious internet algorithm and i think has broken the dark internet cycle of having to look perfect and be ‘amazing’ all of the time. Getting rid of this influencer life and spread important events and news that could educate a person is much more important than having to look a certain way to feel accepted. I wish to do this with my zine and these examples validify my urge to change and create a positive society.

When completing trend research, we looked at trends for the summer and there seemed to be a lot more colour plastered onto life. I can see this now coming into action with this new approach to news by adding sketches and other forms of art into important messages and advice. Just like the Trend project, I hope to bring a euphoric feel and uplift a reader with the assistance of bright colours.

Article 2: Need to know (11/02/21)

The second trend article i looked at involved a lot of information which became popular over the new year. The most distinctive article was about post pandemic self-care. As you should know already, this subject is heavy within my concept so I was interested to see what has changes when taking care of yourselves pre and post covid lockdown. This LSN article states that-  ‘Many US citizens plan to continue engaging in the self-care routines they've established during the pandemic.’

The Need to know article also reports that- ‘According to a recent survey conducted by OnePoll for US wellness software company Vagaro, two-thirds (67%) of people agreed that the routines they developed during the pandemic have become a permanent part of their life. Meanwhile, 69% of respondents say they plan to dedicate more time to self-care in 2021 than they did in the previous year.’

I am happy to see this occurring within peoples life as this is the perfect opportunity to use my zine to spread this awareness. My zine should produce self- care tips that can help them to continue this dedication. Although this is my sole purpose of the zine, I also think I should add personal and education information that can assist the zine in becoming more personal and enjoyable to read as there is more than one category.

Article 3: Reading Market (March 2021)

This was probably the most informative article from the four I looked at on LSN as I was able to understand how much demand there is for reading. There's a obvious increase in digital media so I am interested to develop ideas that could help these statistics transform into the physical media outlets. The LSN articles says that- ‘According to Nielsen, time spent reading books among UK consumers has nearly doubled – from an average of three-and-a-half hours per week to six hours.’ Knowing that there is a growth in reading eases my worry of my magazine not gaining any recognition especially since I plan to print physical copies. They also state that- ‘As well as offering solace, comfort and helping to bolster knowledge, the reading market is adapting. It's embracing digital acceleration through new interactive formats, while also tuning in to the desires of younger generations, namely their ethical mindsets. For brands, media outlets and publishers, even greater disruption awaits a sector that has long been bound to tradition.’

‘We were expecting possibly to see a spike in comfort reads, like cosy crime or light comic novels,’ says Jess Harrison’

From this information, I can see there is a demand in books and most importantly pivotal media. The drastic change from fiction books decreasing and non-fiction becoming popular, proves the fact that people want to become more educated about world matters which they may not have had to do previously. I must remember to add in important information about specific matters I’d like to cover to aid the increase in monumental reads. My only dilemma is the competition with digital reads as screen time as plummeted this past year. Publishing physical copies carries a lot more problems. For example; when I’d publish I would want the copies to be long term for readers, having content that they can keep referring to rather than quick consumption. This would help reduce the carbon footprint of the magazine. I would defiantly want to be a sustainable zine, having more authentic materials that would not only benefit the planet but also add texture to the brand. The article states that- ‘Publishing house Penguin, meanwhile, is taking an environment-first approach to bookselling, targeting the 65% of readers who prefer the tactile experience of a physical book while addressing the impact on the planet. Its Naked Books are printed on demand, use recycled paper, eschew cover art in favour of a simple manuscript, and are delivered using carbon-neutral transport.’

Following up with the digital competitors this fact proves this point. Despite this I can use technology to my advantage when I would publish the book. For example using YouTube or TikTok to improve new customers with the help of algorithms etc.

Above is a digital book company which would be my competitor along side Audio books and Kindle. These have grown in the past year as there is a wider platform for smaller authors to get their books known.

Article 4: Anxiety Rebellion (2018)

Despite this trend report being slightly older than the others, I thought it would be intriguing to see if this article has come into play in the more recent years or if my magazine could do this instead to make this trend more long lasting. This article was under the macro trend category on the content page of LSN meaning this should still be present within todays society and I can apply it to my work. This article provides a insight on the new generation and how they are more diverse in comparison to Millennials creating a new wave of life. I looked into this survey by IPSOS MORI below to get a better understanding of my target market of gen z’s.

This video was attached to this article and it was brought to my attention quickly as I think it perfectly portrays my ideas and thoughts around my idea which you may not have seen yet. The next post will be the full advertisement of this video which was made by ASOS. This advertises Collusion which is a brand created by ASOS that offers clothing and accessories for the new generation. They spread positivity and urge consumers to invert their own style.

Gen z:

A quote from IPSOS- ‘For previous generations of teens, anxiety could be attributed to teenage angst – a temporary cocktail of the hormones and emotions that come with growing up – but Generation Z are fighting this stereotype. Rather than allowing themselves to become trapped in a web of anxiety, teens are speaking out against practices that cause them unnecessary pressure and turning their worries into productivity. In September 2018, a 15-year-old student tweeted ‘stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to’, garnering more than 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes.’

As seen from previous events from the past year, teenagers are becoming more vocal on specific matters important to them. I am pleased by this as I think they are breaking this preformed ways of living, how to behave and creating a new and more expressive society.  IPSOS Mori’s recent survey found that, ‘contrary to many clichés about today’s young, our new survey data and analysis reveals a better behaved, more trusting, socially minded and less materialistic generation’. There are many prejudgments about teenagers however, everyone has been one at some stage of their life. The common personality assumptions are laziness, rudeness and anti-social behaviour. Seeing the survey data results and proving these judgments wrong is refreshing. Teenagers actually are more motivated than ever and I hope to give them help. The survey also states that Generation Z are showing new attitudes to their placement in the world. for example, improved self-care solutions, spiritual healing practises, cleaner lifestyles, future-proof financial systems and a new entrepreneurial mindsets. These features have defiantly broke the judgments and are radically different from the actions of the former generations. As you can see in the states on the post- ‘Which noted that illicit drug use by US teenagers, including cocaine and heroin, fell from 22.6% in 2007 to 14% in 2017. The study also found that teenagers are having significantly less sex.’

To conclude this post, researching current lifestyle trends within the current youth market has further developed the urgency for a demand of zines like this. I am excited to begin some creative processes now and really make these ideas come together with the help of this trend research.

[berniesrevolution]

CATALYST JOURNAL

The rightward lurch in American politics has reinvigorated the study of poor and working-class communities. But instead of blazing new trails in this endeavor, the emerging literature seems to be reworking tired old tropes. In a review of four recent books, I show that approaches that are rightly rejected as explanations of social behavior among impoverished black communities are adopted with great aplomb in the study of working-class whites. Rather than seeing their political culture as a product of their social conditions, these works often see workers’ culture as built-in and unchanging. I observe that this just amounts to a revived “culture of poverty” discourse in the study of the working class.

McDowell County, West Virginia, is one of the sacrifice zones of American life. The poorest county in one of the poorest states in the country, it’s been the setting for a seemingly inexorable social catastrophe that’s still unfolding decades after it began. In the middle of the twentieth century, McDowell was the heart of West Virginia’s coal industry, a place where the struggles of the United Mine Workers lifted entire communities out of poverty and degradation and into proletarian respectability. It was the home of one of the largest coal mining and processing industries in the world, and at its height it provided enough employment to support a population of roughly a hundred thousand.

Then came the collapse. The Appalachian region lost tens of thousands of mining jobs in the 1980s, and few places were hit harder than West Virginia. Between 1983 and 1992, the state lost close to twenty thousand mining jobs, many of them in McDowell. Mechanization was the leading culprit, but rising competition from Western coal producers and natural-gas fracking have also played major roles.1 As a result of coal’s decline, McDowell’s population cratered — there are eighty thousand fewer people living in McDowell today than there were fifty years ago. The median income in the county is barely above $20,000, a third of residents (including over 60 percent of children under five) live below the federal poverty line, and less than two-thirds of adults have graduated from high school. The catastrophic scale of McDowell’s opioid epidemic has pushed the county government to take the unprecedented step of filing suit against a group of drug wholesalers, accusing them of responsibility for the nation’s highest rate of deaths by drug overdose. The most shocking measure of McDowell’s devastation is its life expectancy — seventy-three years for women and sixty-four for men. These figures are comparable to those in Mongolia and Namibia, not the rest of the United States or any other advanced capitalist country in the world.2

McDowell County is not a place where many people could reasonably be described as “privileged.” But it is largely white — over 77 percent, as of 2015. In the 2016 presidential election, 75 percent of its voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump, a higher proportion of the vote than Trump won in the state as a whole.

This combination of white despair and seemingly overwhelming enthusiasm for Trump was too much for the media to resist. Before and after November 8, intrepid journalists filed a spate of reports on the region that take us, in the words of one prominent New Yorker article, into “the heart of Trump Country.” For the professional-managerial class, places like McDowell have become a screen for projecting their anxieties about the rough beast they blame for delivering Donald Trump to the White House — the white working class.

A pre-election video report on McDowell from the Guardian is symptomatic of the genre. Titled “Why the Poorest County in West Virginia Has Faith in Trump,” the report takes a largely sympathetic look at the dire circumstances confronting McDowell’s residents. It’s premised on the observation that Trump received a higher percentage of the GOP primary vote in the county — over 90 percent — than anywhere else in the country. While this is undoubtedly true, the Trump Country narrative that’s built on that number begins to fall apart the moment one interrogates it. Trump may have received an overwhelming share of the vote in the McDowell County Republican primary election, but only 860 people voted in that context. By contrast, close to 2,700 people voted in the county’s Democratic primary election, and Bernie Sanders won about 1,500 votes, or 55 percent of the total. Hillary Clinton won more votes in the McDowell primaries than Trump did — 817 to 785.3

A similar dynamic played out in November’s general election. While McDowell County delivered three-quarters of its votes to Trump, turnout was abysmal. Just 36.4 percent of its eligible voters showed up on Election Day, a participation rate far below the rest of the state (57.5 percent) and the country as a whole (about 60 percent).4

While Trump’s hard-hat routine undoubtedly won him the support of some working-class white voters in places like McDowell, their role in powering Trump’s unexpected victory has been consistently overstated. As Mike Davis argues in a compelling analysis of county-level voting data, the Trump Democrat phenomenon “is real but largely limited to a score or so of troubled Rust Belt counties from Iowa to New York,” where a confluence of plant closures and growing immigrant populations have stoked a nationalist and nativist backlash.5

McDowell County was not among them, despite its prominence in the punditry’s imagination. It was not overrun with hillbilly stormtroopers bent on striking a blow in defense of their increasingly devalued whiteness. To the extent that its residents felt compelled to participate in the electoral process at all, one could make a strong case to call it Sanders Country instead of Trump Country. When offered the opportunity to vote for Bernie Sanders’s social-democratic agenda, many of McDowell’s down-and-out did so. About 120,000 of their fellow West Virginians felt the same way and carried an avowed socialist to a clean sweep of all fifty-five counties in the state’s Democratic primary election.6

Since the basic rule of journalism is “simplify, then exaggerate,” perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by its failure to adequately illuminate the political behavior of working-class whites. Unfortunately, many scholars and intellectuals have not fared much better in untangling these issues. Over the last year, a spate of widely praised books purporting to illuminate the sources of white malaise have fallen into many of the same traps. Whether historical, sociological, ethnographic, or autobiographical, these books share fundamental weaknesses. They confuse symptoms for causes, overemphasize culture and identity at the expense of political economy, and fail to offer any insight as to how the impasse of contemporary politics might be broken.

White is the New Black

The “culture of poverty” thesis is one of the most malleable and resilient tropes in American politics. Formulated by the sociologist Oscar Lewis and popularized by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, its intellectual pedigree can be traced back to the liberal left, not the chauvinist right. Nevertheless, its focus on cultural practices and family structures in explaining poverty among African Americans made it very easy for a rising generation of conservative intellectuals to appropriate it for their project to roll back the gains of the New Deal/Great Society welfare state.7

In their view, the black poor found themselves in poverty not because of economic structures or legal-institutional discrimination, but because of a set of values and behaviors ostensibly specific to the “black community” and passed from one generation to the next. By now, the particulars of this narrative should be quite familiar. By providing the black poor with cash benefits, government policy, the argument goes, underwrote a range of pathological behaviors: single-parent/female-headed households, out-of-wedlock births, mass unemployment, criminality, violence, and drug addiction. Instead of reducing poverty, the welfare state generated perverse incentives for people to remain poor and maintain the bad habits that got them there.8

The most influential statement of this school was Losing Ground, by the odious Charles Murray. Published in 1984, Murray’s policy proposals were praised by Democrats and Republicans alike — Bill Clinton referred to Murray’s work as a “great service” to the country — and directly inspired the successful campaign to “end welfare as we know it.”9

(Continue Reading)

[predict-it]

Predictable Insights - 8.21.20

Here are the real-money, prediction markets trending on PredictIt, the stock market for politics. This week we hosted VICE News' Liz Landers for another great happy hour chat. Landers gave traders the skinny on the Democratic National Convention and her take on this fall's big showdown between Biden and Trump.

Market prices updated as of 11 a.m. ET on Friday, August 21.

2020 US Presidential Race Update

Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Photo: Official Photos - White House and Senate

Democratic National Convention: It was an unusual Democratic National Convention. Perhaps a better descriptor than convention would have been a the Democratic National Livestream. But regardless of the circumstances, Democrats rolled out the heavy hitters of their party, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) appearing to quell the fears of the left, and former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama serving to go after President Donald Trump, and highlight their “friend” and “brother,” former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden spoke last night, and the reviews were good, even from seemingly unlikely sources.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace said, "Remember, Donald Trump has been talking for months about Joe Biden as [being] mentally shot, a captive of the left," Wallace said during Fox News special coverage of the Democratic National Convention. "And yes, Biden was reading from the teleprompter and a prepared speech, but I thought that he blew a hole, a big hole, in that characterization."

Will the markets move today based on this reaction? Stay tuned to find out.

ICYMI, Don’t Worry, We Taped It: We hosted Liz Landers, VICE News’ DC correspondent, on our virtual happy hour series this week. Liz discussed some reporting nuggets that might be very helpful in making your decisions on key markets. Click here to see the discussion in full.

Swamp News: No, we're not talking about Washington, DC this time. Head a little farther south and, in Florida, there's a ballot measure that could enfranchise 1.4 million felons. VICE has followed this story over the past year and chatted with us about it. With market odds getting closer and closer, how the court decides could swing the election in this very important swing state.

Market: Which party will win Florida in the 2020 presidential election?

Election Overtime: Anxieties amongst Americans across the political spectrum are understandably high, as many begin to navigate life beyond lockdowns, again. While it's still more than two months away, the election and logistics of voting loom large, too. As Congress returns to session tomorrow for a fight over the future of the United States Postal Service, some even wonder if enough votes will be cast and counted in time to declare a winner on Election Night. We spoke about the issue with Landers (who shared a similar forecast).

Next week: PredictIt will ask its crowd when they expect to know the 46th president.

Groundhog's Day 2020? Landers recently visited Wisconsin to talk to voters about Biden’s vice presidential pick in Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). But as far as reporters in the field go, she's not in the majority. Reporters across the country have been grounded in the wake of COVID-19. Could this alter the way news organizations understand the electorate? Could it create a repeat of 2016? Democrats are holding strong in the market for which party will win the presidency, but as we close in on Nov. 3, what information is being missed? We talked to Landers about whether a Trump win is possible.

Market: Which party will win the 2020 US presidential election?

Next PredictIt Happy Hour: Next week, join us for a PredictIt Virtual Happy Hour with CNN commentators Maria Cardona and Alice Stewart as they look back at the DNC and discuss the happenings of the RNC. We’re very excited to have this duo on considering their very busy schedules. They just launched a new podcast, "Hot Mics from Left to Right," where they discuss what they didn’t have time to get to air, but is a much-needed conversation at an unprecedented time of partisanship and politics. Alice and Maria have a unique ability to bring hot topics of conversation to the fore, with respect, civility and intellectual honesty. Register here.

Other Market Commentary from the PredictIt Community

To kick off the Democratic National Convention this week, Election Whisperer Rachel Bitecofer hosted an all-star lineup of campaign strategists, operatives and activists. Guests included Jessica Post (president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee), Ezra Levin (co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible), Shannon Watts (founder of Moms Demand Action) and Guy Cecil (chair of Priorities USA). Check out the full show here.

The Political Trade dropped a new episode titled "Mark Vargas: Breaking Blago & Presidential Pardons." Mark Vargas has more than earned his political insider credentials as the so-called “mystery man” who achieved the impossible: nearly single-handedly brokering Trump’s commutation of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence. But that’s not all. Vargas also assisted in securing Roger Stone’s recent commutation. He tells the full story, as well as sharing his insights on Jared Kushner, Kanye West, Mark Cuban, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort that you don’t want to miss!

The Art of the Possible invited Kathy Peach, the head of the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design at Nesta (UK), on the show to discuss, among other things, why people are either good or bad at predicting, why women don’t bet more and why prediction markets could replace insurance one day.

We recently mentioned a new newsletter that’s dedicated to trading in political prediction markets joining the fray — The Voting Odds. If you have enjoyed the tips in the newsletter, you’ll love the podcast, too!

State of the 2020 Elections in Two Graphics:

Source: PredictIt.org

Source: http://electiondice.com/

Crowdsourced

Crowds are information-aggregation machines. Here are some disparate nuggets of wisdom we found informative from the PredictIt crowd this week:

Old Man Wisdom — “The usual touchstone, whether that which someone asserts is merely his persuasion — or at least his subjective conviction, that is, his firm belief — is betting. It often happens that someone propounds his views with such positive and uncompromising assurance that he seems to have entirely set aside all thought of possible error. A bet disconcerts him. Sometimes it turns out that he has a conviction which can be estimated at a value of one ducat, but not of ten. For he is very willing to venture one ducat, but when it is a question of ten he becomes aware, as he had not previously been, that it may very well be that he is in error. If, in a given case, we represent ourselves as staking the happiness of our whole life, the triumphant tone of our judgment is greatly abated; we become extremely diffident, and discover for the first time that our belief does not reach so far. Thus pragmatic belief always exists in some specific degree, which, according to differences in the interests at stake, may be large or may be small.” — Immanuel Kant, former PredictIt trader

A Defense of Election Forecasting Models — "Critical thinking and analysis of information is as important as learning how to read or do basic arithmetic. It is especially important in the context of elections where pre-existing biases are deeply embedded in what information we expose to ourselves, how that information is presented to us, and how receptive we are to it. All modelers strive to be right, but ultimately, we hope the public will interpret our data with a skeptical eye and use it to refine — not define — their own viewpoints." — Scott Tranter, UVA Center for Politics

Prediction of the Week — Some political forecasters, as early as Dec. 2018, raised the contrarian proposition that the online fundraising campaign “We Build The Wall,” which was spearheaded by Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former 2016 campaign manager, could ultimately end up in a criminal lawsuit. That bold prediction appears to have paid off this week.

Submit your comments and links for this section via Twitter by tagging @PredictIt and the hashtag #crowdsourced with your submission. If we select your comment for the newsletter, you get a $10 credit!

In Case You Missed It!

PHOTO: THE EPOCH TIMES/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

PredictIt markets were mentioned often in the news this week, including by: CNN Business, National Review, MarketWatch, DraftKings (1 and 2), Reason Magazine, FintechZoom, Casino.org (1 and 2) and EconoTimes.

This Week's Quotable — from the EconoTimes’ article: “Will Trump or Biden win the US election? This could be a better predictor than the polls”:

"We know that prediction market prices match the underlying probabilities because empirical and lab research has looked at thousands of such market predictions, grouped all with a price of $0.4 together, and found that the predicted event underlying the asset, for example, the election of a particular candidate, did indeed occur in 40 percent of these cases. Similarly, for prices of $0.5, the underlying event occurred in 50 percent of cases, and so on. The prices are well-calibrated as probability forecasts."

We are always crowdsourcing new market ideas from traders. Send ideas to markets@predictit.org. Be sure and include a legitimate resolution source.

Thanks for following the markets!

Team @PredictIt

[theseadagiodays]

May 25, 2020

Orchestrators of Attention

Hayati Evreni’s Persistence of Covid

I typically have a very vivid dream life.  Whole evenings of movies with characters I’ve never met and settings I’ve never seen.  It’s one of the reasons I so love to sleep.  Every night, I have an imagined altered reality to look forward to.  And most mornings, to keep the stimuli of these vistiations fresh, I regale Geoff with a detailed recollection of these colorful fictions.  But last night my reverie was disturbingly similar to my waking life.  Zoom calls with real music students that I’ve been teaching.  The delivery of our commissioned fence mural, which is actually scheduled for this Wednesday.  It’s like so much else during this period, where everything seems to be bleeding into each other.  Days to Weeks.  Work to Home.  And now, even the treasured boundary between my subconscious and conscious life has been compromised.

The fluid nature of perceived time in our current reality is problematic in so many ways.  We are animals who’ve found real comfort from the compartmentilization of our lives.  Separate spaces for every endeavor, from offices to gyms to libraries.  We mark time in dozens of essential ways, with calendars, outfit changes, meal routines, holiday celebrations, happy hours - most all of which have dramatically changed during Covid.  This weekend, I read the best explanation for why we find the circular time that has been foisted on us so difficult.  Man Booker International Winner, Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights is part travel-fiction, part-memoir.  Each vignette is a musing about the human propensity to wander.   Here, she explains why perhaps only those of us truly tied to natural cycles, like growing seasons, can thrive in circumstances like we face today.

Sedentary people prefer the pleasure of circular time, in which every object and event must return to its own beginning, curl back up into an embryo and repeat the process of maturation and death.  But nomads and merchants, as they set off on journeys, had to think up a different type of time for themselves, one that would better respond to the needs of their travels.  That time is linear time, more practical because it was able to measure progress towards a goal or destination, rise in percentages.  Every moment is unique; no moment can ever be repeated.  This idea favors risk-taking, living life to the fullest, seizing the day.  And yet the innovation is a profoundly bitter one: when change over time is irreversible, loss and mourning become daily things.  

So, given that most people in modern society are far more aligned with the nomad/merchant class, it makes sense that we are sentenced to this inevitable grief once our “Just Do It”, “Follow Your Bliss” plans get derailed off-course.   This analysis does not provide any solutions. However, I do think it absolves us of a certain culpability, so that we can stop blaming ourselves for feeling bad or for not handling the new norm as well as we should.  Meanwhile, I think it can still be helpful to look for coping mechanisms, and I’ve found some from Jenny Odell, the unintended Queen of Quarantine who I crowned such after the cogent messages from her 2019 book,  How To Do Nothing, came to be the perfect precepts for our time.

An avid bird-watcher, walker and observer, Odell is a proponent of slowing down to make space to notice.  She calls her book a “field guide to doing nothing as an act of political resistance to the attention economy.”  Her suggestions serve as antidotes to the distracting and fractured nature of attention that the limitless connectivity of our plugged-in lives demands.  So, while most of us are still highly connected online, there are so many other ways in which we’ve become uplugged from life as we knew it.  And I think she is suggesting that, perhaps, instead of seeing this as disconnection, or as an untethering, we can appreciate the space that this is creating for us to develop subtler forms of attention.

Odell describes herself, and all artists, as “orchestrators of attention”.  She sees artists as curators of objects and ideas, re-imagined in ways that allow us to see things differently.  I certainly turn to artists and writers to help me do this.  And ironically, it is a circular journey of a different sort that brought me to her wisdom in the first place.  Lately, I’ve found myself in a strange intellectual fractal.  A quest for philosophical nuggets that has me spinning inside a loop of similar thinkers.

I regulary subscribe to BrainPickings, the source of many such nuggets.  And that’s where I found Victor Frankl’s Yes to Life quote (from March 28 in this blog) about “the power to choose our response”. That newsletter also quoted Rebecca Solnit (Hope in the Dark), who I checked out further on Krista Tippet’s podcast, On Being.  Looking at older episodes of this show, I found an interview with Ezra Klein (Why We’re Polarized), whose podcast just featured Jenny Odell on May 8th: On Nature, Art, and Burnout in Quarantine. https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/5/8/21252074/jenny-odell-the-ezra-klein-show-how-to-do-nothing-coronavirus-covid-19  This inspired me to purchase her new book, with its page 9 quote of none-other-than Solnit, again, this time from her book, Paradise Built in Hell. Back down the Solnit rabbit hole, I found another Frankl reference in this book, now from Man’s Search for Meaning.  And so, the perfect circle was complete.  

May 26, 2020

Unproductivity

Labyrinth project by Emily Carr university mentor, Kitty Bland, and student, Mary Rusk - https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2020/kitty-blandy-and-mary-rusak-find-focus-during-pandemic-with-meditation-pathway

Circular time makes me think of labyrinths.  Mandalas of pathways that lead to nowhere, whose hypnotic ellipses draw our single-pointed focus towards the simple act of walking.   I have always loved these places of reflection.  And I find it erroneous that the term labyrinthian has come to refer to complicated places where we get lost. Because I feel that I actually find myself in such places. The only thing lost is a false sense of destination as the purpose in life.  

Odell subscribes to a similar viewpoint in How to Do Nothing.  Rather than a plea to escape reality, quit our jobs, or shrug our responsibilities, her book is an invitation to question what we perceive as productive. I think our current reality has many of us doing this.  My morning walk has me literally “stopping and smelling the roses” each day, as I’ve seen so many others do during this altered time.  

So, while it has encouraged me to see normally overprogrammed-teens watching sunsets and families chilling for endless hours on front lawns, I have also observed a pattern of apology amongst my peers, when they acknowledge having been “less-productive than usual”, during this period.  So, I’ve taken to meet this only with permission.  This is something I’ve increasingly given myself ever since my excessive drive, as a flutist, left me with a chronic overuse injury that was a wake-up call I’ve only recently been able to truly appreciate.

After this major uninvited “halting” of my career, I became acutely aware of how often people answer “How are you?” with “Busy.”  Particularly artists, who have perhaps been undercompensated, underemployed and underappreciated for so long, it feels like being “busy” is a badge of honor that implies their work is in-demand.  So, I get it.  But still, I have made a point, since this realization, never to answer that question as such.  Busy is not an emotion.  The truth behind the word - feelings of anxiety, overwhelm and fear - are perhaps too telling to reveal.  Because admitting them might mean we have to shift something.  They might force us to slow down and stop busying ourselves, which is maybe the scariest thing of all.  Because then, we have to face who we truly are when we are not “doing”.

To track my own “doing” during quarantine, I’ve been particularly careful about limiting my screen time.  So, I check it weekly.  But it was only this week that I finally went to the second page of the iPhone screen time data, where I found a strange categorization of time.  It breaks it down into Productive, Creative, Social, Entertainment, Reading and Educational use.  However, what they place in each category runs quite counter to what happens to be true for me now.  Photos are listed as a Creative pursuit, however many of my hours have been frittered away deleting unnecessary shots (attempts to capture moments that might have been more mindfully spent camera-free).  So, this endeavor doesn’t feel that creative to me.  Whats App is marked as Social but, of course, it’s now become the arena for some of my most my productive work, since I’m using it as a teaching tool.  And Notes is in the Productive category, even though, as a self-admitted list-addict, my worst time-waster is making and remaking these itemized scrolls intended to render me more efficient, when I can’t even imagine how much “productive” time I must have lost just writing them.

So, we all have something to learn from this clever street artist, whose balloon art gives us an important reminder.

May 27, 2020

Covid Art Museum

So far my “efforts” to do nothing more (as ironic as that sounds) have gone swimmingly.  I deliberately cancelled one of my Zoom calls this week, two other meetings conveniently got cancelled for me, and I was left with many more hours to spend spontaneously. Some of these involved lying in the grass eating gelato.  Others watching passerbys from my front stoop.  And one I spent biking the new “slow street” circuit in Vancouver, which has been designated a car-free zone to create more safe, physically-distant space for cyclists and pedestrains to roam.   That even our roadways are now on a diet from their usual busyness, seems to me a beautiful metaphor.

Of course, some of this time also involved digital daydreaming, as I prefer to romantically call surfing the web.  But using the intentional lens of seeking artistic responses to share on this blog makes even this indulgence feel more guilt-free.  So, this week, it landed me on a very cool Instagram page, full of visual reflections about this time (digital illustrations, photographs, sketches, watercolors and more).  In fact, it’s where I stumbled upon the balloon art, above, which evolved into my entire week of blog entries.  Quite a few pieces reference circular time in some way (above).  And a remarkable number of them depict doing nothing (below).  Jenny Odell is clearly on to something...

https://www.instagram.com/covidartmuseum/?hl=en

May 28, 2020

Hidden Symphonies

Udo Noll, a Berlin-based media artist and founder of Radio Aporee, a digital global sound map, documented before and during the pandemic

The music of my environment has always captivated me. In fact, I dedicate almost an entire chapter of my novel to birdsong.  I love the voice memo feature on my phone, which I use like an auditory camera, as I travel.   I’ve learned that this is not a habit many people share.  Until recently, that is.  Because it seems that suddenly, we are all beginning to listen more.   Now, with less traffic, quieter commercial corridors, and other colluding factors, there is left an amazing amplification of the soundscapes which always existed behind the din.    

Before Covid, a long tradition of deep listening has been cultivated by various sound artists.  American composer, Pauline Oliveros founded the Deep Listening Institute in 1985 (originally called the Pauline Olveros Foundation).  Here, she invited musicians to improvise and record, in particularly resonant and reverberant spaces like caves, to inspire extra-sensitive responsiveness.  

In the 70’s, Canadian composers, Hildegard Westercamp and Murray Shafer, started the World Soundscape Project (https://www.sfu.ca/~truax/wsp.html), which recorded Vancouver’s sonic landscape to illustrate the negative effects of noise pollution, ultimately resulting in more positive guidelines for urban acoustical design.

Acoustic ecologist, Gordon Hempton says that silence is not the absence of sound, but rather the presence of everything. In the short documentary, Sanctuaries of Silence, he offers tools for seeking silence amidst noisy urban life.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUxMdYhipvQ

But his suggestions probably never could have predicted Covid, which has achieved this result with alarming swiftness.   British sound artist and field recordist, Stuart Fowkes has been tracking the soundscapes of this disquieting time on his website, Cities and Memory.  https://citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds/

Here, you can click on one of 3,000+ global coordinates and listen to everything from empty flagpoles, and ticking radiators, to kites flying.  Anyone is welcome to contribute, using #stayhomesounds.  And this is my own addition to the catalogue:

Bullfrogs mating: https://youtu.be/ZoKT-RlDfs8

The New York Times, has tracked the music of the pandemic in another interesting way.  Measuring by decibels (below), they compare the soundscape of a normally busy Manhattan street, before and during quarantine. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/22/upshot/coronavirus-quiet-city-noise.html

Pre-covid nights sound more like quarantine days, averaging around 64 decibels.

Another bi-product of the pandemic is a trend towards birdwatching.  The world’s attention was brought to birding this week, due to an unfortunate racist incident that occurred in New York’s Central Park.  Christian Cooper was drawn to the park because of the orioles and yellow warblers he could find there.  While birding, he politely asked a woman if she would kindly put her dog on a leash. When she refused, he insited and she proceeded to call the cops.  Cooper was armed with little more than binoculars and a camera.  But apparently, his crime was being black.  The woman was white.  Luckily, he caught her ridiculous cry for help (“I’m being threatened by an African-American man.”) on camera.  The video immediately went viral and resulted in her being fired from her job. Graciously, he remarked today in the Times, that this punishment did not fit her crime, and while he wants to hold her to account for her racist behavior, he doesn’t believe that “her life needs to be torn apart.”

Whatever her fate, if this time inspires deeper listening for you, let’s hope your soundscape walks are far less eventful than his was.

May 29, 2020

Covid Shuffle

Brooklyn’s usually bustling Fort Greene Park, during the pandemic

From the beginning of social distancing, I have been quite fascinated by the complicated choreography we are collectively participating in.  I would give anything to be an eagle, looking down from above, just to witness the maze of interwoven patterns that our sidewalk dances create.   And I am not the only person interested in this do-si-do.  

If you search “six feet apart” on YouTube, you can’t imagine how many musicians, famous or otherwise, have composed new songs with this exact title (IE. country singer, Luke Combs, teen pop star, Alec Benjamin).  It’s just one of many things that illustrate the uncanny global resonance that is happening right now, even while there are still vast differences between the ways people experience this pandemic.

Personally, I’m partial to this rap, written as a PSA for UNC Health, by The Holderness Family, a modern-day Al Yankovich-style parody band comprised of former FOX sportscaster, Penn Holderness with his wife and kids. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XjfCeY4D2QI

Deeper into this search, I found another music video, by a different family band in LA, called Haim.  These three Grammy-nominated sisters have written the song, I Know Alone to express how quarantine living has felt for them.  Meanwhile, they appropriately dance to their lyrics six feet apart.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vulture.com/amp/2020/04/haim-i-know-alone-video-album-release-date.html

In the dance world, old colleagues of mine, from Flagstaff, Arizona, will host a virtual Festival that starts this Friday, May 29th, featuring original socially-distant choreography from movers all over the Southwest.  Fittingly, it’s called the Six Feet Apart Dance Festival.

https://canyonmovementcompany.org/cmc/upcoming-events/

Documenting the Covid shuffle in a very different way, Toronto geographer, Daniel Rotszdain created a “social distancing machine” to demonstrate just how difficult a genuine 6-foot radius is to maintain in public space.

And finally, this hip hop dance compilation, made in 2019, could be the anthem for our times.

MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJskIJGEsd8

[watsonstechdigest]

Technology and Covid-19

It’s no doubt Covid 19 is here to stay for the forseeable future, it may even be felt for years to come, socially, economically and even in the tech world which has become a very prominent aid for people in every sector of society. for example conference calling has become a forefront in in the continuation of work meetings and education. it has allowed us to remain socially distanced but connected electronically. this however can be argued very much if it’s beneficial or worse as for some this is a new territory they are not comfortable with, in this article I shall glance over the impact of technology in the age of the pandemic, discussing strengths and disadvantages of the chosen tech. I shall also discuss and speculate the impact of technology post pandemic and what it has for us in the future.

So what technology has come to the forefront because of this global pandemic? I shall list off a few technologies that are helping society move along in an unprecedented age of working at home and remaining distant and fighting the virus.

1, Conference calling

Conference calling is probably the most notable use of technology that has come forward in the breakout of Covid 19, its use in governmental, work and education has been instrumental in keeping the world running, applications like skype, discord and zoom has existed for years but in this time their use has peaked. one big question that has been asked is this here to stay, this argument has been made for education, [1]“We’ve seen about a two-times increase and we expect that to go to five or 10 times in the not too distant future in terms of learners making the shift to a fully online education,” said John Baker, founder of D2L, owner of the Brightspace learning management platform. (john baker, 2020)

it is said this could be the new norm for education around the world but what are the drawbacks of this? this is all reliant on the student owning the materials to use the app, for instance a student may not have the resources such as a computer or internet connection to even use the technology, in a world where the fight of equal opportunity in education this could hurt potential student who could otherwise excel in these fields of study, having facilities ensures students get the experience and tools to practice their passions. another argument is the social skills children learn at school, having an all online education could push us even further away from each other as we become more reliant on technology. it’s often said we have been plugged in too long, the rise of social anxiety has been argued as a main symptom of too much technology use (mainly the internet and social networking) so distancing students away from each other could exacerbate these things. [2]“At the dawn of widespread internet usage in the mid-1990s, researchers were already beginning to examine the effects of internet usage on our mental health. The concept of “internet addiction” was first studied in 1996. Since then, there have been many studies linking problematic internet usage to various psychological issues, including anxiety, ADHD, autism, depression, hostility, schizophrenia, social anxiety disorder, loneliness, and stress.”(2019, Chris Kresser )

Security is another serious factor in the use of conference calling, the rise of corporate and government espionage used in conference calling is on the rise, some governmental bodies have even had to put a stop to certain conference calling applications due to the security flaws they have, for example many governments have been advised to not use zoom because of how weak the security is. [3] “UK government told not to use Zoom because of China fears” (2020, guardian article title)

There has also been a swift increase in “trolling” (disrupting/mocking/bullying on the internet) in these security attacks, for example a popular youtube content creator “Twomad” created a compiled video of him invading Zoom lessons and disrupting the classes. [4]“Invading Random Online College Classes...”(2020, twomad’s youtube video title)

I have focused heavily on the bad things about conference calling so what’s the good? the main objective good things about conference calling is clearly the social distancing aspect in this time of covid 19, the fact we can continue to plod along with our educations and work (outside of physical labour and work that cannot be done with conference calling another huge disadvantage for obvious reasons) it has posed some difficulty in these times but many of us can continue to work, and study. For context, I currently study a computing course and the use of discord has allowed me to continue my work, i also believe the almost 24 constant connection with tutors on discord has become somewhat of an advantage than the use of a timetable for a few days in the week allowing for constant support on my work. I also personally believe the use of recording an online lesson is super beneficial as I can refer back to things I may be stuck on as I often have a hard time concentrating, and eliminates struggle in personal study.

2, The rise of artificial intelligence for predicting outcomes of the virus.

I truly believe prediction is a great way to prepare and prevent, the rise of AI technology has allowed us to possibly predict outcomes, these can be infection rates, deathtolls and even recover rates, these technologies allow us to have a glimpse into the severity of the virus before we have reached the predicted outcomes, knowing these outcomes means we can put in measures hopefully adding prevention and preparation for bleak predictions. there are obvious advantages to this which I have mentioned [5]”The better we can track the virus, the better we can fight it. By analyzing news reports, social media platforms, and government documents, AI can learn to detect an outbreak. Tracking infectious disease risks by using AI is exactly the service Canadian startup BlueDot provides. In fact, the BlueDot’s AI warned of the threat several days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization issued their public warnings.” (2020, Bernard Marr, Forbes)

[6]"I have been doing this for 45 years and I have got three drugs to market," Dr Brown told BBC News. But AI is proving much faster. "It has taken several weeks to gather all the data we need and we have even got new information in the last few days, so we are now at a critical mass," [4](2020, Dr brown, BBC article) this information has proved beneficial in tackling issues with the virus, it has allowed for very quick results as an AI can trawl through years of medical study in a few minutes finding all the relevant information. allowing for treatment or science to be applied quicker in tackling the pandemic, the longer the pandemic goes, the more deaths will be the outcome of it.

As with all Technology there are some huge drawbacks, one of these is for the prediction of rates, deaths etc... Seeing as we have very little data on the virus that has the world in its grip how can AI effectively be helpful? you could argue that this is all AI speculation [7]“Consider, for example, the claim that AI was the first to detect the coronavirus. Machine learning is very dependent on historical data to create meaningful insights. Since there is no database of prior Covid-19 outbreaks, AI alone cannot predict the spread of this new pandemic. What’s more, the claim implicitly overstates the ability of AI to inform us about huge and rare events, which is not the strength of AI at all. As it turns out, while software may have sounded the alarm, grasping the significance of the outbreak required human analysis.” (2020 ,Alex Engler. Wired article)

This however can still be an aid as new data is cropping up from the very real situation we are currently in, the data may be in it’s infancy, but the AI could still use this data and give us a faster result which may aid in the pandemic.

3, Resources for hospitals and 3D printing.

Resources are no doubt expensive and in short supply, respirators which are a very important tool for keeping infected individuals alive, the virus attacks the lungs and can essentially give rise to symptoms that suffocate the infected. however, these tools have been in short supply due to the number of infected.

3D printing has been instrumental in combating this shortage as this much needed respirators can be created easily and cheaply through a click of a button, there is just one oxymoron that keeps this at bay, the price of 3D printing machines, the cost of printing may be very cheap but the technology used to carry out the printing is very expensive,

(image of 3d printed ventilator credited to Leitat technology centre)

[8]“This is an emergency respirator, for an emergency situation, designed with 3D technologies and incorporating other parts found on the market. Assembly is very fast, so we can produce about 100 of them per day, and I hope many more in the days to come.” (2020, Manel Balcells, 3D natives article)

The advantages are certainly there, it’s quick and cheap it allows for fast action in a world where the infection is increasing, this is all dependant on if hospitals have the technology at hand, some companies allow you to rent their 3d printers, which could be an increasing strain on funding from the health services around the world who need to tend to other expensive healthcare tools.

[9]”You might have to pay through your nose to afford 3D printing hardware, software, and material. Industrial 3D printers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which locks out many businesses from accessing and using the famed technology. The cost of 3D printing often depends on the amount of materials used. Big orders are expensive while small products are cheaper to print. 3D printing is not as competitive as conventional manufacturing techniques when it comes to large assemblies. That is however expected to change as the price of printers and materials decrease” (2019, 3d printer geeks)

However, Universities and other outlets have come together to use the 3D printers they already own to donate the ventilators and respirators to hospitals, showing that the health services are backed through sheer humanitarianism.

[10]“Researchers at the University of East Anglia have launched a project to 3D print ventilator parts, masks and other critical equipment to battle the Covid-19 virus.”(2020,UEA article)

So what is the takeaway of all this?

The impact of technology has been huge in the latest months of this pandemic and it’s helped the world continue to live without threat of infection due to working from home using conference calling, the main problems I believe that are faced is the lack of social interaction which can be a real issue with humans in general, we are social creatures by nature, plugging in to long has its negative effects and this rise in online learning and working from home could feed into an already recognised problem with technology and social aspects of life.

The impact has shown us we can also use computers for prediction for preventative measures albeit with data that’s in its infancy I believe it could still be beneficial alongside human speculation as we know we cannot rely on a computers prediction which could be harmful instead of helpful, making a clear judgement on information given from AI needs to be looked over by expert eyes.

And finally we have seen technology be helpful towards combating the virus in an infected individual in the age of lack of resources with the use of 3D printing. a technology once considered a gimmick has now got a direct human benefit for creating useful items in healthcare, and in despite of expensive technology the people owning this tech have lent their own machines and have created tools for healthcare through donations to the health service.

And thus technology has granted us extremely effective tool in unprecedented times.

Reference index

[1] John baker conference call article (https://www.cigionline.org/articles/after-pandemic-teleconferencing-and-e-learning-could-be-new-normal)

[2] Article on internet addiction by Chris Kresser https://chriskresser.com/is-too-much-internet-use-making-us-sick/

[3] Article title from the guardian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/24/uk-government-told-not-to-use-zoom-because-of-china-fears

[4] twomad invading online classes (warning lewd and coarse language) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJzMm-Cmfqk

[5] Bernard Marr article on AI fighting the pandemic https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/03/13/coronavirus-how-artificial-intelligence-data-science-and-technology-is-used-to-fight-the-pandemic/#14d60c025f5f

[6] BBC article and interview with Dr brown https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52120747

[7] article from Alex Engler from Wired https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-wont-save-us-from-coronavirus/

[8] article on 3d printer respirators https://www.3dnatives.com/en/3d-printed-respirator-230320205/

[9] Article on disadvantages of 3d printing https://3dprintergeeks.com/3d-printing-disadvantages/

[10] UEA article on 3d printed ventilators https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/ventilators

[littleleapers-diaries]

About last year…

This morning, over a year after I last updated my field blog, I sat at the kitchen table browsing through a friend’s facebook-page. She had just come back from a six-month long trip to Madagascar, her posts showing a mixture of joy to be back with her family and friends and heartache at having left Madagascar. I stirred my tea and absent-mindedly fished out some pieces of cinnamon bark that I had brought back from my first trip to the island in 2013. I knew exactly how she felt. I had been feeling the same for the past seventeen months.

But this post is not meant to be about how I still can’t watch documentaries on Madagascar because I get home-sick for it, or how I haven’t spent time with my Malagasy friends for over year, no: With this blog post I’d like to address that last year of a PhD, the one when all the field work is over - the writing phase. The one phase of a PhD you don’t see much about on social media but that occasionally pops up in your University newsletter with the title “Don’t forget to take care of yourself!”.

I wasn’t scared of the writing per se, I’m good at it (most days), and I wasn’t too worried about the analysis part either because I’d taken care to collect specific, easy-to-analyse data (or so I thought). I had planned out the year, with crucial dates for finished chapters, giving myself plenty of time for each to be sorted, analysed and written up. The timeline worked out much better than I thought and last month, before Christmas, I handed in a finished thesis. Eleven months after I wrote the first word. But the entire time I was in a downward spiral of despair and anxiety. So, what happened in the end?

A combination of factors made my life difficult: I had loved being in the field and in Madagascar and the reverse culture-shock was pretty bad, especially since I moved directly to Sweden, a country I was unfamiliar with, to be with the boyfriend. In Sweden I worked at a University to finance my stay and to figure out whether I could work in Europe-based conservation. It was a long, dark winter and it became apparent quickly that while I enjoyed the work there, my expertise lies in tropical countries making me feel like I was losing footing in Europe. The double pressure of working part-time and writing a PhD did its part to make me feel overworked and under constant stress. Additionally, I tried to figure out how to stay in my (very loving) relationship while pursuing my job interests. Working in Madagascar WITH the boyfriend wouldn’t work (for multiple reasons), but I didn’t know of any alternatives and the boyfriend wasn’t suggesting anything either which frustrated me a lot. I became thin-skinned and irritable, easily despaired and unfocused. I lost my centre somewhere along the path and as it happened so gradually, I only realised it once it was too late and all the “take a break from work/do yoga/read a good book” tips didn’t help me anymore. It was not that I had become depressed to the point I couldn’t get out of bed anymore, I’d just become a very different, unhappy, person under all the stress.

A few things played to my advantage: I have been through emotionally rough times before and can read my personal warning signs - I know when I need to get professional help (which I did – shout out to the therapist). I have a fantastic support network and family who have always made sure that I have a safety-net under me, emotionally and financially, and I have two very relaxed and understanding supervisors who never had problems with me taking some time off (which I didn’t, but it was good to know that they wouldn’t have minded). So, while I finalized the writing over the past months, I spent some time with soul-searching in my parents’ house, signed up for a mentoring program for women in STEM sciences and learned how to play drums.

All of this helped, but then two crucial things happened: First, after discussions with my supervisor, a project idea popped up that I got really excited about (and excitement was something I hadn’t felt in quite some time) and secondly, I finished the thesis. The minute I sent it off to be printed I felt like all the stress just dropped off me. I felt re-centred and like myself again and only then I realised how much of my problems had stemmed from this huge responsibility. A responsibility that nobody besides me really cared about, which made it even more stressful as it all lay solely on my shoulders.

And this is why I am writing this post. Most of the problems I mentioned above seem very specific to my situation and obviously I can only write from my own experience, but after all this I finally understood what all the “PhD and Mental Health”-pamphlets are about: Doing a PhD puts you under a kind of stress unlike other situations. You are scared of failing, you are overworked or feel guilty because you didn’t do as much as you thought you would, you can never switch off because it’s always there and you have no idea about your future as the job offers didn’t come flooding in like you expected them to. It can’t just be me, right?

I wanted to summarize some of the things I realised while writing this PhD, and in the last few weeks after having sent it off to be judged by other scientists. Some tips to consider that may prevent you from spiralling downward. Maybe the following is relevant to you, maybe not – you have to judge for yourself.

1)      Be prepared (as well as you can be).

There are some fantastic books out there about what it is like to do a PhD. If you’re unsure whether you want to commit to a postgraduate study or about to start one, I can only recommend looking into them!

-  “The unwritten rules of PhD research” by Marian Petre (this one I can highly recommend)

-   “PhD: An uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life” by James Hayton

-   “How to get a PhD: A Handbook for students and their supervisors” by Estelle Phillips and Derek Pugh

Obviously, there are more books out there, some dealing with the daily life of a PhD student some with how to plan and write your thesis. In the first year I wrote down a list of advice from a former PhD student on twitter and stuck it next to my desk. That helped prepare me for some of the issues ahead (such as prolonged procrastination or lack of motivation). Look around and get smart about things, it’ll help you deal with what’s coming up!

 2)      Make plans.

Plans help. Plan your next vacation. Or conference-trip. Anything from fixing a date for going to the cinema (yes, I’m a 90s child) to planning out the next five years meticulously. Plans help. They give you cornerstones to hold on and look forward to and, most importantly, they give you deadlines. “Doing your PhD” mostly means working independently, on your own, with only your own motivation to guide you. And motivation fails, as we all know. If you intersperse the long weeks of sitting in the lab/in front of your laptop with small breaks that you can plan, you will automatically procrastinate less. It structures your life and you’ll have something that you feel in control of. And you can practise letting go when plans fail, as they often do.

 3)      You are not alone (!!!!).

Two of the most common problems PhD students face seem to be a) feeling isolated and b) imposter syndrome. Isolation can stem from being left to your own devices because of uninvolved supervisors or working on a difficult topic that not many others can relate to or because of multiple other reasons that occur while you are working on becoming a sort-of expert in your field. Which brings us to the other point: You’ll never feel like an expert. You’ll always feel like you don’t know what you’re talking about although you just studied the same topic over the past three years. It’s called imposter syndrome and it can be incredibly stressful. Constantly feeling inadequate although you are working hard to become knowledgeable is not healthy in anyway and can cause serious anxiety. I myself haven’t had a bad case of imposter syndrome. I am lucky to have realised three things very early on: There will always be somebody better and more knowledgeable than me, there is no shame in admitting you don’t know something and (this is important) most people feel insecure, so basically none of us feels like we know what we’re talking about most of the time. However, it may help you to read up on these challenges if you feel like you are experiencing the same things. There are some helpful tips out there!!

Here are some articles on the struggles THAT ARE REAL:

-          http://www.businessinsider.de/phd-students-could-face-significant-mental-health-problems-2017-8?r=UK&IR=T

-          https://qz.com/547641/theres-an-awful-cost-to-getting-a-phd-that-no-one-talks-about/

-          https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/j55edk/getting-a-phd-is-bad-for-your-mental-health

  4)      Prepare your support system.

The stress will take its toll on you and may affect your physical, emotional or mental wellbeing (or, and hear me out here, you might be just fine? Who knows?). In any case it’s important that those around you, your friends and family, know what you are going through. Talk to them about your issues, tell them what you need from them (a shoulder to cry on? A cup of tea? Somebody to do the laundry?) and involve them in your progress. Not everybody knows what “doing a PhD” entails, and the more you tell them about what you are going through, the better they can be there for you if you need them.

In my case, the stress changed my personality quite a bit, and if the boyfriend hadn’t been so understanding (he’s a scientist himself) he would have been quite shocked at the change. In this way, he could be there for me when I needed him for support (and laundry).

By involving those around you, you are basically securing a safety net for yourself in case of a hard fall. If you don’t fall, you’ll at least have a group of cheerleaders to cheer you on, which counteracts potentially isolating situations.

5)      With all that focussing on the brain – don’t forget about the rest of your body!

EXERCISE! Even if it’s just a short walk, or gentle yoga every evening (like I did) or, if you actually enjoy sweating and running (like I don’t), go do some serious sports! Prolonged sitting is bad for you. It’s bad for your posture, it’s bad for your digestion and, I learned that the painful way, it can cause some serious haemorrhoids. I’m writing this while sitting on one of those inflatable-donut-thingies that I got for Christmas (yes, that happened), so take it from me: MOVE IT, MOVE IT! It’ll help with your focus and productivity as well and can also alleviate some of the stress of all the travelling you’ll have to do as a PhD. I’ve been known to do yoga (or impromptu dance sessions) in airports in-between flights.

At the very least, make sure your chair/table is adjusted properly.

I’ll conclude this post by mentioning that most of the personal issues that arise from doing a PhD stem from how the system is structured. Yes, we are putting a lot of stress on ourselves but that is often because we are scared of failing in a flawed system that rewards quantity rather than quality. In my opinion funds shouldn’t be distributed according to “what’s hot right now”, and that good science takes time that we are not granted if we want to succeed. It angers me that the way to a fixed position leads over a path of years’ worth of struggling to find funds and not knowing what the next year brings, whether you can afford to feed your family, or even have a family. But that is just my opinion. At this point I don’t have any idea how to change the way things are, but as soon as I have, I’ll do all in my power to do so.

For now, the last bit of advice I can give you is to check out what your University has to offer in terms of mental health support. The struggle is real: it’s not about how we’d all like an easier life, it’s about how we’d like to go through life without despair and anxiety. We need a better dialogue about the struggles of doing a PhD. We need to get the word out what students are going through and be there for each other, it’s the system that has to change, NOT US.

If you’d like to share your experience or any have tips on how you got through your PhD, feel free to write to me on twitter! @LittleLeapers_

[lenaysworld]

Progress Report #9: Filming Ends & Footage is Analyzed!

This week, I made a bunch of progress on my senior project! 

First, filming officially ended on Saturday, November 9! The 40-day experiment is officially done, and I have amassed over two hours of footage to prove it! 

A screenshot of the playlist dedicated to my experiment, fully populated with the 40 days of footage!

After filming completed, I immediately finished up compiling and exporting my full-length compilation film. I then went ahead and uploaded it onto my playlist. 

A screenshot of my full-length film posted onto my YouTube playlist. 

I then dived into the analysis portion of my project. First I watched the full-length feature in its entirety from start to finish. As I watched the film, I jotted down notes on anything I qualitatively observed (common concepts discussed, observations, realizations, transformations, etc.). After watching the film and jotting down my notes, I then filled out the General Observations/Content Messages section of my analysis document. Below is what I noted down onto the doc:

Frequently Discussed Concepts/Phrases/Topics: 

School/Homework/Grades/Professors

Anxiety/Worry/Depression/Overwhelmed Feeling/Stress

Living a life that is unfulfilling to me/not aligned with my dreams/personal happiness

“I am not looking forward to this day” (Feelings of Dread, Not Wanting To Live)

Feelings of Self-Doubt

Attempts to stay positive, but negativity trumping in the end

“I need help”/”I am sick” 

“I am tired”

Money

Transformation(s) Over Time: 

The entire experiment, overall, remained relatively stagnant (I didn’t get more positive or negative over time). For the most part, I remained the same (exhibiting extreme anxiety, mixed with depression) over the course of the 40 days. However, there were some realizations that arose over the course of the 40 days: 

1) I realized that where I am in my life currently is not where I want to be. Throughout the course of the 40 days, I constantly explained that I felt like I was living a life that was unfulfilling/not making me happy or making me grow. I explained that school made me feel this way primarily (partaking in homework and activities for school is what I found the most unfulfilling, while going to work was fun and fulfilling). 

2) I realized that I am mentally ill  (a true realization that I am sick and need help). Throughout the entire experiment, I constantly harp on the negative aspects of my life and cannot focus on the positive. Almost every clip, I stated that I was anxious or worried or overwhelmed or feeling down, and even when I did feel positive, I still mentioned that there were thoughts in the back of my mind that were negative. I also exhibited extreme amounts of self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence which fed into the anxiety and depression I experienced throughout the course of the 40 days. 

1:00:00 - I realize that this is a bad part of my life and I am not doing well mentally/internally

25:20  - I realize that my anxiety is fueling my depression (the extreme anxiety I experience causes me to desire to not live through the day, which makes me sad because I am constantly “wishing my life away”)

48:30 - I realize how severe my anxiety is (“I am constantly living in fear, which is what makes living through this semester so hard”)

1:57 - “I am sick” 

2:00 - “Something within me needs to change” 

3) I realized that I am obsessive over school, and how my obsession with getting good grades and pleasing my professors is the root of most (if not all) of my unhappiness

53:35 - I become aware of my obsession, and I realize it is unhealthy

4) I realized that it is not that I am whiny or lazy, just that the school environment does not foster my happiness/creativity/emotional well-being

1:00:39 - I realize that I am fine at work (in fact, I enjoy working and wish I could do more of that). It is school that is the problem. 

1:18 - I realize that I generally feel better on the weekends because I do not need to be in the school environment (I can work and spend time with my loved ones, which are both activities that foster my spirit and well-being)

5) I realized that this whole project was, in a way, a cry for help

1:20 - I express my frustrations with the fact that my professors aren’t asking me if I’m okay, even though they are watching the videos. I feel like I am screaming for help but they are not hearing my cries

1:32 - I actually admit that the project was a cry for help and that I was surprised that people (i.e., professors) were getting offended by the project, as it wasn’t about them)

Other Patterns/Observations: 

1) Sometimes I didn’t overtly explain what was making me feel a certain way/I would go out on a tangent (the “check-ins” took on the form of a stream of consciousness/”emotional spewing” style of speaking/explaining, like a journal entry but on film broadcast to the rest of the world)

2) Throughout the entire experiment, school directly caused me to experience lower moods. Almost all of the times I explained I felt worried, anxious, low, overwhelmed, or stressed, it was because of school. 

3) This project is a glimpse into a highly depressed person’s life. It is a window into what chronic anxiety and depression look like in an individual.

4) This project is a commentary on the university system and how it is a flawed system (“the grade” matters more than the welfare of the student, the professors do not reach out when a student is exhibiting dangerous behavior, it is a normal experience for a student to lose their sanity for the sake of a good grade). 

5) Throughout the experiment, I constantly tried to stay positive, but ultimately always failed and fell back into my depressive state. The experiment depicts a constant struggle between someone who is trying to get better on their own but who is failing. 

1:09 - “I’m trying to stay fucking positive” 

1:40 - I realize that in the foreground of my mind, I am positive, but in the background, the negative thoughts linger

After filling out that section of my analysis doc, I then moved onto the next section: Audience Outreach/Engagement Analytics. For this, I used the YouTube Analytics tool, as well as some minor calculations I did on my own (simple addition of total likes, comments, views, etc.) 

A screenshot of the YouTube Analytics tool.

Below are my findings regarding audience engagement/outreach throughout the course of the experiment: 

Watch Time (Past 28 Days): 561 minutes

Views (Past 28 Days): 487 

Subscriber Change (Past 28 Days): +7

Top Videos (Watch Time Within Past 28 Days): 

10.27.19 (73 mins watched) 

10.18.19 (38 mins watched) 

10.1.19 (23 mins watched) 

Top Videos (Views): 

10.27.19 (125 views)

10.1.19 (68 views) 

10.7.19 (46 views)

Total Amount of Video Likes: 37

Total Amount of Video Dislikes: 0 

Total Amount of Video Comments: 9 

Total Amount of Video Views: 647

Impressions: >3.0 k people

Next up, I transcribed my full-length feature using the YouTube Auto-Captioning tool and fed it into the text analysis tool on Utility.org to analyze common words/phrases that were said throughout the 40 days. Below were my findings:

Frequently Said Word(s): 

I/I’m (~1000 occurrences)

Feel/feeling (~160 occurrences)

Class (46 occurrences) 

Homework (44 occurrences) 

Sick (40 occurrences)

Work (39 occurrences)

Frequently Stated Emotion(s): 

Anxious (17 occurrences) 

Worried (15 occurrences)

Bad (27 occurrences)

Positive (23 occurrences) [NOTE: this is more than likely because I commonly said, “I want to keep positive”, not necessarily “I am feeling positive”]

Frequently Said Phrase(s): 

“I don’t know” 

“I feel like”

“I don’t want”/”Don’t want to”

“I’m trying my best”/”trying my best”

“Not really looking forward”

“I got a lot done today”

“I have so much homework to do”

“It’s going to be good”/”Going to be a good day”

Keep in mind, I had to parse through a lot of words that were frequently said that were not significant enough to include in this analysis (”fluff” words like really, like, so, etc.). I included only the words and phrases that I felt were specific/informative enough to shed light on this experiment and what it uncovered (so, in a way, this data is kind of biased). 

Finally, I transcribed the full-length compilation again using VideoGrep and created some supercuts of common words/phrases. I will note that the transcription tool on VideoGrep seemed kind of off, so I am sure the supercuts I created only depict some of the occurrences of the words/phrases (not all). However, I wanted to create some supercuts just for fun and possibly to use bits and pieces of for my documentation video. It was more of a supplemental exploration than a substantial piece of analysis! Below are the supercuts I made and posted onto my YouTube channel playlist: 

“Anxious” Supercut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRj7C1R6ywo

“Homework” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS-bLptG6NE

“School” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLCsb9ssYM

“Stressed” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0rCdjSOkg

“Stressful” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASBW9yopCYE

“Worried” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOBGJwNGqcE

“Worry” Supercut: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypIGuD3SKJc

Overall, I made a ton of progress this week in terms of analyzing all the footage that was taken throughout the course of the 40 days and making sense of it all! Now, I will be moving forward with finalizing the script for my documentation video and getting that made! 

Here is the link to my analysis doc if you’d like to take a looksie: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_RqEf_Qp3M0Yq2ATBbePwaE5RPgm-M1l2Ht0_wDNPYU/edit?usp=sharing

Until next week :)