Sherry Turkle's Plugged-In Year
For the New Yorker, a profile of MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle and an exploration of what we owe one another, in person and on the screen.
Read at The New Yorker
In Lockdown, an 86-Year-Old Blogger Finds an Audience and a New Purpose
How an elderly London widow conquered isolation and earned a global audience of fans along the way.
Read at NYT
Feeling Scatterbrained? Here's Why
For the New York Times, a look at the ways the chronic stress of quarantine changes behavior and the body.
Read at NYT
The robot that could change the senior care industry
A robot and a team of Irish scientists walk into a nursing home. The rest is in this October 2019 Time cover story.
Read at Time
What do we look for in a 'good' robot colleague?
A growing share of us work with robots in their daily lives. There are times when we cut robots slack we wouldn't for humans—and times when they annoy us more.
Read at BBC
Robots will probably help care for you when you're old
When cognition starts to decline with age, what's the most ethical way to integrate robots and reality?
Read at Quartz
Inside the highly experimental, loosely regulated world of for-profit body donation
Months before Reuters, I tracked the shady world of for-profit tissue donation—starting at a very unusual place.
Read at Quartz
I let Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson run my life for a week
Unpacking the secrets of the man shoving us all a little closer to greatness. See what the Rock said about this story here.
Read at Quartz
To actually have a successful marriage with two careers, rethink everything you’re doing now
Navigating a dual-career marriage can sometimes feel like a zero-sum game. Can we do better?
Read at Quartz
The highly profitable, deeply adorable, and emotionally fraught world of Instagram’s famous animals
A look at the complicated relationships between famous pets and the humans who love them.
Read at Quartz
MeToo hijacked black women’s work on race and gender equality
When the experiences of victims who are white, wealthy, and privileged are prioritized over those who are not.
Read at Quartz
Ice, ice melting
A report from Greenland, where climate change is already changing the landscape and people's lives.
Read at PRI
Queen Elizabeth II owns all of the UK’s swans. And every year, she counts them
A mad, mad ride with the crown’s official swan census.
Read at PRI
How Close Is Humanity to the Edge?
This New Yorker piece examines the possibility of humanity's extinction, and why it's worth being optimistic about the greatest threat of all.
Read at The New Yorker
Companies Can't Stop Overworking
This piece for DealBook gets into the social and psychological reasons why the grueling schedules at blue-chip firms won't go away anytime soon.
Read at NYT
Quarantine Anyone? When Everyday Drinking Becomes a Problem
This piece looks at how chronic stress and isolation can shift formerly benign drinking habits in a different direction.
Read at NYT
Welcome to the new midlife crisis
Taffy Brodesser-Akner said she wished she'd read this piece on midlife before writing Fleishman Is In Trouble, and that was the happiest I've ever been on Twitter.
Read at Forge
A.I. Is Here to Calm Your Road Rage
Scientists let me test drive their prototype therapy car, one of several emerging technologies that make life behind the wheel healthier and easier.
Read at Time
How AI changed organ donation in the US
Paired kidney exchange is one of AI's greatest success stories—and a perfect example of its limits.
Read at Quartz
Why everyone around the world is having the same nightmare
This story explores the science of sleep paralysis—and the fascinating reasons why the same nightmarish figures appear in dreams around the globe.
Read at Quartz
Selling US-themed souvenirs used to be straightforward. Then Trump got elected
How a humble gift shop chain ended up on the frontlines of a culture war.
Read at Quartz
The psychology behind why couples always fight when assembling Ikea furniture
On a good day, we avoid blame and take the enlightened view. An Ikea day is another story.
Read at Quartz
This man used to hunt Belfast Catholics with a .357 Magnum. Here’s his story
A former paramilitary grapples with age, regret, and redemption. Part of my series When Terror Gets Old.
Read at PRI
Everything about this ridiculous “CNN Nutrition” ad is a lie
One of two pieces dissecting an absurd—and dangerous—viral scam.
Read at Quartz
A stressed, sleep-deprived couple accidentally invented the modern alien abduction phenomenon
Their experience birthed a genre, and says a lot about why we believe what we do.
Read at Quartz
“Game of Thrones,” one of the most expensive shows ever made, used cheap Ikea rugs as capes
I broke this story, and now Ikea publishes directions for rug costumes. Don’t say my journalism doesn’t change the world.
Read at Quartz
