10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing

The stock market is at record highs and life expectancy in the U.S. is decreasing. In the richest nation in the richest time in human history, 43% of Americans can’t pay their bills. Many of our most significant societal problems are also, not coincidentally, extremely profitable industries (fossil fuels, junk food, prescription drugs, and for-prof... See more

Each age finds ways to close the relative distances of time and space in bringing humans into closer contact, communication, and community—enabling not only new forms of collectivization but the growing power of consumers and fans in giving feedback to centralized collectors and creators. At the same time, we move into greater and greater isolation... See more

A paradox: People are more connected now than ever — through phones, social media, Zoom and such — yet loneliness continues to rise. Among the most digitally connected, teenagers and young adults, loneliness nearly doubled in prevalence between 2012 and 2018, coinciding with the explosion in social media use.AdvertisementContinue reading the main s

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Some of the most valuable evidence comes in the form of detailed time-use records from the US and UK, which show a marked increase in time spent alone among teens and young adults over the past decade, but little to no change for older groups. Most impor-tantly, this diary data also captures how people are feeling over the course of their day as th... See more

Young people are less likely than in previous decades to get their driver’s license, or to go on a date, or to have more than one close friend, or even to hang out with their friends at all. The share of boys and girls who say they meet up with friends almost daily outside school hours has declined by nearly 50 percent since the early 1990s, with t... See more