Soothing

‘PDF TO BRAINROT’ STUDY TOOLS ARE A STRANGE ITERATION ON A TIKTOK TREND , techcrunch

AI-based study tools like Coconote and Study Fetch are capitalizing on the “PDF to Brainrot” trend, which involves reading text from documents over “oddly satisfying” videos, like ASMR clips or gameplay footage from Subway Surfers . Why read a textbook if you can... See more

I’ve been writing lately about how American politics seem to have moved into a new dispensation — more unsettled and extreme, but also perhaps more energetic and dynamic. One benefit of unsettlement, famously adumbrated by Orson Welles’s villainous Harry Lime in “The Third Man,” is supposed to be cultural ferment: “In Italy for 30 years under the... See more

Many commenters have said they found the videos “therapeutic,” he said. “Even though I presented in an educational format, they were using it as more of an entertainment source.”

What’s worse is the deep capitalism poisoning that confuses consumerism with culture: a new water bottle despite having water bottles, simping for and falling for billionaire theatrics, happily welcoming the AI-fication of everything. A loser landscape is emerging, as teens want less sex in movies, as nightclubs close and sober bars rise, as... See more

But regardless of my use in any given week, what’s important is that the small thing has led to a bigger thing: realizing I have much more agency than I thought I did, and that corporations are built on the back of us thinking we don’t have any.

A new Harvard study finds that Gen Z adults are struggling more than any other age group across 22 countries, with 18–29-year-olds reporting “unprecedented” levels of unhappiness, poor mental health, and a lack of purpose.

COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE USING ‘NO CONTACT ORDERS’ TO BLOCK EACH OTHER IN REAL LIFE , wsj

No contact orders (NCOs), originally designed to protect victims of sexual harassment or assault on college campuses, are now being widely used by Gen Z students to avoid interpersonal conflict, often over disputes as minor as stolen bagels or awkward social... See more

There’s a story in The Times today about how A.S.M.R., the pleasant, brain-tingling feeling we get when hearing certain sounds or watching certain comforting scenes, has become a feature of all viral internet content, not just specialized videos devoted to inducing the sensation. You can still put on a very specific video of someone whispering into... See more

“But then you get used to it all, is the problem,” she continued. “I feel like I’m not trying as hard anymore. When I had the flip phone, I had to put in effort to get to places, to talk to people. Everything was a task. Now it’s easy to do things. I guess I still don’t like needing the crutch of a smartphone, though I couldn’t figure out how to go... See more