
Latest Essays
The $1,000 You Don’t Know You’re Spending
How social media platforms monetize your attention and what it’s actually worth Social media promised seamless connection. After a decade of competition and consolidation, a handful of platforms now dominate with billions of users each. The average user spends about 140 minutes per day on social media 1, paying nothing for it. Advertising revenue covers…
Clickbait Science: Why Titles Matter
How a scientist tells the story of their research is often just as important as the research itself. Take the title of this 2002 paper in Nature: “Rat navigation guided by remote control.” It grabs your attention instantly – and it certainly made me click! The study behind that headline is elegant but more conventional. Scientists implanted three electrodes…
How to Stay Wealthy
In 2019, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders made headlines when he wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the three richest Americans together owned more wealth than the bottom half of the country. He was right. According to Forbes estimates from 2016, the combined net worth of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos exceeded the total wealth of…
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