I’m traveling in West Africa on my annual win-a-trip journey, a global reporting expedition on which I take a university student to highlight issues that deserve more attention. My winner this year is Maddie Bender, a recent Yale graduate (the pandemic delayed our trip) — and with that, I’m handing the rest of the column […]
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In Manhattan, one high school freshman said he was trying to cut down on scrolling through TikTok, but questioned whether age restrictions on social media use could ever effectively stop tech-savvy teenagers. Another senior from Queens said social media was essential for socializing but lamented its transformation from an enjoyable activity into an obligation. And […]
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Attention, parents with “screenagers”: The U.S. government has issued a public warning that scrolling through apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat may pose serious risks to your child’s mental health. In a 19-page report, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said on Tuesday that while social media offered some benefits to younger people, including the ability […]
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The surgeon general’s warning Tuesday about social media’s “profound risk of harm” to young people included a significant qualification. For some of them, the warning said, social media can be beneficial to health in important ways. For one group in particular — the growing share of young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender […]
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Shu Xiang, 21, started looking for a job in February and still has had no luck. A financial management major at a college in Chengdu, China, Ms. Shu said she has received five responses to about 100 applications. Graduation is in a few weeks. “I’m not so confident about finding a job,” she said. The […]
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Christian Poole, 20, has deemed himself “the unofficial ambassador for the state of Montana.” On TikTok, his favorite social media platform, he posts lighthearted videos about the peculiarities of his home state. His nearly 420,000 followers reward him with hearts and laughing-face emojis. But when Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana signed a bill on Wednesday […]
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Rachel Aaron, a 24-year-old who works in public relations in New York, recently dressed up for a work event at Bloomingdale’s. In the era of “get ready with me” videos on TikTok, it was a golden opportunity to create content. Ms. Aaron, who has just 3,300 followers on TikTok, filmed herself chatting to the camera […]
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I may have been naïve but I was, surely, not wholly wrong; the steps he has taken in life that led him eventually to pursue graduate degrees in philosophy began in the pursuit of those illusions. The concentration and subtlety of mind required to master Wittgenstein’s gnomic parables puzzles can be rooted more readily in […]
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As Dr. Jay was updating the book in 2020, she was getting dozens more reader emails. Some people told her they felt as if the pandemic had stolen their defining decade, sapping them of the motivation and opportunities to chase what they wanted. Others said that because they were locked down at home, they finally […]
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When Thais go to the polls on Sunday, they will be voting in a closely fought election that is seen, in part, as a referendum on whether it is illegal to criticize the Thai monarchy. Thailand has one of the world’s strictest laws against defaming or insulting the king and other members of the royal […]
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A little over a year into his first term, President Bill Clinton made good on a promise to return to MTV if young voters sent him to the White House. The town hall-style program in 1994 was meant to focus on violence in America, but it was a question of personal preference that made headlines […]
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Ayla Wing’s middle school students don’t always know what to make of their 26-year-old teacher’s hearing aids. The most common response she hears: “Oh, my grandma has them, too.” But grandma’s hearing aids were never like this: Bluetooth-enabled and connected to her phone, they allow Ms. Wing to toggle with one touch between custom settings. […]
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In the early 1960s typical Americans were eager to get on with adult life. As soon as they could, they married, launched careers and started popping out kids. In those days, half of all women married before their 20th birthday. Then the boomers came of age. Typical members of that generation wanted to enjoy their […]
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A mural depicting Queen Elizabeth II in a yoga pose, with the message “Welcome to Bristol,” greets visitors to this vibrant city in southwestern England. But like so many other places in Britain, devotion to the monarchy in Bristol runs hot and cold. So as the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday approaches, views […]
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It’s good to be the king. But it’s not without its traps, as King Charles III learned last weekend when the organizers of his coronation invited millions of Britons to pledge an oath of homage to the monarch during the ceremony on Saturday. “A spectacular misjudgment,” said Graham Smith, whose group, Republic, wants to abolish […]
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The modern men’s perm is loud for a hairstyle so soft. On TikTok, the hashtag #menperm, referring to one of the latest hair trends to be born from the app, has garnered more than 20.7 million views. Those videos often begin with a man in a salon chair, pictured from the shoulder up. The camera […]
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Single people should be valued as much as married couples and people in relationships, according to a new report released by the Church of England on Wednesday that laid out recommendations to support a diverse, evolving society. In the report, “Love Matters,” the archbishops of Canterbury and York said that “single people must be valued […]
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Ufot, channeling the rapper Ice Cube, said of Biden: “I need you to put your back into it!” But both Ufot and Albright considered the hesitation about Biden’s age a bit of a red herring. For them, policy and voter engagement — and the time and resources put into both — will be more determinative. […]
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“Young people are plugged in and more informed than they have ever been about climate change,” he said. “Now they’re feeling stabbed in the back.” If Mr. Biden doesn’t reverse course, “young people stay home in 2024, that’s the consequences,” Mr. Bowman said. Nationwide, 61 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, […]
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Florida Republicans on Wednesday expanded a state law that prohibits classroom instruction on L.G.B.T.Q. subjects through third grade. Now the “Don’t Say Gay” law will also apply to students in grades four to 12. Though the legislation might appear to be just about allowing parents a say in their children’s education — up to high […]
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Ten states in the past three months have passed laws prohibiting what is known as gender-affirming care for young people, in a rapid effort by Republican lawmakers across the country. The laws ban or significantly limit the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and transition surgery for people under 18. Last week, Indiana and Idaho […]
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New York, California and several other states announced a $462 million settlement with Juul Labs on Wednesday, resolving lawsuits claiming that the company aggressively marketed its e-cigarettes to young people and fueled a vaping crisis. The agreement brings many of the company’s legal woes to a conclusion, with settlements reached with 47 states and territories, […]
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Social media users responded furiously, pointing out that society had long prized education above all else and, especially since China’s economic reform began, cast manual labor as something to be shaken off. The problem was not that young people thought they were too good for that work, but that it did not offer a real […]
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A surge of youthful activism powered major liberal victories in Wisconsin and Chicago and a boisterous legislative uprising in Tennessee this week, as Republicans absorbed a string of damaging political blows, beginning with the arraignment of their leading presidential contender on criminal charges in Manhattan. The drumbeat of news seemed to batter the G.O.P.’s brand […]
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The war against transgender youth in the United States has taken another disturbing turn. On Friday, Republican legislators in Kansas approved a plan to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The move comes amid a year of unprecedented legislative attacks on trans youth. Another Anti-Trans Policy Forced Virginia Students to Walk Out in Droves Off English […]
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Last week, the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers called the deepening life expectancy crisis, documented in recent surveys and studies, “the most disturbing set of data on America that I have encountered in a long time” and “especially scary remembering that demographics were the best early warning on the collapse of the U.S.S.R.” In many […]
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A group of young people sit around a dilapidated living room. They’re on couches, on chairs, on the floor. The lovers among them are nestled close. People are drinking from red Solo cups. Someone has a flask. A joint is circulating. There’s laughter and passionate debate and easy alternation between the two. With the sound […]
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The Bright Side is a series about how optimism works in our minds and affects the world around us. On March 20, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its annual World Happiness Report, which rates well-being in countries around the world. For the sixth year in a row, Finland was ranked at the […]
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HARTFORD, Conn. — The stars were out at 9:30 a.m. in the Connecticut Convention Center. The top floor of the sprawling complex looked like the pages of a ’90s issue of “Teen Beat” had come to life. Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick from ’N SYNC talked to a line of reporters. Melissa Joan Hart, the […]
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The ancient wooden doors are adorned with an ornate metal knocker and a small grilled window, for guards to peek through. Once an imposing part of the elegant facade of Bordeaux’s City Hall, they look more like towering pieces of charcoal since being set on fire last week, after a protest against the French government’s […]
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LINCOLN, Neb. — Ash Homan, a 12-year-old from Omaha, spoke confidently as he urged Nebraska lawmakers not to ban transition-related care for transgender minors. “People introducing and passing these laws underestimate how much a child knows about their own body and about their own brain,” Ash, a transgender boy, testified during a hearing early this […]
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