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Atlantic
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Adults Have Always Wondered If the Kids Are Alright
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. The writers of The Atlantic have a long history of fretting about the youths. Take one 1925 article, which began with a call for reason: a promise to judge fairly whether modern young adults were truly as delinquent as everyone seemed to be saying. 'They are under suspicion on the counts of, briefly, dancing, drinking, kissing, motoring alone and often at night ('alone' means two together),' the author, identified only as 'A Professor,' declared. 'In the case of girls, dress is included, or rather, going about with legs and arms bared.' Of the drinking charge, young people seemed to be absolved. Certainly they were imbibing, but less than their elders—and they'd developed new etiquette to keep things under control. ('A really nice girl may drink cocktails in public,' the writer explained, 'but not whiskey and soda.') On the other counts, unfortunately, the Professor didn't let them off so easily: 'Legs are no more interesting than noses' when young ladies wear skirts this short. 'The sad truth is that the human frame has ceased to be romantic.' Oh, and this new generation, in addition to diluting sex appeal, reportedly lacked intellectual curiosity. Also emotion: 'There seems no doubt that these young things feel less, on the whole, and do more, than once did we.' That was just one story in a whole canon of writing, published here and elsewhere, that has professed concern for young people—but with an undercurrent of condescension, even disdain. In a 1975 classic of the genre, the conservative journalist Midge Decter described the young hippies around her as coddled to the point of incompetence, having used the idea of a countercultural movement to get away with doing nothing much at all. 'Heaped with largesse both of the pocketbook and of the spirit,' she wrote, 'the children yet cannot find themselves.' All those writers who peer at the youths, squinting through their binoculars and scribbling in their notepads, make up an embarrassing lineage. Recently, I've been wondering if I'm part of it. I write fairly often about Gen Z, sometimes worriedly —but I'm a Millennial. I didn't have iPads around when I was a child; I wasn't scrolling on Instagram in middle school. I'd already graduated college and made new friends in a new city when the pandemic hit. I'm still examining contemporary young adulthood from the inside, I've told myself. But a few days ago, I turned 30. Technically, I'm in a new life phase now: ' established adulthood.' Where's the line between ogling and empathizing? And how do you describe trends—which are broad by definition—without using too broad a brush? The young people of the 1970s arguably were, on the whole, more interested in challenging norms than their parent's generation had been; that seems worth documenting. Any dysfunction that came along with that may have been worth noting too. (Joan Didion clearly thought so.) Likewise, the Professor wasn't wrong that social mores were transforming with each successive generation. Legs were becoming more like noses, and that's the honest truth. The task, I think, is to write with humility and nuance—to cast young adults not as hopefully lost or uniquely brilliant and heroic, but just as people, dealing with the particular challenges and opportunities of their day. In 1972, The Atlantic published a letter from a father who jokingly wondered how the youths described in the papers could possibly be the same species as his children. 'Not long ago the president of Yale University said in the press that when the young are silent it means they are feeling 'a monumental scorn' for political hypocrisy,' he wrote. 'When my son, Willard, Jr., is silent, I am never sure what it means, but I believe that he has his mind considerably on sexual matters and on methods of developing the flexor muscles of his upper arms.' Readers have always been able to tell the difference between real curiosity and zoological scrutinizing. They know when a stereotype rings hollow. Just rifle through the five pages of responses to Decter's story, which The Atlantic published with headlines such as 'Sentimental Kitsch,' 'Hideous Clichés,' and—my personal favorite—'Boring and Irrelevant.' One reader told Decter, with bite, not to worry so much about those wild children who weren't settling down in their jobs and houses like good boys and girls. 'Rest assured,' he wrote, 'my generation will be like hers—led by the silent, nervous superachievers, intent on their material goal, lacking the time to question the madness of their method.' The characterization is cutting. But that letter also raises another good point: Young people are not immune to oversimplifying, either. They'll eventually get old enough to write about their elders, and to include their own sweeping generalizations and nuggets of truth. 'I wonder what will be written in 1995 about our children. I get the feeling we will make the same mistakes,' another reader wrote to Decter. 'For isn't that the American way?'
Atlantic
26-06-2025
- General
- Atlantic
How Sleeping Less Became an American Value
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. In some corners of American culture, one rule applies: The less you sleep, the more impressive you are. Tech CEOs and influencers love to tout their morning routines that begin at 5 a.m. or 4 a.m. or 3 a.m. (though at a certain point we really ought to just call them 'night routines'). Many of their 'How I start my day' videos have a moralizing tone: Waking up early is inherently good, the thinking goes. And not getting much sleep is presented as a symbol of hard work: Elon Musk and many of the Silicon Valley figures who came before him have been known to brag about staying up all night because they are so very dedicated to their company or mission. Americans have been ascribing moral value to sleep, or the lack thereof, for centuries. In 1861, an Atlantic writer railed against newspaper articles in which 'all persons are exhorted to early rising, to resolute abridgment of the hours of sleep, and the like.' Readers were told 'that Sir Walter Raleigh slept but five hours in twentyfour; that John Hunter, Frederick the Great, and Alexander von Humboldt slept but four; that the Duke of Wellington made it an invariable rule to 'turn out' whenever he felt inclined to turn over, and John Wesley to arise upon his first awaking.' The writer identified the value judgment lurking behind these examples: ''All great men have been early risers,' says my newspaper.' America was built on a Protestant work ethic, and the idea that hard work is an inherent good has never quite left us. But the Christian ideals that dominated early American culture also helped schedule leisure into the week in the form of the Sunday Sabbath. Throughout much of the 1800s, this day of rest was enforced by individual states, but such enforcement was waning by the end of that century. Americans were so tied to this ritual, however, that some petitioned Congress to legally codify the day. Eventually, the 40-hour workweek was created under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and workers were granted both Saturdays and Sundays as days off. Even as leisure became part of America's legal structure, the obsession with hard work only grew, especially for higher-paid workers. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, pundits predicted that automation would lead to more leisure time. But another ideology took hold instead, one that the Atlantic contributor Derek Thompson calls workism: Adherents to this quasi-religion, most of whom are college-educated Americans, build their identities and seek fulfillment through their job. Once the twin pillars of working a lot and sleeping a little became symbols of American achievement, those looking to stay up later became prime targets for product marketing. A nation of people trying to rebel against their body's basic instincts is a nation ready to pay for help. Coffee, for example, was successful in the U.S. in part because employers realized that caffeine would allow workers to toil longer. As time went on, the tools on offer got more varied: Now you can try an ice bath or dubious supplements or a thousand different kinds of energy drinks (some of which may give you a heart attack). Though in recent years a majority of Americans have acknowledged that they'd feel better with more rest, the mindset that sleep equals laziness is hard to shake. When the actor Dakota Johnson said in 2023 that sleep is her ' number one priority in life,' adding that she can easily sleep for up to 14 hours, her comments went viral, and she felt compelled to issue a clarification a while later. Sure, 14 hours is a lot of sleep; tech bros somewhere are shuddering at the thought. Perhaps one day, the new brag will be to say, 'I sleep so much.' But we're not quite there yet.
Atlantic
19-06-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
Why America Needs More Public Pools
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. My husband often hears me say that all I need to be happy is a sunny day and a pool. (He would argue that I don't say this so much as I whine it.) No matter how bad a day I'm having, if I can squeeze in just 10 minutes coursing through the water, watching the dappled sun reflect off my arms, life feels bearable again. When I dive my head underwater, I feel temporarily hidden from my problems, as if nothing can find me down there. Pools are so important to me that in 2020, one of my biggest concerns was whether the pandemic would prevent public pools from opening. I couldn't bear to watch a whole swimming season pass me by. (In defense of my screwed-up priorities, this was before I had kids.) That may seem melodramatic, but for decades, experts have argued that pools are essential for mental, physical, and social health. Swimming has been shown to boost moods; it routinely ranks among people's favorite forms of exercise. When I interviewed Bonnie Tsui, the author of Why We Swim, she told me that being in water gives you 'the feeling of both being buoyed and being embraced.' The pressure of the water combined with the release of gravity does something uniquely salubrious to our brains. Sure, you can get this same zing from an ocean or a lake, but not everyone lives near one of those. A pool is a bit of backyard magic, a chance to find transcendence in the everyday. For decades, writers have been documenting the wonders of pools in our pages. In 1967, Leonard Conversi described how his swimming lessons left him flabbergasted by 'unanticipated ease, when the world seems to divide before us like a perforation and the body feels itself inebriate, or falling.' However, after Conversi did a 'jig of triumph' at the end of the diving board, he was asked to leave the swimming club and find 'an organization more suited to your needs and temperament.' Conversi was unfazed: 'To have learned to breathe while moving in an alien element is to have begun to master the secret of animal life.' Even people who aren't sun-seekers can recognize the salutary effect of immersion. In 2006, the journalist Wayne Curtis traveled to the thermal pools of Iceland and noted that 'stepping into thermal waters is like stepping into Oz: life changes from the black-and-white of imminent hypothermia to a lustrous, multidimensional world of color and warmth.' The pools are a social hub in Iceland; people gather there with their friends and kids. Sounds heavenly. This idea, that pools can be a ' third place ' for people to meet and chill, has existed for decades. In a 1952 call for cities to revitalize themselves, the developer William Zeckendorf suggested building parks with swimming pools as one way to keep urban workers from fleeing to the suburbs: I visualize these fun centers as consisting of a tremendous dance hall, bowling alleys, skating rinks, merry-go-rounds for the children, a swimming pool for the children and one for the adults too—in short, a happy, functionally designed center for dancing and exercise and entertainment … People would feel that their city is a great place to live in, not a great place to get away from. His entreaty serves as a somewhat tragic companion piece to one that Yoni Appelbaum, an Atlantic deputy executive editor, wrote a decade ago. Starting in the 1920s, pools did become the kinds of recreation hot spots that Zeckendorf hailed—until they began to desegregate in the '50s. Rather than continue to use public pools, which welcomed all races, some suburbanites retreated to private club pools, such as the one at the center of a racist incident in McKinney, Texas—the town where I went to high school and where my parents still live. During a party at a private-subdivision pool in 2015, teens who allegedly didn't live in the community showed up, someone called the police, and an officer tackled a young Black girl to the ground, pinning her with both knees on her back. (The officer was placed on administrative leave and then resigned; the McKinney police chief said that the department's policies didn't 'support his actions.' A grand jury later declined to bring criminal charges against him.) Public pools have been 'frequent battlefields' of racial tension, Appelbaum wrote. 'That complicated legacy persists across the United States. The public pools of mid-century—with their sandy beaches, manicured lawns, and well-tended facilities—are vanishingly rare.' Many public pools have become neglected and underfunded, usurped by private pools funded by HOA fees. I say we start the backlash to this backlash: in the spirit of Zeckendorf, dig up some unused parking lots and fallow fields, and open public pools again. Though this would be a resource-intensive endeavor, it would be worth it. Take it from the famed New York City urban planner Robert Moses: 'It is no exaggeration to say that the health, happiness, efficiency, and orderliness of a large number of the city's residents, especially in the summer months, are tremendously affected by the presence or absence of adequate bathing facilities.' This summer and in the hot, hot summers to come, America needs pools—for everyone.
Atlantic
12-06-2025
- Health
- Atlantic
The Best Wellness Advice Has Always Been Free
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic 's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. Allow me to make myself sound very dainty and attractive: Last year, I was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease. This was an unfortunate development, I decided, and so not in line with ' brat summer.' I handled the news like any journalist might—with compulsive research and fact-checking. My fear directed me to Reddit threads and scientific studies, to new diet plans and workout regimens and supplement orders, until my unremitting quest for answers landed me in the Zoom office of a functional-medicine doctor, a woman who charged me a couple of hundred bucks to tell me that I should eat more boiled plantains. My search for wellness had gone too far. I was spending money I didn't have to try to fix an illness with origins I'd never understand, much less control. Yet I trust that I'm far from alone in this desire to feel good. Every year, the average American spends more than $6,000 on 'wellness,' an imprecise category that includes both fads and legitimate endeavors, with offerings as varied as diagnostic technologies and protein popcorn. Across the world, wellness is a $6.3 trillion business—outpacing even the pharmaceutical industry—and Americans are by far the biggest spenders. Although some health issues require interventions or specialists (which can be exorbitantly expensive), the wellness industry tells Americans that no matter their condition—or lack thereof—there's always some treatment they should be buying. There's always more Googling and optimizing to be done. Take the journalist Amy Larocca's book, How to Be Well, which details her wellness-industry misadventures, including 'gravity' colonic cleanses, $200-a-month prescription herbs, and $1,000 Goop events. In a recent Atlantic review of the book, the writer Sheila McClear observed how widespread the 'wellness craze' has become, noting that 'in a nation known for its relatively poor health, nearly everybody seems to be thinking about how to be healthy.' Yet, like the human body's frailty, America's obsession with wellness is far from new. In our archives, I found a letter addressed to someone else facing an unsexy stomach ailment: ' A Letter to a Dyspeptic,' published in 1859, includes some remarkably sassy advice from an anonymous writer to a 19th-century gentleman with indigestion. This writer is all tough love, unafraid to call the gentleman an 'unfortunate individual,' a man of 'ripe old age, possibly a little over-ripe, at thirty-five,' and, due to the fellow's unique bathing habits, an 'insane merman.' The dyspeptic man had spent the past years suffering, quitting his business and doling out cash to questionable doctors and therapies, to little avail. 'You are haunting water-cures, experimenting on life-pills, holding private conferences with medical electricians, and thinking of a trip to the Bermudas,' the author writes. But this search for a cure came at a high cost: 'O mistaken economist! can you afford the cessation of labor and the ceaseless drugging and douching of your last few years?' Any hyperfixation on wellness can be draining and futile; an endless search for answers to one's ailments might be alluring, but 'to seek health as you are now seeking it, regarding every new physician as if he were Pandora,' the writer warns, 'is really rather unpromising.' In lieu of expensive treatments, the writer advises that the dyspeptic man do three things: bathe, breathe, and exercise. (Another suggestion is to purchase 'a year's subscription to the 'Atlantic Monthly,'' one of the 'necessaries of life' for happiness—it seems we writers have never been above the shameless plug.) Notably, all of these (except the Atlantic subscription, starting at $79.99) are more or less free. Written almost two centuries later, Larocca's book ends on a similar note, championing the kind of health advice that doesn't hurt your wallet. After her tiresome and expensive foray into the world of wellness, she 'doesn't recommend a single product, practice, or service, although she does name one tip that helped her,' McClear notes. 'It's a simple breathing exercise. And it's free.' America's wellness methods have changed over time—sometimes evolving for the better. (The 1859 letter, for instance, details how some philosophers believed in being as sedentary as possible because 'trees lived longer than men because they never stirred from their places.') Even so, as skyrocketing costs and medical mistrust plague American health care, the wellness industry churns out a carousel of treatments, touting sweeping benefits that are often dubious at best. Compared with the many big promises that 'gravity' colonics and supplement companies might make, most health tips that have stood the test of time are far more quotidian: sleep, exercise, breathe. Their simplicity can be both healing and accessible. The body has 'power and beauty,' the anonymous writer noted more than a century ago, 'when we consent to give it a fair chance.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The Long Goodbye to College
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic's archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here. The month of May marks the first anniversary of my college graduation—or, as I call it, the inevitable and dreaded start of my adulthood. This time last year, I questioned what I wanted from my future, endured the implosion of a close-knit social life, parted ways with a failed situationship, and tried to scrub a stubborn beer stain out of my baby-blue graduation gown. I remember the endless parties, cigars that smelled like chocolate but tasted like ash, cheap champagne that we shook and sprayed but hardly drank, all that beer and wine we did drink. Now, as I watch videos of underclassmen donning their own robes, I face the unwelcome reminder that grass grows atop the grave of my college days. The morning of my graduation, I struggled to follow a TikTok tutorial on how to tie a tie (eventually enlisting my roommate's help) and ate just a bag of Cheez-Its for breakfast. I walked across the stage for all of eight seconds, waving at the crowd without a clue where my family was seated. But none of those gripes mattered, because my dean winked at me as we shook hands and the school's anthem sounded better through Bluetooth speakers than it ever had through brass. At graduations, even the slightest pageantry is enchanting. One 1923 Atlantic article remarked that merely being asked 'Are you going to Commencement?' provoked joy: 'Commencement had a meaning,' the writer Carroll Perry explained. 'It meant that the Governor of the Commonwealth was coming to Williamstown, and the sheriff of the County of Berkshire, with bell-crown and cockade, in buff waistcoat, carrying a staff. It meant wearing your Sunday suit all day Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday; it meant pretty girls from big cities; pretty girls, in stylish dresses, with wonderful parasols—girls who lived in New York.' But all of that pomp can be punctured by reality. At my alma mater, Columbia, there was confusion over whether the ceremony would happen at all, because of the campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. (Ultimately, commencement was canceled and smaller graduation events, including mine, were moved off campus.) Matriculating into adulthood too often means entering a world plagued by conflict. In 1917, amid the throes of World War I, a father wrote a letter to his daughter for her graduation: 'That, my daughter with your sheepskin in your hand, is the world into which you have graduated. It is a world in crisis; a world struggling toward a salvation only to be won by bitter effort,' he wrote. 'No one of us is exempt from contributing what we have and what we are to that endeavor.' Uncertainty is the word that defines the waning months of college and beyond. Finding a post-grad path is hard, not least because of the pressure to select one that may determine your career forever. Graduate school delays the job hunt by a few years, but the outcomes can vary. 'Now, four years after having obtained an M. A. and a Ph. D., I am seemingly permanently unemployed,' an anonymous graduate, with the byline of 'Ph. D.,' complained in 1940. And the pressure to keep up with your peers, especially financially, never goes away. One writer who was working as a carpenter went to dinner with old college friends, who all made substantially more money than he did, in white-collar positions. 'I think it cheered them somewhat to learn that my hands had not been able to keep pace with their heads, commercially,' he wrote in 1929. Any recent graduate will tell you that their head felt heaviest after the cap came off. The night after graduation, my friends and I snuck into our freshman-year dorm. We reminisced about our four years together and wrote a message for the dorm's future inhabitants inside an electrical box in the same living room where we first met. And then the sun came up. I loaded my life into cardboard and loaded that cardboard into a minivan and slid my car window down to wave goodbye to it all. 'Thus we launch the schoolboy upon life. Commencement meant commencement; it was the beginning of responsibility. He had to make his own chance now,' the minister Edward E. Hale lamented in an 1893 essay. 'His boyhood was over.' At some point after the blur of my victory lap, I suddenly found myself back at home, all alone. I'd been asked What's next? by some 20 people by then, but for the first time, I was forced to actually confront the question. I had no answer. I just mourned my boyhood. Article originally published at The Atlantic
