Imagine if the lesson we learned from the "everything wrong with kids is because of screens" blowback is not that some other, singular and tidy explanation is the cause, instead, but that the whole industry of singular, tidy, behavioral-scientific explanations for complex problems is, well, stupid.

We’ve Been Blaming Screens for Anxious Kids. A New Study Points to a Completely Different Culprit

Nope, for once it’s not the phones. Psychologists say something else is to blame for rising perfectionism.

inc.com

Does anyone out there own a Thermomix? I'm trying to understand it.

antique finds

Finally, a loofah for men.

This is really demented. And Google's response is incredible, amounting to something like, Every extremely misleading image that didn't need to exist in the first place made by our dearest Gooberboo can be verified to be fake by means of a mechanism nobody will ever use. We're sure you'll love it!

Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images

"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."

404media.co

This "I want you to *want* the unsolicited emails" thing—increasingly common—has to end.

The 'slop' discourse reminds me of that George Carlin sketch about how other people's stuff is shit. "Move your shit so I can put my stuff down." I am sorry to report that we're all posting shit. Some just comes out faster. (This is not an endorsement of so-called AI slop, you Bluesky monsters.)

Ian Bogost@ibogost.com · 6d ago

All LinkedIn posts are slop. The AI-slop ones are, at least, more earnest in their sloppishness, because intention and outcome are aligned (if in a hidden way). Threads is like this too. (Bluesky as well, but on this platform ppl believe they exist above slop, which is slop's native form here.)

All LinkedIn posts are slop. The AI-slop ones are, at least, more earnest in their sloppishness, because intention and outcome are aligned (if in a hidden way). Threads is like this too. (Bluesky as well, but on this platform ppl believe they exist above slop, which is slop's native form here.)

LinkedIn Introduces a 'Seems Like AI Slop' Button

Following 404 Media's reporting on how LinkedIn is full of AI slop, the platform is giving users a chance to report it when they see it.

404media.co

Excellent time to buy an HDD, thanks for this incredible opportunity.

This Emily Wilson situation is a nightmare. All she had to do was nothing—this film is a cherry on top of a career-sundae already adorned with a gilded cherry. And instead this. It’s almost Greek-tragic in its hubris. Ir makes me even more ashamed of academia than I already am.

Finally, the tactical Uno that will allow men to play Uno.

UNO x Blvck Playing Card | Blvck Paris

Shop the UNO™ x Blvck playing card deck — the iconic card game reimagined in all-black by Blvck Paris. A collector's must-have.

blvck.com

The plumber protects the health of the nation

Remember Six Sigma? For a long time it seemed very important in business to reduce defects and errors, so much that there was a whole quasi-cult, quasi-science to it. Now maybe nobody cares? Defects and errors are widespread.

“People who are interested in games have too much of their identities bound up with their interest in games compared to almost anything else that I’ve encountered.” Ian Bogost talks about his approach to critiquing games AND how he has become more mindful of life's small pleasures.

Gaming’s Toughest Critic Wants You to Live a Happier Life

Plus: An excerpt from The Small Stuff audio book

postgame.substack.com

I interviewed two ASMR creators for The Small Stuff (which has an ASMR chapter): a YouTube-famous one named Gibi ASMR and an up-and-coming Canadian creator called Tera ASMR. Tera made an ASMR video with my book, which is just, well, gratifying. youtu.be/6ZDUQW-kTck?...

i’m in a book!! (and other, more ordinary things) soft spoken ASMR

YouTube video by TeraASMR

youtu.be

I did a huge, massive interview with @annehelen.bsky.social about gratification and The Small Stuff, and I'm immensely grateful to her for printing a kind of preposterous number of words I wrote in response to her deep, excellent questions: www.patreon.com/CultureStudy...

How to Fall Back in Love with the Small Stuff | Culture Study

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT!! We're playing around with doing some sort of live event every month (hosted by Culture Study Librarian Margaret Willi

patreon.com

How many versions of this rhetoric must we try before grasping that it doesn't work? "You silly citizen, you are wrong to think that the university is a place for elites who do not care about you. We care about you deeply as an instrument of our own interests, which trickles down to you invisibly."

An American research crisis with real human consequences

Ivy League universities have dominated recent news headlines, having become popular targets for critics of higher education. But the threats they face—cuts to federal research funding, assaults on aca...

science.org

If you were wondering how my new book The Small Stuff—which barely mention games at all—relates to my previous work in games, well I talked to @plante.bsky.social about that for his podcast Post Games:

Gaming’s Toughest Critic Wants You to Live a Happier Life

Plus: An excerpt from The Small Stuff audio book

postgame.substack.com

Sorry to post about philosophy, but as a panexperientialist who has spent 15 years failing to get that idea to catch on, both (pan)psychism and (pan)vitalism were bad ideas that are seductive because we humans are self-centered and like to think of ourselves as the measure of everything.

Could AI be conscious?

Experts believe it’s at least possible. We urgently need a plan to navigate the ethical implications

theguardian.com

I don't know who needs this information, but hazelnut peels will not easily come off when you rub them in a dish towel after roasting, as all conventional wisdom claims.

Really enjoyed talking to @ibogost.com about The Small Stuff, his new book. I paid attention to the pressure my thumbs made on the screen as I wrote this skeet. www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

Atlantic Reads: The Small Stuff With Ian Bogost

The Atlantic contributing writer Ian Bogost and senior editor Chris Suellentrop discuss Bogost’s new book, The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life.

theatlantic.com

New issue of Workday Watch just dropped.

I promise a fringe minority of men are doing many of these things, especially the last one. Maybe the “in the media” part is the problem. Fringe, online-extremist behavior (much of which is just symbols!) became the easiest and most appealing to cover as normal, or as “at risk of normalizing.”

Possibly a personal-record Diet Coke expenditure.

Love dining out.

If you sign up for my new newsletter Ordinary Extraordinary today, you will receive the first issue in your inbox tomorrow! It’s free!

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 4w ago

You don’t have to change your habits or reinvent yourself to live a richer life. @ibogost.com’s eight-week Ordinary Extraordinary newsletter course teaches you how to find joy in the experiences you’re already having. Sign up: theatln.tc/VcmHih7v

Is optimization culture robbing us of little things that make life worth living? This week on Galaxy Brain, @cwarzel.bsky.social talks with @ibogost.com about how embracing the small stuff can make us feel more alive.

The Hidden Cost of Optimizing Everything

How technology is disconnecting us from life’s small pleasures

bit.ly

I love this @kait.bsky.social story, because it shows where the "real problem" lies, which is twofold: First, with the idea of a singular, superordinate "real problem" in the first place And second, with the entire project of behavioral science, which has no ground for making claims like it does.

What if It’s Not the Phones?

An evolutionary psychologist is challenging the popular understanding of kids and technology.

theatlantic.com

Sign up for my new newsletter about how to live the life you already have before the first issue this weekend!

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 4w ago

You don’t have to change your habits or reinvent yourself to live a richer life. @ibogost.com’s eight-week Ordinary Extraordinary newsletter course teaches you how to find joy in the experiences you’re already having. Sign up: theatln.tc/eLTUbetq

Wait but what if