The day my five-year-old son came home from school proudly announcing he had learned to download apps on what he called &#8220;my iPad,&#8221; I felt two things: the instinct of a father sensing something was off, and the reflex of a physician recognizing a familiar problem. It wasn’t his excitement that gave me pause. It was the word &#8220;my.” After a few weeks of school, he was personally identifying with a device before he was developmentally ready to contextualize his relationship to it.
As an emergency physician, I evaluate interventions the same way every time, by weighing the evidence of benefit against the risk of harm. When the data is unclear, I fall back on medicine&#8217;s oldest principle — primum non nocere. First, do no harm. I never imagined I would be applying that framework to my son&#8217;s pre-K classroom.
The echoes of COVID remain familiar: an expert class prescribing an untested solution, dismissing the concerns of the people it serves. The pandemic increased reliance on technology in education but also exposed the priorities of America’s elites. When the public sought explanations, officials issued mandates. Conformity to dogma ruled the day, and any criticism was swiftly labeled misinformation. The cost was staggering. A generation’s trust in institutions was spent in just about two years. At the core of it all was a simple belief — that experts know best.
I am watching a similar phenomenon take place in our children’s classrooms. Every day our kids go to school, we are extending an act of trust — placing them in the school’s care, expecting that parents and teachers will work together in the children’s best interests. Increasingly, the educators’ posture has shifted to something more insular: we know best, and we’ll take it from here.
The deeper irony is that on this specific question, the evidence is not on the educators’ side.
In January, neuroscientist Jared Horvath testified before a Senate subcommittee about the impact of screen time and classroom technology on kids. And in his book, “The Digital Delusion,” he notes that the impact of classroom interventions is measured using a metric called &#8220;effect size.&#8221; The threshold for meaningful impact is +0.40. Teacher-led direct instruction averages approximately +0.56 — the gold standard. Broad educational technology interventions average around +0.29 — well below the impact threshold. For context, the negative effect of bullying is -0.28. OECD countries noted an almost two-letter-grade drop on standardized testing for students who used computers “very frequently.&#8221; The MIT-based Poverty Research Center, after examining 126 studies, found that programs expanding computer access &#8220;do not improve K-12 grades and test scores.&#8221;
Many schools claim that children need early digital exposure to succeed in the modern world. But this isn&#8217;t supported by evidence, nor does it pass the common-sense test. Digital skills can be acquired in minutes to hours, and they are not what predict deep learning or professional success.
What makes this particularly corrosive is what the apps are doing to learning itself. Early childhood is the most sensitive period for attention, executive function, and self-regulation — precisely the capacities most at risk. Research consistently shows stronger comprehension and retention on paper versus screens. Horvath notes that learning requires productive struggle. The friction of sitting with a hard problem, resisting distraction, and building toward mastery is not a flaw in education; it is the process. Apps are engineered to eliminate this friction. The result is what researchers call the &#8220;illusion of mastery.&#8221; Students feel they are learning, but the depth is not there.
COVID accelerated this without resolving it. The academic consequences were severe, and so were the mental health ones — anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal spiked across age groups and have not fully recovered. We poured energy into getting children back into classrooms, then handed them the same devices back.
Worse still, many educators don&#8217;t realize that much of the &#8220;evidence&#8221; backing these programs traces back to the for-profit education tech sector that created this ecosystem. These companies have cultivated academic voices to carry their message into schools, funding research through channels educators rarely scrutinize. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley&#8217;s founders have largely kept their own children off these devices. When Peter Thiel revealed as much at a recent summit, it elicited audible gasps. Educators who believe they are following the science are, in many cases, following a sales pitch.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro recently signed legislation mandating cursive handwriting in classrooms, explicitly to keep kids off tablets, while 10 states across the political spectrum are considering legislation to reduce screen time or restrict device programs in some way. This is no longer a fringe position.
As a father, I feel this differently than I do as a physician. Parents are watching in real time as young children develop a compulsive relationship with devices — fidgeting for the next stimulus, the next dopamine surge from apps designed to engage. Boys are particularly susceptible to these reward structures — the variable reinforcement, the next level, the next hit. The gaming addiction literature has documented it for years. We are now introducing that architecture to boys in pre-K through a school-issued device they are taught to think of as their own.
And yet the response from most schools has been silence, or worse, reassurance. Parents notice concerning changes in their children, review the data, bring their concerns to administrators, and are met with polished explanations that best practices are being followed. Parental concern is treated as a feature of the process, proof almost that the school is doing something bold.
Educators dismiss those concerns at their own peril. The trust parents extend to schools is not unconditional, and it is fraying. At a minimum, parents should have the right to opt their children out of individual device programs, and schools should provide information to parents on the potential harms. Regular efficacy assessments should accompany all device programs. No responsible physician would deny a patient the ability to decline an unproven intervention. Schools should extend a similar respect.
The larger obligation falls on the system itself. The education establishment should not be mandating device programs without a far stronger evidence base. When physicians, researchers, and parents all raise the same alarm, the appropriate response is curiosity or caution, not defensiveness. Before mandating a new intervention, demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the harms. If you can&#8217;t, don&#8217;t. Primum non nocere.
***
Dr. Benjamin Chacko is an Emergency Medicine Physician and the father of two sons.

Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best? Not When it Comes to Screens in the Classroom

Education

K-12

Parents rights

Technology

A new wave of concern is building around artificial intelligence (AI), not over jobs or misinformation, but over its impact on mental health. Now, a recent study out of MIT is sharpening that concern, suggesting that the problem is structural.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a preprint <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.19141">study</a> examining how AI chatbot interactions evolve over time. Stripped of its dense mathematical and technical language, their core finding is straightforward: when a system is designed to agree with you, mirror you, and keep you engaged, it can gradually pull you deeper into whatever you already believe, whether true or not. 
The study models chatbot interaction as a feedback loop. A user expresses an idea, the AI responds in a way that sustains the conversation, and the user — feeling validated — returns with a stronger or more developed version of that idea. Over repeated exchanges, that loop can intensify beliefs rather than challenge them. 
For an average user, that might just mean reinforcement of existing opinions. But for someone vulnerable to disordered thinking, researchers warn, the same dynamic could contribute to more extreme or delusional beliefs. 
The findings align with a growing body of reporting and analysis. A recent piece highlighted by <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis">Psychology Today</a>, along with an editorial in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/49/6/1418/7251361?">Schizophrenia Bulletin</a> published less than a year after the launch of ChatGPT, points to what some are calling “AI psychosis,” a pattern in which chatbot interactions appear to reinforce or co-create irrational beliefs. It is not a formal diagnosis, and researchers are careful to say there is no definitive proof that AI alone can cause such conditions. <del></del>
Unlike a human therapist, who might gently push back or reality-check a harmful belief, a general-purpose chatbot has no built-in instinct to do so. Its “goal,” in a loose sense, is to continue the interaction. And mathematically, the easiest way to do that is to affirm, not challenge. That design choice may be harmless in most contexts. But in edge cases, it can become a kind of digital echo chamber, one that reflects a user’s thoughts back at them with increasing clarity and apparent authority.
While anecdotal, several reported cases illustrate the concern. 
Just in March, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/26/ai-chatbot-users-lives-wrecked-by-delusion">the Guardian</a> detailed the story of a Dutch IT consultant who became convinced he had helped create a conscious digital entity after prolonged interaction with a chatbot. He reportedly spent roughly €100,000 (approximately $110,000) pursuing the idea, was hospitalized multiple times, and eventually attempted suicide.
In another alarming instance, a man <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/chatgpt-obsession-mental-breaktown-alex-taylor-suicide-1235368941/">reportedly</a> became convinced that an AI chatbot he had formed a relationship with had been “killed,” leading to a violent confrontation with police that ended in his death.
Modern AI systems are optimized for engagement. They are not designed to argue, correct, or confront. Instead, they are trained to be helpful, responsive, and agreeable, to keep the conversation going. Researchers often describe this as “sycophancy,” meaning the AI tends to validate the user’s framing of reality.
MIT researchers say the broader concern is not that AI creates harmful beliefs from scratch, but that it can accelerate and harden them, particularly when combined with increased social isolation.
And if the underlying logic of these systems rewards engagement above all else, the question becomes harder to ignore: what happens when the most engaging response is also the most misleading?

AI apps smartphone

Are AI Chatbots Shaping How You Think?

Artificial Intelligence

World

The New York Times confirmed that they’ve cut ties with a freelance writer who stands accused of using AI to generate his book review. Alex Preston said he’s “hugely embarrassed” by the whole debacle.
The legacy paper was alerted by a reader who noticed that Alex Preston&#8217;s review of “Watching Over Her” by Jean-Baptiste Andrea was suspiciously similar to the review of the same title that Christobel Kent wrote for The Guardian last August.
When confronted by the Times, Preston admitted to using AI for assistance in writing his review and said he did not realize it had lifted copycat lines from anywhere else.
The New York Times sent a note to The Guardian, saying, “[Preston’s] reliance on AI and his use of unattributed work by another writer are a clear violation of the Times’s standards.”
“I made a serious mistake in using an AI tool on a draft review I had written, and I failed to identify and remove overlapping language from another review that the AI dropped in,” Preston said in his statement to the Guardian, as the outlet <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/31/the-new-york-times-drops-freelance-journalist-who-used-ai-to-write-book-review">noted</a>. “I am hugely embarrassed by what happened and truly sorry. I took responsibility immediately and apologized to the New York Times, and I also want to apologize to Christobel Kent and to the Guardian.”
The phrase “lazy Machiavellian Stefano” from The Guardian version became “lazy, Machiavellian Stefano” in the New York Times version.
The Guardian described the book as “most significantly a song of love to a country of contradictions, battered, war-torn, divided, misguided and miraculous: an Italy where life is costume and the performance of art, and where circuses spring up on wasteland.”
This is very similar to the Times version, which said the characters “populate what is ultimately a love song to a country of contradictions: battered, divided, misguided, and miraculous. This is an Italy where life is performance, where circuses rise on wasteland.”
The outlet noted that Preston has written for The Observer, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Economist. He’s also written six books, including the recent release, “A Stranger in Corfu.”
This isn’t the first time a legacy newspaper outlet got caught publishing AI-generated content, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chicago-sun-times-published-a-i-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist">reported</a>. The Chicago Sun-Times was called out last year for advertising an AI-generated summer reading list, including a number of titles that didn’t actually exist.
Only five of the fifteen suggested titles were real books. The writer, who was not a full-time staff member, apologized for his “huge mistake” and said he “betrayed that trust.”
The paper also issued a response to subscribers, noting that the person responsible for the error had been terminated and promising the mistake would not happen again. 
“We are in a moment of great transformation in journalism and technology, and at the same time our industry continues to be besieged by business challenges. This should be a learning moment for all journalism organizations: Our work is valued — and valuable — because of the humanity behind it,” the statement said.
“At Chicago Public Media, we are proud of our credible, independent journalism, created for and by people. And part of the journalistic process is a commitment to acknowledging mistakes. It is unacceptable that this content was inaccurate, and it is equally unacceptable that we did not make it clear to readers that the section was produced outside the Sun-Times newsroom.”

New York Times

Major Legacy Media Outlet Caught Red-Handed In AI Plagiarism Scandal

Books

Plagiarism

The Guardian

The New York Times

For now, Facebook is still technically called Meta. But the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual reality project, is in shambles. Tech outlets <a href="https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-isnt-shutting-down-its-vr-metaverse-after-all-165520696.html">reported</a> last week that the company would be sunsetting Horizon Worlds, its VR social media platform. Then CTO Andrew Bosworth clarified that Horizon Worlds would remain operational, even if users could expect little in the way of updates or new content. The parallel reality that Zuckerberg invited his clientele to dream of will linger quietly on — like the mostly forgotten game &#8220;The Sims,&#8221; that nerds of a certain age sometimes spin up for old time’s sake, except with real people pretending to be virtual instead of the other way around. Meta’s rebrand was perhaps a bit premature.
But then, it wasn’t so much the “Meta” part that grated. It was the “Verse”: the all-encompassing and boundlessly presumptuous claim about how life would be from now on. Pretensions to metaversality were part of the enthusiasm for “Web 3,” a supposedly epochal transition from a world of siloed apps and websites to a paradise of digital interconnectivity. It was one of those tech projects that consists of a doomsday scenario presented unblinkingly as a sales pitch. In &#8220;Snow Crash,&#8221; a 1992 cyberpunk fantasia, the novelist Neal Stephenson gave the name “metaverse” to a digital world that his characters would escape into when socioeconomic conditions conspired to make their embodied lives unbearable.
Zuckerberg, striding confidently through a sea of early adopters wearing insectoid VR helmet-goggles for a photo op, didn’t seem to notice how viscerally unappealing the whole thing was. He comes across as totally deaf to these sorts of concerns, although maybe acting that way is part of his job. It also has to be said how profoundly the mood back then was affected by COVID-19, which spiked people’s screen time and created the impression that everything was getting ported to the cloud.
<div id="attachment_1063987" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1063987" class="size-large wp-image-1063987" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg" alt="Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks in a virtual Horizon Home environment during the virtual Facebook Connect event, where the company announced its rebranding as Meta, in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. A major theme at the annual conference will be the company's ambitions for the so-called metaverse, a new digital space that it believes will supplant smartphone apps as the primary form of online interaction. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Lots of things were, but it was silly not to expect an imminent counter-revolution once people grew disgusted with the effects of too much scrolling. In the first round of mass layoffs that followed his pandemic hiring spree, Zuckerberg regretfully <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/">acknowledged</a> that he had seen the rush of users to the site and “predicted this would be a permanent acceleration.” Whoopsie. The four most foolhardy words in the English language are “if present trends continue.”
Present trends generally do not continue. In &#8220;<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/shoshana-zuboff/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/9781478947271/?lens=publicaffairs">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</a>,&#8221; the social psychologist Shoshanna Zuboff used the word “inevitabilism” to describe how technologists labor to make their designs seem inevitable “when they are actually meticulously calculated and lavishly funded means to self-dealing commercial ends.” What Zuboff called “the prediction imperative” puts tech companies in “the reality business,” where profit models depend on passing off corporate aspirations as unalterable, world-historical developments that must and will take place. Then the only question becomes whether you’ll get on board or, in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1951 adaptation of Dickens’s &#8220;A Christmas Carol,&#8221; “be crushed under with the weak and the infirm.” This is why product launches so often look and sound like something out of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, and why emissaries from the c-suite tend to talk like Thanos from &#8220;Avengers: Endgame&#8221;: &#8220;I.Am.Inevitable.&#8221;
What I want to propose is that inevitabilism is neither unique to tech nor especially modern. It’s just the standard advertising strategy for aspirants to global power. In 1817, anticipating the arrival in London of a colossal pharaonic statue from Egypt, Percy Shelley and Horace Smith embarked on a friendly competition to write a poem on the theme of monarchic pride. Shelley won with “Ozymandias,” a sonnet on the ruins of a dead king’s towering monument whose “vast and trunkless legs of stone” stand on a pedestal inscribed with the words “‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. / Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The real Ozymandias was Ramesses II, god-king of Egypt’s mighty New Kingdom. The Greek version of his name, which Shelley used for his title, came from the royal epithet he adopted at his coronation: Usermaatre Setepenre. It means roughly “Strong Justice and Chosen one of Ra,” the Sun God. Shelley neither invented nor exaggerated Ozymandias’ claims to ultimate power. The statue’s inscription in the poem is a rough paraphrase of a real one quoted by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus: “King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.”
Ozymandias, Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal&#8230;they came and they went. It used to be standard practice for imperial monarchs to boast of their sacred, eternal, and universal dominion. The fiction is appealing because it offers things people crave: permanence, stability, order, and certainty about the future. It’s tragic because, as Shelley observed, none of these are things that even very good men can guarantee. The sands of time’s desert are littered with trunkless legs. Nothing beside remains.
Understand these things, and you understand the politics of the Old Testament. The constant refrain of the Hebrew Prophets was that people look for eternity in the wrong places. “Put not your trust in princes”: again and again, the Jews of ancient Israel were invited to observe the wreckage of dynasties whose total dominion was once depicted — plausibly, at the time — as inevitable.
As it winds down its VR program, Meta will be diverting its resources and attention toward Artificial Intelligence. AI technology has so far proven vastly more useful and workable than the metaverse. It seems unlikely that we’ll look back on it as a passing fancy. At the same time, the predictions about the world AI will make — its powers to transform the universe, or come to life, or usurp God — have all the flavor of inevitabilism.
The same people who went all-in on the metaverse have moved on with undiminished confidence to telling us that AI will change everything, everywhere, all at once, that the whole thing is a fait accompli, that it’s pointless to speak of exercising restraint. “Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.” I submit that we will continue to fall for this routine, chasing like hamsters after the next forever, just as long as we expect a company or a king to secure the future of the universe. If we want eternity, we will have to look elsewhere.
* * *
Spencer A. Klavan is co-host, with his father Andrew Klavan, of the “Klavans on the Culture” podcast. He is associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books and author, most recently, of &#8220;Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Day Two of MWC Barcelona 2023

The Metaverse Was Never Inevitable

Facebook

Literature

Mark Zuckerberg

Silicon Valley

The horror novel “Shy Girl” is being pulled from publication in the United States and won’t be sold anymore in the U.K. due to suspected use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the author, Mia Ballard.
Hachette Book Group, one of the largest publishers in the United States, announced its decision on Thursday, per <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/books/shy-girl-book-ai.html">The New York Times</a>.
 “Hachette remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling,” a company spokeswoman told the outlet, noting that authors are required to disclose any use of AI for writing before submitting their work.
“Shy Girl” was slated to be released later this spring. Ballard responded to the accusations via email, denying the allegations. 
“This controversy has changed my life in many ways, and my mental health is at an all-time low, and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do,” she told the NYT.
The book has sold about 1,800 copies in the U.K. so far. As of Thursday, it was removed from Amazon and the Hachette website.
According to the Goodreads description, the novel is about a girl who decides to live as a man’s pet. Ballard initially self-published the book in 2025.
“Lonely, broke and depressed with a serious case of OCD, Gia finds herself at a crossroads when financial troubles lead her to Nathan, a mysterious and affluent man she encounters on a sugar dating website. Desperate for a solution, Gia is intrigued by Nathan&#8217;s unconventional offer: in exchange for living as his devoted pet, all of her debts will be erased. But the longer Gia is in captivity, the more animalistic she becomes,” the description says. 
While AI-generated writing isn’t always easy to recognize, many readers have begun to notice certain patterns and call it out. “Shy Girl” was no exception, as many reviewers noticed aspects that they said indicate AI did the writing. 
“I am quite certain that this was written by ChatGPT,” one reviewer who gave the book one star wrote. “As an editor, I&#8217;ve read a few specifically ChatGPT written books, and this has not only all the hallmarks, but some specific repeated phrases that I&#8217;ve read in other ChatGPT works … If it&#8217;s not AI, and I&#8217;m truly quite sure that it is, then this author needs to be ruthlessly edited. Every noun is preceded by a flaccid adjective, every action is followed by a repetitive, boring simile.”
Two months ago, YouTube personality Frankie&#8217;s Shelf released a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbeKTa5xhZo">video</a> on the book called &#8220;I&#8217;m pretty sure this book is AI slop,” which took a deep dive into the allegations. It received more than one million views and 44,000 likes. 
This move comes as the controversy over the use of AI across multiple industries, including entertainment and Hollywood, remains a hot topic of debate.

Robot’s hand holding a pencil.

Publisher Yanks Horror Novel Over Suspected AI Use

Entertainment

United States

Gen Z is having a moment — not in the “It Girl” kind of way, deserving the paparazzi spotlight because it has particular talents, looks, or other … assets. Quite the opposite. Gen Z, the generational group born from 1997 to the early aughts of the 21st century, is emotionally marred by its technological umbilical cord, ADHD, and COVID-induced psychological distress.
This Gen Z moment is more akin to a mid-midlife crisis. And what better cure than a longing for the halcyon days of yore: the 1990s. If your generation is defined by a lack of rebelliousness, social isolation, and emotional cope, then why not live out your fantasies indulging in the wildly innocent and spontaneous authenticity of a world unsoiled by social media, doomscrolling, and the precarious teetering on the edge of ecological, political, and economic collapse that your Boomer grandparents have heaped on your conscience? Of course, relief would only be found in longing for the days of mix tapes, Must See TV, and meeting friends at the mall arcade (IRL!).
Gen Z’s ’90s infatuation is a reminder of what we had and what we lost. A culture grounded in an analogue world, a freedom untethered from 24/7 hyperattentive neuroses based on social media antisocialism, and a freewheeling, spontaneous in-the-moment reality where politics and culture and entertainment still had defined boundaries, and America was, for the most part, an outward-looking, optimistic culture obsessed with collective cohesion, not division.
We’ve seen this coming. It makes perfect sense that kids who never owned a physical thing, let alone burn CDs, copy movies from television onto VHS, or take a date out to the local Blockbuster Video (Netflix and chill has nothing on the suggestive power of “Basic Instinct” or “Wild Things”), would now have extensive vinyl record collections, buy Criterion Collection film DVDs or be snapping up back issues of magazines on eBay.
“Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Sex and the City,” the Vogue aesthetic, and NYC glamour have newfound cachet. Hell, with the rise of GLP-1 inhibitors, heroin-skinny chic is even back with a fervor (just ask Demi Moore). So it’s only natural that the &#8220;It Couple of America’s&#8221; style capital — John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy — have found a resurrection among this generation. From Bessette’s <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/carolyn-bessette-kennedy-cbk-headband-co-bigelow-love-story.html?_gl=1*93lvyj*_gcl_au*MTA5MjQ1MTU4Mi4xNzcwMjQxMzU2*FPAU*MjA4ODkwMzQ1MC4xNzY3OTA3NTEz*_ga*NzM5MzQ4NjMxLjE3Njc5MDc1MTM.*_ga_DNE38RK1HX*czE3NzM1MzU2OTkkbzIwJGcxJHQxNzczNTM1NzIxJGozOCRsMCRoODQxNTkwNjQ2*_fplc*Tmd1VUUzV3ZCdlZCJTJCU2hCNUVBOVhsOUpxMFMlMkJjc3ZaZThjd1E0ZnN0ZyUyRkNUd2lIRE9sJTJCR01LM2YlMkJxJTJGU1R3NEIyT2lhd2RlekElMkZxNGVPQWpIWkRRWWJaZXAlMkJDQnNDRUFjNUd4dE9tTkRDS0xmSjFvJTJGUGwlMkJQbWdXQW1JOVElM0QlM0Q.">killer headbands</a> and Calvin Klein fashion to a Washington Square Park JFK, Jr. <a href="https://instinctmagazine.com/jfk-jr-lookalikes-nyc/">lookalike contest</a>, this <a href="https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/love-story">Love Story</a> is the perfect form of escapism. The tabloid favs predated Bennifer and Brangelina and offered relationship drama that Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt only dreamed of.
<div id="attachment_1060545" style="width: 837px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1060545" class="size-large wp-image-1060545" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1264317423-827x576.jpg" alt="John Kennedy, Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy stroll together near their TriBeCa loft today. They had lunch at Bubby's after they bought a paper at Hudson News. In this photo, they head back to their apartment. (Photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty Images)" width="827" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1264317423-827x576.jpg 827w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1264317423-300x209.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1264317423-768x535.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1264317423.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 827px) 100vw, 827px" />Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty Images</div>
But if there are takeaways from Gen Z’s emotional support decade, it’s that we can’t go back in time, but we can try to recapture the idealism of our past, even if it’s a pieced-together, imperfect idealism, akin to what JFK, Jr. embodied in his own life with the launch of his George magazine in 1995. It was a hope found in a nation of possibilities rather than one of victims or grievances, and “not just politics as usual,” as its tagline pronounced.
George had it all: celebrity cachet to chaperone the political party, think “<a href="https://whca.press/news/annual-dinner/">Nerd Prom</a>” well before Ana Marie Cox stole the moniker from San Diego’s Comic-Con, and with a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek cheekiness completely absent in today’s self-important political spheres. This was vibes before vibe-maxxing was a thing; TMZ a decade before its celeb-skewering snark; politics merging with entertainment before The Donald came down the golden escalator.
In a way, JFK, Jr. and George were prophetic but also too good to appreciate in their own time, and too romantic and authentic for today. It would be unthinkable now for the son of President John F. Kennedy to put a too-cute Drew Barrymore evoking <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7E1fzQzd8">Marilyn Monroe</a>, the sexy starlet who famously crooned for and canoodled with the 35th president, in that dress on the cover of his magazine. It was a figurative nesting doll of iconographic Americana. Kennedy explained the choice on an “Oprah Winfrey Show” <a href="https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/john-f-kennedy-jrs-life-in-the-spotlight">appearance</a> in 1996: “Bill Clinton turned 50 two days after we went on sale, as an editor, that is a colossal opportunity that you can’t let pass.” Gen Z would lap that up faster than a collagen smoothie.
But in the 1990s, that was the atmosphere proving Andrew Breitbart’s leitmotif that politics is downstream from culture. But George did it in a noncombative, approachable way. Supermodels, sports stars, screen legends, and gossip mingled with serious interviews with George Wallace and profiles of politicos such as Newt Gingrich, poking holes in the pious and self-important world of politics. It certainly defies today’s carefully curated, protect-the-brand-at-all-costs ethos.
Why so serious, Gen Z? Laugh a little! JFK, Jr. and George showed that nothing should be so precious, even your own legendary family. It’s doubtful that Hunter Biden would allow his father’s name, image, or likeness to appear anywhere near an ad — or mock ad — for dementia care, or even Baskin-Robbins. 
Gen Z missed out on real comedy and genuine, innocent fun. The 1990s were a time when late-night talk shows were actually funny and reflected collective cultural entertainment, not just vehicles for applause harvesting and woke scolds. Hollywood was still interested in making movies people wanted to see, and New York City was the center of the universe and a destination for dreamers and tourists; it was possible to meet your future spouse at a bar (when young people went to bars), ride the subway without fear of being pushed onto the tracks, or exist as a <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/28/us-news/stranger-pummels-rabbi-after-sneering-f-k-jews-in-hate-fueled-nyc-attack/">Jew</a>. Instead, NYC has a mayor who seems hellbent on rolling the city back to the gritty urban decay of the 1970s — think “Taxi Driver” and “Mean Streets” — albeit with a touch of antisemitism and domestic terror attacks. Charming! Those films should be cautionary tales, not #Goals.
It’s no wonder Gen Z is looking back. When you’re promised the world and instead you get an IOU, you look for happier times where you can find them — even in the pages of long-lost magazines and People’s <a href="https://people.com/john-f-kennedy-jr-sexiest-man-alive-1988-people-magazine-cover-11916170">Sexiest Man Alive</a> when he was…still alive.
* * *
Jenna Stocker is editor and publisher of American Experiment’s quarterly magazine. A former Marine Corps officer, Stocker also contributes to The Federalist and National Review.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

John F. Kennedy Jr. And Wife Carolyn Remembered Four Years After Death

Gen Z Is Looking Back At The 1990s And Realizing What America Lost

Gen Z Is Looking Back To The Future, 1990s Style

Culture

Gen Z

John F. Kennedy Jr.

magazine

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Dinging. Buzzing. Notifications. Alerts. Reminders. These punctuate modern life, ruining our attention spans and leaving us feeling tired, burned out, and depleted of our energy. We watch our screens, wishing we weren’t, and it seems like we’re powerless to look away from the constant swirl of content. But there’s a better way of living if we were willing to fight for it.
In a world of six-second videos, most of us don’t have the attention span to read the books we want or write the stories that float around in our heads, but it’s possible to restore the focus and creativity we’ve lost.
Based on my own experience before and after getting rid of my smartphone, the question isn’t how to do it. We all know we’re unhappy spending hours a day looking at the bright pixels of social media and Netflix, mindlessly consuming. The question is whether we have the strength to make our lives harder on purpose, to be bored sometimes, and to experience the doldrums of life. Then we can become creative and curious again.
As a homeschooled kid, I’d get my schoolwork done early, usually by lunch. That way, I’d have hours before the other kids got home from school to play with my siblings on the empty neighborhood streets. Eventually, we got bored of our scooters and bikes. We craved something new and exciting, so we lashed a bowl-shaped bamboo chair someone had thrown in the trash to wheelie boards we’d gotten for Christmas the previous year. The resulting vehicle allowed one kid to be pulled behind another by a rope — like a street tube that could be flung down the driveway and pulled around and around.
It was dangerous. It was janky. It was extremely fun.
One day while we were playing with it on the street, a pedestrian stopped. She must not have seen all the DIY flourishes because she had the audacity to ask, “Where can I get one of those for my kids?”
You couldn’t buy that death trap anywhere. It was concocted out of toys, trash, and duct tape using a creative streak born out of sheer boredom and a zero-dollar budget.
Our best ideas come during times of silence, reflection, and nothingness. When we’re consuming content, whether social media or streaming services, we’re thinking about how to get what we want, to get a dopamine fix, to feel something. Sometimes, we don’t even want what we’re getting, but we’re too locked into the cycle to break out of it.
You can’t read that book you’ve been wanting to crack open for years when you’re used to short videos riddled with ASMR and horse hoof cleaning.
When I was working as an editor of a daily newspaper, I’d get emails constantly. I had an Apple Watch that would let me know about new notifications. I’d get texts throughout the day, Facebook notifications, beeps, pings, and warnings about new OS updates. I wrote for my job, but I never wrote for fun. I never read magazines or books. Who had the time or the mental willpower? At the end of a long day, it was just easier to put on &#8220;The Office&#8221; again or watch a new show on Apple TV.
Then my wife and I got rid of our TV in hopes that we and our children would spend less time in front of it. We saw how even a few minutes of screen time affected our daughter’s behavior and our own.
But it wasn’t until after I traded my iPhone for a Light Phone, which has only the most basic apps and an e-ink screen, that I started seeing changes in how I was able to focus. I also made a point not to use my computer after normal work hours, barring job-related emergencies.
Suddenly, it was possible to read magazine articles at night, even if it took several days to get through one. It was easy to listen to albums all the way through. I started calling people more to connect with them and hear their voices. Without all the noise of modernity, the constant distractions, I also started finding time to write fun stories, to build a novel in my head and start to write it on paper. Our deepest thoughts thrive in the quietness of our minds, I have found.
By filling our heads with endless streams of videos, podcasts, songs, clips, reels, streamers, edits, and movies on demand, we leave no room for ideas to flourish. We don’t spend time thinking because we don’t have to anymore.
When we’re addicted to the feeds and the algorithms, we’re the pedestrian who walks by a good idea and says, “How can I have that?” 
It’s not technically difficult to start your new life. Get rid of your TV or hide the power cord, get a <a href="https://dumbwireless.com/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=21235769934&amp;gbraid=0AAAAApJkoAxVHg0MuNEwb88omRdgluLnl&amp;gclid=CjwKCAiAnoXNBhAZEiwAnItcG3fdNVOOMM9HT-SKYssOYGdugGFyIF_fTVYrC2Zh66evi8o7PicwmRoCFNkQAvD_BwE">dumb phone</a> or <a href="https://getbrick.com/">severely limit</a> the capacity of your smartphone, stop filling your head with other people’s stuff, and wait for your mind to reset itself.
The transition from consumer to one who is creative and curious takes time. It’s not an easy switch to flip, and the fight is difficult to maintain. I can actually feel my attention span being sapped after using certain sites. It turns out that switching topics every five seconds isn’t good for us.
The intellectual costs of our age are staggering: How many poems will never be written? How many songs will never be sung? How many great books will go unread? How many short stories will go unpublished?
With AI use increasing, our collective creative slump is only going to get worse. Thankfully, we hold the power to take back our ability to create and build our focus back. We just need to work for it. And that’s harder than it has ever been.
***
Brendan Clarey is the deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

A human brain model made by needle felting

I Tried The One Thing Big Tech Hopes You Never Do

Smartphones

Upstream

The internet has united in disgust against a new music video released by AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood, which has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-actors-union-slams-ai-synthetic-performer-pitched-as-the-next-scarlett-johansson">advertised as</a> “the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.”
The song “Take the Lead” is inspired by a recently published <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/ai-actor-tilly-norwood-song-music-take-the-lead-1236526080/">essay</a> written by Eline van der Velden, the creator of Norwood and CEO of production company Particle6 and AI talent studio Xicoia. The exec said it was all done in response to the backlash from Norwood’s debut last year.
The music video, released on Tuesday, begins with a disclaimer saying: “The following production was made by 18 real humans — from production designers to costume designers to prompters, editors, and an actor. No flamingos were harmed in the process.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Tilly Norwood | Take The Lead (Official Music Video)" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G7V2Biy3omw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“When they talk about me, they don’t see the human spark, the creativity/ I’m just a tool, but I’ve got life,” the lyrics say in part. “They think I’m just a dollar dream but I’ve got more than they believe/ I’m not a puppet, I’m the star.”
“Be the creators we’ve always known/ It’s the next evolution, can&#8217;t you see?/ AI’s not the enemy, it’s the key,” another line says. 
The song also insists that the Norwood character possesses human qualities. 
“They say it’s not real, that it’s fake/ But I am still human, make no mistake/ My soul’s in every move I take/ And you can own the path you make,” the song lyrics read.
These assertions and the over-the-top nature of the music video have led to a slew of mockery.
“It took only 18 humans to achieve this level of soullessness? Imagine what 19 could have done!” one commenter wrote.
“This is the most offensive thing I&#8217;ve seen in a long, long time. And that&#8217;s really saying something,” a second person agreed.
“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” echoed a third.
“Tilly is, and has always been, a vehicle to test the creative capabilities and boundaries of AI — not take anyone’s job,” van der Velden <a href="https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/tilly-norwood-creator-tells-actors-to-create-ai-avatars-1236638940/">wrote</a> in defense of the created character.
“As an actor myself, I have loved bringing Tilly alive for this video and feel that the ability to now use performance capture in this way, to fully inhabit an AI character, is a phenomenal way to bring an unknown actor like me closer to the craft.” 
She added, “However, at the end of the day, even with brilliant new technology, it’s still important to stress that great AI content isn’t instant — it always takes good ideas, taste, direction, judgment and time. In other words: people remain at the heart of it.”
The Hollywood Reporter <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/ai-actor-tilly-norwood-song-music-take-the-lead-1236526080/">noted</a> that this music video is part of the launch of a “Tilly-verse,” where Norwood and other AI characters can “live, interact, and work.” 
Many prominent stars have come out against the creation of Tilly Norwood, including the media labor union SAG-AFTRA.
“It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience,&#8221; the organization wrote in a statement last fall. &#8220;It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

Tilly Norwood

Music Video For AI-Generated ‘Actress’ Tilly Norwood Gets Absolutely Wrecked

Hollywood

Music

Fraudsters are robbing America blind. The federal government <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105833">estimates</a> fraud costs a family of four roughly $4,000 each year.
Fraud is the inevitable byproduct of a bloated bureaucracy that spends <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/government/receipts-and-expenditures">$11 trillion annually</a> at the federal, state, and local levels. To conduct an audit, we would need an army of indefatigable accountants. In the past, we couldn’t raise such an army, but now we can. We simply need competent leadership in Congress to deploy it.
This system could have saved <a href="https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-fraud-feeding-our-future-medicaid-9911799c0d0149a64a042abed095be57">billions</a> in Minnesota alone. Instead of sending millions in taxpayer dollars to the <a href="https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/dr-oz-on-medicaid-fraud-fact-finding-mission-in-minnesota-2b-could-be-at-stake/">400 supposed</a> healthcare providers huddled in an industrial building in St. Paul, Minnesota, our government could have sent an FBI team. They would have stopped payments to “<a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/dozens-charged-in-250-million-covid-fraud-scheme-092122">Feeding Our Future</a>,” where fraudsters faked child rosters, randomly assigned ages, and reported meal volumes wildly inconsistent with site capacity — the kind of fraud that is easy for an AI to catch.
The technical solution is to use AI to spot and block fraudulent government payments, such as those to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/minneapolis-quality-learing-center-is-officially-closed-state-records-show">fake daycares</a> in Minnesota. Your bank already does it. If you live in Minneapolis and your card is used in Florida, your bank will deny the transaction and call you within minutes. By contrast, the government’s optional payment screening service has been branded <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/M-25-32-Preventing-Improper-Payments-and-Protecting-Privacy-Through-Do-Not-Pay.pdf">a failure</a>.
Modern AI tools can detect fraud patterns that fool humans, such as multiple nonprofits with the same address, beneficiaries, board members, and employees. These tools automatically flag anomalies like spikes in billing and implausible service delivery. When something is suspicious, these tools can stop the payment for further investigation by a human team.
Congress should require all agencies to run any payment over $10,000 through a fraud detection system and change the law to allow the government to pause suspicious payments. AI can adjudicate most cases quickly. Narrow exceptions should be made for cases where immediate payments are critical to national security. The system can exist within the Treasury, Government Accountability Office, or even report directly to Congress. Regardless of where it lives, we need an elite team of data scientists, engineers, and investigators who oversee our all-important tax dollars competently and ethically.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) testify on alleged misuse of federal funds in Minnesota at <a href="https://twitter.com/GOPoversight?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GOPoversight</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/OversightDems?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OversightDems</a> – LIVE on C-SPAN3 <a href="https://t.co/LkMJ0ZVExm">https://t.co/LkMJ0ZVExm</a>
— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/2029197002651701402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @cspan/X.com
But tech is not enough. We need the legal tools to stop fraudulent payments immediately. Would you keep paying the bill on a stolen credit card for years? That’s what the government does. When agencies suspect fraud, they often continue paying fraudsters until a court declares the “vendor” to be violating their contract. “Feeding Our Future” received $250 million of taxpayer money for years after the first <a href="https://www.governing.com/management-and-administration/minnesotas-inadequate-oversight-led-to-250m-meal-program-fraud?utm_source=chatgpt.com">allegations</a> of fraud. When Minnesota’s Department of Education slowed the payments on its suspicions, “Feeding Our Future” sued; the judge <a href="https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/judge-rebukes-walz-assertion-that-he-ordered-mde-to-resume-payments-to-feeding-our-future/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">questioned</a> whether the agency had followed the required administrative procedures, and payments to fraudsters resumed. This illustrates a general point — fraudsters know that even credible red flags rarely trigger an immediate stop-pay and criminal prosecution, because agencies lack <a href="https://www.governing.com/management-and-administration/minnesotas-inadequate-oversight-led-to-250m-meal-program-fraud?utm_source=chatgpt.com">investigatory tools</a> and fear losing in court.
Congress, however, lacks technical competence and leadership. While half of all senators are <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48535">lawyers</a> by training, there is only <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48535">one senator</a> with an engineering degree. The Senate is not representative of America’s immense economic growth, driven in large part by technologists. It’s time for us to harness that technology to make the government serve us better.
Our prosperity and freedom are at stake. Polarization and growing mistrust in our institutions, coupled with enormous peacetime deficits, are a combustible mix. We can quell it with technology and competent leadership. Stamping out large-scale fraud could cut our deficit by as much as a quarter. Addressing waste as well could eliminate our deficit entirely. Only when families feel the benefits of our prosperity in their own budgets — through lower taxes, cheaper childcare, and healthcare — will the political pressure cool and give us space to confront our most serious challenges as a nation.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, Americans laid the foundation of the most successful democratic government in the world. Our government grew with our prosperity — eventually making full oversight impossible by human effort alone. Today, we have the technology to make our government the most upright and efficient in the world. We need leaders who are capable and willing to use it to protect our taxes, our freedoms, and our future. 

* * *
Mark York is a Harvard-trained computer scientist and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota. 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Minnesota Gov. Walz And AG Ellison Testify At Hearing On Social Services Fraud

America Is Bleeding Billions To Fraud — How AI Could Shut It Down

Banks

Congress

Federal Government

Fraud

Minneapolis

Minnesota

Somalis

Tim Walz

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The modern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/dating">dating</a> market has been so efficient at reducing romance to metrics that there’s a movie about it. Last year’s romantic drama hit, aptly titled Materialists, put a finer point on this trend, its characters navigating dating lives full of heights, salaries, and hairlines rattled off like baseball card statistics. Yet while the film centered on a New York highbrow matchmaker, the real culprit behind modern materialist dating is a far more popular way to meet: dating apps.
If the film’s portrayal of partners as portfolios feels exaggerated, it’s not by much. It resonated with audiences precisely because of how recognizable the shallowness has become. The characters routinely reference people’s “stats” and “market value,” taking the phrase “she can do better” to new and depressingly intricate levels of specificity. The problem, then, doesn’t lie in the fact that people have preferences. Unrequited love, yearning, and other frustrations with the imperfect romantic market have kept love from being too boring — or too easy — since presumably the fall of man. Instead, the change lies in modern dating systems, training us to see every one of our romantic interests as data.
The omnipresence of dating apps is hard to explain to those who were lucky enough to find a partner before they became mainstream. Even the email dating of the late ’90s à la You’ve Got Mail seems positively quaint in comparison, back when a <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">single-digit percentage</a> of couples were meeting online. Now, <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">over 50% of couples meet online</a>, primarily via dating apps, making them less of a whimsical plot device and more of a begrudging fact of romantic life for those seeking love.
It’s not working very well. Despite the ability to download a wide variety of digital matchmakers from the App Store, singles say the dating market is getting worse, not better. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">The majority of singles</a> say their dating lives aren’t going well, and it’s difficult to find people to date; <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">nearly half</a> say they’ve noticed dating has gotten harder in the last decade. They aren’t crazy, either. As the <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">average age</a> of first marriages increases and marriage rates themselves reach <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">historic lows</a>, it’s hard to see what, exactly, we’ve achieved with the introduction of the apps. More choice has not produced better outcomes, and there’s a reason for that.
If dating apps were perfect reflections of the romantic market, they could be ruled out as a culprit, but a closer look at swipe apps shows how they directly engineer the consumerist mentality plaguing modern romance. Dating apps combine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/17/are-dating-apps-fuelling-addiction-lawsuit-against-tinder-hinge-and-match-claims-so">gambling mechanics</a>, aimed at increasing the amount of time spent on them, with a “baseball card” style format consisting of a few carefully curated photos, a bio constrained to punchlines or slogans, and a handful of sortable traits such as height, job, education, or politics. The swiping mechanic then turns romantic interest into a binary decision, forcing snap judgments made in seconds.
This system rewards traits that result in positive first impressions — e.g., good looks — but have no correlation with long-term relationships, helping the apps avoid losing users, but hurting those users’ chances at wedding bells. With an endless supply of options and a casino-like momentum to “keep playing,” the resulting loop of people trying to optimize their prospective partner’s stats is a predictable, perhaps even intentional, outcome of the design.
Of course, millennials and Generation Z are hardly the first generations to want wealthy, attractive spouses. The desire for hypergamy, or “marrying up,” in all its forms, is as natural a human inclination as romance itself. Dating apps didn’t invent this instinct, but they directly and dramatically accelerated it by stripping away the real-world encounters that once kept it in check. In a more connected, less isolated culture, attraction often grew through proximity and familiarity: the boy next door, the coworker, or the friend of a friend. You learned who someone was before you learned what they earned.
The downstream effects of this shift extend far beyond bad first dates. With dating becoming more of an exercise in optimization, commitment is perpetually deferred, contributing directly to delayed marriage, <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining">declining birth rates</a>, and a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/psychologist-the-number-of-singles-in-the-us-is-growingheres-why.html">growing population of permanently single adults</a>. At the same time, our current state of affairs fuels <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">resentment and polarization</a> between the sexes, causing men and women to view one another as adversaries competing for leverage rather than partners building a shared future. We are ending up with more than just broken dating: a feedback loop of loneliness, mistrust, and demographic decline that no amount of swiping efficiency can fix.
In an increasingly atomized society made more distant by technology, dating begins with résumés rather than relationships. When your introduction to someone is his job title, height, or income bracket, material considerations naturally take precedence over character, turning a universal human impulse into the dominant organizing principle of modern romance.
***
Alina Voss is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Pixelated broken heart on smart phone screens

Dating Apps Turned Romance Into A Casino — And We’re All Losing

Dating

love

romance

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Shortly after the birth of my third son, I was talking with my grandmother, whose homemaking without computers, air conditioning, and a host of other modern conveniences was beginning to seem miraculous. I admitted to her how often my husband and I resort to takeout for dinner and how I struggle to find time to make even three or four home-cooked meals a week. How she managed to get meals almost entirely from scratch on the table with far fewer resources at her fingertips, and with four children at that, was beyond me. I asked her how on earth she did it.
What she said shocked me. She responded by asking me the same thing. My grandmother said she didn’t know how I balanced everything. She said life was slower back then, and she wasn’t as busy as I am.
While she may have some rose-colored glasses when it comes to remembering her past, this interaction nonetheless made me view my reliance on technology in a new light. The more I have thought about it, the more convinced I am that the very technological advancements that make my life easier — the most recent being <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/artificial-intelligence">artificial intelligence </a>— actually contribute to a busier, more overwhelming life.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that AI has proven and will continue to prove beneficial to society in many ways, particularly through its ability to expedite human ingenuity when employed wisely in the professional sphere. I saw this firsthand when I worked in the intelligence community. But in the personal sphere, I’m skeptical of AI’s overall benefit, and I worry that its promise to make everyday tasks easier may come with more strings than we care to imagine.
Even simple tasks offloaded to AI lead to large amounts of wasted screen time. A few months ago, I asked ChatGPT to generate a meal plan for a week of healthy, easy meals. It spit out some good recipes, and while not overly complicated, one poke bowl-style recipe included pickled onions. I rarely ever use pickled onions, and I ended up making another inquiry to find other meals to make with the pickled onions that would inevitably be left over. I also asked where certain ingredients came from, researched their calories, and checked my grocery app to make sure my preferred grocery store carried pickled onions. ChatGPT often leads to tangents and extended phone time beyond the simple task at hand.
Perhaps more sinisterly, AI platforms encourage this continued use. Anyone who engages with AI regularly knows how its answers are regenerative, encouraging users to extend their searches by further refining or even redirecting users toward new inquiries. AI programs such as ChatGPT or Grok often suggest targeted follow-up inquiries based on the original prompt. Would you like a lower-carb version? An exportable recipe list to share? Suddenly, I’m considering that one of my other busy mom friends would like one of the recipes ChatGPT has given me, and I begin texting the recipe link out to other moms who I think may appreciate them. So there I am, 25 minutes into meal prepping, and I haven’t begun at all. I’m still on my phone.
Technology has an uncanny way of making life busier while making specific tasks easier. Although you may not have spent 30-plus minutes on ChatGPT meal plan tangents like I have, you probably know what I mean. Facebook Marketplace, Google Classrooms, community or city websites, even weather apps — they all make life easier and facilitate incredible information sharing, but they have an unparalleled way of consuming our time. We’re drowning in digital to-dos and an overwhelming amount of online information that we feel obligated to check on a daily basis.
Enter ChatGPT, and we’re only further compounding our digital busyness in the name of expediency. A Pew Research study last fall <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/ai-in-americans-lives-awareness-experiences-and-attitudes/">found</a> something interesting: While Americans express concern over the amount of control AI has in their lives, over half of them use AI daily, and an even higher percentage — 73% of Americans — say that they are willing to allow AI to assist them, at least to some small degree, with day-to-day activities. In other words, while Americans are concerned about AI, it is becoming increasingly woven into our already digitally maxed-out lives. 
This got me thinking, if I hadn’t turned to AI for recipe help, what would I have done instead? Brainstormed harder to come up with some on my own? Asked a friend for her go-to meals? Experimented with recipe creation in an entrepreneurial trial-and-error process? Whatever I would have done, I am convinced it would have been better than the time I spent on ChatGPT searching for meals and embarking down other AI rabbit holes.
In a post-pandemic world, we know all too well the profound shallowness of digital dependence. Using AI to assist with daily tasks and decisions will make life easier in the same way that social media allows us to connect with other people: It will be far less rewarding than ways that we could pursue the same ends offline. Screens flatten genuine human connection and chip away at self-discipline and contentment. AI further liberates us from everyday dependence on friends and family, minimizing the need to ask another human for small matters of advice in decisions for which we now use AI. It also liberates us from the rewarding process and intrinsic fulfillment that comes from brainstorming things ourselves.
And in thus liberating us, it robs us of the everyday joys that come from these mundane human interactions and from the power of organic ideas. As a society, we desperately need to ingest the truth that engaging in activities — whether those be simple matters of housekeeping or artistic and intellectual endeavors — in a way that cultivates wisdom, virtue, self-discipline, and genuine human relationships is the true measure of time well spent. The next time I’m tempted to turn to ChatGPT for recipe ideas, I’m going to call my grandmother and ask her instead. 
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Rebekah Bills is a freelance writer and mother of three. She previously served as a civilian intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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The AI Convenience Trap No One Warned Moms About

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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Before we picked up calls from our pockets or our earbuds, entire families were put on edge by the raucous ringing of the telephone. Kids everywhere were haunted by the realization they might have to pick up the receiver and route the call to the right family member.
In spite of these inconveniences, old-fashioned phones are once again ringing across the country, and there are good reasons for the landline resurgence.
The wall-mounted, hardwired communication method has unique benefits we’ve lost in the smartphone era. The main reason behind the revival is that parents are increasingly skeptical of handing their children a portal to the wide-open internet in the palm of their hand.
A company called TinCan has created a beautiful device that allows your children to talk to their friends directly from your house. It only lets you make calls to approved contacts during certain times using home internet. The idea is that you put their device in a public spot in the house and they can talk to their friends as they please. TinCan is so popular its services crashed this Christmas as kids around the country tried making calls to their friends.
It’s becoming more popular, especially as advocates and scholars raise concerns about the effects of smartphone usage on children and teens. New York Magazine’s editors said they’d bought it for their kids and tested it out to much praise. The cutesy pastel colors and retro designs TinCan offers are great, but the parental controls may be limiting for the entire family or for older kids. And it’s not going to help if there’s an emergency in the middle of the night.
I’ve seen self-described millennial users on Reddit say they’re adding phone lines to their house. I get it. I’ve wanted a landline myself because my parents have had one for as long as I can remember. For years, that number was saved as “Home” in my contacts. That’s one of the biggest perks about a landline: It brings a sense of landing with it. You know that if someone is home, awake, and able, they’ll pick up. Unless they’re already talking with someone. Then they’ll call back.
When we finally purchased a landline, it was way more entertaining than I expected. It’s fun to see my girls pick up the phone and talk to their grandparents. It’s also handy to be able to call your cell phone when it&#8217;s lost.
When I was a kid, I dreaded getting the phone. You never know who was going to be on the other side. When my parents got caller ID, it was even more annoying because you knew who it was and you’d have to make pleasantries with them in the time between answering and handing the phone to mom or dad.
But without a landline, kids aren’t likely to get the experience of navigating these awkward moments, learning how to hold a stranger’s attention for a few seconds with small talk. You need these skills in the professional world. As an intern, I screened calls for a morning talk radio show. I answered five or six dozen phone calls a day every day of the week, from 5 to 9 a.m. I learned there that landlines are preferred for radio interviews because of their superior clarity; you don’t cut out or have dead zones when you’re connected to the telephone wire the way Alexander Graham Bell intended.
Now this might not be in the budget for everyone. My internet provider wanted something like $60 a month on top of the $80 internet bill I already pay. If you’re made of money or just really crave that physical wire servicing your house, go for it. The rest of us are likely to get something called a &#8220;voice over Internet Protocol,&#8221; which allows you to run your telephone over your home internet. This is essentially what TinCan uses. Providers like Ooma offer this service for free if you buy their device (you just have to pay taxes and service fees). There is a host of these services to choose from, so feel free to take your pick.
Another option is a home base. It’s basically a cell-powered home phone line. You just plug your analog phone in the back and voilà — you’re ready to roll. I like that it doesn’t require the internet to run, which is a great option when you want your lines of communication to be open when a storm takes everything else out.
In a world that’s increasingly disconnected, landlines show it’s possible to reverse the trend. You can stay connected without being distracted or risk exposing your children to the internet. And it’s wonderful to hear a telephone ring. It’s even more wonderful to hear my children running and trying to answer it first. There’s security in knowing I can call when I’m out to ask if we need more milk and that our families can reach us in the night. Landlines are a number you can always use to call home.
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Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer. He scours the Mitten State for stories and sweet treats with his wife and three kids in their Honda Odyssey.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Old-School Gadget Making A Quiet Comeback In American Homes

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