Second Life offers both escapism and a refuge for its hard-core digital denizens.
Krista Stevens
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
A Lonely Death: The Extreme Isolation of Japan’s Elderly
Many members of Japan’s rapidly aging population live isolated, solitary lives in massive apartment communities filled with people.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why a Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death
With a population of 127 million, Japan has the most rapidly aging society on the planet. Elderly individuals often live in extreme isolation, albeit only a few feet from neighbors on all sides, “trapped in a demographic crucible of increasing age and declining births.” Their fate? A “lonely death” where their body may remain undiscovered […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
Teju Cole Delights in Sentence Fragments
“For me it’s about recognizing that great art comes in all kinds of forms.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Finding My Way into a New Form: An Interview with Teju Cole
Steve Paulson interviews Teju Cole about why he left Twitter, his photographic inspirations, how he delights in the beauty of sentence fragments, and his meditative approach to combining text and photography in his book, Blind Spot.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Digital Ruins of a Forgotten Future
Leslie Jamison profiles several long-term, hard-core users of Second Life, an online platform in which you create a fantasy alter-ego. Your “selective self” resides in a virtual world that allows you to leave behind everything you don’t like about yourself and your real life.
Posted inCrime, Nonfiction, Quotes
In Service of the Slender Man: When Teen Girls Become Murderous
Alex Mar on how and why teen-girl duos become murderous.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Out Came the Girls
To find belonging, teen girls sometimes form obsessive friendships to fend off the isolation that puberty brings at the twilight of their childhood. In this exceptionally well-researched piece, Alex Mar recalls two real-life events in which teen-girl duos became murderous and why these obsessive friendships devolved into a pact to do evil.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Money For Nothing: It Might Set Your Kids Free
A new study reveals a basic income keeps kids in school longer and reduces their participation in crime.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Free Money: The Surprising Effects of a Basic Income Supplied by the Government
A new study on the Eastern Band population of Cherokee, North Carolina — a group of people who receive hefty bi-annual payments from the local casino — indicates that yes, a basic guaranteed income can be a very positive thing that has no influence on the number of people who work full time.