* “Lives of the Selfie-Centered: What do teenagers use their phones for? Bonding, backbiting, bullying—and texting naked pictures. Lots and lots of naked pictures” and “Open Secrets: The social media–obsessed teens of Nancy Jo Sales’ American Girls never quite come into focus;” both concern American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, a book likely better read about than read. My Dad sent me the first link and observed that, many moons ago when he was a teenager, the scary, virtue-threatening image technology was the Polaroid, which was seen as a danger of virtue and an inflater of vanity in the same way iPhones and Instagram are seen today. I’m just old enough to remember the earthquake that was the first sub-$1,000 DSLR and having conversations with the first guys who bought them; their usual plans for the new purchase were described as being along the lines of, “I wanna take naked pictures of chicks, man” (I don’t think teenagers have become dramatically less articulate or thoughtful in recent times, and most of my friends who were either subject or photographer are now boringly employed like the rest of us).
In short, today’s OMG WTF BBQ Instragram and Snapchat kids will in fifteen years time be doing the usual things 30 years old do. By the way, when Intel was founded its oldest employee was 29.
* “The top 10 reasons American politics are so broken,” from Jonathan Haidt of The Righteous Mind fame, an excellent piece. And: Democrats appear to not be insane, though the title is different.
* “Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis;” one hopes so! And: “The rechargeable revolution: A better battery: Chemists are reinventing rechargeable cells to drive down costs and boost capacity.”
* “There is a better way to parent than the nuclear family” should be obvious; see also The Anthropology of Childhood.
* Why America abandoned nuclear power (and what we can learn from South Korea); could also be titled, “How to reduce the cost of nuclear power.”
The Story's Story 
Hardship usually forces the maturation of any individual. Maybe the world is due for a good World War or 2.
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