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Story Archives of 'You Tell Us'
Idea Smackdown
By Jen Nathan on Friday, November 6, 2009.
Word of Mouth has more ideas than it knows what to do with, so let us know what you'd like to hear next week.
Here's a list of things we're considering. Add a comment with the idea(s) you think should win this grueling match. Let the best ideas win.
- Female mobsters
- Health care in China
- Online-only churches
- The subprime student loan crisis
- Why boldness is bad for science
- Paul Bunyan chic
- Census conspiracy theorists
What's Becoming Obsolete?
By Jen Nathan on Thursday, November 5, 2009.Pity the poor maligned typewriter. It was once the axis of a writer’s life. Hemingway packed up his portable Royal in its well-worn leather case and dragged it to Cuba because he couldn’t live without it. In the 1960s, school children practiced speed typing on sturdy Underwoods and adults pushed down shiny black keys every time they paid a bill or wrote a letter.
Refusing to Join Facebook
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, October 26, 2009.
While it seems like everyone and your grandma is on Facebook at this point, there are some holdouts. Even people in their 20s and 30s are refusing to join the ranks of the social networking site’s 300 million members. As the Washington Post reports, these so-called Facebook refuseniks cite privacy and data ownership among their concerns, but avoiding Facebook can lead to real social alienation.
We're joined by Washington Post staff writer Ian Shapira, and by Mary Flanagan, the chair of digital humanities at Dartmouth College.
The Washington Post: In a Generation That Friends and Tweets, They Don't
(Photo by Laughing Squid via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Can You Raise A Gender-Neutral Child?
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, October 15, 2009.
Popular science loves to extol the differences between male and female brains. Remember the study that made headlines back in the '80s about women being better at holistic thinking? It was based on a single study suggesting that the fibers connecting womens' right and left brains are larger. More recent research suggests that boys’ brains are hard-wired for aggression and girls brains’ for communication.
Neuroscientist Lise Eliot took a long, hard look at these studies and hundreds of others. She found that there are, in fact, very few structural differences between the brains of boys and girls. Instead, she argues, it’s the way that parents and teachers respond to slight behavioral differences that encourage boys and girls to pursue different interests and develop different abilities.
Dr. Lise Eliot joins us now from Chicago where she’s a professor at Rosalind Franklin University. She’s also a mother of three and author of the new book Pink Brain, Blue Brain.
The Washington Post: The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains
Newsweek: Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart.
Salon: Good luck raising that gender-neutral child
Scientific American: Girl Brain, Boy Brain?
(Photo by EraPhernalia Vintage via Flickr/Creative Commons)
What Would You Do With A Year Off With Salary?
By Todd Bookman on Tuesday, October 13, 2009.You know the economy is rocky when even law firms are having trouble making ends meet. To save cash, big firms are delaying the start dates of their new associates - some for several months, others for a full year.
To help young esquires bridge the time, many firms are giving their deferred-hires stipends. Though only about one-third the size of the nearly $200,000 new hires normally make, the stipends ranging from $45,000 to $90,000 are still a pretty big paycheck for not having to show up.
Should Pink Ribbons Be Banned?
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, September 30, 2009.Get ready for pink-ribbon season! October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Now in its 25th year, the event promotes awareness of a disease that strikes one in eight women in their lifetimes. And it’s expected to claim nearly 40,000 lives in the U.S. this year alone.
Efforts to bring attention to the disease and raise money for a cure are ongoing. But some women with breast cancer, as well as survivors are troubled by what they see as exploitation. A growing number charge that companies capitalize on suffering to boost profits. And many regard the proliferation of pink ribbons as a marketing ploy.
We’re joined by Kris Frieswick. Her mother passed away from breast cancer, and her article on the dark side of pink-ribbon marketing will appear in this Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine. We also talk to Jeanne Sather, a blogger in Seattle who's currently battling metastatic breast cancer and blogs at The Assertive Cancer Patient. She's known in the breast cancer community for her fight against using pink ribbons as a marketing tool, and is leading a "Boycott October" campaign.
"Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy" by Samantha King
Jeanne Sather's blog post debunking the "one in eight" statistic
(Photo by Premier Packaging via Flickr/Creative Commons)
What Are Your Must-Read Blogs?
By Avishay Artsy on Monday, August 24, 2009.Here at Word of Mouth, we spend a lot of time reading our favorite blogs, and we're always discovering new ones. We rely on them to keep us informed on the latest ideas, trends, research and discoveries. The best ones are a pleasure to read and feel like a much-needed guiding hand through the sometimes overwhelming volume of information available online.
Did You Wait To Start A Family?
By Jen Nathan on Friday, July 31, 2009.
Women and men are having children later in life, often after they’ve established careers, bought a home, traveled the world, and achieved other milestones. Starting a family at age 40, 50 or beyond comes with its own set of joys and challenges.
Have You Become GPS Dependent?
By Avishay Artsy on Thursday, July 9, 2009.
When it comes to sense of direction, humans are out-navigated by species from ants to hamsters. We uses Google Maps or a GPS unit to find our way to the most remote spots on Earth, yet we still get lost in the mall or on our way to a friend's house. Monday on Word of Mouth, we'll talk to an expert on the psychology of navigation, who says we should get lost on purpose, then learn how to find our way home.
What Do You Keep Track Of?
By Avishay Artsy on Wednesday, July 1, 2009.
Next week on Word of Mouth, self-knowledge through numbers. High-tech monitors allow us to record our running speed, caffeine and alcohol intake, heart rate, diet, and sleep patterns. We now use our smartphones to signal our location and tweet what we eat, participate in drug trials and medical studies, and keep track of our finances or menstrual cycles online, and compare that data with others.
