“So You Think You’ve Been Gaslit,” Leslie Jamison, The New Yorker
It’s always great fun to see a writer you love apply her critical intelligence to a knee-jerk mainstay of popular psychology. Who hasn’t been gaslit (though none of us, of course, have ever done the gaslighting)? We are not immune to this trend in my household. Even Jorge says now as we’re bickering and he’s putting on his socks, “Let me guess, I’m gaslighting you?”
Everyone is gaslighting everyone in 2024. Or are they? You’ll have to read the piece to find out. The parenting takeaway was particularly significant for me.
“Get Tech Out of the Classroom Before It’s Too Late,” Jessica Grose, The New York Times
Calm, serious, reviewer composure going out the window here. THIS IS HORRIFYING! And extremely important. Read it now!
One of our main incentives for taking Elena out of school was the rampant usage of apps, videos, and other dubious “learning” technology, the majority of which was used by students for long stretches of time with no or minimal adult supervision.
When I asked a carful of Elena’s friends what their favorite time in school was, they all responded, “Typing!” At first I harkened back to my Mavis Beacon days and thought fondly of cranking out 90 wpm to make the little pixilated car vroom. But when I inquired further I realized that in “typing” they were just playing on their iPads: some were playing games, some were watching videos, and “the teachers never check.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Terms of endearment to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.