Introvert. Extrovert. Type A. Type 3. A Samantha. These days, it seems, there is an ever-expanding list of terms and frameworks for describing our personalities. But what we see in ourselves, and what other people see in us, are often not the same. So when LaDel, a listener to Explain It to Me — Vox’s […]

For more than a century, the Conshohocken steel mill in suburban Philadelphia employed thousands of people and anchored a booming industrial economy. But the original owner went bankrupt in the 1970s, after which the facility limped on with a succession of new owners. Last summer it was idled indefinitely, and put up for sale.  It’s […]

For years now, falling birth rates have been a subject of alarm, with most of that discussion focused on women — the factors preventing them from having kids, whether mothers can balance work and family, if feminism has led women astray.  But what about men and what they think? Demographers focused on fertility trends have […]

By almost any measure, the last two centuries delivered astonishing leaps in human prosperity. We live longer, healthier, safer lives than almost any generation that came before us. And yet, the experience of modern life often feels unsettled. People are anxious, politics are brittle, and the promise of progress feels shakier than ever. Few thinkers […]

Right now, millions of high school seniors are finalizing their college applications and anticipating where they’ll spend the next four years studying and sleeping on bunk beds. If the most hashtagged universities on TikTok are any indication, a lot of them will be headed below the Mason-Dixon line.  You’ve probably heard about #RushTok, the corner […]