Investing in Care: A Public-Private Model for Youth Opportunity

If we are to understand the conditions facing vulnerable children, we have to begin with a difficult truth: poverty remains the central force shaping their lives. It is not the only factor, but it is the most consistent one—structuring access to health, education, safety, and opportunity from the earliest years onward.

Children, by definition, are dependent. Their well-being is tied to the systems that surround them—family, school, community, and public institutions. When those systems are strained by poverty, the effects are not marginal. They are often paralyzing. Barriers to opportunity—whether in the form of underfunded schools, unstable housing, environmental hazards, food insecurity, or lack of healthcare—are not experienced as abstract policy failures. They are lived constraints that narrow what a child can imagine for their future.

Research has repeatedly shown that childhood poverty affects educational attainment, physical health, mental health, and long-term earnings potential. Children raised in economically unstable households are more likely to experience chronic stress, lower academic performance, and reduced social mobility. These patterns are not isolated outcomes. They reinforce one another across time.

It is tempting to respond to this reality with calls for sweeping transformation—to eliminate poverty altogether or radically redesign the systems that produce inequality. But in the absence of such transformation, the question remains: what can be done now?

The answer may lie in a more grounded approach. If we cannot yet abolish poverty, we can still confront it—carefully, persistently, and in the details. We can examine where harm occurs, where opportunities are blocked, and where support is insufficient. And we can begin to build systems that respond not in fragments, but with coherence and intention.

From Fragmentation to Comprehensive Services

One of the defining features of current approaches to child welfare is fragmentation. Education, healthcare, workforce development, and social services are often treated as separate domains, each with its own funding streams, eligibility criteria, and institutional boundaries. Programs exist, but they rarely form a continuous pathway.

The result is a patchwork system in which children and families must navigate multiple entry points, often without guidance and often at moments of crisis. Support is reactive rather than preventive. Transitions—from early childhood to adolescence, from school to work—are especially vulnerable points where many fall through the gaps.

A different approach begins by shifting from isolated interventions to comprehensive services. This does not mean a single program that attempts to do everything. It means designing systems so that the supports children need—education, health, mentorship, and opportunity—are aligned, accessible, and sustained over time.

Healthcare is especially important in this framework because childhood well-being is inseparable from physical and mental health. Untreated medical conditions, chronic stress, trauma, nutritional instability, and lack of preventive care all shape educational outcomes and long-term stability. Yet healthcare systems for low-income children are frequently overstretched, fragmented, or difficult to access consistently.

To make such an approach workable, it helps to organize the problem—and the response—into three practical frames: what can be stopped, how resilience can be built, and what communities themselves can do.

What We Can Stop

Some of the harms children experience are not inevitable. They are the result of policy choices and institutional practices that can be changed.

These include the criminalization of childhood behaviors, the persistence of hunger and food insecurity, homelessness, lack of access to healthcare, and schooling systems that fail to meet basic educational needs. They also include exploitative labor conditions and the absence of meaningful job pathways for adolescents who are ready and able to work. The concern is not with young people engaging in meaningful, educationally compatible work experiences, but with exploitative labor that undermines development, safety, or educational opportunity. Work, under the right conditions, can itself become a form of learning and civic participation.

Each of these conditions has been documented extensively. Food insecurity affects millions of children in the United States each year. Youth homelessness remains a persistent national crisis. Public schools in low-income communities continue to face chronic funding disparities, overcrowding, and staffing shortages. Children in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are also more likely to encounter punitive disciplinary systems and policing practices at younger ages.

To begin here is not to solve everything. It is to establish a baseline: there are forms of harm we already understand well enough to address. Reducing them is not a matter of innovation, but of political will, coordination, and sustained attention.

Stopping harm does not in itself create opportunity. But it removes obstacles that should not be there in the first place. It clears the ground for the next question: how do we build the conditions in which children can move forward?

Building Resilience and Confidence

If we look at children who navigate challenges and move toward stable adulthood, a pattern emerges. Their success is not simply the result of individual effort or family background. It reflects the presence of consistent, reinforcing supports across multiple areas of life.

These supports are often taken for granted in middle-class environments. They include structured schools, accessible extracurricular activities, responsive healthcare, tutoring, summer programs, mentorship, and adults who are available to provide attention and guidance when needed. Together, these experiences and supports create a sense of stability and expectation: that effort will be met with opportunity, that challenges can be managed, and that a future is attainable.

Many communities already recognize the importance of developmental supports outside formal schooling. Educational foundations, scholarship programs, summer camps, arts initiatives, tutoring networks, and enrichment opportunities often provide forms of stimulation and engagement that are essential to school success yet occur beyond the classroom itself. Programs that support access to camps, educational travel, extracurricular learning, and community-based enrichment reflect an understanding that education is shaped not only by what happens in school, but also by the environments and opportunities surrounding it.

Middle-class children frequently receive these experiences as part of ordinary life, while lower-income children encounter them inconsistently or not at all. The key difference is not that some children have better parents. It is that some children are surrounded by systems that can afford to pay attention to them.

In under-resourced communities, the opposite is often true. Classrooms are overcrowded. After-school programs are limited. Healthcare systems are strained. Counselors and social workers are spread thin. Mentorship, when available, is often sporadic. The result is not a lack of care so much as a scarcity of sustained attention.

Addressing this gap requires a shift in focus—from correcting individual deficits to expanding system capacity. Children need reliable access to adult support across the environments they move through. This means lower adult-to-child ratios in schools, enrichment programs, mentorship settings, healthcare environments, and youth employment programs. It means creating conditions in which attention is not a scarce resource available only to the affluent.

Alongside this structural support, other elements contribute to resilience. Children benefit from a sense of belonging—of being valued within their families and communities. They benefit from opportunities to contribute, to be recognized, and to see their efforts matter. They also benefit from predictable pathways forward that reduce uncertainty and reinforce long-term planning.

One of the most important of these pathways is access to post-secondary opportunity. Whether through academic education, technical training, apprenticeships, or skilled trades, the expectation that further learning and advancement are possible should not depend on income. Middle-class children often grow up with an implicit guarantee that if they work hard and succeed academically, opportunities will follow. For many poor children, that relationship between effort and reward is far less certain. A system that guarantees educational opportunity in response to commitment and achievement helps restore faith that effort has meaning and that the future is not closed off in advance.

This expectation can be reinforced through direct investment in children. A savings or allowance structure—something like a GI Bill for children—can signal that society has a stake in their future. Instead of waiting until young people are already burdened by debt or instability, the investment would begin early and accumulate gradually through childhood and adolescence.

This framework also begins earlier than adolescence. Increasingly, researchers and policymakers have emphasized the importance of birth equity, maternal health, and early-childhood stability in shaping long-term outcomes. Proposals such as baby bonds—publicly funded savings accounts established for children at birth—reflect the growing recognition that inequality compounds over time. Connecting these early investments to later educational and workforce opportunities creates continuity across childhood rather than treating each stage of development as a separate policy problem.

Taken together, these elements form the basis of resilience—not as an abstract personality trait, but as a product of sustained, structured support.

The Model in Practice: Resilience Ranges

One way to think about how these ideas might work together in practice is through a community-based framework of service and development that might be called Resilience Ranges. The point is not to propose a single national program to be adopted uniformly across the country, but to illustrate how education, mentorship, healthcare, meaningful work, and long-term investment might be coordinated under a shared developmental umbrella.

In this sense, Resilience Ranges functions less as a fixed institutional blueprint than as a thought experiment—a way of imagining how communities could organize interlocking supports so that children encounter continuity rather than fragmentation as they move from childhood into adulthood.

At its core, the model adapts elements of national service programs to a local context and extends them to younger participants. It is designed to begin in middle school and continue through high school, creating a continuous experience rather than a one-time intervention.

In middle school, participation would be voluntary and exploratory. Students could choose to engage in weekend service activities, much as they might choose to join a sports team or an arts program. The goal at this stage is exposure—introducing the idea that contributing to one’s community is both valuable and expected.

In high school, participants would take on a more formal role as “Rangers.” They would engage in structured service on weekends and during the summer, working with community-based organizations across a range of fields. This work would be compensated, with stipends directed in part toward future education and training.

The activities themselves would vary depending on local needs. Some communities might emphasize environmental restoration, public-health outreach, elder care, tutoring, food systems, or neighborhood improvement projects. Others might partner with unions, technical schools, hospitals, libraries, or local businesses to expose students to skilled trades and professional pathways.

Existing apprenticeship systems already demonstrate that structured, hands-on learning tied to real work can provide both economic mobility and a stronger sense of direction for young people. Programs such as Year Up have also shown that combining mentorship, technical training, and workplace experience can significantly improve employment outcomes for young adults.

Earlier community-based experiments also demonstrated the value of linking education, service, and guaranteed opportunity. One initiative developed through the New World Foundation (where Colin Greer serves as president), known as COIN, supported high school students selected not primarily for academic performance but for leadership potential. Participants worked in community organizations during high school and were guaranteed college support if accepted into post-secondary programs. During college, they returned to community work during the summers with paid stipends, allowing them to continue developing skills and civic engagement without abandoning their educational goals for unrelated work. The model reinforced the relationship between contribution, education, and opportunity.

What matters most is that the work is real, connected to community priorities, and carried out alongside experienced adults who can provide guidance, accountability, and encouragement.

Through this structure, several objectives are met simultaneously. Students gain work experience and practical skills. They form relationships with adults and peers in a structured setting. They contribute to their communities in visible ways. And they begin to see a connection between their efforts and their future opportunities.

Just as important, the model reinforces consistent access to adult support. Mentorship is not an optional add-on, but an embedded feature of the work itself. Attention is built into the structure, not left to chance.

Over time, this experience can shape how young people see themselves—not as passive recipients of services, but as participants in a shared civic project.

What Communities Can Do

While national and state policies are essential, much of the work of supporting children happens at the community level. This is where institutions intersect, where policies are implemented, and where daily life unfolds.

One practical step communities can take is to adopt a simple yet powerful standard: evaluate all policies and decisions by their impact on children. This “child-impact audit” can be applied across domains—from budgeting and land use to transportation, education, environmental planning, and public health.

The purpose is not to create an additional layer of bureaucracy, but to introduce a consistent question into decision-making: how will this affect the children in our community? If the impact is negative, what barriers prevent change?

Such an approach can be supported by partnerships with local universities or research institutions that help analyze data, identify patterns, and evaluate outcomes. It can also create a shared language for discussing priorities and trade-offs.

A second step is to build and sustain a local ecosystem of service opportunities. Programs like Resilience Ranges depend on the presence of community-based organizations, schools, healthcare institutions, libraries, and local employers that are willing to collaborate. By aligning these actors around a common goal—supporting youth development—communities can create a more coherent system.

This work is inherently local. It reflects the specific needs, resources, and capacities of each place. But the underlying principle remains consistent: communities are not just sites of need, but also sites of action.

For such a system to succeed, responsibility would have to be shared across public and private institutions. Local governments could provide coordination and baseline funding, while schools, nonprofits, employers, labor unions, healthcare providers, and higher education institutions would contribute opportunities, mentorship, training, and facilities.

Community organizations already possess deep knowledge of local conditions, but they are often underfunded and disconnected from broader educational and economic support systems. A coordinated model would treat these organizations not as peripheral charities, but as essential civic infrastructure.

In this context, “public-private” refers to collaboration among public institutions, community organizations, nonprofits, labor groups, educational institutions, and responsible private-sector partners. The goal is not to transfer responsibility away from the public sphere, but to align existing institutions around the shared task of supporting children and adolescents.

Some critics may argue that such a system would be too expensive, too bureaucratic, or too difficult to scale nationally. Others may worry that formalizing youth service risks institutionalizing childhood too heavily or placing excessive responsibility on schools and local governments. These concerns are legitimate and deserve consideration.

Yet the costs of fragmentation are already immense. Societies pay for youth instability in other ways: emergency healthcare, incarceration, unemployment, untreated mental-health conditions, and lost economic potential. The question is not whether resources will be spent, but whether they will be spent proactively or reactively.

The aim is not to build a massive national bureaucracy with identical programs in every community. What must scale is the vision: the recognition that children deserve sustained support, meaningful opportunity, and consistent care. The practical responses themselves must remain local, shaped by the needs, institutions, and capacities of individual communities. A national framework can provide encouragement, sustained support and commitment, funding, and shared purpose while still allowing care to remain rooted in local relationships and realities.

Guaranteeing the Future

For such a system to function effectively, it must include a clear commitment to the future of the children it serves. This means more than providing services in the present. It means ensuring that pathways forward are real and accessible.

Financial investment is one part of this commitment. Savings accounts, stipends, and education funds can provide a tangible foundation for future plans. They signal that effort will be met with support.

Access to post-secondary education is another essential part of the commitment. Whether through community colleges, trade schools, apprenticeship programs, or universities, opportunities for further learning should not depend on a family’s ability to pay.

In communities participating in a model like Resilience Ranges, institutions of higher education could guarantee tuition-free access for students with family incomes below a certain threshold, removing loans and other financial barriers altogether. The goal is not only affordability, but predictability—the assurance that effort and participation will be met with a real pathway forward.

When these elements are aligned—early investment, adolescent engagement, healthcare access, mentorship, and post-secondary opportunity—they form a continuous pathway. The transition from childhood to adulthood becomes less uncertain, less fragmented, and more stable.

Investing in Care as Civic Responsibility

At its core, the question this model raises is not only practical, but moral. What does it mean for a community to care for its children?

Care, in this sense, is not an emergency response. It is not limited to moments of crisis. It is an ongoing commitment, expressed through the systems a society chooses to build and sustain.

Those systems reflect collective values. They determine whether children encounter barriers or opportunities, whether attention is scarce or abundant, and whether the future is uncertain or within reach.

The framework outlined here does not require a complete transformation of society. It operates within existing constraints. But it does require a shift in priorities—a willingness to understand care for children not as charity or emergency response, but as an ongoing civic responsibility.

That responsibility is ultimately encountered locally. Children experience support, neglect, opportunity, and a sense of belonging through the schools, institutions, neighborhoods, and relationships that surround them every day. National vision matters, but care itself is lived at the community level.

Which returns us to the central question: Does your community care about children?

How Propaganda and False Information Are Undermining Humanitarian Work

In today’s post-truth era, where “objective truth” has lost influence in the public sphere, it is becoming increasingly difficult for humanitarians, who seek to preserve human life, to carry out their work.

“The post-truth era has dramatic reper­cussions on humanitarian work, not only because it affects NGOs’ reputation, but also because it presents a distorted vision of the reality of people in need,” says Lubiana Gosp-Server, a humanitarian and development professional.

Humanitarians tackle hidden or poorly understood social issues and help people in difficult or extreme situations. All of this is threatened if people are no longer able to discern what is true or real.

Despite its contemporary prevalence in public discourse, fake news is not new. Propaganda and rumors have always existed and are something that humanitarians increasingly need to manage during the course of their duties, especially in the current “infoglut” environment of being bombarded with information from all sides, which exacerbates the problem.

High levels of propaganda and false information damage public trust and have led people to question whether humanitarians really have humanity’s best interests at heart.

Humanitarian Work and Its Challenges

The modern concept of humanitarianism was born from the founding of the Red Cross after the 1859 Battle of Solferino and the establishment of the First Geneva Convention, which sought to limit harm to human beings, particularly in times of war. Humanitarians uphold a set of moral principles, and though they vary by organization, they usually include high standards of truth, honesty, and integrity.

“At its core, a humanitarian is a person dedicated to reducing suffering and protecting human dignity. Whether in war zones, after natural disasters, or during health emergencies, humanitarians put people first,” explains the nonprofit Action Against Hunger.

Humanitarian organizations are not without their faults. They suffer from several issues, including a lack of accountability to those accessing their services and a history of furthering Western imperialism. Humanitarian organizations, in many instances, are responsible for supporting the political or military agendas of hegemonic powers, which often fund their work.

“NGOs have in many cases become extensions of Western foreign policy. This has most obviously been seen in contexts such as Afghanistan where many NGOs supported and formed an integral part of U.S.-led stabilization activities following the U.S. invasion in 2001,” states Jonathan Whittall, head of humanitarian analysis at Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Humanitarian aid has also been used as a tool to intervene in and impact a country’s sovereignty, raising concerns about the intent behind the work. For instance, the UN Peacekeeping missions have often aligned with the political interests of the US and other members of the Security Council.

Whittall says that it is essential for humanitarian organizations to stick to their core mission of representing the interests of the marginalized rather than furthering the “interests of the core state,” and that they need to form alliances with social movements, grassroots organizations, etc., to be truly effective. This is necessary for these organizations to “regain their legitimacy and face with integrity the push-back from those in power who see the delivery of assistance as impinging on their political and military strategies.”

Humanitarians also need to be aware of how false information (sometimes called misinformation) and propaganda (sometimes called disinformation) undermine their ability to do their job, worsen already complex crises, harm the people they are trying to help, and can even result in their death.

“The emergence of hybrid conflicts, mixing the spread of harmful information and cyber operations with kinetic operations, creates more suffering for affected populations. Harmful information… hinders the work of humanitarian organizations by calling into question their mandates and intentions, undermining their integrity, and making them and their staff a target of online and offline harassment and violence,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Humanitarians are uniquely positioned to help combat this problem by working with communities to address concerns both caused by and arising from the spread of false information.

How Is False Information Spreading and Why?

Some researchers, like Zoë Adams and Magda Osman et al., have argued that concerns about false information causing harmful behavior are “illusory.” “The assumption is that there is a direct causal link between the prevalence and consumption of misinformation and subsequent harmful behaviors. To date, however, this link has not been sufficiently demonstrated,” states their 2023 study, published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. They point out that we have shifted from viewing the world via “objective facts” to viewing it via “intersubjectivity,” which they define as “a coordination effort by two or more people to interpret entities in the world through social interaction.” The study adds that there is nothing inherently harmful about this shift and that there may be some benefits to democratizing concepts of truth.

However, there are many circumstances in which an increased amount of false information shared very rapidly has caused human suffering. “Spreading harmful information… could exacerbate the suffering of the most vulnerable people, and humanitarian operations. Harmful information is reported to induce psychological and social harm in both communities affected by conflict and among people serving those communities. Incorrect information prevents communities experiencing humanitarian emergencies from accessing important and lifesaving services, and undermines the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver and implement effective interventions,” according to the Lancet.

Understanding how false information and propaganda spread and how they influence people helps us determine what can be done about it. As Mark Thomas Kennedy, from the Imperial College of London, argues, “Unless you understand how people consume information and learn, you’re not going to be able to have anything more than a conversation in which you’re shouted down or dismissed.”

According to a 2021 MIT study, most people are unaware that they are sharing false information online. However, other studies have indicated that a small population seeks to deceive—motivations for sharing disinformation range from financial to ideological. Based on a 2022 survey conducted in the U.S., researchers found that 14 percent of people were aware that the information they shared on social media was false. They also concluded that participants who “[share] false political information online” tend to be a specific type of person: they report having anti-social behavioral traits, such as a psychological need for chaos, a tendency toward psychopathy, sadism and paranoia; are more likely to have positive feelings for extremist groups like QAnon, the Proud Boys and white supremacists; and harbor desires to run for office and support political violence. Evidence also suggests that foreign governments are responsible for spreading false information in attempts to influence global affairs and shape political outcomes.

Another factor to consider in the spread of propaganda and false information online is technology itself. Social media is the new epicenter of harmful information. Investigations by Amnesty International found that X’s “For You” page is designed to promote content that provokes outrage, heated exchanges, and reactions—otherwise known as “engagement.” Decisions to allow influencers with a track record of sharing fake content with their followers on social media platforms to spread that information can be directly linked to an increase in fake online news.

The rapid development of large language models (or LLMs), also known as AI, has led to a surge in computer-generated images. Now, stock image platforms like Adobe are allowing computer-generated content to be purchased from their libraries without any warning about whether the image is real. Worryingly, AI is increasingly spreading false information in its responses to the public’s queries. As people shift from asking “experts” for information, they have less control over the false information they are consuming. Not only do these models contain in-programmed biases, but they are also “hallucinating” inaccurate information. All of this has consequences for humanitarians and how they can perform their job effectively.

How False Information and Lack of Trust Are Impacting Humanitarian Work

According to the Lancet, “Complex humanitarian settings have become fertile environments for spreading misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” The situation is especially stressful for those witnessing humanitarian emergencies, as it is very challenging to distinguish between false and beneficial messages, given the sheer volume of information available on social media platforms.

The challenge of countering propaganda and false information becomes more difficult if people do not trust humanitarian organizations as reliable sources. “Unfortunately, too many human-rights NGOs—both large and small—suffer from a crisis of credibility. Persistent questions about their sources of funding, political bias, and lack of due diligence undermine the reliability of the information they espouse,” points out an article in the National Interest.

To understand how propaganda and trust affect humanitarian work, we examine its effects across three key areas of humanitarian work: global health, war and conflict, and support for refugees and asylum seekers:

Global Health

As writer and journalist Erica X Eisen states in her 2021 essay, hesitancy and propaganda campaigns around vaccines are as old as the first vaccine. Earlier, false information casting doubt on vaccines was limited to one or two pamphlets; it can now be found in hundreds of posts, articles, and videos being consumed daily. The World Health Organization (WHO) has labeled the rapid spread of misinformation as “infodemics” and sees it as a direct threat to public health. “Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus and is just as dangerous,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a review, the WHO found that 51 percent of posts talking about vaccinations contained false information.

During a disease outbreak, combating vaccine hesitancy has become a key part of the humanitarian response, taking up time and resources. The British Red Cross launched a campaign to dispel false information to support the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the UK, and UNICEF released a “Vaccine Misinformation Management Field Guide” for its workers.

To a certain extent, this hesitancy is understandable for new vaccines, as well as in communities where vaccines are less common or where they’ve led to avoidable negative experiences, for instance, due to unethical practices by international organizations. “In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded experimental malaria and meningitis vaccine trials across Africa and HPV vaccine programs in India. All of these programs resulted in numerous deaths and injuries, with accounts of forced vaccinations and uninformed consent,” according to an article by Sharmeen Ahmed in the Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law.

The lack of priority to human life over profits by pharma companies during the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to vaccine hesitancy. As Gloria Giraldo of Latino Health Access pointed out in 2021, the inequities in the distribution of vaccines globally could result in “skepticism about the motives of vaccine makers and public health officials… especially among immigrants.”

Humanitarian organizations’ mistrust of local populations exacerbates the situation further. During the Ebola outbreak in 2014 in West Africa, aid organizations stereotyped the locals as “irrational, fearful, violent and primitive: as too ignorant to change.” This resulted in the treatment intervention focusing on “central, resource-intensive facilities, ignoring for months ‘responses and strategies that engage with and rely on communities,’” stated an ICRC blog.

Humanitarians need to be better equipped to navigate the issues of distrust and false information around public health and have been taking necessary measures to do so. When vaccine hesitancy becomes too widespread, it becomes very difficult to address and interferes with the ability of humanitarians to preserve human life.

“Measles, whooping cough, and other vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise around the world, and cuts to foreign aid, coupled with growing vaccine hesitancy, and persistent gaps in vaccine access are fueling outbreaks in poor and wealthy nations alike,” states the Council on Foreign Relations.

Results from a randomized 2021 trial indicated that false information about COVID-19 vaccines “lowered the intent of recipients to vaccinate,” according to the BMJ. Missing vaccinations directly causes outbreaks of disease and preventable deaths. Previously controlled diseases like measles and meningitis are spreading in direct relation to an increase in the number of children missing their routine vaccines. These could lead to future epidemics. Resources used to tackle easily preventable diseases detract from the work needed to tackle other diseases or disasters.

In 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “to cast aside its long-held position that vaccines do not cause autism,” stated the Politico. These unfounded claims amplify the spread of propaganda and are used to justify cuts to funding for international organizations supporting vital vaccine drives. Communities in conflict particularly rely on humanitarian organizations to deliver vaccines, and children are most vulnerable without proper vaccinations. These circumstances could lead to more children dying if humanitarian organizations have fewer resources and are overstretched trying to tackle vaccine hesitancy in countries where vaccines are available.

War and Conflict

The development of fake images and videos is increasingly becoming a problem in conflict situations. Since the 1850s, photography has changed people’s perceptions of war and conflict by depicting the harsh realities faced by average soldiers and civilians. Since then, we’ve regarded photographs and videos as factual, trustworthy evidence, especially for documenting human conflict and humanitarian work.

To a certain extent, the idea that photography and videos depict truth has always been an illusion. As soon as photography was invented, so was doctoring or staging photographs. However, the ability to create fake images was reserved for people with specific skills and knowledge. Now, anyone with internet access can create a fake image and spread it online within minutes. Already, misleading AI depictions of war zones are being created.

Images have a deep impact on how we perceive truth. Humanitarians have relied heavily on powerful images to communicate the necessity of their work and draw attention to human suffering. Conflict is inherently chaotic and secretive, and conveying the on-the-ground reality to those not experiencing it is difficult. Images, however, have proven useful in demonstrating the reality of conflict. There is a real risk that fake images can mislead people about the events taking place during conflicts and can reduce the power of visual media to change hearts and minds.

More tangibly, fake images or false reports about a conflict can make it more difficult for humanitarians to hold people accountable for breaking international humanitarian law (IHL). When an explosion killed hundreds of people at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza in October 2023, a storm of fake images, misleading videos, and unsubstantiated claims took over social media, making it very difficult for experts to understand who was accountable for attacking the hospital (a protected building under IHL). As a senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, John Scott-Railton explained, such a large volume of false information is a “uniquely unhelpful” environment for truth and accountability. Indeed, propaganda has played a huge role in conflicts. An environment where nothing can be trusted allows both sides to denounce all reporting and evidence of human rights abuses as “fake.” This is most evident in the campaign to discredit journalists in Gaza, which is being used to justify killing them.

This compounds an alarming trend of weakening IHL and the values on which humanitarianism is founded. Erica Harper, head of research and policy studies at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, explains that “International humanitarian law stands at a crossroads… violations that were once considered shocking exceptions have become persistent, widespread, and too often tolerated.”

In March 2025, 15 paramedics and first responders, including eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, were killed by the Israeli military. After the attack, the Israeli military said that the incident was a result of “professional failures,” with the troops opening fire “on what they believed to be a ‘tangible threat’ amid what the military called an ‘operational misunderstanding,’” according to CNN. Similar claims have been made about hospitals being used to hide combatants in both the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This doesn’t just harm humanitarians; it harms civilians. This narrative suggests that any civilian building used as shelter is now fair game for attack.

Another aspect harming humanitarian work in these situations is the lack of trust in these organizations. To be truly effective, nonprofits and international agencies need to build and maintain trust in communities. A 2025 Washington Post article pointed to a situation where a mother of three in South Sudan refused to take airdropped food supplies that bore the flag of the country that had bombarded her village.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Misunderstandings about the rights and circumstances of people who seek asylum in other countries have long been an issue for humanitarian organizations. Although a 2024 Ipsos survey showed that global attitudes toward people seeking sanctuary remained broadly positive, sentiment was less positive in Western nations. In general, people confuse refugees (people fleeing persecution or danger) and migrants (people moving to a new country for familial or economic reasons). This environment of uncertainty is a breeding ground for propaganda. “Migration is an ideal topic for those pushing lies and half-truths to spread confusion, fear, anger, or prejudice. It is a complex phenomenon where the facts can be difficult to ascertain or explain,” wrote Alberto-Horst Neidhardt and Paul Butcher for the Migration Policy Institute.

This becomes particularly problematic when this topic is prominently featured in public discourse and contains factually incorrect information. In 2024, a year of elections internationally, migration was a key issue for voters. For a long time now, migration has been blamed for a decline in standards of living in the West, fueled by continuous propaganda. People seeking asylum (or migrants more generally) are often wrongly targeted for causing housing scarcity, overwhelming the health care system, and taking away jobs from citizens, despite evidence to the contrary.

People tend to overestimate the number of immigrants in their country. There are persistent claims in the UK, Canada, and other countries that asylum seekers or migrants receive substantial assistance from the government upon arrival, despite this not being true. During the 2024 U.S. election, stereotypical claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets became a key point of debate. Politicians increasingly focus on attacking migrants and use terminology like “illegal aliens” to dehumanize people and stoke further confusion about their right to be in the country.

“From Afghanistan to Ukraine and beyond, each development concerning global migrant flows or the management of cultural diversity can give rise to a new stream of disinformation, with significant consequences for policymaking, public discourse, and social relations. Conspiracy theories are also frequently used as a rhetorical tool by far-right movements and nativist politicians to advocate for hardline anti-immigration policies and mobilize their voters,” explain Horst Neidhardt and Butcher.

False claims about immigrants influence how people vote and encourage people to support politicians who offer “solutions.” For example, according to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees report, there is clear evidence that “offering safe and legal routes can help to reduce irregular migration and limit loss of life,” by reducing the number of people crossing the English Channel by boat. The British government has, however, chosen a hardline approach to this social issue. Channel crossings result in people’s deaths, but politicians are more interested in appeasing voters, whose opinions are largely influenced by harmful information, than in offering genuine solutions.

Humanitarian schemes to provide support for refugees and asylum seekers are failing thanks to false information. These campaigns focus our attention on attacking “the other” rather than on addressing chronic societal issues. They create hostility in diverse communities and threaten people’s rights to seek safety during dangerous situations.

“Humanitarian organizations have struggled with how best to protect refugees and other vulnerable people from the harms caused by hate speech and false information,” states the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The organization found that the escalation of violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar resulted from social media platforms spreading disinformation and hate speech against them. Situations like this lead to questioning of “vital protection information” that humanitarians are required to share during such a crisis.

Failure by humanitarian organizations to meet migrants’ needs is also eroding the trust people place in them. “[T]he vast humanitarian needs of migrants in vulnerable situations are, for a variety of reasons, often not being fully met. These migrants also often have only a fragile trust in humanitarian organizations. … When organizations do not remain independent or are not perceived as such, this jeopardizes their ability to serve migrants in need. Protecting individuals’ data, avoiding involvement with governments’ implementation of immigration policies, and carefully considering whether to support activities such as returns has immediate implications for real or perceived independence and affects migrants’ trust,” stated a Migration Policy Institute 2023 article.

Potential Solutions to the Misinformation Problem

The UNICEF “Vaccine Misinformation Management Field Guide” starts by emphasizing that staff shouldn’t be distracted by the falsehoods. It tells humanitarians on the ground to be aware that people are understandably distressed in times of crisis and encourages them to listen to and address genuine concerns. As the American Psychological Association explains, people are more likely to believe misinformation when they are anxious since they appeal to emotions like fear and anger. They are looking for confirmation of what they already believe; they are putting their trust in the idea that comforts them, which tells them they were right all along. This gets to the crux of solving the problem of propaganda: trust.

If the post-truth era reflects a shift in people’s understanding of whom or what to trust, it should also reflect a shift in how we earn people’s trust. Former president of the International Federation of the Red Cross, Francesco Rocca, puts it succinctly when he said, “When people don’t trust us, then our ability to help them—to do what we are supposed to do—is eroded.”

If people trust a person or an organization, they are more likely to listen to what they have to say versus the random information they read online. Only through building strong levels of trust can we encourage people to question their own beliefs and accept alternative viewpoints. Humanitarian organizations need to understand that they cannot expect trust; they have to earn it. We have seen how people are easily won over by words and images, even false ones. However, trust can also be easily lost when not accompanied by action.

Humanitarians should demonstrate solutions to people’s problems and take action on their concerns. They should work harder to tackle poverty and inequality. Research has suggested that low GDP levels correlate with a lack of trust. Every community has its own issues. Communities struggling to access basic amenities and consistently let down by government institutions are less likely to trust others.

Humanitarian organizations also have to ask who should build this trust and deliver the information to communities. The international aid model or humanitarian system reflects a “colonial mindset,” says Kennedy Odede, head of Shining Hope for Communities that works in Kenyan slums, and ignores the “cultural knowledge” of grassroots organizations. “They believe they can just walk into a community and they’ll solve the problem if they have enough money, but that’s not how you create change.”

Evidence shows that people are more likely to trust members of their own in-groups. Efforts to build trust and tackle false information should therefore come from within the community. More responsibility and influence should be given to grassroots leaders and groups to build trust, challenge misconceptions, deliver services, and communicate accurate information within communities.

“Understanding where and how communities obtain their information will help… [humanitarians] identify who they trust and the main channels they use to communicate,” states Frontline Negotiations. This can help an individual or an organization develop a plan to counter propaganda before it becomes widespread.

Once trust is built, a clear strategy is required to ensure that effective communication addresses false information and challenges the bias and preconceived beliefs. Studies have suggested that using a storytelling approach to present facts makes the information easier to digest and understand.

These tactics respond to false information, but is there a way to reduce it? The United Nations suggests that states promote free and independent media rather than introducing curbs to reduce the spread of misinformation.

“Some States have carried out digital and media literacy programs to enable more resilient and meaningful participation online. Such initiatives serve to promote critical thinking skills that empower people to identify, dispel and debunk disinformation. States should also invest in tools and mechanisms that support independent fact-checking with the participation of journalists and civil society,” the organization adds.

We also have to do more to hold people accountable for the harm their decision-making inflicts, whether those are politicians and military generals who intentionally use false information to manipulate, or tech companies that allow false and harmful content to proliferate in society.

While there is no definitive way to ensure that all information in the world is honest and true, humanitarians can do their bit by building trust within communities and responding to people’s concerns to help counter propaganda and mitigate harm. This should be a top priority for humanitarian organizations, as it falls within their remit to preserve human life.

The ICRC has pointed to three ways in which humanitarian organizations can combat misinformation: During a conflict, protecting those most affected by the misinformation should be the top priority. Secondly, the “resilience and agency” of the people and community should be strengthened. Thirdly, humanitarian organizations should ensure “principled humanitarian action in the digital age” both offline and online.

Combating false information requires coordinated efforts at all levels. At the global level, as rising conflicts make humanitarian work more important, what is needed is a collaboration platform rooted within the humanitarian architecture to help frame a common agenda. This could include developing a joint advocacy position on online platforms, increasing collaboration, and pooling resources wherever necessary.

How Consciousness Shapes Culture, Communication, and Shared Meaning

This piece explores human consciousness as the foundational engine of culture, tracing its evolution from early social learning in infants to the sophisticated shared meanings of prehistoric human communities. It examines how social consciousness—joint attention and reciprocal mirroring—enabled humans to transmit knowledge, develop language, and coordinate culturally, creating a feedback loop between individual and collective consciousness. The article draws on biology, anthropology, and linguistics, including case studies like Nicaraguan Sign Language, to illustrate how shared meaning emerges. Its central argument: consciousness facilitates transmissive teaching and learning, which underpins human cultural evolution and the cumulative growth of knowledge across generations.

Consciousness as Cognitive Filter 

Research suggests that human consciousness evolved as a cognitive filter, privileging and amplifying human-communicative inputs as a foundation for language development, transmissive teaching and learning, and, ultimately, culture.

Fortunately, humans do not wait for a full understanding of things before they converse about them. Love is a good example, perhaps the best one. We have been talking about, singing about, painting, and dancing around “love” almost certainly from the beginning of our species’s communicative existence, and yet, what exactly love is, is a real question we could take up in earnest at any time without embarrassment. The same goes for concepts like maturity, character, respect, common sense, trust, leadership, normalcy, and, of course, consciousness. We can often do no better than to say merely that we know these things when we see them.

When humans do recognize consciousness, they tend to agree on a set of similar intuitive descriptions: it is like an inner self capable of observing our mental activity, an inner witness, or a piece of cerebral machinery that equips its owner with the sense that “I am” and “what it’s like to be me.”

We tend to speak of consciousness as something uniquely human, even after accounting for our scientific ignorance and allowing for the possibility of consciousness in “lower” animals, individual cells, or the entire universe.

Biological science furnishes us with its own constraining assumptions and intuitions about human consciousness: it likely evolved in some way across vast expanses of time; its roots likely stretch far back into prehistory; and it likely served, and perhaps continues to serve, an important purpose or set of purposes for the human species that possesses it, purposes that remain a mystery.

To this array of conversational and scientific intuitions, let us add those of archaeologists and anthropologists. The appearance of sophisticated tool refinement, the creation of art, the rise of elaborate burials, and the evolution of organized communities in the archaeological record are physical marks that are quintessentially human, indicators of consciousness, and as mysterious as they are.

It is likely that our various intuitions about consciousness are mostly true and that the mysteries connect. That is, human consciousness not only supplies us with a seemingly dualistic sense of “inner self” but also the one that represents the first click of the ratchet effect—the process responsible for cultural evolution and believed to be behind organized settlements, tool refinement, and art.

An infant sticks out its tongue, and their parent sticks out theirs. This phenomenon is known as human reciprocal mirroring. It is how social learning occurs. The infant imitates, then, crucially, pauses to monitor the parent’s reaction. Although non-human apes can occasionally manage this kind of behavioral imitation, they do not engage in reciprocal mirroring. In human infant-parent communication, each is aware that the other is aware that they are aware, a recursive process that represents an alignment of consciousness that goes back to the start of life. The infant is ready to be both observer and participant, actor and audience. It just needs the content of human social life (the scenes, experience, and knowledge) to start putting meat on the bones of this “inner self,” which is shaped by a rapidly changing social world. This same process of experience and learning from others is what gives social learning its footing. Nearly everything the infant will learn in its life will occur through this process.

What this exchange shows is that human consciousness, both social and individual, is what makes cumulative human culture possible. From the start, the mind is built to align with other minds, allowing knowledge to move between people and persist across time. Meaning is not merely passed along but stabilized and carried forward through this recursive awareness, so that what is learned does not vanish with the learner but becomes part of a shared, revisitable world.

How did our species arrive at this moment where all of its newest members are ready to learn, quickly and accurately, how to communicate?

Social Consciousness

Our story is generally thought to have started around 300,000 to 400,000 years ago with the consolidation of human social consciousness. This capacity can be described as “the spontaneous adoption of another person’s perspective,” as in the relationship between a parent and their infant. The increasing strength of this mutual attention in humans—especially, among groups of humans—gradually allowed for the generation of joint representations, or ‘objectified,’ agreed-upon percepts from the surrounding natural and social environments.

Human social consciousness—a term used here as an alternative to joint attention—forms both a literal and a figurative breeding ground for the consciousness we experience now. In simple terms, it can be understood as a communication channel. We witnessed this when the parent and infant were sticking out their tongues; joint attention automatically opens a channel, and the participants, parent and infant, communicatively imitate each other within it. Opening of communication channels also happens in larger groups, even with strangers. Each channel internally represents shared meanings, called joint representations, and participants can now point, imitate, use gestures and movements, vocal pitch, and other, even unintended, signals to coordinate within and across these social situations and explore them. The unconscious, automatic nature of this process is something we very much take for granted. For example, we will follow others across the street at a crosswalk, against the light, even though we are total strangers who have never spoken a word to each other, and never will again. We know without trying that everyone has the same joint representation.

The stage is now set for the gradual evolution of individual consciousness in humans, with tools of social consciousness becoming available to individuals at birth. This evolution allows communities to grow across vast spaces while remaining close-knit. Maybe it began in the Middle Paleolithic era (the Paleolithic era, characterized by the development of stone tools, extended between 3.3 million to 11,700 years ago) when little bands of humans begin to make some cultural progress, but only when they are together physically—a condition that fits well with Merlin Donald’s (1993) view that early human cognition remained heavily dependent on socially enacted forms of representation. This need for proximity makes cultural progress very slow because the necessity of staying together limits the sheer numbers, territorial reach, and outside cultural contacts of these human tribes. Even with a developing language and other signs of modern human sophistication, once a group’s culture became complex beyond a certain limit, generational change under social consciousness, without a robust individual consciousness, could only sustain it, not grow it further.

Shared Meaning: Gestures, Signs, and Grammars

It is reasonably likely that human tribes that were most successful at creating joint representations (i.e., shared meanings) across time and distance—quickly learning them, remembering them, and, importantly, coordinating themselves to them—were much better at adapting to the rapidly changing climates of the Pleistocene Epoch (from 3 million to 12,000 years ago).

Although they may not have had words at first, their emerging communication channels were by no means empty of content. A fairly sophisticated “folk physics” did not have to be effortfully shared and developed. For example, each member of the “superorganism” (groups of humans) automatically brings with them the intuition that “what goes up must come down,” which becomes part of objective joint representations. Similarly, humans experience shared emotions and shared inferences without words. Thus, humans started this process of developing shared meanings across time and space already equipped with several joint-representational hooks on which they could hang new vocabulary and new evidence of shared meaning. The shared landscape and environment also provided physical hooks: the stars are in relatively fixed positions, the mountains in the distance do not move, a nearby tree appears human-like, deviations from routine are noticeable, and certain animals predictably appear at specific locations at specific times. These stable representations become, for creatures with social and then individual consciousness, objects around which shared meaning becomes centered.

How did humans use these hooks to build language, constructing shared meanings outside immediate experience? As Israeli linguistic theorist Daniel Dor explains in his book The Instruction of Imagination, language was not a ready-made code inside individual minds but a public technology, one which groups of humans gradually invented to instruct one another’s imaginations. Speakers turned subjective experiences into compact, conventional instructions that helped listeners construct similar scenes in their minds. This process involves a mutually agreed-upon sign and its use in various situations. In this view, language (not just words, but a shared emotional, conceptual, and coordinative meaning) exists between people as a network of norms and conventions.

Functionally, the process, which follows the usage-based, joint-attention model of language development articulated by Michael Tomasello in Origins of Human Communication, can be summarized in a few steps:

  1. Anchor

A speaker points or otherwise recruits joint attention to a salient, shared experience and pairs it with a form, for example, a gesture or sound. Gesture is often the most effective starting point, with pantomime and pointing supplying the first instructions, and vocalizations or hand signs becoming more useful as conventions accumulate.

  1. Mutual identification

Others agree that this experience counts as the anchor for that form.

  1. Generalization 

Over repeated use, the group decides, often implicitly, what meanings the form can cover and where new distinctions deserve new signs.

  1. Linkage

Signs (shared meanings) acquire relations to one another (e.g., exclusions, where the part can stand for the whole, causal links), building the basis of a language.

  1. Procedural streamlining

Recurrent instruction patterns harden into grammar—negotiated constraints and sequencing routines that make the “instructions to imagine” faster and more reliable.

Dor emphasizes that this technology is negotiated and prone to error and repair; this is what real-time technology looks like.

Real-world cases echo these dynamics. In Nicaraguan Sign Language, for example, beginning in the late 1970s, children built a new language across cohorts. Earlier cohorts established basic conventional signs, and later cohorts introduced grammatical devices that segment and recombine events more systematically. Similar development of the structure of sign language, for instance, is also documented for Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. And of course, sign language has rules just as spoken language does.

These cases show communal anchoring, cohort-by-cohort generalization, and the crystallization of grammatical procedures, just what Dor’s book (and title)—“Instruction of the Imagination”—would predict for a socially engineered signal system and communication technology.

Individual Consciousness

This work of language building, of building shared meaning with language as an important byproduct, was inevitable. A shared external code of some kind, a public semantic code linking private experiences to each other, was really the only solution to solitude.

It was in this selection environment that individual traits that make people “better” contributors to the communal technology of shared meaning were selected. Some of the implicit evaluation criteria include: effective anchors; sensitivity to others’ attention and intentions; memory for conventions; rapid learning and generalization of these conventions; and fluency in applying them.

The pressures on our prehistoric human ancestors to construct shared meanings converged in ecological (territorial reach, dietary variety, etc.), social (group maintenance, teaching and learning, etc.), and sexual selection (communicative display, listener selectivity, etc.). This merging produced generations of human individuals increasingly ready to participate in, extend, and stabilize the shared code, or, again, the set of shared meanings, of a community.

Infant brains show specialized responses to human voices; they can distinguish the structure of speech from other signals long before they have any vocabulary or comprehension. When it comes to sight, human faces, bodies, and body parts, human movements, and gait are all attentionally prioritized. Even scenes of people interacting are selectively highlighted in the brain. Touch (stroking, caressing, holding, etc.) also plays an important role in transmitting communication.

With both social consciousness and individual consciousness in place, humans inherit two selves: a “we + me” communicative social self and a private self. Subjective awareness is the result of the social self communicating about its private experiences internally, or, more often, simply being automatically ready to do so.

The Purpose of Consciousness

Research on shared human intentionality and gene-culture coevolution thus suggests that social and individual consciousness together enabled human cultural evolution to develop in tandem with the biological evolution of the species. Children could now rapidly learn their culture’s shared code, but, much more importantly, consciousness enabled them to more rapidly learn their culture’s shared meanings, which are only partially represented in the society’s language. These shared meanings become important knowledge that supports the tribe’s ability to survive and flourish. The human child comes ready to communicate and, thus, ready to contribute to those shared meanings.

Although many factors contribute to the success of Homo sapiens, the capacity for transmissive cultural teaching and learning, especially enabled and catalyzed by human consciousness, is a uniquely powerful factor in that success story. Paul L. Harris shows that humans learn almost everything they know from what epistemologists call “testimony”—learning from other humans, explicitly and communicatively. This includes learning about yourself and teaching others about who you think you are.

Children today learn voraciously, from language to the unwritten rules of playground games to the rhythms of popular music. As they grow older, they learn the shifting trends of dress and slang that define peer groups, how to behave on first dates, how to work at a first job, how to manage different identities (such as online versus offline personas), and how to cope with the loss of a loved one. This kind of knowledge simply cannot be had or shared without the presence and action of others, and it comprises a good deal of what we consider crucial to our lives.

The evidence, compiled across the literature and detailed in Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies by Lynne Kelly, The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich, and The Prehistory of the Mind by Steven Mithen, suggests that knowledge transmission and storage were also very important in the lives of prehistoric humans. Transmissions (teachings) were crafted to be memorable. So they were represented in stories and couched in memorably fantastic myths, which were danced, sung, written, or drawn in various ways to ensure preservation from one generation to the next. Kelly also argues quite powerfully that neurodiversities such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD have likely been with our species from the beginning of its cultural evolutionary journey, and provide significant benefits to variability in working with, maintaining, and transmitting verbal and spatial information within human culture.

Conclusion 

Transmissive teaching and learning, which are the essence of cultural evolution, are our species’ superpower. And if that is the case, then human consciousness is the focus and form that this transmissive life inevitably takes. It is the capacity that allows meanings first exchanged between people to be carried forward, revisited, recombined, and answered for even in their absence.

There is very little mystery, in our view, as to why it emerges where meaning must be shared, preserved, and acted upon. When we understand these terms—teaching and learning—broadly, we see that they cover much more in our lives than “educating” narrowly defined. We transmit consolations and threats, and we offer congratulations and doubts; we explain, issue warnings, express commitments, and invite trust or resistance.

In doing so, we break out of our solitude. We come to know the world, ourselves, and others through meanings that did not originate with us, and we take action on that knowledge, for better or worse, within a web of shared expectations that long predates any single mind.

Understanding News Fatigue—and How to Stay Informed Without Overload

Beginning the day with digital news consumption often subjects individuals to a barrage of negative information—including environmental crises, political volatility, and health advisories—before the workday has even begun. For many people, this has become the quiet, unremarkable texture of daily life. And for many of those same people, it has become exhausting as well. That exhaustion has a name: news fatigue—the state of emotional and cognitive overwhelm that results from sustained exposure to news, leaving people feeling drained, anxious, or simply numb. It has become more prevalent over the last decade, driven by a structurally limitless media environment. Where previous generations received news in finite, bounded packages—an evening broadcast, or the morning newspaper—today’s always-on information landscape makes it harder than ever to know when enough is enough.

The psychological costs of this shift are real and well-documented. One recent survey performed by the American Psychological Association found that 73 percent of Americans reported being overwhelmed by the number of crises facing the world. Research consistently links heavy news consumption to elevated anxiety, disrupted sleep, and a diminished sense of personal agency. For many, the stress creates a desire to tune out the noise entirely. And yet, as psychologists are quick to point out, disengagement carries its own costs. When news fatigue evolves into news avoidance, people cut themselves off from information essential to their health, community, and political participation.

This is the central tension at the heart of news fatigue: the pull between two legitimate and competing needs—staying informed and staying sane. This article examines what news fatigue is, why the modern media environment makes it so difficult to escape, and what researchers and mental health professionals recommend for those who want to remain engaged with the world without sacrificing their well-being.

The Psychology Behind News Fatigue

To understand why so many people are disengaging, we have to look at the brain itself. News fatigue is not simply a matter of preference or attention span—it is a physiological response to an information environment our minds were never built to handle. When we encounter alarming headlines, the brain’s amygdala triggers a stress response, flooding the body with cortisol. Under normal circumstances, those levels subside once a threat passes. But when the next breaking alert arrives before the last one has been processed, cortisol remains chronically elevated, contributing to anxiety, disrupted sleep, and difficulty concentrating. Doomscrolling makes this worse. The brain keeps seeking the resolution and closure that the feed never delivers, locking us into a cycle of more consumption and more stress.

Beyond the neurochemistry lies something harder to quantify: the emotional exhaustion of living through what feels like an endless succession of emergencies. Psychologists call this crisis overload—the point at which the accumulation of serious events exceeds a person’s capacity to engage meaningfully with any of them. Most people who detach from the news are not becoming indifferent to suffering; they are protecting themselves from it. When every week brings a new humanitarian crisis or political rupture, the emotional resources required to respond with full attention simply run dry. That tension—knowing the news is stressful yet feeling unable to stop checking it—is itself a symptom of the overload cycle.

News fatigue does not affect everyone equally. Younger adults who consume news primarily through social media encounter it entangled with algorithmic amplification and social pressure, making psychological distance much harder to create. Studies consistently find higher rates of news-related anxiety among Gen Z than older generations. Older adults, more likely to engage through scheduled formats like a morning paper or evening broadcast, benefit from natural boundaries that continuous scrolling does not provide. Heavy, long-term news consumers may develop emotional apathy over time, though whether that represents healthy adaptation or troubling desensitization remains an open question.

For some communities, the toll runs even deeper. Members of marginalized groups who regularly encounter news coverage of violence or injustice directed at people who share their identity face what researchers call vicarious trauma—a compounded psychological burden that goes well beyond general stress. For these readers, engaging with the news is not an abstract civic exercise but something far more personal, making the question of news fatigue not just one of media habits, but of emotional survival.

Signs You Might Be Experiencing News Fatigue

You might be experiencing information overload if you notice shifts in your emotional state, such as heightened anxiety, irritability, or a persistent sense of dread when checking your phone. It can also manifest as apathy—a feeling of emotional numbness or indifference to reports of suffering—as the brain attempts to protect itself from overwhelm. This mental strain may reduce your ability to focus on daily tasks, contribute to a more negative outlook, or leave you feeling burned out by the constantt flow of bad news.

Behavioral changes are often the clearest indicators of news fatigue, characterized by a paradox: wanting to stay informed while feeling drained. You might find yourself avoiding news apps or news-related conversations, engaging in extensive “doomscrolling” where you cannot look away despite the distress, or experiencing an obsessive need to refresh feeds to stay up to date. This behavior is frequently accompanied by an irrational sense of guilt or duty—feeling like a bad citizen or uninformed person for taking a break. Other cues include disrupted sleep patterns, such as insomnia caused by worrying about global events, or physical symptoms like tension headaches and stomach issues.

Recognizing when to pause is essential for protecting your mental well-being before fatigue turns into permanent apathy or severe anxiety. It is time to step back if your news consumption disrupts your daily life, such as missing work deadlines, causing conflict with loved ones, or leaving you unable to feel joy. If your anxiety is no longer just a reaction to a single article but a constant, physical feeling of tension and panic, your brain is demanding a rest. A “news detox” is necessary when your ability to empathize is replaced by indifference, or when you find that the information is providing no value, only overwhelming distress.

Strategies for Staying Informed Without Overload

Managing news fatigue requires moving from passive consumption to an intentional, curated information diet. Start by setting intentional time boundaries, such as scheduling 15-minute check-ins in the morning and evening, and committing to news-free mornings to protect your peace before the day begins. Rather than falling into the trap of endless scrolling, switch to curated daily roundups or newsletters that summarize the key events without the alarmist, 24/7 noise. Additionally, take control of your media experience by choosing print over digital, or audio over video, which reduces the emotional toll of sensationalist visual imagery.

To avoid falling into a state of anxiety or apathy, actively curate your feeds and your emotions by unfollowing sources that rely on outrage and constant alerts. In today’s landscape, it is important to choose trusted, balanced outlets over click-driven media, and to remember that it is acceptable to step away entirely if you feel overwhelmed. Rather than passively absorbing every tragic story, balance your intake of “hard news” with solutions-oriented journalism, which highlights progress, innovations, and positive, proactive responses to global problems.

Technology can be part of the solution; utilize digital tools to enforce these boundaries, such as setting screen time limits on news apps and using content blockers for social media sites that trigger stress. By curating your feeds, you can actively reduce the amount of negative information you see, ensuring your digital environment doesn’t turn into a source of constant, draining panic. Reclaiming your attention from algorithms allows you to stay informed on your own terms.

Finally, manage the emotional weight of current events by turning anxiety into action—such as supporting a cause or engaging in local community issues—rather than feeling paralyzed by events you cannot control. This shift from passive consumption to purposeful action helps combat the feelings of helplessness that fuel news fatigue, allowing you to remain an engaged citizen while preserving your mental and emotional health.

Know When to Unplug

Recognizing that staying informed does not have to come at the expense of emotional stability is essential to prioritizing mental health. Studies show that even 14 minutes of news consumption can raise anxiety levels. Stepping away from information overload or taking a digital sabbatical—intentionally taking a break from smartphones and social media—provides a powerful antidote, helping our brains lower stress and regain a sense of calm. Research has shown that reducing news intake contributes to better mental well-being, while simultaneously giving people time to focus on personal growth and rebuild their coping capacities.

Guidance from the American Psychological Association suggests implementing proactive media restrictions to mitigate compassion fatigue and learned helplessness. This shift toward digital wellness is gaining momentum, notably with a 2025 “flip phone revival” driven by Gen Z to counter addictive algorithmic stimulation. Proponents of digital minimalism, such as author Cal Newport, advocate a “30-day digital declutter” to minimize non-essential technology and restore focus on intentional, analog activities. By establishing firm boundaries—such as disabling notifications or dedicating weekends to off-screen pursuits—individuals can break the cycle of compulsive “doomscrolling” and protect their long-term mental health.

With roughly two-thirds of American adults reporting feeling worn out by the amount of news fatigue, experts and public figures are increasingly advocating for intentional “unplugging” to safeguard mental health. Psychology experts, such as those advising the Jed Foundation and various academic researchers, suggest scheduling specific, limited times for news consumption rather than constantly checking for updates throughout the day. Taking this a step further, author and TED speaker Rolf Dobelli has long championed a total abstinence from news, arguing that cutting it out entirely improves mental clarity and reduces anxiety, a practice that can reduce fear-based cognitive overload. The growing trend of “news avoidance,” acknowledged by experts worldwide, highlights a shift toward selective consumption and represents a necessary, proactive measure to maintain mental well-being amid media fatigue.

A Fundamental Shift

Ultimately, overcoming news fatigue requires a fundamental shift in how we view “staying informed.” Being educated about current events does not necessitate being constantly connected, nor does it require engaging in the high-stress, 24/7 doomscrolling cycle. True, sustainable awareness is about quality over quantity—prioritizing reliable, vetted information over the anxiety-inducing, click-driven breaking news headlines that often dominate social media.

Finding a personal rhythm that respects mental bandwidth is beneficial, such as scheduling two designated 15-minute news sessions per day rather than engaging in constant, impulsive check-ins. Curating feeds to prioritize local or long-form reporting offers necessary context, reducing the burnout often caused by raw, sensationalist outrage. Reconnecting with the offline world—through a walk, a hobby, or a conversation—resets the mind, with the assurance that stories will still be available upon return.

Empower yourself to make these choices without guilt. Taking a break from the headlines is not ignorance; it is an act of self-preservation and emotional maturity. By setting healthy boundaries and curating your information diet, you are not stepping away from the world, but rather engaging with it on your own terms—protected, informed, and present.

Exploring Lyonesse: Where Myth, History, and Rising Seas Collide

For centuries, the waters off Cornwall’s Atlantic coast have kept a secret: the legendary drowned land of Lyonesse. Stories of a prosperous kingdom swallowed overnight by the sea have persisted in Arthurian tales, medieval manuscripts, and Cornish folklore, blurring the line between myth and memory. Some accounts speak of a lone survivor, others of divine punishment, while traces of sunken forests, buildings, walls, and bells beneath the water hint at a landscape lost to rising seas.

Lyonesse is more than a fairy tale: it offers a lens for understanding how humans remember environmental change. From medieval romances to Victorian revivals, the story has captivated imaginations, shaping cultural identity and inspiring speculation about the power of nature and the fragility of human settlements. Here’s what we know, and what may forever remain a mystery about Britain’s most enigmatic lost land.

Legend of Lyonesse

In medieval literature, Lyonesse is most closely associated with Tristan in the 13th-century Prose Tristan, which established him as King Meliodas of Lyonesse’s son. Tristan and Iseult’s tragic love story, fueled by a love potion, unfolds in the kingdom of Lyonesse before it sank, linking romance and legend to a drowned landscape.

Lyonesse is a recognizable location in Arthurian literature, appearing in medieval romances and later popularized in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 19th-century Idylls of the King. Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur also reinforced its existence in the Arthurian canon. Accounts of the kingdom’s drowning vary. Some say a man named Trevelyan survived to tell the tale of how the land vanished, while others liken Lyonesse’s fate to the biblical punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Its submergence is also reminiscent of Cantre’r Gwaelod in Wales and Ys in Brittany, where low-lying lands are said to have been flooded due to fatal human negligence or other moral failings. Lyonesse is generally believed to have lain between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. This raises the question: was the flooding purely myth, or could it encode a memory of real environmental change? Overall, this tale underscores the enduring power of myth, the preservation of Cornish cultural identity, and reflections on ecological change.

Sunken Lands: Isles of Scilly

Two key areas that have a firm connection to the Lyonesse legend are the Isles of Scilly and St. Michael’s Mount. The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago on Cornwall’s southwestern edge and are made up of more than 50 islands and rugged islets. It was theorized that the Isles of Scilly were once a large island called “Ennor” (Old Cornish for “great island”), which flooded around 400 AD as sea levels rose. Records show speakers referred to the Isles in the singular in 240 AD and 400 AD. Evidence of settlements dates back to the Stone Age, followed by centuries as an important ship park. The Isles acted as a royalist stronghold during the English Civil War, with the surrounding waters recording more than 1,000 shipwrecks.

In the 1920s, archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford interpreted the submerged walls as evidence of sunken land, a conclusion later supported by studies of postglacial sea-level rise. In 1927, he wrote:

“The line of stones was undoubtedly the remains of a wall of human construction, some of them still standing upright… its general appearance left no doubt whatever in our minds with regard to this… here before us was tangible proof that the land had sunk since prehistoric times; for no one makes walls like this below high water mark.”

This research suggests that a real drowned landscape could underlie the legend of Lyonesse, further presenting how a factual event may have inspired a myth.

Lyonesse in the Historical Record

The earliest major reference to Lyonesse as a real location appears in William Camden’s Britannia (1586), describing a land once stretching beyond Land’s End, now inundated. Camden records artifacts found at the mount, including bronze spearheads and axes, which link the site to ancient occupation. Richard Carew’s 1602 Survey of Cornwall likewise asserts that “the encroaching sea hath ravined” an entire country between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly, retaining a constant depth of 40 to 60 fathoms. He further notes that “Karrek Loos yn Koos,” meaning “the gray rock in a wood,” was once surrounded by forest.

St. Michael’s Mount, a tidal island accessible by causeway at low tide, served as a monastery, fortress, and place of pilgrimage before being converted into a private home in 1659. Since the mount had been a monastery, the experiences of individuals who lived there were recorded. One account, from the Augustinian priest John Mirk in 1400 AD in De Festo Sancti Michaelis et Eius Solempnitate, recounts that the Archangel Michael, a patron saint of fishermen, instructed a church to be built on the mount.

Later interdisciplinary studies combining geological, paleoenvironmental, and archaeological evidence show that gradual postglacial sea‑level rise submerged low-lying coastal landscapes and forests off Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, providing a plausible basis for the cultural memory preserved in the legend of Lyonesse.

Confusion complicates the historical geography as writers used “Liones,” “Leonois,” and “Rodneisa” interchangeably, sometimes referring to Scotland’s Lothians. Only in Elizabethan England was Lyonesse firmly tied to Cornish tradition and fixed on maps of the imagination if not of the sea floor.

Cultural Afterlife of Lyonesse

During the 19th century, medieval texts, particularly those associated with Arthurianism, gained popularity. Its sense of remoteness and savagery, of a place beyond rule, captivates readers and writers alike. Moreover, writers often associated remoteness with the unfamiliar and the supernatural, making this landscape a prime setting for the knightly, supernatural themes prevalent in Arthurian literature. This is exemplified by a 1922 pamphlet titled “The Lost Land of Lyonesse,” which promoted Cornwall, highlighting specific attractions such as Land’s End, Penzance, and the Isles of Scilly, using the mystery of this sunken land to engage Victorian readers with Cornwall’s coasts.

“To-day all that is left of the lost land are the beautiful Scilly Islands and the cluster of rocks between the Scillies and Land’s End, known as the Seven Stones. These rocks are probably the last genuine bit of old Lyonesse, for their Cornish name is Lethowsow, which was what the old Cornish called Lyonesse,” states the pamphlet.

The legacy of Lyonesse continues to live on in Arthurian literature and as a memory of environmental change. Nevertheless, the oral tradition and memory of Lyonesse’s loss signal the potential trauma and cultural response to shifting landscapes, as humans have long turned to myth to make sense of climate and loss. This tale continues to resonate with audiences today due to the continuous rise of sea levels and global warming.

Research published in Science Advances in 2020 sheds light on the impact of rising sea levels on coastlines and communities, confirming how “the stories of Lyonesse and rising sea levels in south-west Britain are inseparably intertwined.” Moreover, the researchers highlight that “response plans must be designed with both local environments and local cultures in mind.”

One location that is already undergoing protective measures against rising sea levels is Venice, which has been experiencing frequent and intense flooding. This example highlights how the legend of Lyonesse captures the interplay between cultural memory and environmental change, offering lessons for contemporary coastal planning while preserving the story of a lost land in collective memory. This relationship between scientific and humanitarian research can inspire the use of the latest technology to uncover more about historical cultural trauma and memory in the context of land shifts.

As seas rise again and coastlines retreat, stories like Lyonesse carry renewed resonance, showing how myth and memory can preserve the impact of real floods long after the land itself is lost.

How Accent Discrimination Reinforces America’s Deepest Divides

[Author’s note: IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet. It is an alphabet of symbols, not entirely unlike the Latin alphabet, which is used to guide pronunciation. For more information about IPA, please visit this link.]

For as long as humans have existed, we have defined ourselves in contrast to an “other”—a person or group who possesses a characteristic that is perceived as different. This impulse has shaped our communities since the moment we began to form them. Across the ancient world, warring tribes treated differences as a threat. The Roman Empire labeled states throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East as enemies to be conquered, enslaved, or absorbed. When colonizers arrived in the Americas, they cast Indigenous peoples as savage and primitive, and placed themselves in the opposing position as the embodiment of sophistication and civility.

When othering those of foreign backgrounds became too conventional, societies began turning that impulse inward. Regency-era English nobility labeled themselves “the Ton,” using wealth to distinguish themselves from the lower class. India’s strict caste system has divided people of different class statuses for thousands of years. To this day, some Northern Italians turn their noses up at Southern Italians, while those in southern China extend similar treatment to their northern counterparts.

The seed of “othering” is also deeply rooted in religion. Catholics and Protestants in 16th- and 17th-century Europe warred for hundreds of years, with lasting effects evident in England and Northern Ireland even today. In Middle Eastern countries, tension between Sunni and Shia Muslims has resulted in regional rifts.

Tribes, empires, countries, and cities alike have upheld humanity’s tradition of othering like a torch in the night. The concept of “us versus them” has persisted throughout history and across the globe. As psychosocial rehabilitation specialist Kendra Cherry explains,

“Othering is a phenomenon in which some individuals or groups are defined and labeled as not fitting in within the norms of a social group… [it] is a way of negating another person’s humanity. Consequently, people who are othered are seen as less worthy of dignity and respect.”

Othering stems from a variety of attributes, such as skin color, gender, nationality, occupation, religion, class status, political affiliation, language, and more—characteristics by which we classify ourselves as belonging to a specific group and, therefore, place others into a different one. This phenomenon bleeds into every aspect of culture and community, and language communities are certainly not exempt. The subtlety of linguistic discrimination has allowed it to persist where other, more brazen forms of bias have been denounced, expelled, and unlearned. As one form of language bias, accent discrimination flies dangerously under the radar in conversations about implicit bias and creeps into even the most well-meaning and inclusive minds.

Labov’s Landmark Study

In 1962, American linguist William Labov conducted a landmark study on social class, employment, and dialect. His simple yet effective method involved visiting New York City department stores and speaking with employees across different job levels, from managers to clerks to janitors. By prompting them to say a specific word containing the /ɹ/ sound (as in “floor”), he tested—and proved—his theory: the higher an employee’s social class, the more likely they were to pronounce the /ɹ/ and adopt speech patterns associated with Standard American English.

Manual laborers, such as janitors, were more likely to drop the rhotic /ɹ/ from their speech, a common trait of metropolitan New York English. A classic example of this dialect is the popular phrase, “Hey, I’m walking here!” Or, spelled out in phonetic symbolization, with regard to the New York dialect: /eɪ aɪm wɑkɪn ijə/. The point of this study is to show that different occupations, even within a single company, develop unique cultures and can create distinct divides among roles.

Due to these cultural self-selections, people may perceive particular dialects and ways of speaking as good or bad, wise or stupid, friendly or unapproachable, and so on. Assumptions are made, prejudices form, and eventually, distinct “high” and “low” dialects are established, giving rise to linguistic societal discrimination.

American Southern Accent

In the same stroke, this kind of widespread language prejudice can occur nationally and globally. A prime example is the American Southern accent. The rest of the United States and the world have long slighted the Southern accent. People often mimic it to portray someone or something as unintelligent.

Movies, television, books, and media have reinforced this negative stereotype of the Southern accent. For example, the beloved titular character from the 1994 film Forrest Gump perfectly encapsulates the essence of a stereotypical Southerner: unintellectual, oblivious, undereducated, happy-go-lucky, and overtly friendly. Despite several other characters in the movie having Southern accents, Gump’s is dramatized and highly drawn out to emphasize his Southern roots.

If you pay attention, the portrayal (and lack thereof) of Southern accents across various media forms tells the story of the American South through the eyes (and ears) of those unfamiliar with it.

The popular sitcom “Young Sheldon” features a family from East Texas, particularly an erudite young boy. You may notice that Sheldon is the only person in his family who speaks Standard American English. This dialect is considered articulate, with a superfluous vocabulary that occasionally creates a communication barrier with his family, all of whom speak a general Southern dialect. Perhaps it’s purely a coincidence that Sheldon starts college at the age of 11, while the rest of his family shows little to no interest in higher education and sometimes struggles to understand his scholarly jargon.

Even more insidious than the stigmatization of the Southern accent is its erasure entirely. The popular Netflix series “Outer Banks” is set on a chain of islands off the coast of North Carolina. In this area, geographical isolation has given rise to a unique dialect known as “High Tider,” spoken by the locals. The people of this area claim ancestry from Scottish, Irish, and English settlers who rarely interacted with those on the mainland, thereby creating a language community independent of the rest of the continent. The characters on the show itself, however, have no trace of the High Tider dialect in their speech; instead, they use Standard American English.

Erasing the region’s local speech patterns reinforces stereotypes and deepens subconscious linguistic othering. Characters who defy the typical Southern stereotype are almost always written and performed without the accent—traits like intelligence, attractiveness, and wit are rarely associated with a Southern drawl because it doesn’t align with the audience’s expectations.

Southern Vowel Shift

In 2021, researchers Jon Forrest, Steve McDonald, and Robin Dodsworth published a paper in the journal Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World that examined variation in dialects of the American South across employment sectors. The researchers used data from the Raleigh Corpus, which comprises interviews with residents of Raleigh, North Carolina, who were born and raised in the area. By talking to people of various ages, genders, races, ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and employment paths, several features emerged regarding the intersection of accent and occupation.

The most notable observation was that, as demand and popularity for technology jobs increased, the use of pronunciation features that were characteristic of the Southern vowel shift declined dramatically. This pattern is the relaxation of vowels in the Southern accent; vowels can stray from their standard tenseness and laxness, and can also be “fronted” or pronounced further forward in the mouth. For example, a person from the South might pronounce the word “rice” as “rass” (/ɹæs/) and say the word “pen” as “pin” (/pɪn/). The Southern vowel shift is a staple feature of the Southern accent and is (or was) especially prominent in Raleigh. Following Raleigh’s emergence as a technology hub in the 1960s, the advent of modern technology, and the growing job market for employees in those fields, the Southern vowel shift began to diminish within that particular workforce.

One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the language associated with technology leaves less room for individuality and personality. Therefore, those working in that industry would begin adopting a more standardized accent. Another reason is that the realm of technology is vastly more globally connected in terms of the types of people who work within that sphere. This means those speaking with a Southern accent are exposed to many other national and global accents. This melting pot of dialects can affect the way someone speaks and, as a result, may reduce the Southern accent they were raised with.

According to Dodsworth, the influx of workers and their families led to a “dialect contact situation” in Raleigh and its neighboring cities.

“Through her analysis of K-12 networks in Raleigh, Dodsworth found correlations between the increasing social diversity of the city and the slow ‘leveling’ of its traditional accents. It also helped to explain why rural areas—or even the parts of Raleigh that saw the least inward migration—remain the most Southern-sounding,” according to a National Science Foundation report on the study.

Several other observations from Forrest et al.’s 2021 study further explored the ties between employment and accent in Raleigh. As previously discussed, those in the technical field were less likely to maintain a Southern accent. Law and government workers experienced a similar decrease, but to a lesser extent. Service workers, also known as “blue-collar” workers, were the most likely to retain Southern accent features. Additionally, across all industries, research showed that the older an employee was, the more likely they were to have a Southern accent.

This is partially because, in simple terms, old habits die hard. Older people, those who established careers before the advent of the digital age, are more likely to retain their Southern accents because of the culture and heritage associated with it. Although young people may be connected to Southern culture, they have not lived as long as their predecessors and are more susceptible to subconscious linguistic adaptation. Additionally, with the increase in immigration and ease of movement, many people in Raleigh likely come from places outside the South and have brought different accents, dialects, and languages with them.

Globalization has transformed homogeneous language communities into more diverse places, both linguistically and in other respects. The increased ease of travel, trade, and the spread of ideas and knowledge have brought people and their accents from all over the world into communities that were previously relatively isolated, such as North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Tracing the Roots: How History, Class, and Media Shaped Biases Against the Southern Accent

There are several reasons why a person might hear a Southern accent and subject the speaker to the typical stereotypes associated with it. As with many linguistic theories, there is rarely a single, straightforward answer to this question. The nature of this kind of research requires a deep understanding of psychology, history, sociology, linguistics (of course), and many other complex subjects to fully comprehend the scope of the topic.

One popular theory dates back to the American Civil War. Before the Civil War, the South did not have nearly as much linguistic variation as it does today. Back then, the Southern accent was heavily influenced by the “prestigious” accents of the English colonizers. Today’s Southern accent shares few similarities with the “original” dialect.

Walt Wolfram, co-author of Talkin’ Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina and professor at North Carolina State University, makes several points on the evolution of the American Southern accent. According to Wolfram, the South’s loss at the end of the Civil War, along with the prospect of a new life in the North, drove many Southerners to abandon the South. Many who remained did so because they did not have the means to leave or because of the institution of “Southern pride.” Additionally, the racial divide in the South (especially after the Civil War) drove the white and Black populations apart culturally and linguistically, causing both groups to develop certain aspects of speech that would further distinguish one from the other.

As we have seen before in many cases, ways of speaking associated with lower social classes are often vilified and disparaged. And in the case of the post-slavery South, that meant primarily newly freed slaves, who had little to no money or land, and had no other choice but to stay. The specificities of the Black Southern dialect, combined with the white dialect and the various creoles and dialects from the African and South American slave trades, began to merge.

Several factors were in play simultaneously, like the impending stress and uncertainty during the South’s Reconstruction era, the lack of people migrating to the South, and the millions of recently freed former slaves, many of whom used speech that was influenced by other languages. These social elements now had a significant influence on the formation of new dialects, and the Southern dialect underwent a complete transformation. Due to cultural and geographical differences, numerous variations of the “standard” Southern dialect emerged, resulting in the modern Southern accents we know today. Though no clear explanation exists for how these accents are discriminated against, several possibilities arise from this Civil War-based theory.

One possibility is that the war’s effects on the relationship between the North and the South caused non-Southerners to disdain the Southern accent due to the political divide. Another possibility is that the accent became embroiled in Northern classism against the poor in the South. A final possibility, with similar roots, is that with the large population of African Americans in the South, along with their use of the Southern accent, non-Southerners correlated their racism with the Southern accent. These possible explanations have been perpetuated across generations and are still successfully maintained today, demonstrating just how implicit and invalid language biases can be.

Another, more modern explanation for this bias exists. A 2012 study by Katherine D. Kinzler and Jasmine M. DeJesus presents two perspectives on Southerners: Children from non-Southern states generally held a bias against Southern accents and associated the “standard” dialect with greater education, intelligence, and so on, while children from the South did not prefer one accent over the other. As Southern children grew older and became more exposed to media, they, too, began to develop prejudices against their own dialect. While local news reporters and other adults in a child’s life sound like them, few national voices carry the same Southern accent; news reporters, television show hosts, celebrities, and political figures mostly have non-Southern accents.

Over time, these children were conditioned to think that, since they don’t hear many Southern voices in these spaces, individuals with a Northern accent must be smarter, more authoritative, and generally better. Non-Southern children, seeing the same national media, are rarely exposed to Southern accents and are used to people who sound like them being the ones in charge. Children naturally learn from observing the adults in their lives, which continues the cycle of self-deprecation regarding dialect.

Despite the lack of statistical correlation between Southern accents and intelligence or capability, the stereotype persists across the U.S. and beyond. Its roots are complex, shaped by centuries of historical prejudice, regional divisions, and systemic classism, and continually reinforced by media portrayals that favor standardized speech. These biases ripple outward, affecting not only workplace dynamics but also education, social interactions, and even self-perception among Southerners themselves. Recognizing and challenging accent discrimination is more than a matter of politeness—it is a step toward dismantling deep-seated assumptions about worth, ability, and identity. By listening carefully and valuing linguistic diversity, we can begin to unlearn these prejudices and create a society where a voice’s sound reflects individuality rather than judgment.

How Informal Caregivers Use Storytelling to Build Community and Influence Policy

Caregiving is often a silent act of devotion—unseen, unacknowledged, and isolating. Millions of informal caregivers in the United States spend their time and energy supporting loved ones with age-related limitations, chronic illnesses, disabilities, or mental health challenges, often without pay or training. Their work sustains families, lightens the burden on health care systems, and contributes billions of dollars to the national economy, yet their struggles remain largely invisible. Sharing these stories not only sheds light on the emotional, physical, and financial challenges caregivers face daily but also transforms silence into connection, fosters community, and helps build a stronger care infrastructure.

Caregiver Burden: A Growing Crisis

Caregiving in the U.S. has reached a crisis point, with millions of Americans providing intensive support to loved ones while facing overwhelming responsibilities. According to AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC), a staggering 63 million individuals in the U.S. support another adult or child with a disability or medical condition. The 59 million caregivers who support adults spend an astonishing 27 hours per week providing care. In addition to helping with activities of daily living—such as bathing, eating, and toileting—a growing number of caregivers are also responsible for complex medical and nursing tasks. However, most caregivers do not receive training, which makes these responsibilities even more challenging. Caregivers also commonly assist with household chores, transportation, administrative tasks, and care coordination.

The study also found that 70 percent of caregivers work, and 29 percent raise children while caring for older adults. Unfortunately, many also face financial hardships due to work disruptions and rising caregiving costs.

The immense emotional, physical, and financial strain of caregiving can contribute significantly to caregivers’ stress levels and feelings of depression, anger, anxiety, guilt, and grief, with some even experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Many caregivers also suffer adverse health effects, including sleep disorders, weight fluctuations, and body pains. Moreover, caregivers often withdraw socially due to time constraints and exhaustion, which can exacerbate their health issues. Due to this considerable strain, caregivers of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities may experience suicidal ideation, and tragically, some may act on it.

Despite society’s dependence on caregivers, public support remains fragmented. For instance, public assistance programs can be complex and difficult to navigate. In fact, some caregivers may be eligible for tax credits, stipends, caregiver coaching, or respite care, but such programs often have confusing eligibility requirements. They are also dominated by complex bureaucratic processes that leave caregivers feeling overwhelmed, often resulting in unclaimed benefits. Moreover, workplace protections are improving but remain insufficient and unequally distributed, with hourly workers having less access than salaried workers to benefits such as paid sick days, paid and unpaid family leave, flexible work hours, caregiver assistance programs, and telecommuting.

Alarmingly, while older adults are living longer than ever before, they are also facing significant health issues, driving a sharp increase in the demand for caregivers. Furthermore, AARP predicts a long-term trend where the number of adults over 65 will consistently exceed the number of children under 18. The number of prospective caregivers will also shrink, while the number of those needing care will continue to rise, further exacerbating the care crisis. The demand for care will be compounded by the fact that professional home care workers are inaccessible to most families due to labor shortages and the high costs of paid care.

Because caregivers lack public and systemic recognition, many have turned to storytelling to speak out, earn validation, and fight a system that treats caregiving as a personal burden rather than a societal responsibility.

Storytelling: A Lifeline for Caregivers

Because the enormous pressures of caregiving often make it difficult for caregivers to keep their jobs, maintain friendships, and participate in recreational activities, many caregivers withdraw socially. However, sharing stories with other caregivers who can relate to and validate their emotional burden can help combat this isolation. Such storytelling can be done through writing, conversations, digital platforms, and support groups.

Moreover, according to narrative identity theory, people can discover purpose, meaning, and self-continuity by constructing internalized life stories that bridge their reconstructed past, perceived present, and envisioned future. By structuring experiences into coherent stories, caregivers can begin to make sense of them. They can also reframe their caregiving role by shifting their focus from burden to the meaningful aspects of care, such as personal growth and resilience. This reframing can help them process feelings like anger, sadness, and guilt, which may provide significant emotional relief.

Storytelling can also lead caregivers to experience an externalization of their narratives, which is the process by which distressing events become separate from the person’s identity. This can make it easier to cope with the burden and heal from grief.

One way to achieve healing through storytelling is to practice expressive writing, which involves writing deeply about difficult experiences. Many studies have shown that this type of writing can reduce anxiety, stress, and depression, while also improving physical health. Contextualizing experiences through such writing can empower caregivers to process painful events rather than suppress them.

Storytelling can also help caregivers reclaim and renegotiate their identities. According to role engulfment theory, people who have a specific, demanding role—such as caregivers—may become consumed by it. This can lead to a disruption in their sense of self if they start to define themselves solely by their caregiving role, which can result in burnout and reduced self-worth. However, storytelling can help caregivers see themselves beyond their care responsibilities: as people with histories, dreams, and relationships outside their caregiving role. This can help them preserve their sense of self and cope psychologically amid chaotic or overwhelming events.

Beyond individual coping, sharing stories has also led to the creation of caregiver communities. Social media platforms, online discussion forums, podcasts, and both online and in-person support groups have brought caregivers together, enabling them to connect and heal over common experiences while also sharing practical information.

In fact, a 2023 AARP article reported that the AARP Family Caregivers Discussion Group, which was launched on Facebook in 2019, helped prevent burnout and reduce stress among participants. It also provided members with a space to brainstorm ideas, share resources, seek validation, and offer one another emotional support. Moreover, a 2021 study showed that bereaved caregivers who shared their stories on Facebook with other caregivers by posting photos found social validation, experienced meaning-making, and had a decreased risk for prolonged grief disorder.

Sharing stories in such communities can enable caregivers to identify systemic issues, including a lack of support from employers, health care systems, and the government. This can contribute to collective meaning-making and awareness, which are instrumental in advancing the care movement.

Storytelling: A Catalyst for Cultural and Policy Change

Storytelling doesn’t only lead to healing and community; it can also be a force for cultural and policy reform. Although quantitative data is often used to convey key trends on caregiving, personal stories have the power to put faces to statistics, making it easier for people to emotionally connect with the information being shared. Stories, which are also much more memorable than statistics, have the power to illustrate the complexities of caregiving—the conflicting emotions, moral predicaments, and relational challenges—which statistics alone cannot.

Storytelling also counteracts the stigma around disability, illness, and caregiving. After all, care recipients are often subjected to negative stereotypes that depict them as pitiful, weak, or incompetent, instead of as inspirational beings with purposeful lives who are deserving of support, respect, and dignity.

There is also significant social stigma against caregivers. On one hand, they may be perceived as “unsung heroes.” Yet, their care efforts are commonly viewed as “not real work,” and they are therefore seen as undeserving of support and recognition. Caregiving is also commonly viewed as “women’s work” or associated with certain ethnic and cultural groups. Furthermore, caregivers who are employed are often perceived by their peers as less dependable and less committed to their careers. Sharing personal stories can combat such stigma and shift attitudes by humanizing and normalizing care while highlighting the unique challenges and remarkable resilience of both caregivers and their care recipients.

Moreover, stories that spotlight the emotional, physical, and financial strain associated with family caregiving and care work can reveal structural economic disparities, systemic failures in healthcare access, and flawed labor policies. As a result, the care movement uses storytelling not only to expose gaps in the care economy but to reconceptualize caregiving as essential labor and push for a reformed care infrastructure. Narratives are also a powerful tool for evoking compassion and understanding and rallying supporters.

A notable example of this approach to storytelling is the work of Ai-Jen Poo, one of the most well-known caregiver advocates in the U.S. As a leader of the nonprofits Caring Across Generations and National Domestic Workers Alliance, Poo has spent her career using stories to highlight the value of care and push for legislation that benefits the caregiving community.

For instance, she has pushed for investing in care infrastructure by passing progressive tax reform. She has also advocated for expanding Medicaid to include more home and community-based services. Furthermore, she has proposed implementing Universal Family Care, a social insurance model similar to Social Security, which would fund child care, long-term care, paid family and medical leave, and disability services.

Poo has advocated for such policy reform through grassroots campaigns, coalition efforts, media appearances, and Congressional hearings. In doing so, she has presented care stories as evidence of systemic challenges rooted in weak policies, labor issues, and cultural and social norms. This depiction of care stories turns storytelling into a galvanizing force that connects personal narratives to collective calls for policy change.

Many organizers, movement builders, and nonprofit advocacy groups use storytelling with the same purpose. For instance, following the 2018 passage of the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act, several nonprofits collaborated to develop a national, multi-sector strategy to support caregivers. To ensure the strategy’s recommendations would align with the diverse needs of the caregiving community, the federal Administration for Community Living worked with the NAC, the National Academy for State Health Policy, and Community Catalyst to collect and analyze caregiver stories. The narratives were gathered through public requests for information (RFIs), dedicated listening sessions, and interviews.

Overall, more than 1,600 caregivers and organizations responded to the RFIs, 150 organizations and 80 caregivers participated in listening sessions, and 26 caregivers shared their in-depth stories in interviews. The narratives—many of which centered on financial struggles, lack of support, the need for respite, and the frequency of burnout and depression—were compiled to develop the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers. The strategy focuses on championing caregivers by expanding visibility and outreach, increasing services and resources, strengthening workplace policies, adopting more research-based practices, and recognizing caregivers as crucial members of healthcare teams.

The strategy mapped out 350 actions for federal agencies and 150 suggestions for states, local communities, and employers. The strategy is meant to be updated biennially based on caregiver needs.

Storytelling has played a significant role in the passage of many pieces of care legislation, helping to shed light on who caregivers are and how society should support them. In this way, storytelling is a powerful tool for inserting lived experience into theoretical discussions. Leaders like Poo have shown that care stories are central to policy reform, shaping political visions for a stronger care infrastructure.

Examples of Caregiver Storytelling in Action

One notable example of a caregiver who has made an impact through storytelling is Matt Cauli, a social media influencer who has shared his story in the PBS documentary Caregiving, made appearances on TV shows like Tamron Hall, and spoken at various panel discussions to advocate for caregivers.

In 2020, Matt became a caregiver for his wife, Kanlaya Cauli, when she suffered two strokes due to an undiagnosed form of ovarian cancer called clear cell carcinoma. The strokes caused brain damage and led to paralysis on the left side of her body. Matt has since been her primary caregiver, assisting with showering, eating, exercising, caring for wounds, and other activities of daily living. Because of the stressors of caregiving combined with the pressures of raising his and Kanlaya’s young son, Matt ultimately had to quit his job and become a full-time caregiver.

Once Matt started sharing his and Kanlaya’s story on TikTok and Instagram, his followers and online engagement soared. Although his content sometimes discusses the rewards of caregiving, including milestones in Kanlaya’s recovery, it more often highlights the emotional, physical, and financial toll on his family.

By recounting his experiences in an emotional and relatable way, Matt has increased public visibility of caregiving and used storytelling as a tool for informal advocacy. Specifically, he has called for government programs to be more accessible, advocated greater flexibility for working caregivers, and argued that home care should be more affordable. He has also spoken out against New York’s paid caregiver program because it excludes spouses and parents from qualifying as paid caregivers.

Matt’s social media pages have also become a safe space where other caregivers can find community and validation. His relatable posts have sparked passionate conversations among his followers about topics such as caregiver burden and the broken state of the American health care system. Followers often confide in each other about emotions like guilt, sadness, and resentment—feelings they may not feel comfortable discussing with non-caregivers. They frequently share their stories, offer each other advice, exchange resources, and empathize in ways only fellow caregivers can, because they understand each other’s pain firsthand.

Another example of a caregiver-turned-storyteller is Kate Washington, author of the critically acclaimed 2021 book Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America, which offers a data-driven look at the invisibility of caregivers. She has also written articles for the New York Times and Time Magazine, and has recounted her story in various interviews and care podcasts.

Washington has shared her experience of unexpectedly becoming a caregiver for her husband, who was diagnosed with lymphoma and subsequently needed a stem-cell transplant that led to a severe infection, leaving him temporarily blind, immunocompromised, and too frail to walk on his own. As a result, he required intense, 24-hour home care, which consisted of 35 daily medications, intravenous nutrition, glucose tests, and help with toileting and bathing. The pressures of caregiving, in addition to working and raising her two daughters, soon led Washington to become burnt out and depressed.

In her book and personal essays, she calls for more structural support for caregivers, including tax credits, paid family and medical leave, and more access to home- and community-based long-term care and support resources. She also advocates for creating more jobs and work protections for home care workers.

Like Matt’s, her narrative resonates with caregivers, validates their experiences, and fosters a sense of community and recognition by rejecting the common “heroic” depiction of caregiving and instead disclosing the anguish, frustration, and sorrow associated with it. Because of her story’s relatability and honesty, her book has become a crucial voice for caregivers. It is commonly referenced as a resource for those seeking to transform policy on the care crisis.

Actor and filmmaker Seth Rogen and his wife, Lauren Miller Rogen, have also shared their caregiving story through various campaigns and multimedia projects. The Rogens became caregiver advocates after Lauren’s mother, Adele, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 55. She gradually forgot how to speak, feed herself, get dressed, and go to the bathroom on her own. When Lauren’s father—her primary caregiver—became burnt out, the family hired 24-hour professional care.

Inspired by their family’s caregiving experience, the Rogens started the nonprofit Hilarity for Charity in 2012. The organization shares Adele’s story and uses humor to humanize caregiving and raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease. Storytelling is a critical part of their fundraising strategy, helping them raise millions of dollars through star-studded comedy events, peer-to-peer fundraising, digital campaigns, and corporate sponsorships. The funds have been allocated toward Alzheimer’s research and have granted hundreds of thousands of hours of paid in-home care to caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s and related dementias.

In 2014, Seth testified on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee. He shared Adele’s story and advocated for more federal funding and focus on Alzheimer’s disease. His testimony garnered significant public attention, prompting media coverage of the needs of caregivers and care recipients.

In 2021, the couple wrote an opinion piece for CNN announcing they had joined the Paid Leave Alliance for Dementia Caregivers. In the article, they advocated for paid family and medical leave. They called on Congress to provide more flexible workplace policies and greater financial support for caregivers who have had to leave their jobs or accept lower-income roles.

Moreover, the Rogens produced the critically acclaimed 2025 documentary Taking Care, which recounted Adele’s story, detailing the deterioration of her health until her passing in 2020. The purpose of the documentary is to reduce the stigma of the disease, raise visibility of the toll of caregiving, and advocate for policies that improve conditions for caregivers.

The Rogens have also created a community around caregiving by launching CareCon, a free, annual, virtual event that offers resources for caregivers. They also offer free, online caregiver support groups for those experiencing isolation. Moreover, they rally young people to unite and become advocates for care through their Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s program.

Collectively, millions of caregivers like Matt, Washington, and the Rogens reshape public understanding of care and contribute to policy reform through their storytelling. At the movement level, leaders like Poo amplify these voices, using them to reframe care as essential and fight a system that devalues it. Together, the caregivers who share their stories and the movement leaders who spotlight them have become critical to the push for cultural, social, economic, and policy change.

Platforms, Trends, and the Future of Caregiver Storytelling

Although some caregivers still use traditional storytelling methods, such as writing grief memoirs or self-help books, the evolution of digital technologies has enabled caregivers to quickly and conveniently share their stories across geographic barriers. This expansion of digital platforms has played a critical role in normalizing candid conversations about care and creating a cultural shift that values care as essential work.

For instance, caregivers are increasingly turning to social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Many creators on these platforms use artificial intelligence to streamline content creation and produce relatable, meaningful narratives about the realities of caregiving. Online newsletters and blogs about caregiving are also growing in popularity, exposing the complexities of care while also fostering community.

Additionally, there has been a substantial move from in-person support groups to digital formats. These discussions may take place in Facebook groups or on video conferencing platforms like Zoom, providing caregivers with convenient ways to find validation, resources, and emotional support from home.

Furthermore, although some care advocacy organizations still host in-person gatherings, virtual events like CareCon and the Alzheimer’s Caregiver Summit are also on the rise. These events help raise awareness of systemic issues and enable guests to share solutions to the care crisis.

There has also been an increase in podcasts dedicated to caregiving. Some popular examples include the Happy Healthy Caregiver, The Caregiver Cup, and AARP’s Caring for Caregivers. These podcasts often invite legal experts, medical specialists, and caregivers to share their insights and champion stronger care policies.

Documentaries focusing on the care crisis, like Rogen’s Taking Care, are also gaining traction. One notable example is actor Bradley Cooper’s 2025 PBS documentary Caregiving, which explores the lives of informal and professional caregivers while calling for a shift in cultural attitudes and policy reform.

The proliferation of caregiver storytelling across various media has contributed to increased policy and academic conversations about the care economy, signaling a shift toward viewing caregiving as essential labor. As technology evolves and new trends emerge, these conversations and stories must continue to be amplified so they can shape a better, more equitable care system that serves everyone.

A Call to Recognize and Support Caregivers

Despite their invaluable contributions to their families, communities, health care systems, and the national economy, caregivers continue to lack the support and recognition they deserve. Caregiver stories shine a light on this “invisible army,” exposing the profound emotional, physical, and financial burden caregivers grapple with daily.

These narratives can also reduce isolation, restore identity, build community, and improve care systems. Listening to and amplifying these stories can transform personal pain into collective strength and build a world where caregiving is viewed as crucial work, deserving of respect, dignity, and support. Progress will become increasingly vital as the U.S. enters an era marked by an unprecedented care gap, with the senior population outpacing the number of available caregivers.

So whether you’re a caregiver, advocate, or ally, consider sharing your story. The care movement can only grow stronger if we let the health care industry, lawmakers, employers, community members, and fellow caregivers hear our voices. By stepping into the light, you can inspire change and pave the way for a better future for all those who provide care.

Criminalizing Childhood: When the Justice System Fails America’s Youth

[Editor’s Note: This article is the second installment of “Does Your Community Care About Children?”, a four-part series by Colin Greer and Reynard Loki that examines overlapping crises facing vulnerable youth in America—including poverty, child labor, juvenile justice, immigration enforcement, and foster care—and highlights how these systems can criminalize, exploit, or neglect children instead of supporting them. The first installment explored how systemic neglect and early childhood deprivation—through inadequate housing, limited access to healthcare, and under-resourced schools—affect children’s development and long-term well-being. This installment emphasizes poverty as the foundational condition shaping children’s experiences, explores how youth are treated as victims or blamed as criminals, and investigates the potential of communities to intervene through mentorship, structured work opportunities, and civic oversight. Subsequent articles examine health, education, and broader policy solutions. Together, the series connects structural failures with practical, values-driven strategies, offering a call to responsibility, attention, and collective action for a more just future.]

Introduction: When “Protection” Becomes Punishment

Does your community care about children? This deceptively simple question carries profound moral, social, and civic weight. Across the United States, children are too often treated not as developing citizens deserving care and opportunity, but as problems to be managed. Systems meant to safeguard youth—juvenile justice, labor laws, immigration enforcement, and foster care—can instead respond with punishment, neglect, or harm. Children bear the consequences of policies and practices they did not create, producing predictable cycles of disadvantage.

Poverty is the underlying condition shaping these outcomes. It is more than a statistic or isolated hardship—it is the framework under which children experience multiple forms of structural deprivation. Children growing up in economically marginalized neighborhoods face limited access to healthcare, gaps in educational opportunities, hazardous work conditions, and heightened interaction with punitive systems. Extreme poverty, in particular, dictates the parameters of possibility from the earliest years. While Black, Brown, and Indigenous children are disproportionately affected, poverty touches children of all races, showing that structural inequity—not race alone—drives risk.

Communities frequently fail children across five sectors of their lived experience: ages of criminal responsibility, juvenile detention, child labor, immigration enforcement, and foster care. Policies in each area combine with economic and social conditions to limit opportunity and perpetuate harm. Examining these systems side by side reveals a pattern: children most at risk are those whose families, schools, and communities cannot buffer against structural deprivation. International comparisons demonstrate that the U.S. approach is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Countries like Norway and Sweden prioritize education, family, and social services rather than criminalization, showing that alternative paths are possible, practical, and effective.

Caring for children requires coordinated action. Families, institutions, and communities must recognize that attention, guidance, and structured opportunity are among the most effective forms of protection. Adults—whether educators, mentors, neighbors, or civic leaders—can prevent childhood from being criminalized, exploited, or neglected.

Criminalization and Detention of Youth

Across much of the U.S., children are criminalized at shockingly young ages. In North Carolina, children as young as six can technically be held responsible for criminal behavior. In Rutherford County, Tennessee, elementary‑aged children—some as young as seven—were taken into custody after watching or being near a minor scuffle, with authorities charging them under a ‘criminal responsibility’ theory that did not reflect an actual crime, underscoring how early criminalization can reach children based on proximity rather than conduct. Arrests of young children signal a community that views youth not as developing citizens but as problems to control.

Racial and disability disparities exacerbate these effects. In 2017–18, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native students were arrested at rates two to three times higher than white students. In 2020, law enforcement agencies made an estimated 424,300 arrests of persons under 18. Children from impoverished neighborhoods are disproportionately caught in these systems, where families and schools often lack resources to intervene effectively.

By contrast, Finland sets the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 15, with younger children handled through social welfare. These international comparisons make clear that early criminalization is a policy choice rather than an inevitability. Communities that respond with punitive measures risk creating cycles of trauma and neglect.

When children make mistakes, communities can choose to provide guidance or impose confinement. U.S. juvenile detention leans toward punishment: children may be placed in secure facilities for minor offenses such as truancy, shoplifting, or skipping school. Solitary confinement, still legal in some states, inflicts lasting psychological harm. About 70 percent of youth in detention have mental health diagnoses, including trauma, anxiety, and depression.

The school-to-prison pipeline illustrates how disciplinary actions often funnel children into the criminal justice system. Once in the juvenile system, they may face detention and adult incarceration, compounding disadvantage—especially for youth from impoverished communities. Children with disabilities and Black, Indigenous, and Latinx youth are disproportionately represented.

Many youths arrested for minor offenses like truancy experience long hours of isolation, minimal educational programming, and insufficient counseling, which research links to anxiety, trauma responses, and reluctance to return to school. Research shows that extended juvenile detention disrupts education, limits access to meaningful schooling, and is associated with higher rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. After release, many youths are more likely to disengage from school and struggle with psychological harms that can make returning feel daunting and traumatic.

Evidence-based interventions can improve outcomes dramatically. Programs such as Multisystemic Therapy and Functional Family Therapy provide family-centered approaches to reduce recidivism. Youth Advocate Programs and credible messenger mentoring pair at-risk youth with adult mentors, fostering guidance, trust, and accountability. Restorative justice interventions focus on repairing harm rather than imposing punishment and have been shown to reduce repeat offenses. Wraparound services provide individualized plans for education, mental health, and employment.

International examples show alternatives. Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland prioritize rehabilitation: secure facilities are rare, stays are short, and youth have access to robust social, educational, and psychological services. Children are treated as developing individuals, not criminals. Communities also intervene informally. Adults who mentor or provide structured work opportunities—restoring the legendary neighborhood “stoop”—offer protective oversight, preventing trajectories toward confinement. Early engagement, attention, and investment reduce reliance on punitive systems.

Exploitation and Neglect Across Work, Migration, and Foster Care

Despite federal laws, child labor persists in the U.S. In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor documented 736 cases of child labor violations, involving thousands of minors in hazardous work ranging from agriculture and meatpacking to domestic labor and industrial settings. In 2024, for example, the Department of Labor reported on federal investigations that found minors—including teens as young as 13—working overnight shifts cleaning meatpacking machinery, such as brisket saws and head splitters, exposing them to hazardous conditions and chemicals while compromising schooling and safety. These situations illustrate the tangible risks behind child labor violations uncovered by the Department of Labor.

Migrant children, often from economically marginalized households, are especially vulnerable. Families facing extreme poverty may rely on child earnings, perpetuating cycles where labor substitutes for education. Unsafe conditions, intimidation, and limited legal protections exacerbate risk.

International comparisons show alternatives. Germany and the Netherlands strictly regulate youth work: setting minimum ages, limiting tasks, establishing hours, and requiring supervision. These frameworks protect health, education, and development, demonstrating labor exploitation is a policy choice rather than an inevitability.

Communities can intervene through structured, education-compatible work programs offering safe employment, mentorship, and skill-building. These programs provide income, purpose, and guidance without exposure to hazards, thus fostering civic engagement and resilience.

Federal immigration enforcement often treats youth as security risks rather than children in need of protection. Border Patrol detention, harsh asylum procedures, and family separations expose minors to trauma.

In 2018, a joint ACLU–University of Chicago report found approximately 25 percent of unaccompanied children in Customs and Border Protection custody experienced physical abuse, including sexual assault, stress positions, and beatings. Thousands more were separated from parents, with minimal oversight or access to legal and emotional support.

Many migrant children come from economically marginalized communities, where families lack resources to buffer migration stress. Poverty, legal precarity, and institutional neglect increase exposure to exploitation, including trafficking.

Internationally, New Zealand and Canada prioritize family reunification and community-based support, providing supervised housing, education, and social integration. Local communities can provide legal aid, mentorship, and trauma-informed education, offering stability and opportunity even when federal systems fail.

Foster care often fails to provide stability. Youth average three to four placements, undermining attachment and emotional development. Trafficking within foster care illustrates systemic failure: about 40 percent of youth with trafficking experiences reported incidents before the age of 18, and nearly 80 percent occurred while in foster care.

Vulnerable children—including Black, Native American, and Latinx youth, children with disabilities, and low-income youth—are disproportionately affected. Many who age out at 18 or 21 face homelessness, unemployment, and limited resources.

Internationally, Sweden and Denmark maintain robust foster care systems with stable placements, trained caregivers, and wraparound services, reducing risk and promoting stability. Communities can supplement formal systems through mentorship, nonprofits, and structured guidance, reinforcing protections and improving youth outcomes.

From Punishment to Justice: Patterns and Solutions

Across juvenile justice, child labor, immigration enforcement, and foster care, children’s vulnerabilities are too often met with punishment rather than support. Austerity, underfunded schools, racial disparities, privatization, and political neglect converge to normalize punitive approaches. International models show that early intervention, family support, and rehabilitation prevent harm, underscoring that criminalization is a choice.

Community attention—the “stoop”—is critical. Volunteer programs, mentorship, civic engagement, and safe work opportunities provide oversight, guidance, and resilience where formal systems fail. For example, credible messenger and mentoring programs connect justice‑involved youth with adult mentors and career pathways—including structured employment, apprenticeships, and reentry support. These programs have been shown to improve engagement, reduce recidivism, and help young people build skills and confidence as they reintegrate into their communities.

State-supported youth employment programs, like New York’s Summer Youth Employment Program, place thousands of teens from low‑income families in paid, supervised jobs. Participants gain workplace skills and income without exposure to hazardous conditions, helping build confidence, job readiness, and connections to future opportunities.

Justice for children should mean support, opportunity, and rehabilitation. Evidence-based interventions—including restorative conferencing, family therapy, and mentorship programs—reduce recidivism and improve outcomes. In Alameda County, California, youth in restorative conferencing programs were 19.6 percent less likely to be adjudicated delinquent within 18 months—a 47 percent relative reduction. Oakland, California, schools using restorative practices saw African American suspensions drop approximately 40 percent, while New York City schools reported a 43 percent decline in suspensions alongside stronger student-staff relationships.

Community-based foster care programs, mentorship, and structured work opportunities provide continuity, guidance, and stability. Civic structures like local commissions can monitor policies, advocate, and provide systemic oversight, reinforcing protections and reducing systemic neglect. International lessons show that early, coordinated intervention, paired with social support, nurtures children rather than punishing them.

A Moral Test for Every Community

The question “Does your community care about children?” is neither rhetorical nor abstract. Across the United States, children face overlapping crises: they are criminalized at alarmingly young ages, exploited through labor, left vulnerable in foster care, and exposed to trauma in immigration enforcement. Poverty, systemic neglect, and under-resourced institutions create these outcomes, but communities are not powerless.

Active engagement—through mentorship, safe employment, trauma-informed services, and civic oversight—signals that children are valued, protected, and supported. Programs that pair youth with mentors, offer structured work, and implement restorative practices in schools show that guidance and support can replace punishment and neglect. Communities that invest in these strategies help prevent cycles of trauma and build pathways to education, employment, and civic participation.

Caring communities take responsibility not only for immediate safety but also for the long-term well-being of children. By acting collectively through volunteer initiatives, policy advocacy, and inclusive oversight, communities can ensure that every child has a chance to thrive. The question of whether children matter is a moral test for every neighborhood, city, and state; the answer lies in whether communities are willing to act, to protect, and to nurture their young and to protect them.

How Human Ecology Education Defuses the Roots of Terrorism

Terrorist attacks, whether by individuals or groups, are usually followed by attempts to explain the rationale and causes behind them. The core reasons, however, lie not in surface-level factors but in the deeper “machinery” of society: the values and worldviews that children absorb at home, in schools, and in their communities. This early socialization shapes the beliefs and perceptions that later guide adult behavior. Among the social mechanisms that can be changed to prevent such attacks in the future, education and community life are crucial.

The definition of terrorism provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that “As a minimum, terrorism involves the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury, or the taking of hostages.”

However, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a deeper understanding of terrorists:

“All direct victims of terrorism are treated as objects to be used—indeed, used up—by the terrorist. But in being treated as an object, the innocent victim is worse off than the (alleged) guilty victim. Insofar as the latter is judged to have done a wrong, he is thought of as a human. … For the terrorist, the innocent victim is neither a human in this judgmental sense nor a human in the sense of simply having value as a human being. Of course, the terrorist needs to pick a human being as a victim… because [that] brings about more terror… But this does not involve treating them as humans. Rather, they are victimized and thereby treated as objects because they are humans.” (Nicholas Fotion, “The Burdens of Terrorism.” In Values in Conflict, Burton M. Leiser (ed.). Macmillan, 1981.)

Nicholas Fotion, in War and Ethics: A New Just War Theory (2007), describes the inherent ambivalence in the analysis of ethical decisions, including in the case of terrorism. However, most cultures adhere to the principles of not killing others, minimizing suffering, helping others, and treating people fairly. Fotion questions whether these principles permit exceptions. Should one, be it a country or a lone wolf, kill to save others, and if so, when? And how do we account for the difference in individual rationalization? Given the variance in justifications for shocking terrorist attacks—which seemingly disregard the cruel act of killing innocents for no reason—there is a need to look at what shapes the personal lives of terrorists and the cultures that influence them to prevent such attacks from taking place in the future.

Confronted with frequent headlines of terrorist attacks, the public tends to associate terrorism as a political act and not a sexually violent one, since these acts are more integrated into cultural norms. But, in actuality, the two forms of terrorism that are most harmful to society are political terrorism and sexual terrorism, whether perpetuated by a group or an individual. A comparison of these two acts reveals an interesting moral hypocrisy that is deeply ingrained in American culture.

Let us first consider political terrorism. A 2017 report by the Investigative Fund and Reveal analyzed “domestic terrorism” incidents that occurred in the U.S. between 2008 and 2016. The investigation found 115 far-right-inspired terrorist incidents. This trend has only accelerated with each passing year, with the far-right extremists being responsible for initiating approximately 66 percent of all attacks and plots in 2019 and 90 percent of such acts in 2020, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Meanwhile, terrorism by the far-left inspired 19 incidents, stated the 2017 report, which included acts relating to animal rights and violent environmental activism. Religious terrorism, post-9/11, led to 63 Islamist-inspired terrorist incidents.

For examining sexual terrorism cases, we look at the CNA Corporation’s “Domestic Terrorism Offender-Level Database (DTOLD): A Data-Driven Analysis of US Domestic Terrorists’ Life Histories,” and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s (2021) “Sexual Violence in Disasters.” Millions of people in the U.S. have experienced sexual violence during their lifetimes.

According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010, “More than half (51.1 percent) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8 percent by an acquaintance; for male victims, more than half (52.4 percent) reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1 percent by a stranger.”

A 2023 study published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics stated that 50 percent of intimate partner violence-related homicides in the U.S. involved guns. The possession of firearms in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide for women substantially. A 2019 study confirmed this and found that “a higher rate of firearm ownership is associated with a higher rate of domestic violence homicide in the United States, but that the same does not hold for other kinds of gun homicide,” stated the New York Times.

Yet the United States has not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, granting equal rights to all sexes under the law. In the absence of federal law, the level of protective legislation for women across states varies widely.

Here is how political and sexual terrorism are often linked. A study published in the journal Terrorism and Political Violence concludes that “adherence to misogynistic belief systems presents a pertinent risk factor underpinning different types of private and public male violence. This suggests misogyny and its violent manifestations that target women serve as an ‘ideological’ justification that aims to uphold men’s power and dominant status, not just at home but equally within society.” The normalization of violence against women by accepting gender stereotypes and inequality ingrained in society builds acceptance for using violence in other situations, such as supporting political and religious ideologies. The connection is critical, but how did it form?

In the United States, the initial division of labor necessitated by the practical hardships of settling in a new country, and the division within the state college system between home skills for women and work skills for men, led to the establishment of a cultural gender divide, which became normalized over time. It was even considered by many to be biologically natural. As capitalism and its markets became economically dominant, those who worked outside the home began to gain disproportionate power in many professional and personal spheres. Women were restricted to household chores and child-rearing and had no means to earn income or gain power. Thus, sexual domination became integrated within society even more, supporting the hypocrisy of using sexual violence to retain control and power over women and political violence to maintain or gain political power. The former was deemed culturally acceptable, while the latter became punishable by law.

Terror hypocrisy in which sexual terrorism is accepted, while political terrorism is condemned, cloaked as ideology, grants permission to terrorize “for a perceived good cause,” and maintains the status quo and tradition by groups or individuals. For a nationally systemic example of this hypocrisy, consider that even though the 1994 Violence Against Women Act allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes, in 2000, the male-dominated Supreme Court invalidated parts of the law that permitted victims of rape, domestic violence, etc., to sue their attackers in federal court.

For another example, the 2020 Boston Review report states, “Forms of gender-specific violence are baked into the structure of law enforcement. … This violence is possible in part because of the extreme power disparity that exists between targeted women and police, which at once enables such violence and shields officers from consequences.”

Nonetheless, violent influences, whether at the national or personal level, or through a group, can move from sexual terrorism to political and vice versa. A 2024 Sage Journals report supports this, stating that exposure to political violence seems to shape male adult behavior toward domestic violence. “[E]xposure to political violence at almost any point in male individuals’ life increases their likelihood to perpetrate sexual violence on their wives… it is the exposure of men to political violence that matters, but not the exposure of their wives.” The report cited “that the critical age bracket is between four and six years of age.” Unfortunately, we are living in an era in which children are seeing incidents of political violence in the media and in communities with troops in the streets. We are also witnessing frequent deportations, protests, and irresponsible gun ownership.

The Beginnings of Terrorism

Terroristic motivations, culminating in group or individual acts, begin at the individual level. The “lone wolf” terrorist appears to be the most difficult to understand. Often, benign demographic statistics obscure personal issues, extreme beliefs, prejudices, slights, or fixations; however, these psychosocial factors are more difficult to quantify statistically.

The composite violent extremism (CoVE) model provides an organized framework for understanding the lone wolf terrorist. The model was developed from initial efforts by law enforcement in the United Kingdom and Australia to prevent emerging forms of terrorism. It was created by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and his team at Valens Global, in collaboration with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to organize and expand those efforts into a framework for identifying the factors that prompt individuals to commit violent acts, thereby making it easier for more government agencies to recognize and prevent acts of terrorism.

The CoVE model shows that personal grievances are not merely isolated complaints, but ongoing narratives of unfairness that individuals replay and reinforce over time. They often involve three interlocking elements: the first two are perceived offense and blaming others for one’s pain, and then a grievance “story” organizes these feelings into a stable identity. Grievances, by themselves, do not automatically produce radicalization, but they create fertile psychological ground in which certain ideologies can take root. Ideology can then function as a cognitive and moral framework that organizes, amplifies, and legitimizes these underlying hurts. Exposure to grievance‑affirming narratives makes minor slights feel more significant, deepens alienation, and reframes ordinary frustrations as deliberate attacks by an out‑group. Terrorism begins to seem justified.

The CoVE model divides potential terrorists into four categories:

  • Ambiguous: People with undefined or “coherent” ideologies.
  • Mixed: Individuals with multiple extreme ideologies.
  • Fused: Those who have a single core ideology but also convey viewpoints associated with other ideologies.
  • Convergent: Individuals with different ideological beliefs who come together to follow “mutual interests.”

The CoVE model also divides the risk factors into four categories that have the potential to lead to grievance:

  • Mental health issues,
  • Individuals’ employment or educational prospects,
  • Positive relationships with non-extremist and non-delinquent peers,
  • Being a member of a marginalized group.

Beginning early in life, the model offers several personal risk factors that contribute to an individual’s developmental likelihood of engaging in terrorism:

Push Factors

  • Marginalization: Feelings of exclusion from society.
  • Social Inequality: Perceptions of unfair treatment or discrimination.
  • Limited access to education: Lack of opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Pull Factors

  • Material rewards: Incentives that attract individuals to extremist groups.
  • Cultural disillusionment: A sense of loss regarding cultural identity or significance.

A National Institute of Justice (NIJ) overview of how lone-wolf radicalization occurs most often in the United States outlines a path that also begins with grievances: First, an individual forms connections with online sympathizers or extremist groups; the potential terrorist then connects with an enabler who, whether unwittingly or intentionally, assists them; then, they broadcast their intent to act; next, a triggering event occurs, which may be personal or political in nature, and they carry out their intent through a terrorist act.

The NIJ report points to ways in which families and friends of a person experiencing radicalization may intervene and prevent this movement toward terrorism by reducing ideological and personal problems and grievances before they escalate. For instance, “prevention and intervention efforts may benefit by addressing beliefs that justify violence and helping individuals to develop identities in which these beliefs are not central,” stated the report.

The preventive approach focuses on two interrelated initiatives: Education and community programs. These measures have positive long-term effects. Over time, they have the greatest potential to reach more people worldwide and deliver exponential generational benefits—they last longer, thereby preventing many recurring costs associated with violent acts. The question is: What educational and community initiatives undertaken earlier in life prevent the eventual emergence of terrorist behavior before it escalates?

The Historical Precedent for Educational Prevention

To answer that question, we examine a single program that integrates both education and community engagement. They are combined and delivered as a single program through an ongoing educational curriculum in local public schools—besides some colleges that offer it—which teaches students how society functions and how human needs, both physical and social, are met in ways that promote health, safety, and social assimilation. This personal education for a higher quality of life, rather than professional education for income, has been successfully delivered for centuries as a single program across many European countries since the late 18th century.

The concept began in Northern Europe with Bildung education, a system of folk schools designed to improve the quality of life for the peasant class living under oppressive monarchies. It has since become an intrinsic part of the democratic socialist form of government in the Nordic countries. It is foundational to their consistently high global rankings in happiness and quality of life. The Bildung idea that personal life and living education are foundational to national success spread, and Lincoln embraced it early in his presidency with the Morrill Act of 1862. The act helped states to set up public colleges using funds from the “development or sale of associated federal land grants. … [t]he new land-grant institutions, which emphasized agriculture and mechanic arts, opened opportunities to thousands of farmers and working people previously excluded from higher education,” stated the National Archives.

The knowledge and skills were thus disseminated to settlers across all states and proved to be a significant benefit to national resilience during two world wars and the Great Depression. In the late 1930s, Myles Horton, an American, visited Denmark to study Bildung education and returned to found the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. It was there, in their 20s, that many of the great civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, studied and developed the principles and practices of nonviolent civil disobedience to advance their human and governmental rights.

During the 20th century, American high schools for many decades required girls to enroll in home economics (HE) courses, and boys in shop and vocational classes. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, as the Information Age approached, schools ceased teaching home economics, also known as family and consumer sciences (FCS), and many schools converted HE classrooms and labs into computer labs. Culturally, however, the gender gap in the division of labor continued. Women continued to assume household and child-rearing responsibilities. Men forged careers. As society became more complex and women developed professional interests and greater legal rights, practical child care and family life became more problematic; this unequal burden overwhelmed women, even those with advanced degrees, while men, without domestic skills, became even less able to live independently.

Today, as family and consumer sciences education programs shrink, fewer boys receive structured exposure to domestic and caregiving skills, which increases the likelihood that unpaid household labor and emotional management will remain feminized and fall disproportionately on women and girls. This disproportionate division of home labor, since the 1980s, has contributed to more marriages failing, more single mothers, more people living alone, and more children becoming alienated. The reality is that an urbanized transitional society that becomes overly complex, without the education to navigate it, is threatening and confusing to people.

Why Human Ecology Should Be an Integral Part of the Education System

Following the principles of family and consumer sciences, human ecology, without the gender stigma of previous titles, is the current personal education program focusing on the different sectors of our human ecosystem; Cornell University expanded and retitled FCS/home economics to human ecology, encompassing contemporary life challenges and needs. As home to one of the earliest home economics departments in the U.S., which began in 1903, Cornell continued its national leadership by setting a new standard for traditional state colleges still using titles from previous eras. Human ecology is a preventive community education program that offers healthy alternatives and practices to counter extreme beliefs and grievances that may take root early in life.

Research by Cassidy Wallace, in her 2020 thesis “Re-establishing the Value of Family and Consumer Science in the General Middle School Curriculum,” underscores the historical and institutional challenges of bringing human ecology into K–12 schools. Wallace notes that without collaboration between traditional FCS departments and other disciplines, preparing a new generation of educators to teach these life skills remains difficult.

By teaching mental health awareness, coping strategies, and emotional resilience, the human ecology program addresses psychological vulnerabilities. Through practical life skills and career-readiness education, it strengthens employment and educational prospects. Social integration lessons cultivate positive relationships with peers, and curriculum content on inclusion and diversity helps marginalized students navigate societal pressures, reducing the appeal of extremist ideologies. In this way, human ecology not only develops practical competencies but also creates a protective environment against grievance-driven radicalization. This approach directly targets the key personal grievances category identified by the CoVE model.

At the individual level, human ecology teaches the knowledge and skills necessary to manage life, navigate social systems, and cope with the rapidly changing physical, social, and political environments in which people of all ages live today. It is the fundamental personal, practical education required to meet basic human needs for physical and social well-being. No matter how economically developed a country is, its people still require significant formal and informal learning to understand and manage life.

However, in America’s competitive capitalist environment, which often serves employers, this universal public education to prevent violence is generally absent and ignored. While there is no direct, large‑scale study showing “FCS cuts can lead to extremism,” there is a plausible chain: the absence of such education reduces life skills and the ability to sustain relationship-building spaces such as improvement clubs, granges, or social clubs. That can heighten social alienation and leave gendered domestic burdens intact, removing an essential venue among members for critical discussion of identity, care, and responsibility.

Vocational training and education in soft life skills are an integral step in preventing “violent extremism,” according to a World Bank paper. “Policy makers see skills and vocational training programs as an important entry point for targeting youth and young adults for… [countering violent extremism]. … [Vocational Skills Development] encompasses basic education, technical and practical skills training and also soft and life skills. It contributes to empowering youth, enhancing their technical and analytical thinking and giving them a sense of purpose resulting not only in employability but also societal inclusion.”

Given that adolescence is a period of identity formation and heightened susceptibility to radical narratives, especially under conditions of exclusion and uncertainty, the erosion of FCS, without the inclusion of contemporary human ecology programs, means fewer universal institutions explicitly tasked with teaching students how to manage everyday life, relationships, and shared responsibilities in a pluralistic society.

Program Design

The design of the human ecology educational program follows Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which posits that a human life path begins with physical and safety needs, progresses to social and professional needs in midlife, and culminates in maturity with self-actualization and the achievement of responsible personal agency. Maslow first addresses primal fears, such as fear of starvation or thirst, being too cold or too hot, or being attacked. These are deficiency needs and arise from the unmet basic human survival needs. These needs should be met early in life, particularly for children. Early fear of not having these needs met exerts some of the strongest influences later in life, on life choices and social integration. This is why a human ecology program begins with what are considered “home skills”: how to provide healthy food, clothing, shelter, safety, and comfort, both physical and psychological.

The middle range of the hierarchy addresses growth needs. Here, human ecology focuses on social integration and the study of the social systems that govern community and national life. At this mid-level, students develop skills that foster social and professional growth, thereby increasing their psychosocial sense of safety and acceptance within a complex society. As students near graduation and transition to adulthood, the focus shifts to the higher levels of the hierarchy that address self-actualization. Students begin to identify and value their personal interests and natural aptitudes, helping them choose a life path that is authentic and meaningful.

Offered at the K–12 level and progressing through grade-level stages that align with students’ maturation, human ecology programs empower students to transition to adulthood confidently with a sense of safety and acceptance, and, after graduation, to live independently—learning to take personal control and seeing the big picture while staying on course, becoming empowered to seek answers before reacting, resolving individual grievances, and not being easily influenced by extreme ideologies.

How Human Ecology Prevents Violence

One risk in the CoVE model concerns relationships. Quite simply, friends. By explicitly teaching students how to evaluate peer influence, recognize unhealthy social dynamics, and choose supportive communities, human ecology lessons strengthen one of the CoVE model’s critical protective factors: positive relationships with non-extremist peers. Students practice conflict resolution, empathy, and collaboration through role-playing, group projects, and discussion of real-world scenarios, giving them tools to resist radicalizing peer pressures. This practical application reinforces moral reasoning and social awareness, reducing the likelihood that grievances are amplified through unhealthy social networks.

The sexual ideology that justifies violence against women begins early. How girls are treated in schools, bullying, and similar actions become embedded behaviors if there are no counteracting lessons. Human ecology teaches young people to find positive values in others and to recognize that being a human being is, in itself, sufficient to entitle any person to dignity and respect. Individual birth characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, religion, race, age, or income, do not define what it means to be a human being; they are natural and cultural differences.

School culture is a living laboratory, both conscious and subconscious, which offers opportunities to adopt healthy behaviors in a protected environment. Without the counterbalance of ethical education—like that provided by human ecology lessons—students may not learn to critically evaluate their choices or recognize the moral weight of seemingly small actions. In that vacuum, biases and harmful ideologies take root. Positive personal values, developed through human ecology lessons on ethics, cause and effect, and the power of cultural influences, build an early framework for life-long decision-making. This principle also extends beyond the psychosocial into the value of learning practical life skills. Lack of these skills predisposes a person toward violence by leaving everyday conflicts, stress, and social pressures to be handled with impulse, rather than with thought, communication, or empathy.

Consider how one example, a human ecology foods and nutrition lesson, illustrates the thought, empathy, and value choices embedded in preparing a meal for a group. The lesson begins by exploring which foods meet human nutritional needs and why. It covers the sources of the food, the production processes, and the ethics of the food industry, while also introducing mathematics and science of real-world applications. Field trips to grocery stores or farmers markets, interpreting labels, and what “organic” means form part of it. Students examine how climate change affects resource availability and the need for adaptation. They learn to be mindful of their class’s personal preferences, allergies, and religious practices. Students plan menus, ensure meals are shared equitably, and prepare the food. They learn to present it attractively, practice dining etiquette, and enjoy the camaraderie of sharing and caring. Cleaning up after themselves teaches them the importance of sanitation and proper food storage.

Beyond practical skills, these lessons explicitly integrate critical reflection on ideology and personal grievance, encouraging students to discuss how inequity, bias, and exclusion affect communities and connect the ethical reasoning from daily activities (like sharing a meal) to understanding how extremist ideologies exploit genuine social and personal grievances. The key takeaway is that with just one meal, students experience that serving everyone best serves their own interests—the enjoyment of a meal with classmates. That realization, discussed and examined in class, begins to permeate students’ relationships in the broader culture as they mature.

In a comprehensive human ecology program, personal value-setting and character development are similarly reinforced through lessons on housing, for example, which provide an understanding of safety, security, and privacy, as well as aesthetics. The lessons also include finance, the legal system, home management, child development, and consumer protection. Each practical life skill increases the quality of life in a complex society. Poor life skills mean that students cannot translate abstract values (dignity, respect, and equality) into concrete choices about friends, groups, and the daily interactions and transactions within the complex social systems of our country and communities.

In essence, it becomes unthinkable to terrorize those whom you have learned, in your formative years, to understand, protect, and provide for. Students see themselves in others because they have learned that every human being shares the same basic needs.

By embedding problem-solving exercises into the human ecology program, fostering peer collaboration, and encouraging reflection on personal and social obstacles, students practice coping strategies and empathy in safe, structured settings. This comprehensive approach ensures that the curriculum does not merely teach practical life skills but actively cultivates resilience, self-awareness, and critical thinking—the psychological and social competencies that can reduce vulnerability to extremist recruitment.

Research indicates that a large majority of interpersonal communication is nonverbal, with some estimates suggesting around 80 percent of communicative impact comes from nonverbal cues (such as facial expressions, posture, and tone) rather than words. Social mobility and professionalism are advanced by understanding how personal presentation, gestures, etiquette, social protocols, and cultural differences are perceived and practiced, fostering positive interactions.

To further illustrate the effectiveness of life skills education in violence prevention, international examples can be instructive. UNESCO, WHO, and OECD frameworks emphasize social and emotional learning, conflict resolution, and civic engagement as part of comprehensive life skills curricula. Pilot programs in countries like Finland, Denmark, and New Zealand have integrated personal and social skills development alongside academic subjects, resulting in measurable improvements in students’ resilience, empathy, and social cohesion. These examples demonstrate that having a human ecology program in schools is not only theoretically sound but also has practical precedent, reinforcing its potential as a preventive strategy against extremism across diverse educational contexts.

In conclusion, the CoVE model demonstrates that violent extremism emerges not from ideology alone but from the interaction of ideology with unresolved personal grievances. Human ecology programs directly address these vulnerabilities by equipping students with essential life skills, social and emotional learning, and practical knowledge for navigating complex personal and social environments. By fostering empathy, responsible decision-making, and resilience, human ecology reduces susceptibility to extremist narratives while supporting individual well-being.

If widely adopted in K–14 public schools, human ecology programs would make these psychosocial and practical competencies universal, helping cultivate a more equitable, connected, and resilient society. For this reason, life skills education must be as core to schooling as math, science, and history. In a world shaped by rapid social change and instability, education focused solely on professional training is no longer sufficient; preparing students for the complete realities of human life is essential to sustaining a healthy, stable, and democratic nation.

Spotting Conspiracy Talk: A Linguistic Guide for the Digital Age

Editor’s Note: This article, by nature of the topic, may include language that is considered sensitive and/or vulgar to some readers.

While we may be most familiar with modern-day conspiracy theories about government intelligence, unidentified flying objects, anti-vaccination, COVID-19, and more, conspiracy theories have existed for centuries.

In July of AD 64, the great fire of Rome destroyed two-thirds of the city-state—which had a population of around 2 million—resulting in widespread death and homelessness. Despite several contributing factors such as intense summer heat, dry winds, and the prevalence of wooden houses, various conspiracy theories emerged, ranging from Emperor Nero “deliberately” starting the fire to “blaming” the Christian community for it.

When the fire began, Nero was in a different city altogether, leading to claims that he had conspired to bring about the catastrophe to rebuild Rome. Coincidentally, the Domus Aurea, an extravagant palatial project, was constructed on a portion of the ruins, which fueled conspiracy theories about his alleged involvement, despite evidence that he also supported relief efforts. In turn, Nero placed the blame on Christians, resulting in the crucifixion and burning alive of many from the religious community. There is also evidence that some Christians believed in prophecies about a forthcoming catastrophic fire in Rome at the time.

While the actual cause of this infernal disaster remains unproven, it illustrates how conspiracy narratives can arise from social crises. Psychologically, fear and uncertainty can be strong motivators, and conspiracy theories empower people by filling a knowledge gap. Socially, tribalism and in-group/out-group tendencies may also contribute to the birth of such theories; a united front can foster a sense of control. These psychosocial explanations reveal that we want to feel in control, and information is power.

Conspiracy in the Digital Age

Unlike in Ancient Rome, our everyday interactions with cyberspace make it easy to access and spread information. Now, more than two decades into the rise of Web 2.0, it might be assumed that social media has led to an increase in conspiracy theories and in the number of people who believe in them, but this may not necessarily be the case. Although evidence is mixed on whether social media has caused a population-wide increase in conspiracy beliefs over time, multiple studies show that people who rely heavily on social media for news are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories than those who do not. A 2022 multi-study report in the journal PLOS One still cautions “not to dismiss the availability of conspiracy theories online, the large numbers of people who believe in some conspiracy theories, or the potential consequences of those beliefs.”

Researcher Keith Raymond Harris echoes this concern in a 2022 article in the Conversation, arguing that even with “very small numbers of true believers [in conspiracy theories], the high visibility of these false ideas can still make them dangerous.” Step Together, an Australian support service committed to ending violent extremism, cautions that the dangers of conspiracy theories include provoking social conflict, increasing prejudices, spreading fear, and eroding trust.

Given the accessibility and visibility of information that the internet affords us, we need to develop digital media literacy that empowers us with critical thinking tools to evaluate the credibility of information.

What Exactly is a Conspiracy Theory?

Before learning how to identify a conspiracy theory, it is important to understand what it is and is not. While the term “conspiracy theory” may sometimes be used in a generic sense to describe a false narrative that promotes misinformation or disinformation, such as fake news, this is an overgeneralized and inaccurate description.

For one, conspiracies can be real or unreal. The Watergate scandal is an oft-cited example of a government conspiracy that did take place.

Michael Shermer, science historian and educator, in distinguishing between conspiracy and conspiracy theory, defines a conspiracy as “two or more people plotting or acting in secret to gain an advantage or to harm others immorally or illegally” and a conspiracy theory as “a structured belief about a conspiracy, whether it’s real or not.”

A 2022 meta-analysis of conspiracy theories in online spaces characterizes these beliefs as “unique epistemological accounts that refute official accounts and instead propose alternative explanations of events or practices by referring to individuals or groups acting in secret.”

More broadly, conspiracy theories are a social phenomenon that uses narrative to explain events, often amid a societal crisis. As humans, we have a proclivity for narrative; we use stories to teach, inform, and explore—not just to entertain. Essentially, they are a device we use to understand ourselves, our experiences, and our surroundings. A 2018 study published in the journal Topics in Cognitive Science explains that “the specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non‐routine, uncertain, or novel situations.” The team of researchers further posits that storytelling is not merely an adaptive activity but also a collective activity, “promoting social cohesion by strengthening intra‐group identity and clarifying intergroup relations.”

Expanding on this component of intergroup relations, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a behavioral scientist, argues in an article for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that societal crises do not solely drive the spread of conspiracy theories. He reasons that it is easier to find an explanation in the midst of a crisis by identifying a scapegoat, such as an “antagonistic outgroup.”

Accordingly, conspiracy theories can be understood as a narrative genre that supports people’s attempts to make sense of an event, especially one shrouded in uncertainty, and often operates in parallel to strengthen social bonds.

Linguistic Features of Conspiracy Theories

Many academic disciplines, including political science, psychology, and sociology, study conspiracy theories to better understand why they are created, how they spread, and how they affect society. Concomitantly, linguistic research offers insight into the language characteristics of this phenomenon, examining a broad spectrum of features, from smaller units of language, such as words, to larger units, such as narrative and discursive patterns.

One tool that linguists use to study language is a corpus. This is a database of text, spoken or written, that is representative but not all-inclusive of naturally occurring language. An example in the context of conspiracy theories is the Language of Conspiracy (LOCO) corpus, an 88-million-word corpus developed by a group of scholars to aid researchers in studying features of conspiratorial language on the internet.

As LOCO’s creators explain in a 2022 article in the journal Behavior Research Methods, while the corpus is a collection of documents from conspiracy websites, “we do not yet know what the language of conspiracy is, i.e., to what extent conspiracy language differs from non-conspiracy language.” It’s important to keep in mind that we can’t make definitive claims that a theory is conspiratorial based on the presence of certain linguistic features. Still, we can use that information, which is heavily context-dependent, to say if it’s typically characteristic of conspiratorial language.

Recognizing Loaded Language

Perhaps one of the easiest linguistic features to spot in conspiracy theories is the presence of strong emotional or persuasive language, which researchers Emily Klein and James Hendler aptly call “loaded language.”

Studies of social media have found that conspiratorial language centers around negative emotions. Words that signal anger (e.g., “hate,” “kill,” and “annoyed”) and anxiety (e.g., “worried” and “fearful”) were shown to be significantly more prevalent in a 2024 study that analyzed a 4-million-word dataset of conspiracy discussions collected from Reddit and X, formerly known as Twitter. Similar results were found in Amos Fong et al.’s 2021 study, which analyzed data from influencers (conspiracists and scientists) and their followers on the X platform. Words representing anger (e.g., “damn” and “hell”) were used more often by conspiracy influencers and their followers. Words representing anxiety (e.g., “threat” and “horror”) were used more by conspiracy influencers, though this pattern did not extend to their followers.

Dysphemisms also reflect the intensity of loaded language. On a spectrum of offensiveness, euphemisms are considered more polite, while dysphemisms are ruder. Klein and Hendler exemplify this with the word “die.” Placing this neutral word in the middle of a spectrum, “pass away” is a common euphemism, and “drop dead” is an example of a dysphemism. Their 2022 study found that dysphemisms about death were used significantly more in anti-vaccination discussions compared to vaccination-neutral posts in online parenting platforms.

Klein and Hendler’s study distinguishes “thought-terminating clichés,” a type of reply that acts to stop any further discussion, as another prominent characteristic of conspiracy-focused language. These types of replies imply that the speaker wants to change the current topic of conversation or end it altogether. Some examples of thought-terminating clichés from their research are “anyway,” “agree to disagree,” “it is what it is,” and “everything happens for a reason.” In emotionally charged conspiracy theory contexts, these are used as a persuasive strategy to convince the listener that further analysis or discussion of the matter is unnecessary.

Identifying Themes of Power and Death

When we examine language at a broader level, we begin to identify discursive themes. These are overarching topics that permeate a text, and they can be interpreted through measures like word frequency and “keyness” (how unusual or unique a word is in certain types of discourse).

In the context of conspiracy language, themes of death and power come forward. Fong et al.’s 2021 study found themes of death (“dead,” “killed,” and “war”), religion (“God,” “Jesus,” and “Muslim”), and power (“government,” “military,” and “president”); both conspiracy influencers and their followers showed significantly higher use of words within these themes. As the team reasoned, these results are consistent with familiar themes of conspiracy theories: Many of these theories center around the killing of large numbers of people or the death of a well-known figure, and they place blame on powerful elites or religious groups.

Likewise, Cosgrove and Bahr’s 2024 study of conspiratorial language on the X platform and Reddit showed that conspiratorial discussions contained significantly higher rates of words that are related to death and power. However, their study found no significant differences in words associated with religion.

Of these themes, power is arguably the most important to watch for, as it is a cardinal element of conspiracy theorizing: a belief that a group in power has caused or acted in a harmful event.

Understanding Disorganized Narratives

Finally, in stepping out to yet another broader level of language, we can look at story- and argument-building: how themes and topics are woven together to create narratives. Logically speaking, we want narratives to be balanced and well-organized, with clear explanations and transitions so that the audience can follow along easily.

In a 2022 LOCO corpus study in Science Advances, led by Alessandro Miani et al., conspiracy narratives were shown to be less internally cohesive than non-conspiracy narratives. Specifically, the text from conspiracy documents was less cohesive within a document (more topics discussed and less word overlap among paragraphs), yet more cohesive with other conspiracy documents (more overlapping vocabulary patterns). That is, conspiratorial texts may appear denser because they assemble and discuss a greater number of topics, but are less cohesive in building a logical, easy-to-follow argument.

Miani continued research on conspiracy narratives in another study published in 2024. Using the same LOCO corpus, the team focused on creativity rather than cohesion, analyzing noun compounds (groups of two or more nouns). As a PsyPost article summarizing the study explains, noun compounds, such as “climate change” and “government surveillance,” “encapsulate broad concepts in a compact form.” This linguistic construction is creative and complex because it can convey a wide range of ideas in a relatively short space (a two- or three-word snippet compared to a sentence or a paragraph). While the study found no difference overall in the creativity of conspiracy texts compared to non-conspiracy texts, it did find that the noun compounds in conspiratorial narratives were more “semantically distant” but less topically diverse.

To summarize, some linguistic features of conspiracy theorizing include loaded language, themes of death and power, and disorganized narratives. But identifying conspiratorial language is no simple task. As such, research into this complex phenomenon is still unfolding.

A 2021 report by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan public policy research organization, highlights the complexity of conspiratorial language and offers one recommendation for future study: we need to look beyond semantics (what words mean) to the larger picture of rhetoric (overall persuasiveness). In addressing some of the current challenges in machine-learning identification of conspiracy theories, the report states that including analysis of rhetoric (what they refer to as linguistic stance, conveyed through variables such as certainty, reasoning, curiosity, etc.) is key in moving from the identification of “talk that opposes or simply addresses” to “talk that promotes conspiracy theories.”

Another finding of the RAND report addresses the complexity of research on in-group/out-group language. Following the earlier discussion that conspiracy theories can, in part, be driven by in-group/out-group social divides, we might hypothesize that “we/us” versus “they/them” language would indicate conspiracy. However, the report explains that these pronouns may not always be used in an antisocial way. In-group/out-group language patterns are more nuanced. The 2021 study, led by Fong, found no significant differences in out-group language (e.g., “they/them” pronouns) between conspiracy and science influencers, but it did find that conspiracy followers’ use of out-group language was significantly higher than that of science followers.

Building a Digital Media Literacy Tool Kit

So where do we go from here? With the proliferation of information in digital environments comes a greater need for building robust media literacy. It is not just conspiracy theories that demand healthy skepticism, but communication with the power to spread misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.

We rely on trustworthy information to make decisions and navigate our world, and in the 21st century, this means learning to evaluate digital media effectively. A 2024 article by the American Psychological Association recommends a four-part strategy: debunking (fact-checking), prebunking (preventive interventions), literacy training (media judgment education), and nudging (deterring people from spreading misinformation). While they acknowledge that this strategy sidesteps the responsibility of systems and institutions, its benefit lies in giving individuals the agency to consume, judge, and act upon information as they see fit.

Several organizations have published educational resources for assessing information in the digital age. In 2022, UNESCO published guidelines for educators as part of its “Pause” social media campaign responding to COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Libraries also offer guidance on information way-finding, from universities like the University of Toronto to local libraries like the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland. Among these guidelines are resources for fact-checking, example questions for investigating author credibility and potential source bias, reminders to consider your own beliefs, and more.

The following are three acronymic strategies for evaluating the trustworthiness of information online. Consider choosing one that resonates with you most to add to your digital media literacy tool kit:

1. SIFT

The SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield, an expert in digital literacy, as a four-step process for sifting through online information. Stop to consider your initial reaction as well as what you may (or may not) already know about the topic and source of the information before reading further. Investigate the source of the information by evaluating the author/poster/organization’s mission, authority, potential biases, and any vested interests. Find better coverage: do other sources corroborate or contradict the information? Trace information to its source. This includes checking links or consulting bibliographic references to see whether the information has been presented accurately per its original context. Caulfield points out that this strategy is vital not just for our own information-sifting but as an ethics-forward method to follow before sharing information with others (for example, reposting via social media).

2. CRAAP

The CRAAP test for assessing information was developed by librarian Sarah Blakeslee at California State University, Chico. In the words of Blakeslee, it’s a helpful mnemonic for asking, “Is this CRAAP?” In cases where events are evolving or unfolding in real time, information should be current: is it recent and up to date? Make sure the information is relevant to answering your question. The key here is to refine your search until you find information that is most applicable, instead of settling for close enough. Verify the source’s authority by checking credentials and expertise. Evaluate the accuracy of information; it should be both factual and correctly interpreted. And lastly, question the purpose of the information: Is it biased? What are the motives behind circulating this information?

3. IMVA/IN

The IMVA/IN method from Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy is designed for evaluating information from news media. Sources of information should be impartial; be wary of sources with a vested interest in the outcome. Review multiple sources to compare how they represent information. Look for verification of information rather than assertions that lack evidence. Authoritative/informed sources, such as an expert, are more reliable than their non-authoritative counterparts. Generally speaking, named sources foster more credibility than unnamed sources; however, this must be balanced with cases that require or call for anonymity.

When it comes to building a toolbox for recognizing conspiratorial language, it’s more about developing a critical approach rather than an impossibly perfect lie detector test. We can use our judgment of specific linguistic features, combined with their context, as a catalyst for further investigation. As Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook state in The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, “conventional thinking that values healthy skepticism, evidence, and consistency are necessary ingredients to uncovering real attempts to deceive the public.” This is the same approach we should take with language that seems conspiratorial.