Tag: video games
The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood
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Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to
The Lost Boys of Big Tech
The original “Burn Book” from Mean Girls was used to spread rumors and gossip about other girls (and some boys) at North Shore High School. Kara Swisher’s new memoir, Burn Book, tells true stories about men (and some women) who ruled Silicon Valley. In the 1990s, Swisher was a political reporter in Washington, but tuned into the dot-com revolution early and moved to California to cover it. As a handful of tech titans grew in fame and power, so
The Uncanniest Influencers on the Internet
In 1973, the writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated an adage meant to capture the relationships humans were building with their machines: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The line became known as Clarke’s Third Law, and it is regularly invoked today as a reminder of technology’s giddy possibilities. Its true prescience, though, lay in its ambivalence. Technology, in Clarke’s time, encompassed cars and dishwashers and bombs that could take millions of lives in an instant. Technology could be
The Plagiarism War Has Begun
Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET on January 4, 2024.
When the conservative authors Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet accused Harvard’s Claudine Gay last month of having committed plagiarism in her dissertation, they were clearly motivated by a culture-war opportunity. Gay, the school’s first Black president—and, for some critics, an avatar of the identity-politics bureaucracy on college campuses—had just flubbed testimony before Congress about anti-Semitism on campus. She was already under pressure to resign. Evidence of scholarly misconduct was just
The Quest to Build a Better Birdhouse
This article originally appeared in Undark Magazine.
In 2016, Ox Lennon was trying to peek in the crevices inside a pile of rocks. Lennon, who uses they/them pronouns, considered everything from injecting builders’ foam into the tiny spaces to create a mold to dumping a heap of stones into a CT scanner. Still, they couldn’t get the data they were after: how to stack rocks so that a mouse wouldn’t squeeze through, but a small lizard could hide safely
What’s the Worst-Case Scenario for BA.2.86?
One thing we crave after our collective pandemic experience is certainty. If a potentially powerful new variant is out there, we need some answers about it: How fast is its evolution? Will it spread as quickly and widely as Omicron? And will the vaccine be effective against it?
In this episode, I talk with Atlantic science writers Katie Wu and Sarah Zhang. They know a lot, and they are very honest about all the things they don’t know. A few
Baldur’s Gate 3 could have saved Google Stadia
Baldur’s Gate 3 took the gaming world by storm after leaving early access on August 3, making it one of the most successful PC game launches in recent memory. It’s also coming to PlayStation 5 soon, but Baldur’s Gate 3’s wild success has me thinking about another platform the game was originally going to come to: Google Stadia.
Believe it or not, Baldur’s Gate 3’s announcement actually happened during a Stadia Connect showcase
How to level up fast in Baldur’s Gate 3: best ways to farm XP
Leveling up is important in almost every RPG, but for a CRPG as deep and ruthless as Baldur’s Gate 3 can be, being underleveled can make many aspects of the game essentially impossible. Each level provides you with valuable points within your skills, but also the opportunity to learn new abilities for in and out of combat. If you’re too focused on simply trying to complete the main story, sooner or later you will hit a wall and need to
Palia is a delightfully cozy MMO for Animal Crossing fans
Cozy games have become quite the staple in the industry over the last few years, with titles like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons offering players the chance to create their own slice-of-life adventures. But there’s always room for new games in the emerging genre, especially as more and more players look for games that offer intimate and light-hearted experiences.
The upcoming free-to-play massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Palia is quickly shaping up to be a unique entry
Baldur’s Gate 3: release dates, file size, and early access
After many years of waiting, plus months in early access getting things just right, Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally poised for a full release on August 3 for PC and September 6 on PS5, with Xbox consoles not officially confirmed as of yet. This sequel looks to be the follow-up fans of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons spinoff have been dreaming of, with deep character customization, meaningful decision-making, and tactical turn-based combat.
Whether you’ve been following the game’s progress