How to Become a Person After Smartphones Have Rotted Your Brain

Three prescriptions
Luke Burgis

Current Issue

No. 85

Summer 2026

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Pitch Decks Are Eating the World
Startup lingo has colonized American life. Politicians “iterate.” Think tanks “pivot.” Cities hire “Chief Innovation Officers.” We all “scale” and “optimize.” And tech founders look at the inheritance of civilization and see a legacy codebase overdue for refactoring.

Richard A. Greenwald

Online Exclusives
Spring 2026

Happy Meals
As Americans wonder what’s gone wrong with their food, regenerative agriculture has an answer. Can it ride the vibes and replace the factory farm?

Hannah Rowan

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Winter 2026

Doctor Death’s Messiah
Broke, raving, and living out of his van, for years Jack Kevorkian turned away from his first love — experiments with death — to a side quest: bringing Jesus Christ to the big screen.

Nic Rowan

Special Series

The Lonely Neighborhood

A series by Joseph Lawler about the hidden federal policies that have made our built environment less human-scaled, less hospitable, less lovely, and less conducive to living well together

NEW — Essay 4

 

You Probably Own This 7-Eleven (and That’s Why It Looks So Sad)

 

Earlier in this series:

 

Essay 1: How the Government Built the American Dream House

 

Essay 2: The Bills That Destroyed Urban America

 

Essay 3: The Demise of Real Neighborhoods Is a Story of Finance

How the System Works

What Keeps the Lights On

If you think the power system must run itself by now, you’re wrong. Behind every nicely toasted bagel is a vast network of generators, transformers, computers, wires — and, yes, people in backrooms sweating to make sure the juice flows exactly where, and when, it needs to go. What could possibly go wrong?

Charles C. Mann