Author: TheConversation

By Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University We’d all like to be a little happier. The problem is that much of what determines happiness is outside of our control. Some of us are genetically predisposed to see the world through rose-colored glasses, while others have a generally negative outlook. Bad things happen, to us and in the world. People can be unkind, and jobs can be tedious. But we do have some control over how we spend our leisure time. That’s one reason why it’s worth asking which leisure time activities are linked to happiness, and...

By Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University High-profile data breaches at national retail companies get a lot of media coverage, but cybercriminals are increasingly going after community groups, schools, small businesses, and municipal governments. Just in the Midwest, hospitals, libraries, voter registration systems and police departments have fallen victim to one type of digital hijacking or another. Cybercrime is not just a concern for corporate technology departments. Schools, scout troops, Rotary clubs and religious organizations need to know what to look...

By Mechele Dickerson, Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin The American Dream that has existed in this country is on life support, and for some Americans it may already be dead. While recent consumer confidence surveys indicate that Americans seem somewhat optimistic about the overall economy, most polls and studies show that we are anxious about our own economic futures. Many Americans no longer seem to believe that they will ever be financially secure or stable. The belief that you can succeed financially with hard work and determination has been a core tenet of the American Dream....

By Deana Rohlinger, Professor of Sociology, Florida State University The summer of 2019 has seen week after week of protest in Hong Kong. The unfolding events, and how the China’s government benefits from the civil disobedience, serves as a potential propaganda playbook for the Trump administration’s reaction to racial tensions in the run up to the 2020 presidential elections. The protests began June 9 when as many as a million people marched against a bill that could allow suspects to be extradited to China. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, who was appointed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in...

By R. Kelly Garrett, Professor of Communication, The Ohio State University; Robert Bond, Associate Professor of Communication, The Ohio State University; and Shannon Poulsen, PhD Student in Communication, The Ohio State University People have long mistaken satire for real news. In July, the website Snopes published a piece fact-checking a story posted on The Babylon Bee, a popular satirical news site with a conservative bent. Conservative columnist David French criticized Snopes for debunking what was, in his view, “obvious satire. Obvious.” A few days later, Fox News ran a segment featuring The Bee’s incredulous CEO. But does everyone recognize satire as...

By Jeffrey W Ladewig, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut and John J. Green, Professor of Sociology, University of Mississippi The U.S. is still months away from the start of the 2020 census, but the decennial count of the country’s population is already controversial. After the Supreme Court’s decision at the end of June, President Donald Trump conceded that the administration would no longer pursue a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census. Instead, Trump announced that he signed an executive order instructing the executive branch to share all citizenship data with the U.S. Census. He suggested...