Silicon Canals

Psychology says people who have made peace with their worst choices aren't usually in denial or pretending; they've done something harder, which is to find the thread …

The worst thing I ever did took about four weeks, and I did it in a good mood. Early 2020. I stood in front of my staff and ...
Silicon Canals

The things a person with high standards will never tolerate in a relationship, read through the research rather than the meme, come down to two failures far more ser…

Relationship checklists obsess over status and appearance, but decades of research points to just two failures—both about ...
Silicon Canals

Twentysomethings who feel quietly derailed by their own life aren't uniquely broken — a study spanning eight countries, from Athens to Jakarta, found the same crisis e…

There's a particular kind of unease that shows up sometime in the twenties: the sense of having built a life that technically ...
Silicon Canals

Psychology says people who feel more empathy for animals than for strangers aren't morally confused — they are often responding to the fact that animals cannot advo…

The dog that lived outside my old building in Bangkok had a limp, a chewed-up ear, and the general air of a creature who'd ...
Silicon Canals

Psychology says people who wear black more than any other colour aren't trying to look mysterious or intimidating — they're often the ones who decided long ago tha…

I did an inventory of my wardrobe last month, mostly to work out why laundry day had started to feel like a rerun. Eleven ...
Silicon Canals

Psychology says people drawn to music and films from before they were born are not usually longing for memories they actually lived — they are often reaching for an e…

A friend's daughter played me her favourite song last week. It came out in 1977. She's seventeen, which makes this roughly ...
Silicon Canals

Can the planet only be saved by moving beyond capitalism? We map the strongest case its supporters make, from degrowth to the doughnut, against the decoupling e…

The claim that the planet cannot be saved without moving beyond capitalism is one of the more consequential arguments in ...
Silicon Canals

People who say a breakup physically hurts aren't being dramatic — brain scans taken while they looked at a photo of their ex lit up the same regions as an actual burn be…

Is there a version of you whose brain can’t actually tell the difference between a breakup and a burn? In 2011, a research ...
Silicon Canals

During The Exorcist’s 1973 release, some cinemas reportedly kept medical help nearby as audiences fainted, vomited, and fled the aisles — turning the movie itself …

Four St John Ambulance crews once stood in a Cardiff cinema foyer, on duty, waiting for a film to start knocking people over.
Silicon Canals

People who cannot bring themselves to throw away birthday cards from people who have died aren't hoarders, they've kept the last surviving handwriting of someone w…

The drawer of old cards from people who have died looks like an inability to throw things away. It is usually something ...
Silicon Canals

Psychology says people who grow solemn and reserved in their 60s and 70s aren't losing joy; they're often the ones who spent forty years being joyful on cue, and hav…

At a birthday lunch a while back I watched a man in his seventies sit through two hours of noise without once doing the thing ...
Silicon Canals

Psychology says people who stay mentally sharp into their 80s aren't just lucky with their genes — they're typically the ones who kept challenging their brain every day ...

People meet her and say she’s lucky. Good genes, they say, like she won something. I’ve watched her fairly closely for a long ...