Trendy Thursday: Five Trends Reshaping America

AMERICANS HAVING FEWER KIDS [02:21]

The Mystery of the Declining U.S. Birth Rate (Econofact, 12/15/22)
How Low Can America’s Birth Rate Go Before It’s A Problem? (FiveThirtyEight, 6/9/21)
Will births in the U.S. rebound? Probably not. (Brookings, 5/24/21)
The real story behind America’s population bomb: Adults want their independence (USA Today, 11/12/22)
The Long-Term Decline in Fertility – and What It Means for State Budgets (Pew Trusts, 12/5/22)
Demographic Contributions to Recent U.S. Fertility Decline (Cato Institute, 11/1/22)
Fertility of Men and Women Aged 15-49 in the United States: National Survey of Family Growth, 2015-2019 (CDC, 1/10/23)
Growing share of childless adults in U.S. don’t expect to ever have children (Pew Research Center, 11/19/21)
Why Is the U.S. Birth Rate Declining? (Population Reference Bureau, 5/6/21)
Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why. (The New York Times, 6/5/18)
Social Security’s Baby Problem Has Turned Into a Multitrillion-Dollar Pitfall (Motley Fool, 2/25/23)
How a Declining Birth Rate Will Affect Social Security and More Money Matters (Yahoo, 6/14/21)

DECLINE IN PATRIOTISM [14:53]

America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds (Wall Street Journal, 3/27/23)
The Happy Patriot, the Unhappy Nationalist (The Atlantic, 7/1/21)
In defense of a reasonable patriotism (Brookings, 7/23/18)
Record-Low 38% Extremely Proud to be American (Gallup, 6/29/22)
Half of Americans say that Americans are becoming less patriotic (YouGovAmerica, 7/1/22)
Here is a breakdown of laws in 47 states that require reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (The Hill, 4/2/22)

WORK-LIFE BALANCE [25:58]

Is This the End of Male Overachievers’ Love Affair With Work? (Bloomberg, 3/24/23)
How the term ‘work-life balance’ is changing for the youngest group of workers (Fast Company, 3/11/22)
America’s Fever of Workaholism Is Finally Breaking (The Atlantic, 1/31/23)
These four charts show how the SAT favors rich, educated families (Washington Post, 3/5/14)
How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition (The Atlantic, 9/19)
“The Meritocracy Trap,” explained (Vox, 10/24/19)
Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions (Pew Research Center, 7/10/17)
Gen Z and millennials actually want the same things at work. But Gen Z has the upper hand. (Business Insider, 11/6/2)
All Generations Seek Work-Life Balance Above All Else (Business News Daily, 2/21/23)
Work-life balance: Evolving views by generation (SFM, 9/17/19)

KIDS NO LONGER READING FOR FUN [34:02]

Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading (The Atlantic, 3/22/23)
Among many U.S. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows (Pew Research, 11/12/21)
Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022 (Pew Research, 8/10/22)
It’s ‘Alarming’: Children Are Severely Behind in Reading (The New York Times, 3/8/22)
Yes, teens are texting and using social media instead of reading books, researchers say (The Washington Post, 8/20/18)
Children are reading less than ever before, research reveals (The Guardian, 2/29/20)
Opinion: Fewer kids read for fun anymore. They’re losing out on more than great stories (Los Angeles Times, 12/28/21)
Young Children Suffer Steep Drop in Literacy following Pandemic Closures (National Review, 3/9/22)
Why American Students Haven’t Gotten Better at Reading in 20 years (The Atlantic, 4/13/2018)
Young students have suffered ‘alarming’ drops in reading skills during pandemic (The New York Post, 3/9/2022)
The Common Core Vs. Books: When Teachers Are Unable to Foster a Love of Reading in Students (The Millions, 1/17/14)
Trends in U.S. Adolescents’ Media Use, 1976 –2016: The Rise of Digital Media, the Decline of TV, and the (Near) Demise of Print (American Psychological Association, 2019)
Kids and Family Reading Report: “Finding Their Story” 7th Edition (Scholastic, 2018)
Media Use by Tweens and Teens (Common Sense Census, 2021)
The impact of technology use on adolescents’ leisure reading preferences (United Kingdom Literacy Association, 3/29/22)
For The Love of Reading: Engaging Students in a Lifelong Pursuit (U.S. Department of Education, 2015)

DECLINING IQ SCORES [39:09]

IQ scores in the US have fallen for the first time in decades, study suggests (New York Post, 3/9/23)
Americans’ IQ scores are lower in three domains, higher in one (Science Daily, 3/20/23)
The IQ test wars: why screening for intelligence is still so controversial (The Conversation, 2/1/18)
IQ scores in the US have DROPPED for first time in nearly 100 years, study suggests — so is tech making us dim? (Daily Mail, 3/9/23)
Online tests suggest IQ scores in US dropped for the first time in nearly a century (Phys Org, 3/10/23)
IQ scores are falling and have been for decades, new study finds (CNN, 6/14/18)
Looking for Flynn effects in a recent online U.S. adult sample: Examining shifts within the SAPA Project (Intelligence, 1/31/23)