Archive: Jan 2025

A phone with earphones plugged in, displaying the Spotify logo. “spotify musique mp3” by downloadsource.fr is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

In 2016, Spotify launched a viral campaign called “Spotify Wrapped,” which aggregates users’ listening activity and info from the past year, showing key statistics like how many minutes of music they listened to, their top artists, genres, and songs. Since then, people have annually taken to social media to post the highlights of their Spotify Wrapped and reflect on their public-facing reputation. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music feature social media-like interfaces, including a profile, friends list, and listening activity streams, which broadcast private listening activity to virtual communities. Features like these pose questions about how data collection and streaming shape how we perform our identities. 

In a recent article, Michael James Walsh argues that self-presentation via social media contributes to the blurring between our public and private identities. Walsh draws from Erving Goffman, who likens interactions to performances on a stage. The front stage is carefully managed to ensure a convincing performance to others, while the backstage is where we prepare for these performances. In the backstage, nobody is watching, so we can be our “true selves.” 

Through interviews with music streaming service users in Australia during COVID-19, Walsh found that blending social media and music listening enables distant individuals to monitor and react to each other’s taste in music. Spotify’s social media-like features heighten user’s consciousness of what they are listening to and how their social networks may react.Spotify’s social media-like features heighten user’s consciousness of what they are listening to and how their social networks may react. One interviewee expressed discomfort with how their music and state of mind are broadcasted to their social networks: “Sometimes you listen to things in a personal context. You don’t necessarily want to communicate how you’re feeling with other people.” Another interviewee cited the Spotify Wrapped feature as a source of undesired self-consciousness: “There’s that wrap up at the end of the year. So, I’m also slightly conscious of how much I’m listening to something and, you know, like it’s not… is it embarrassing, but is it?”

Walsh finds that users also feel resigned to the sheer amount of data collection we experience today. Compared to previous eras of private listening, from records to cassette tapes to CDs to iPods, streaming services make listening activity broadcastable to friends and followers and recorded by companies. Ultimately, this article highlights how the social media-like features of music streaming today contribute to worries about our public reputation and the burden of constant data collection. 

Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks before a rally in Pennsylvania. “Donald Trump Rally 10/21/16” by Michael Candelori is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Many people feel that politicians in power don’t represent them. For instance, in 2016, US presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” of elite corruption if he won the election. This appealed to many populist voters, who generally feel that society is ruled by a corrupt elite who don’t represent the people. But what happens when a politician who based their campaign on this populist sentiment gets elected?

In a recent study, Yuchen Luo examined how people’s populist views changed after the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. She did this by comparing survey results from 2016 and 2020. Perhaps not surprisingly, she found that Trump supporters were less likely to hold populist views after he was president than before.Trump supporters were less likely to hold populist views after he was president than before.

The surveys asked people how much they agreed with various populist statements, such as “The system is stacked against people like me” and “The American people should have more control over politics.” People were also asked whether they thought certain powerful groups help or harm society, including Hollywood, business leaders, academics, and journalists.

Luo found that populist attitudes among Trump supporters declined from 2016 to 2020. The more someone approved of Trump, in fact, the more likely it was that their populist views decreased.  Luo argues that these changes in Trump supporters’ populist attitudes were driven by their feeling that Trump represented them. In the past, these people disliked the societal elite, but once someone they supported was elected president, some of these views changed. These populists became less populist.

Unlike other populist attitudes, however, the views of Trump supporters about elite groups largely did not change. The one exception to this trend was their views of business leaders. Republicans who voted for Trump in the 2016 primary were more likely to have positive views of business leaders in 2020 than in 2016. Luo speculates that this could be because Trump himself is a businessman.

Two young boys running towards the ocean during sunset. “Children Running on Beach at sunset” by Click Sent is licensed under Pexels License.

Despite being one of the richest nations in the world, the US doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to child poverty. Millions of children and their families live at or below the relative poverty line and lack adequate food, housing and income. The COVID-19 pandemic could have deepened this poverty by taking children out of school and leaving many parents unemployed. However, emergency financial support policies during the pandemic actually led to a decrease in child poverty. 

Researchers Zachary Parolin and Stefano Filauro investigated one of these policies, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, which temporarily increased economic support for families. Notably, this act expanded the Child Tax Credit (CTC) making more families eligible for financial support. Examining 50 years of US data, the researchers found that this credit likely had a profound impact on the child poverty rate in the US. They found that the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) decreased from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, making the child poverty rate the lowest ever recorded in US history.making the child poverty rate the lowest ever recorded in US history. 

To put the US child poverty rate into international context, the authors compiled data from over 50 different countries. For example, they found that the US had twice the child poverty rate as Germany in 2019, but in 2021 the rates were similar. Moreover, by 2021 US tax and transfer payment policies were driving down US child poverty at a rate comparable to policies in Norway. The researchers noted that these European countries make unconditional financial support available to all families with children, which is similar to the expansions from the ARP on the Child Tax Credit.

Unfortunately, the American Rescue Plan supports that led to the decline in child poverty expired at the end of 2021, and the SPM child poverty rate quickly rose again to 12.4% in 2022. Nevertheless, this research demonstrates that providing direct financial support to families can effectively reduce US child poverty. While “handouts” are often looked down upon by Americans, the ARP had a significant effect on these families. Although it was temporary, policies such as these can contribute to making children’s formative years more safe and stable.