Ed Lopez

At some point….this bubble must burst.

Scientists put kids through 100 hours of reading, then scanned their brains. New wiring had physically grown inside the language regions. Communication between brain areas sped up by a factor of 10. Kids who didn't read showed zero change. That was a 2009 Carnegie Mellon study. It gets wilder. In 2013, Emory University scanned 19 students every morning for 19 straight days while they read one novel chapter each night. Mornings after reading, the brain areas responsible for understanding other people's emotions lit up with new connections. So did the region that processes physical sensation. Their brains were simulating what the characters felt, as if it were happening to them. Those changes stuck around for 5 days after they finished the book. Now flip to scrolling. A massive review published in Psychological Bulletin last September pulled together 71 studies covering 98,299 people. Heavy short-form video use (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) showed a clear pattern: worse attention, weaker self-control, and more anxiety. Consistent across teenagers and adults, across every platform tested. Oxford didn't name "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year for nothing. A 2024 brain wave study found that people hooked on short-form video had weaker activity in the front of the brain, the part that controls focus and impulse control. Separate brain scans showed the same thing: heavy scrollers had less activation in the exact regions that deep reading strengthens. UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has been studying this for decades. Humans were never born to read. There's no gene for it. Reading is something we invented, and it hijacked neurons that were originally meant for recognizing faces. Over time, it built entirely new brain circuits connecting language, vision, and emotion. But those circuits only survive if you use them. Stop reading, and they fade. Wolf's conclusion is simple: screens built for speed produce a speed-wired brain. Books built for depth produce a depth-wired brain. One honest caveat: most of these studies are snapshots, not long-term tracking. People who already struggle to focus might just prefer short videos. But the same pattern showing up across nearly 100,000 people is hard to shrug off. The tweet repeats the line seven times. The research backs it up with brain scans, EEG data, and white-matter imaging across tens of thousands of people.

Thoughts?

𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐢-𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 π See you back at the RAC tomorrow at 2 p.m. when we take on FDU! #GMUMVB🏐🔰

This rocks. New St. Patrick's Day anthem. 😎🍀

Over the last 40 years, about 90 non-citizens voted. So far, this year, about 204 women have been shot to death by intimate partners. Literally, everything is more important than a voter suppression bill.

If you are longing for a simpler time that is now gone forever, this video will likely hit HARD… 🥲

Happy international women’s day to this scene

DJ Moore appreciation tweet

@BenjySarlin George Washington's $15,000 (in today's dollars) bar tab to close out the constitutional convention in 1787 is still my favorite thing to share with my students.

More evidence that the global decline in test scores that began after 2012 is linked to the proliferation of smartphones and computers in class: The slide was bigger in countries where students began spending more time on devices (for leisure) generationtechblog.com/p/phones-at-sc…

Jeff Weiner was the CEO of LinkedIn for many years. He said publicly that the number one skills gap in the 21st century economy is the soft skills gap. Not technical skills. Soft skills. Did you show up on time? Do you actually listen when people talk? Do you ask good questions? Do you take initiative without being told? These are basic professional norms that make someone functional in a workplace. Schools teach none of this. In fact, schools actively train the opposite. They train you to wait for instructions, to do only what's assigned, to never take initiative. The soft skills gap is a school-created problem.

Preview: Patriots Host No. 19 NJIT on Friday and Dominican on Sunday Weekend Schedule: Friday, February 27 vs. #19 NJIT - 6 p.m. Sunday, March 1 vs. Dominican - 2 p.m. 🌺🌴GET YOUR TROPICAL SHIRT TOMORROW! 🏡PACK THE RAC! #GMUMVB🏐🔰 gomason.com/news/2026/2/26…

Anyway, women >>>

POSTGAME: Patriots Overpower Knights to Earn Saturday Sweep 🟢Aidan & Jack record double-digit kills 🟡Georgi game-highs in assists & digs 🔰Pats 8-0 over Knights since 2022 #GMUMVB🏐🔰 gomason.com/news/2026/2/21…

If the @ChicagoBears no longer call Illinois home moving forward, the minute they move to Indiana my 43 years plus of passionate fandom is over. Tragically

The not-Chicago Bears? Today the Bears released a statement saying how excited they were for their “vision” of a taxpayer-funded stadium in Hammond, INDIANA. Umm…nope. If you can’t afford to keep the team in Chicago, sell it. Period.

Dear Mother — I’ve returned to the front lines. The battle was hard fought, but in the end we defeated the Hoosiers. May God protect us and the Farm from our enemies for the remainder of the war. March is coming. — KB

Patriots wrap up the weekend with a sweep!🧹 #GMUMVB