Red states account for 3 of the top 5 states for clean energy in 2021
Environmentalism, climate change action and the like are terms usually associated with liberal politics in the U.S. That association might lead one to believe that blue states have a leg up on implementing earth-friendly technologies and practices, but that’s not always the case. In fact, the most recent report from American Clean Power shows the…
Photo credit: Photo via Canva – The Clean Power Report found that political leanings don't seem to matter when it comes to building up clean energy capacity.
Environmentalism, climate change action and the like are terms usually associated with liberal politics in the U.S. That association might lead one to believe that blue states have a leg up on implementing earth-friendly technologies and practices, but that’s not always the case.
In fact, the most recent report from American Clean Power shows the No. 1 state for clean energy installations in 2021 was Texas—a traditionally red state—and it wasn’t even a close contest.
Texas had more than double the clean power additions as the No. 2 state, California, last year—enough to power Delaware and Hawaii combined. After the Golden State came Oklahoma, Florida, New Mexico, Kansas, Illinois, Virginia, Indiana and Georgia. In other words, a total political mix.
According to the Clean Power Report, the states with the highest growth rates for clean power were Alabama, Virginia and Connecticut—also a political split.
In fact, throughout the report, we see states where legislators tend to reject climate change policies actually embracing clean energy sources.
For example, the report shared which states hold the most cumulative capacities for the three primary clean energy sources—wind, solar and battery storage. The top five states in each category are:
WIND
1. Texas
2. Iowa
3. Oklahoma
4. Kansas
5. Illinois
(Four out of five = traditionally red states.)
SOLAR
1. California
2. Texas
3. North Carolina
4. Florida
5. Nevada
(Three out of five = traditionally red states.)
BATTERY STORAGE
1. California
2. Texas
3. Florida
4. Massachusetts
5. Illinois
(Two out of five = traditionally red states.)
So what’s the story here?
There are several reasons why renewable energy is booming in conservative areas.
One is that it simply makes good economic sense. Wind and sun are free and plentiful, so once the initial investment is made in the infrastructure to generate power from them, they are more cost-efficient than fossil fuels.
Another is that these clean energy sources make land more valuable. If farmers and ranchers can lease out their land for a wind turbine or solar farm, it’s good for their bottom line in addition to being good for the Earth. Some see it almost as an insurance policy that keeps them afloat during drought or crop failure years.
A third reason is that these clean energy sources create jobs. Lance Hull, an Oklahoma power plant manager who switched from natural gas to wind power, explained to CNN how the move took the plant from around 30 to 40 employees to about 50, negating the argument that dropping fossil fuels kills jobs.
“There are a lot of jobs with the wind farm that you don’t have at the typical power plant,” Hull said. “Industries change, things change, but there’s a lot of automation in the gas plants as well. It’s automatic control, people monitoring operations. It’s very similar.”
President and founder of the American Conservation Coalition Benji Backer says focusing on those benefits is exactly how to bring more conservative-leaning people into the climate conversation.
“These states aren’t embracing these energy sources because they are necessarily better for the climate,” he tells Upworthy. “They’re doing it because it’s good for the economy, and it’s creating jobs and it’s lowering their energy costs.”
Backer says we need to stay open-minded about how we bring people into the climate dialogue because there are lots of ways to push toward a pro-climate future.
“It doesn’t really matter why people embrace certain energy sources—it’s what actually ends up occurring because they embrace those energy sources,” he says. “There needs to be a bigger focus on tangible, relatable impact in people’s lives, whether that’s improving their day-to-day life by lowering costs or creating a job or creating efficiency in their life.
“Those are the sorts of things people take action on,” he adds. “That builds real support, not just political support, and it allows things to happen like we’ve seen in these red states.”
Backer says focusing on the benefits to people’s daily lives, not what they might lose, is the key to reaching more people with climate change messaging.
“By fighting climate change, we’re giving a lot of opportunities to communities and improving lives, instead of taking away.” he says.
It’s not as if environmental protection is unfamiliar to conservative ideology. In fact, the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association were all started under Republican presidents. The Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 were championed and passed by Republican administrations. A Republican president also signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
There is a long history of conservative conservation (it’s right there in the name, after all), so it’s a shame that the political divide has pushed so many away from those roots. Hopefully, these clean energy numbers are a sign that the tide is turning. Climate change is apolitical and all of us benefit from environmental protection regardless of political ideology. As long as we ultimately end up on the same page with our actions, how and why we get there doesn’t really matter.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
There are several stories written about music taming the savage beast, but this is no fairy tale. A video shows a small pride of lions in an enclosure hear the acoustic guitar and soothing singing of a French singer-songwriter covering Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.” One would think that the animals would be annoyed or ignore the music period. Instead, something heartwarming happened.
One by one, the lions approached the musician known as Plumes as he performed. They calmly laid down and started yawn-singing to the tunes while nuzzling one another, with two lions cuddling less than a yard from where Plumes sat and played. The lions were relaxing and enjoying the concert along with their afternoon nap, showing off the gentler side of the predatory wild cats.
People remarked upon the lion’s reaction to Plumes’ tunes:
“Wow! That is truly an incredible interaction with them. They really enjoyed your singing to them.”
“Omg, the way they cuddle.”
“What a beautiful interaction to witness.”
“Music is the universal language!”
“That was so magical! Music speaks to the soul. Human, animal, all relate to the feelings music evokes.”
This isn’t the only time Plumes has performed for an animal audience. In fact, his social media and YouTube channel show videos of multiple concerts for humans and creatures alike. He not only has played his guitar and sang for lions, but for tigers and bears (oh my!) among many other animals at wildlife refuges, enclosures, and zoos.
While Plumes performs his music for a wide variety of animals today, he started at home, playing for a herd of cows in the French countryside while living with his grandmother.
“I read somewhere that cows like music, that it’s soothing to them,” Plumes shared with AMFM Magazine. “They were super receptive. They gathered around, some even rubbed against me. It was magical.”
Since then, Plumes had been taking the opportunity to warm up his vocal chords and provide various animals a free mini-concert throughout his tours and travels, recording video of their reactions to his music.
“Animals inspire me to be kinder, more patient,” he added. “They remind us to reconnect with nature. Maybe we’ve lost touch with nature, and these videos help people feel that connection again.”
Understandably, most people believe music and music appreciation are uniquely human traits, but there are studies that music isn’t exclusively for homosapiens’ enjoyment. Some studies show different species reacting positively to music in different ways. Chimpanzees sway to music, dogs tend to show calmer behaviors when listening to classical music, and sea lions synchronize their head movements to a song’s beat, just to name a few. There are veterinarians that suggest creating a music playlist for your dog to play when leaving the house so it helps reduce their separation anxiety.
It’s interesting to see how music impacts different animals in different ways, especially if music helps them. Over time, who knows how much music will bring man and animal closer together. If a lion can enjoy Guns N’ Roses, the possibilities are nearly endless.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
If you’re not one, you probably know one: conscientious people are never late, they’re organized, and their word is their bond. They do things the “right” way. They like things in order. And they have a strong, nearly unbreakable sense of right and wrong.
They’re often good people. Very good. It’s hard to imagine there could be a downside to this personality type. But new research indicates there’s a little more to it than meets the eye.
New research reveals the costs of being too “good”
A recent study out of the University of Galway aimed to find out how personality traits affect the way we experience emotions.
Researchers began by measuring participants using a Five-Factor Model, which breaks personality into five key dimensions: Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness.
Then they exposed the volunteers to several video clips which were each designed to elicit a specific emotion: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise.
Interestingly, the clip the team chose to elicit joy was none other than the famous diner scene from When Harry Met Sally: a comedy classic.
People who scored high in conscientiousness were among the only group to react negatively to finding the scene funny or enjoyable. It did not trigger nearly as much joy in this group as it did for the others.
The research team theorized that, with such a powerful correlation, it was relatively safe to say that extremely orderly, structured, and conscientious people may have a lower capacity for experiencing spontaneous joy.
But there’s still a powerful upside to being conscientious
Here’s the tradeoff: while highly conscientious people laughed less and felt less joyful during the comedy scene, they also reacted less powerfully to the scene that primarily stimulated sadness.
What scene was that? The Lion King, of course. You know the one.
The findings suggest that, perhaps, living a structured and highly-orderly life can protect against negative emotions—even at the cost of some of the good ones.
Think about it. Imagine a person who never misses a deadline, forgets to pay a bill, or runs a red light. They’re never in trouble. People don’t get angry at them. They don’t wind up on probation at work or, worse, in jail.
“How people structure their environment may be a key shield from experiencing sadness, which may represent a significant motivator for people high in orderliness if they are sensitive to this emotion,” the researchers wrote.
If that doesn’t sound like a worthwhile tradeoff, another recent study builds on these findings and explores even more of the upside to living a conscientious life.
“Good” people excel at finding meaning and satisfaction in their work
Psychology Today reveals details of another recent study where, again, the Big Five personality dimensions were used to sort people into buckets.
Researchers out of KU Leuven found that highly conscientious people were among those most likely experience a “flow state.”
Flow is a mental state where you become completely immersed in your work, to the point that you don’t even notice the passage of time. It’s sometimes known as being “in the zone,” a state of effortless momentum, and generally people find it to be an enjoyable and deeply meaningful feeling.
“The characteristics of Conscientious individuals are essential for maintaining focus, managing challenges, and regulating efforts toward meaningful tasks,” the study’s authors write.
Psychology Today sums up the cutting-edge research: “Being dutiful, organized, and especially orderly may have its limitations, at least in terms of joy. However, there is the advantage of being less likely to get into the type of trouble that would trigger negative emotions. Then there is the upside of being able to bury yourself in your daily tasks to the point of not becoming bored or finding them useless.”
One bummer for conscientious people: being structured and organized to the point that you’re less joyful and less likely to laugh at something funny might make you less likable overall. But, you probably won’t care: further research suggests conscientious people live longer and stay sharper and healthier into old age better than their peers.
If it all seems like a moot point—after all, you’re either conscientious or you’re not—think again. Personality can, and often does change, over the course of a person’s life. It is possible to dial down your structured, risk-averse ways of thinking and open yourself up to more spontaneous joy. And it’s also possible to become more orderly and reliable, minimizing negative emotions and getting more done.
It’s a worthwhile exercise for anyone to see the upsides of their personality, who they truly are, and to know that who they are never has to be set in stone.
“Emails I had sent to my work were gibberish, so much so that a close colleague escalated to my boss, as it frightened him.” The diagnosis that followed saved her life.
When Becca Valle woke up with chronic headaches in 2021, she did what most people do. She went to her general practitioner, got a diagnosis (migraines, probably sinus-related), took the prescribed medication, and hoped things would get better. According to PEOPLE, the then-37-year-old tried everything to manage the pain, from different medications to morning walks, but nothing worked.
After three weeks of worsening symptoms, Valle started vomiting from the pain one afternoon and immediately called her boyfriend to take her to the emergency room. Before heading out, she pulled up her email to let her boss know she needed the day off.
What she typed wasn’t a day-off request. It was gibberish.
Woman writes an email at her computer. Photo credit: Canva
“Emails I had sent to my work letting them know I was signing off for the day were gibberish, so much so that a close colleague escalated to my boss, as it frightened him,” Valle recalled. By the time she was in the ER, she was texting similar incomprehensible messages to her partner, who wasn’t allowed in with her due to COVID restrictions.
The scan results showed blood in her brain. Doctors performed an emergency craniotomy, a surgery that involves removing part of the skull to access the brain. What they found required a second emergency craniotomy. Valle had glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer.
The diagnosis finally explained the “chronic migraines” that had been plaguing her for weeks. But it also put her on a path she never expected to navigate. CBS News reported that Valle immediately told her doctors she wanted to pursue every possible trial and treatment option available to her.
After consulting with her radiologist and oncologist, she connected with Dr. Graeme Woodworth, Chief of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, whose clinical trials involved drug therapies administered by temporarily opening the blood-brain barrier using ultrasound treatment.
Now 42, Valle describes her diagnosis journey as “interesting” and says she’s been cancer-free for four years. She rang the “cancer is clear” bell back in 2022, though her doctors have warned that glioblastoma can recur.
Still, she’s living her life fully and has advice for anyone facing a serious medical diagnosis: “As much as you can, take control of your journey. Talk to doctors and others who have gone through the same.”
That gibberish email, the one that scared her colleague enough to escalate it up the chain, turned out to be the alarm bell that got her into the ER in time. Sometimes the things that frighten us most are exactly what we need to pay attention to.
Only 1% of this Bolivian tribe develops dementia. They walk 17,000 steps a day, eat almost no processed food, and have never heard of a wellness trend.
When CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta traveled deep into the Bolivian Amazon to spend time with the Tsimané people, he wasn’t expecting to find a population that had essentially solved one of modern medicine’s hardest problems. But that’s close to what he found.
The Tsimané, an indigenous group of roughly 17,000 people living in the lowland jungle near the Bolivian Amazon, have a dementia rate of approximately 1 percent. Among Americans 65 and older, that figure is around 11 percent. Researchers who have studied the Tsimané extensively through peer-reviewed work published in the journals PNAS and Alzheimer’s & Dementia say the gap isn’t genetic luck. It’s lifestyle.
Members of a Bolivian tribe take a break at sunset. Photo credit: Canva
The Tsimané don’t have a wellness plan. They have a life. An average member of the community walks around 17,000 steps per day, not on a treadmill but out of necessity in order to do the fishing, farming, hunting, and foraging in the forest around them. Their diet is roughly 70 percent complex carbohydrates, primarily plantains, cassava, rice, and corn, with around 15 percent fats and 15 percent protein. Processed food, added sugars, and added salts are largely absent. Their diet is dense in fiber and micronutrients like selenium, potassium, and magnesium.
They also practice intermittent fasting, but not as a trend but because food availability has natural limits. They sleep on a consistent schedule. They spend most of their waking hours physically active.
“This ideal set of conditions for disease prevention prompts us to consider whether our industrialized lifestyles increase our risk of disease,” Dr. Andrei Irimia, an associate professor at the University of Southern California who led one of the major studies, told researchers.
The contrast with American life is stark. A study published in the BMJ found that 60 percent of Americans’ daily caloric intake comes from ultra-processed foods. For children, registered dietitian Ilana Muhlstein told Fox News Digital, that figure climbs above 70 percent. The Tsimané’s cardiovascular health, separately documented in The Lancet, is similarly remarkable with some of the lowest rates of coronary artery disease ever recorded in any population.
None of this means moving to the Bolivian jungle is the answer. The Tsimané face real hardships that come with their lifestyle, including limited access to medical care for acute conditions. But researchers are increasingly clear that the chronic disease burden plaguing industrialized nations isn’t inevitable. It’s a product of specific choices about food, movement, and how we structure daily life that we’ve collectively made and could, at least in part, collectively unmake.
The Tsimané didn’t design a diet. They just never stopped moving, and never started eating processed food. The results, it turns out, are remarkable.
One Richmond, Virginia, man shared with WTVR News why he shows up at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU every Tuesday and Thursday to hold babies. Dave Whitlow, 73, has been a baby cuddler for eight years, calling it “the best gig I’ve ever had.”
Baby cuddling involves more than just holding babies
Cuddling babies in the NICU is delicate work. Whitlow puts on a gown and gloves before picking up the babies, who can sometimes weigh as little as two pounds. He’s been trained to watch the monitors while cuddling them. If a baby’s oxygen saturation dips, they may need to be repositioned.
Whitlow, a retired local government manager, also checks with the nurses to see what a baby’s specific needs are.
“I ask the nurse, ‘Tell me. Tell me what this child is receiving. What kind of treatment? Is there anything special I need to know about it?’” the father of two and grandfather of three told WTVR.
But perhaps the best part of Whitlow’s time with the dozen or so babies he cuddles each week is what he whispers in their ear: “Grow strong, grow smart, grow kind.”
That’s really what he wants from people in general, he said.
Charity never failith ❤️ ❤️Lyn Harris, an 80yo Vietnam Veteran, spends his free time comforting babies. He’s part of the NICU Cuddler Program at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. He’s says he’s happy to help the staff and parents. Lyn says it’s very rewarding and he’ll help the cuddles coming for as long as he can.❤️ Credit to @stdavidshealthcare/IG #children#hospital#childrenshospital#volunteer#love
If baby cuddling sounds like a dream volunteer opportunity, check with your local hospital to see if it has a program. Some hospitals have volunteer coordinators you can speak with or sections on their websites for volunteers.
Though volunteer requirements differ from place to place, you can likely expect:
age requirement (often a minimum age of 18 to 21)
commitment of a certain number of hours per week over a minimum time period (such as a year)
personal interview
background check
health screening, including immunization verification and updated flu vaccines
orientation and training
Baby cuddlers serve an important purpose in infant care
Cuddling a baby may be beneficial for the cuddler, but it genuinely helps the infants as well. One study found that the length of stay in the NICU for newborns with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome was six days shorter for babies who were part of a volunteer baby cuddling program. And according to Intermountain Healthcare, research shows that human touch helps a baby’s brain and body develop. Short-term and long-term benefits of positive touch for babies include increased stability in vital stats, faster weight gain, shorter hospital stays, better pain tolerance, improved sleep, stronger immune systems, and more.
Baby cuddling truly is a win-win volunteer experience, especially when you’re someone who whispers words of strength, wisdom, and kindness in babies’ ears.
Some explainer videos fill you with a newfound sense of appreciation for little things you took for granted. This is not one of those times.
“Make hotel scrambled eggs with me,” Elizabeth Emmert, a hotel kitchen worker, began in a now mega-viral clip on TikTok.
However, before delving into the process, she warned, “You might never want them again.”
What followed was a breakfast routine that seemed better suited for a spaceship—or maybe a horror movie
Nary an egg was to be seen as Emmert grabbed a plastic bag full of sunny yellow goop (yum) and tossed it into a microwave. After the egg sack cooked for a few minutes, its yolk-like contents coagulated into a squishy, solid substance. She then cut the bag open, dumped the contents into a tray, and mashed them into small chunks.
“Whelp, that’s ruined my appetite,” one viewer lamented
“[Hotel eggs] taste like they’re made exactly like that,” quipped another.
Why hotels use pre-mixed eggs
There are a few benefits hotels and other buffet-style establishments get from using pre-scrambled batches for their breakfast rushes. The first and most obvious is efficiency. Pre-mixed eggs allow for large-batch cooking in advance, without the need to crack hundreds of shells or do as much cleanup. Not to mention, you get a consistent batch virtually every time.
Then there’s cost. Premixed eggs are significantly cheaper, at around 19 cents per ounce (according to one restaurant food supplier, at least). Compare that to anywhere from $2.50 to over $6.00 for a carton of eggs.
However, this method does come with health concerns
Apart from the fact that these “eggs” may not taste as good as the real thing, there are a few other issues to consider. For one thing, the longer this dish sits out, the greater the risk of salmonella and other bacteria—especially if the tray remains open and the heat source goes out.
Plus, depending on the brand of liquid or powdered eggs the hotel is using, there may be preservatives in the mix to improve shelf life. And then, as many mentioned, there’s the potential consumption of what one viewer calls the “secret ingredient” of hotel eggs: microplastics.
And yet, for some commenters, there simply isn’t a deterrent strong enough to decline a free breakfast
“I mean if it’s free with stay, I ain’t complaining.”
“Girl move, I DON’T CARE. Give me my free hotel breakfast.”
“Lil pepper and hot sauce and some of that nasty cheap bread toasted and I’m all set babe.”
To each their own. But suddenly, the yogurt-and-banana option looks way more appetizing.
In American culture, which still carries a hint of Puritanism from its early years, excessive partying can be seen as hedonistic, immature, and unhealthy. Party people are often criticized for being undisciplined, directionless, and irresponsible with their money.
Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow and expert on Blue Zones, says that going out and dancing until the crack of dawn is good for us and can even help us live longer. He learned the power of partying through his research on Blue Zones, five regions of the world where people live longer and have the greatest chance of reaching 100.
“So in America, we tend to associate partying with decadence. But in the Blue Zones, partying is actually a longevity hack,” Buettner said in an Instagram video. “Why? Because when people get together for celebrations in the Blue Zone, they’re dancing. It can be an all-night dance party where they’re getting great physical activity. They’re remaking social bonds that exist throughout the village, and they last for years.”
Buettner adds that in many Blue Zones, people don’t just party to hang out with their friends; they also help their communities.
“In Icaria, for example, people donate all the food and the wine. The partygoers pay for that food and wine, but the proceeds all go to a school or to build a bridge the village needs or to a family that’s down on its luck,” he said. “So it’s this beautiful, virtuous circle. People get physical activity, build their connections, and help others. That’s what builds a Blue Zone, and that is the foundation to longevity.”
According to Buettner, there are nine common denominators across the five Blue Zones, and their party habits satisfy four of them:
Move Naturally
Dancing and milling about socializing is practical exercise. “The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it.”
Downshift
A party is a great way to de-stress after a hard week. “What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress.”
Wine At 5
There’s nothing wrong with having a drink or two; in fact, it may help with longevity. “People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly.”
Purpose
Having a party that supports the community gives people a sense of purpose. “Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.”
Plant Slant (eating a lot of vegetables and beans)
Belong (having a faith-based community)
Loved Ones First (centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first)
Right Tribe (strong social networks)
Buettner’s video asks us to rethink what’s really going on when people go out to party. On the one hand, it can look decadent, but on the other, we’re building stronger social connections, getting some exercise, and enjoying a few drinks—which may help us live longer.
To your left, the self-checkout area: a collection of blinking, beeping, whirring, computer-speaking machines with bright LED screens and audible prompts to “please select a payment type.” To your right, a single lane with a human cashier…and a line that snakes into the next aisle and out of sight.
You look down. You have six things; the math is obvious. The kiosks will be faster.
But somehow, you and your little basket find yourselves at the back of that winding line.
What’s going on here? If you have ever steered your cart away from self-checkout, even when it is the faster, more efficient option, you are not alone. It may seem like a simple preference on paper: You’re either a “kiosk person” or a “not-kiosk person.” Optimized or old-school. But for many shoppers, that choice is rooted in a human desire for connection and emotional safety, and a small, stubborn refusal to do more work under cameras.
A ritual quietly disappears
Within a single generation, grocery shopping moved from “you hand your stuff to a person” to “you become the person.” For most of the 20th century, buying groceries meant interacting with at least one other human: You chose the lane, loaded items onto the belt, and handed your entire life—cloves of garlic, wine that costs $2, strawberry ice cream, tissues infused with lotion and Vicks VapoRub—to another person. They scanned, bagged, and told you, “Have a good night.”
Today, 40% of checkout lanes at major U.S. grocery chains are self-checkout. They are everywhere: In 2026, 96% of grocery stores in the U.S. offered self-checkout technology, while 86% of consumers claim to use it. You scan. You bag. You look up codes for organic green onions. You do all this on camera, with a disembodied voice ready to tell you about an “unexpected item in the bagging area.”
There was a time when a “full-service checkout” meant that someone else—a trained professional—handled everything. They asked about your day, made sure that egg cartons never wound up at the bottom of your bag, and sometimes carried everything out to your car. It felt like being taken care of.
Self-checkout machines didn’t just replace a series of tasks. They erased the human at the end of a grocery trip.
The importance of “weak ties”
So, you avoid self-checkout lines. Psychologists say a few different things are going on here.
Researchers use the term “weak ties” for the small, casual relationships we maintain with people we don’t know well: the kind cashier who always smiles, the guy behind the fish counter who saves his best salmon for you, and the bus driver who recognizes your face even if they don’t know your name.
Weak-tie connections make you feel important in the world. Photo credit: Canva
Brief, ordinary, easy to overlook—and, for many people, irreplaceable. Toni Antonucci, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, explained the significance to the Daily Mail: Weak ties are “somebody who makes you feel important in their world—somebody who makes you feel human.”
When self-checkout replaces the cashier, it eliminates one of the last reliably recurring weak-tie interactions in many people’s daily lives.
Studies on social connectedness show that these fleeting moments play an important role in our day-to-day lives and measurably improve our mood and sense of belonging, particularly for people who otherwise move through their days in relative isolation.
Imagine the person who works from home or whose apartment falls quiet by 9 a.m. When that cashier remembers something they mentioned weeks ago, they experience the “weak-tie connection.” It’s not friendship. But on certain days, it’s the only exchange that reminds them they exist outside their apartment. It’s a microdose of belonging: proof that they still live in the minds of others.
When habits don’t meet expectations
Researchers who study checkout behavior note that many shoppers—particularly older ones—carry a strong expectation that being served by a person is simply part of what it means to be a customer. It is not entitlement in the pejorative sense. It is a social contract that made sense for decades: You bring items to the cashier, and they handle the transaction. When a kiosk breaks that contract and hands the transaction back to you, it is not just inconvenient; it feels like a small breach in the way the world works.
If you have spent 50 years handing your groceries to a human, your nervous system quietly codes that as “how this is supposed to work.” A touch screen, no matter how “user-friendly,” does not feel like a convenient feature. It makes many older shoppers ask, “Wait, why am I suddenly doing this part myself?”
“These systems aren’t really about innovation or collaboration between companies and consumers,” said Mathieu Lajante, a business management professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. “They’re about maximizing profits while weakening social norms of reciprocity and responsibility.”
Layer tech anxiety on top of that—worrying about “doing it wrong,” getting stuck in the bag selection menu, holding up the line—and the kiosk feels antagonistic. It is an intrusion into a ritual they have followed for decades.
“Am I supposed to be doing this? Really?”
People who do not like self-checkout often hold a strong sense of how labor should work. They remember when a grocery trip included a checker, a bagger, and sometimes even someone who walked your cart out. In their mental contract, paying for groceries includes paying for human help: people who do the things you’re bad at, like the game of Jenga happening in your brown paper bag.
Handing that job to a machine—and, by extension, back to them—can feel like a tiny erosion of what they’re owed as a customer.
When they say, “I’m not doing that—that’s not my job,” it’s not “self-entitlement” or brattiness: it’s a fairness instinct kicking in. They’re refusing to do unpaid work.
All the small stuff in between
Research shows that people who prefer human lanes are often at least partly extroverted: They get energy from small talk, feel safer in familiar social scripts, and like the feeling of being known in their regular spots. Even if they’re shy in other areas of life, the grocery line gives them a structured stage where they know their role and the beats.
And for some, there’s a softer motive: protection. They want to preserve human workers and, by extension, a way of life. They’ve watched their local supermarket cut hours, close lanes, and replace faces with screens. Choosing a cashier feels like a tiny act of solidarity: “If I keep standing here, maybe this job doesn’t disappear as fast.”
3 big reasons you might be right
Then there are the people who see that same setup—self-checkout kiosks to the left, a single checkout lane, and a long line to the right—and make the opposite call.
You know them: the person who snakes past the full‑service lanes and beelines for the one open machine. They move at their own pace, bag their groceries the way they like (frozen together, produce on top, no smashed bread), and skip the part where they talk to a stranger. They can buy late‑night junk food, an embarrassing product, or six cans of cat food and wine without bracing for a comment.
“When you’re at a cashier register, the cashier sees everything you purchase. When you’re at self-checkout, you can control what others see, so you might be more likely to buy embarrassing items.” – Becca Taylor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Plenty of introverts and people with social anxiety describe kiosks this way. They don’t hate people; they have a limited social battery, and they’d rather use it for work, friends, kids, or a long Lyft ride to the airport. A machine that lets them coast through in near‑silence feels like mercy.
1. You’re doing unpaid labor
Here’s where the research complicates the convenience story. Across four separate experiments, researchers found that shoppers using self-checkout felt less rewarded, less satisfied, and less likely to return compared to those who used a staffed lane.
According to these studies, when you do everything—scan, bag, troubleshoot—this extra effort can shrink the feeling of reward. That means dollars saved and loyalty points don’t hit the same when you’ve had to work for them. You feel like you’re owed something.
Santiago Gallino, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, states this plainly: “For retailers, it’s a combination of cutting labor and adding flexibility. It’s not to make checkout more efficient. They are basically transferring the labor to the customer.”
Self-checkout didn’t show up because shoppers begged for more chores; it showed up because it lets stores shift paid labor onto us without lowering prices. We didn’t vote for fewer workers; we voted for the only thing the store put in front of us.
2. It’s possible you’re being watched while you work
Self-checkout stations rely on a kind of slightly menacing, almost dystopian level of ambient suspicion: overhead cameras, weight sensors that double-check every bag, pop-ups that demand an attendant’s key before you can move on. AI-based loss-prevention systems increasingly use computer vision and facial recognition to flag suspected shoplifting.
Retailers say this is necessary—theft occurs at a much higher rate at kiosks than traditional lanes—but the solution includes treating everyone like suspects. When you use a self-checkout kiosk, you can see yourself on a little security screen in the corner. So can their security team, and they’re watching closely.
Psychologists would call this a fairness gap: doing more work while being trusted less. Investigations have found that these cameras and the AI systems running them mis‑flag people of color more often, which makes every beep feel a little more loaded.
“AI technologies frequently mirror existing inequalities as they are developed by individuals in environments lacking diversity, which prevents the technology from being fair. If the same stereotypes that are used to profile Black individuals in daily interactions are integrated into algorithms, the resulting facial recognition systems will perpetuate those stereotypes as a human would.” – Shaun Harper, Forbes
3. The plight of the kiosk keeper
Meanwhile, the workers who once stood at a single lane are now sent to babysit the self-checkout kiosks, responsible for eight machines at once. They half‑jog from flashing light to flashing light while a walkie‑talkie crackles in their ear and apologize for errors they didn’t cause. Helper and hall monitor, all in one fluorescent vest. The employee who runs the self-checkout corral holds an impossible dual role: be warm, be helpful, and also watch for theft while fielding the frustration of kiosk users who all think their machine is broken.
Research from the Harvard Shift Project, which surveyed tens of thousands of service-sector employees, found that stores with self-checkouts were more likely to be chronically understaffed and that understaffing drove higher rates of customer hostility aimed at the employees who remained.
Let’s be clear: self-checkout lanes aren’t evil. But when we reduce everything to “convenience,” we miss what’s really at stake.
That little fork in the floor—screens on one side, a person on the other—has become one of the everyday places where we decide how much work, how much watching, and how little conversation we’re willing to accept in exchange for speed.
