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Upworthy Weekly podcast: Lack of cats, grandma's Keanu crush, teacher mispronounces names

upworthy weekly podcast, good news podcast, alison rosen podcast

Upworthy Weekly podcast for March 12, 2022

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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Can we bring back some 50s fridge features, please?

There are very few things that would make people nostalgic for the 1950s. Sure, they had cool cars and pearl necklaces were a staple, but that time frame had its fair share of problems, even if "Grease" made it look dreamy. Whether you believe your life would've been way more interesting if you were Danny Zuko or not, most would agree their technology was...lacking.

All eras are "advanced" for their time, but imagine being dropped off in the 50s as someone from the year 2023. A recent post by Historic Vids on Twitter of a 1956 commercial advertising a refrigerator, however, has some people thinking that when it came to fridges, maybe they were living in the year 2056. I don't typically swoon over appliances, yet this one has me wondering where I can purchase a refrigerator like this.

Of course, there's no fancy touch screen that tells you the weather and asks how you'd like your ice cubed. It's got more important features that are actually practical.

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Joy

Texas community tackles homelessness in unique faith-based way, and it seems to be working

Proselytizing is banned, "preaching the Gospel" is done through deeds, not words, and a caring community is continually being built.

Community First! Village

"Housing alone will never solve homelessness, but community will."

That's the philosophy of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a faith-based organization in Travis County, Texas, that provides not only housing but a caring supportive community for people who have experienced chronic homelessness.

Homelessness is a challenging issue that affects communities across the United States, from small rural towns to large urban centers. It looks different in different places and for different people, but according to the 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, more than 580,000 people experienced homelessness in the United States on any given day in 2022.

Figuring out how solve the multi-faceted problem is an ongoing struggle. Some advocate for simply providing housing, but that doesn't address the issues that might cause someone to be unable to maintain a home. Some suggest tackling the addiction and mental health disorders at the root of many homeless experiences, but that alone won't solve the problem, either.

Mobile Loaves & Fishes doesn't claim to have solved the homeless crisis, but the Community First! Village they've built sure looks like a solid step toward addressing it effectively.

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Two kids wearing backpacks walk to school together.

Over the past 40 years, a sea change has occurred in how kids get to school. Throughout most Western countries, an increasing number of children are driven to school instead of walking or taking a bike. In a new video called “Why did kids stop walking to school?” About Here’s founder, Uytae Lee, cites the U.S. Department of Transportation statistic that in 1969, 48% of kids walked or biked to school, and that number has plummeted to just 11%.

Uytae Lee is an urban planner and videographer passionate about sharing stories about our cities. The video was produced in partnership with TransLink, Metro Vancouver's regional transportation authority.

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Joy

All-boys school in Brooklyn encourages self-love through mirror affirmations

"What do I like about myself?" It's a simple question with a profound effect.

Canva

Who wouldn't love learning like this?

Self-love is a skill, and learning how to develop it from an early age can make a world of difference.

And this is exactly what the students at Brooklyn’s Excellence Boys Charter School are learning each and every day—one hype up at a time.

Performing Arts teacher Ivan Marrero had the idea to let the boys try saying an affirmation to themselves in the mirror, starting with the phrase “One thing I like about myself is…” Basically, anything that made them happy was fair game.

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Family

Compelling video shows why the idea of 'traditional marriage' doesn't really exist

"Traditional marriage" has meant a lot of different things over time.

Newlyweds enjoying their big day

Even though same-sex marriage became legal across the U.S. in 2015, some still refer to marriage between a man and a woman as “traditional marriage.” The fact that people need to differentiate between different types of marriage makes many feel the term is disparaging to LGBTQ people.

When people refer to traditional marriage, they’re usually describing the union of a cisgender man and woman that is rooted in love and equality, where both partners have the same rights under the law. However, according to a video by Matt Baume, this notion of traditional marriage looks a lot different than marriages of the past.

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Joy

Pizza shop owner takes on huge fines to continue letting homeless man live behind his store

"Either you kick him down the road until somebody complains—and then he gets kicked down the road again—or you deal with it."

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Eric Weber refuses to evict a homeless man living just behind his pizza shop.

When Eric Weber, owner of The Slice in Evansville, Indiana, discovered that a man had been sleeping in a tent next to the dumpster behind his pizza restaurant, he had basically two choices: make him go or let him stay.

For Weber, the decision to let the man continue living behind his shop was an easy one. “I know it’s wrong just to kick a poor homeless guy down the street when you can provide care for him just as easily as anybody else can,” he told local CBS and Fox News affiliate 44News Evansville.
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