Data Changes How I See Things

Why paying attention to and acting on data trends is its own form of self-improvement.

What I read: “The 25 Most Interesting Ideas I’ve Found in 2025 (So Far)” by Derek Thompson.

There are certain writers who get my attention the moment something they’ve written passes my eyeballs. Derek Thompson is one of them. I find his mind and writing thought provoking. That was certainly the case with the post referenced here. While the article pertains to 2025, all of what he wrote still applies today.

I thought it might be fun and useful to organize the most interesting things I’ve seen this year by subject matter and write something about why they struck me and what story they tell about America or the world.

In his post, Thompson briefly describes 25 things he found interesting in the areas of culture, politics, housing, artificial intelligence, human intelligence, the (non-AI) economy, health, and social progress.

One of the upsides of reading posts like Thompson’s is that it provides fodder for making our own decisions about how to best live a life because we’re armed with information, data, and trends to inform those decisions. We’re also better able to formulate our own ideas and beliefs as we gain more information.

For example, take Thompson’s second observation, that the young American religious revival is overrated.

In an analysis of General Social Survey data, Ryan Burge finds that Gen Z is still the least likely to attend weekly religious services and the most likely to be so-called “never-attenders.”

Why is this information useful? Because we’re pummeled, at least in the United States, with the perception that we’re a Christian country and highly religious. As someone who believes religion is the source of much of the hate and bigotry our society deals with, it heartens me that perhaps as the years unfold an increasing number of people will abandon religion altogether which I believe would make for a better world all around.

Then there is something as simple as a data point like young people drinking alcohol less.

One of the more remarkable diet and health shifts of the last few years is the astonishing rise of young adults who say “drinking in moderation” is bad for their health.

As someone who sometimes produces and organizes events in bars, knowing that younger people are drinking less means I know that the bar venues in which I sometimes host events aren’t making as much as they did in the past from alcohol sales. That means perhaps I need to help figure out ways the bar can make more money at my events. Perhaps the bar can get a bigger cut of tickets sales if it’s a ticketed event. Maybe there must be a door cover charge. Maybe I can work with the bar to create some unique non-alcoholic drink options. Solutions can vary, but the point is the data informs my thinking.

Our country is awash in heated politics these days. So, staying informed about who is voting for who is important. Whereas once there was a strong propensity for wealthier Americans to vote for Republicans, nowadays it’s poorer Americans.

But the Trump era has completely reversed the trend, and now it’s the poorest white Americans who are the most Republican while the richest white Americans are the most Democratic. As you can see, this is arguably the most dramatic inversion in the white electorate in modern history.

This is important because when Democrats are trying to find messaging that lands with voters, turning Republican voters into Democrats might mean appealing to the reality that Republicans most often legislate in favor of the wealthy and to the detriment of poorer constituents.

Thomspon points out that dense walkable neighborhoods can save at least several months of your life. This is a topic near and dear to my heart and I write about it often. I got rid of my car 15 years ago and have always chosen to live in dense urban environments in large part because of their walkability. In my youth I did this because it was more practical than spending hours in a car. Plus, I like the cultural diversity of cities.

In their conclusion, the authors find that large increases in walkability were associated with an increase in moderate to vigorous exercise of “about 1 hour per week.” Under the theory that every minute of moderate to vigorous exercise extends your life by five minutes, every week spent in a walkable city extends your life by five hours, every month adds 21 hours, every year adds 10 days, and every decade adds about 3 months of extra life.

I strongly recommend you read Thompson’s post. I guarantee you’ll find it interesting. But I’ll end this post with another area of strong interest for me, artificial intelligence, in this case its impact on tech jobs.

If you subtract AI jobs from the IT industry, employment in US tech has been flat or declining for several years. The entire employment growth in tech is happening in AI.

I live in San Francisco, the epicenter of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology generally. When local friends ask for my advice on how to stay employed in technology, I always tell them to learn about AI. Some can kvetch and complain all they want about AI, but it’s here to stay in some form and learning about it is now going to be required for any type of knowledge work. And it’s clear technology job growth is tied directly to knowing how to develop or at a minimum effectively use AI.

Data trends are useful to anyone who incorporates their insight into their decision making. Data changes how you see the world. It certainly changes how I see things.

Check out Thompson’s books, Abundance, with Ezra Klein, and Hit Makers, Along with his Substack newsletter, you’ll also see lots of Thompson’s writing in The Atlantic.

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