Reducing the visibility of polarizing content in social media feeds can measurably lower partisan animosity. To come up with this finding, my colleagues and I developed a method that let us alter the ranking of peoples feeds, previously something only the social media companies could do.
Re-ranking social media feeds to reduce exposure to posts expressing anti-democratic attitudes and partisan animosity affected peoples emotions and their views of people with opposing political views.
Im a computer scientist who studies social computing, artificial intelligence, and the web. Because only social media platforms can modify their algorithms, we developed and released an open-source web tool that allowed us to re-rank the feeds of consenting participants on X, formerly Twitter, in real time.
Drawing on social science theory, we used a large language model to identify posts likely to polarize people, such as those advocating political violence or calling for the imprisonment of members of the opposing party. These posts were not removed; they were simply ranked lower, requiring users to scroll further to see them. This reduced the number of those posts users saw.
We ran this experiment for 10 days in the weeks before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. We found that reducing exposure to polarizing content measurably improved participants feelings toward people from the opposing party and reduced their negative emotions while scrolling their feed. Importantly, these effects were similar across political affiliations, suggesting that the intervention benefits users regardless of their political party.
This 60 Minutes segment covers how divisive social media posts get more traction than neutral posts.
Why it matters
A common misconception is that people must choose between two extremes: engagement-based algorithms or purely chronological feeds. In reality, there is a wide spectrum of intermediate approaches depending on what they are optimized to do.
Feed algorithms are typically optimized to capture your attention, and as a result, they have a significant impact on your attitudes, moods, and perceptions of others. For this reason, there is an urgent need for frameworks that enable independent researchers to test new approaches under realistic conditions.
Our work offers a path forward, showing how researchers can study and prototype alternative algorithms at scale, and it demonstrates that, thanks to large language models, platforms finally have the technical means to detect polarizing content that can affect their users democratic attitudes.
What other research is being done in this field
Testing the impact of alternative feed algorithms on live platforms is difficult, and such studies have only recently increased in number.
For instance, a recent collaboration between academics and Meta found that changing the algorithmic feed to a chronological one was not sufficient to show an impact on polarization. A related effort, the Prosocial Ranking Challenge led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, explores ranking alternatives across multiple platforms to promote beneficial social outcomes.
At the same time, the progress in large language model development enables richer ways to model how people think, feel, and interact with others. We are seeing growing interest in giving users more control, allowing people to decide what principles should guide what they see in their feedsfor example, the Alexandria library of pluralistic values and the Bonsai feed reranking system. Social media platforms, including Bluesky and X, are heading this way, as well.
Whats next
This study represents our first step toward designing algorithms that are aware of their potential social impact. Many questions remain open.
We plan to investigate the long-term effects of these interventions and test new ranking objectives to address other risks to online well-being, such as mental health and life satisfaction. Future work will explore how to balance multiple goals, such as cultural context, personal values, and user control, to create online spaces that better support healthy social and civic interaction.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Tiziano Piccardi is an assistant professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The next big meeting on your calendar might not have any other attendeesit might just be you. A growing number of high-performing leaders, including managers at Google and other Fortune 100 companies, are carving out protected focus blocks and treating them like mission-critical meetings.
With constant pings, shallow tasks, and back-to-back calls, this might be the only way to produce strategic, high-value work. Google and Microsoft have even rolled out Focus Time features that automatically block off calendars to protect deep work.
Paige Donahue is a product marketing leader at Google who helps YouTube creators grow their communities and monetize their followings. She says shes started using the Focus Time feature inside Google Calendar to carve out protected blocks for deep work. Before, my day was really just a stream of constant meetings, and I think a lot of people can relate to that, she says. It was meeting after meeting, ping after ping, and I was finding that I didnt have a lot of time to do the deep work thats really important to move things forward. Now, she notes, its much easier to see forward momentum. [The focus time feature] is really helping me get in the groove and tackle projects . . . instead of getting bogged down by endless meetings.
Deep work has become a job requirement
While the idea of deep work isnt new, the urgency around it is. Leaders can no longer treat focus as a luxury. In todays reactive workplace, carving out uninterrupted time for thinking and creating has become a core leadership responsibility.
And employees want this just as much as executives. According to a recent Twilio survey of over 1,200 UK workers, 47% said they prioritize distraction-free focus time, and 36% said theyd like their employers to formally schedule such quiet periods. This suggests that protecting focus isnt a personal quirkits a cultural shift waiting to happen.
But its all too easy to let your week get sucked up by shallow work, the work that may appear urgent (such as last-minute requests and fire drills) but rarely move you towards the end-of-year KPIs that determine your bonus and future promotion potential.
At Lifehack Method, where we coach executives and teams on productivity, we see this firsthand: when leaders skip focus time, teams flounder in shallow work. When they protect it, they model a culture of depth, clarity, and results. Every Friday, our clients practice a Weekly Planning ritual where they calendarize the entire week, ensuring strategic work has nonnegotiable slots before the week fills up with reactive tasks.
Forget time management, start managing your attention
The calendar is a useful tool, but the deeper shift is about what we choose to protect. As organizational psychologist Adam Grant points out, the old paradigm of time managementsqueezing as much as possible into the dayhas limits and can even be detrimental. The new frontier is attention management: the art of focusing on getting things done for the right reasons, in the right places, and at the right moments, as Grant defines it in a New York Times essay.
When we coach leaders in our programs, we encourage them to embrace this mindset shift. The question isnt How do I fit this in? but Does this deserve my attention? That pivot can mean the difference between a week lost in shallow work and a week that produces breakthrough outcomes. Use your deep work blocks to empty your mind of those pesky urgent tasks and give yourself the gift of diving into your most leveraged activities. These are often not even on your to-do list, thats how little attention they tend to get!
When a calendar block isnt enough, bring a buddy
Of course, protecting time on a calendar doesnt always mean using it well. Getting forward momentum is tough when youre facing procrastination and anxiety about how to start. Thats where accountability comes in. Enter virtual coworking, a rising trend that pairs you with a partner online to ensure you show up and do the work. Many of our clients here at Lifehack Method rely heavily on coworking sessions as a force multiplier to speed through otherwise procrastinated tasks.
Science backs this up. A 2024 study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that real-time, subtle feedback during lapses of attention helped participants regain focus. The researchers concluded that it may be more effective to intervene during low-focus moments than to simply enforce long, uninterrupted blocks. For high-stakes or creative work, this suggests that lightweight accountability systemslike coworking sessions or structured check-inscan serve as the feedback nudges that keep people in the zone.
Virtual coworking platforms are seeing traction among enterprise employees. Taylor Jacobson is the Founder & CEO of Focusmate, the worlds No. 1 virtual coworking community. He shares that Fortune 500 Focusmate members currently average 31% more sessions than the average user, and 13% more time spent on the platform.
Donahue shares that at work, she uses both virtual and in-person coworking to ensure she says on task. I am a big fan of coworking. I feel that it adds a layer of accountability and its just nice to sit around the campfire with other people who are in it as well. Its a great way to do deep focused work almost like a sprint.
How to make focus time impactful
Protecting focus blocks isnt just about willpower. It requires communication and culture change. Leaders who succeed tend to:
Treat focus time like a sacred meeting. Dont reschedule unless its truly urgent.
Communicate clearly. Let your team know when youre offline for focus and when youll be available again.
Pair protection with accountability. Use tools like Focusmate, oras we do at Lifehack Methodstack focus time with rituals like our Winning the Week Method planning process, which makes deep work part of the weekly rhythm.
Model the behavior. When managers visibly protect focus, employees feel empowered to do the same.
Protect your focus to future-proof your job
As tools evolve and workplace demands intensify, the rarest resource is no longer money, ideas, talent, or even time. Its unbroken attention. Leaders who defend it will drive innovation; those who dont risk drowning in noise. Focus time is not indulgent. Its the only way to do the kind of workcompanies actually pay leaders to do.
I saw my first holiday-themed ad on TV before Halloween. I was startled, yet not surprised. Kind of a funny feeling, really.
Yes, the annual holiday shopping sprint is upon us. For years, the process has been defined by frantic comparison searches and endless product review scrolling. But this year, you can finally delegate the busywork to an army of digital assistants.
AI is no longer just a party trick: it’s a legitimate, price-savvy, personal shopping engine. Want to skip the agonizing research and focus on finding that perfect gift without blowing your budget? Here are four essential AI tools you should be using right now.
Gift Idea Generator
You need a thoughtful gift for someone whose interests are scattered or obscure. Traditional gift guides are useless here. Enter AI.
Feed your favorite generative AI tool a rich, conversational prompt: “My uncle is 70, retired, loves restoring classic cars, collects vintage vinyl, and just started learning Italian. What are three unique gifts under $150?”
The AI cross-references these details against a massive product database to suggest items youd never dream up on your own.
For brainstorming with conversational prompts, services like Gemini, ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude are perfect. If you want tools that link directly to purchasable products, check out dedicated gift AI tools such as Gift Genie or Giftruly.
Price Tracker
In the volatile holiday market, timing is everything. AI price-tracking tools eliminate the need for manual site refreshing and guesswork.
Flag a specific item or product category you want, and set a target price. The AI monitors thousands of product pages and vendor histories across the web, analyzing historical pricing data to determine if a “sale” is actually a good deal and alerts you the moment the item hits your desired price point.
You can use specialized browser extensions such as Camelcamelcamel for monitoring prices on large e-commerce sites, or utilize general AI search tools such as Google Shopping and Gemini to track price drops and historical pricing directly within search results.
Agentic “Just Buy It” Tools
This takes price tracking a step further. Agentic AI can do more than just find the deal; it can be instructed to execute the purchase for you.
Instead of merely entering a search query, issue a full command: “Find the best-rated stainless steel coffee maker with a thermal carafe under $100, and purchase it when a verified deal brings it under $85. Ship it to my home address.”
The AI agent, using your pre-approved payment and shipping details, actively monitors the market and, upon meeting your criteria, completes the entire checkout process – all without you lifting a finger.
Look for platform-specific agents like Gemini with Google Shopping or systems based on OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, which are authorized to perform actions such as completing a checkout.
Automated Review Summaries
Before you commit to a purchase, you need the full picture on quality and common defects. But nobody has time to read 2,000 product reviews filled with shipping complaints and single-sentence praise.
AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to consume all available customer feedback, from star ratings to lengthy complaints, and generates a concise summary.
It intelligently extracts and aggregates the key themes, such as “battery life is excellent,” or “setup is too complicated,” presenting a balanced overview in a few short paragraphs or bullet points. This allows you to vet a product in seconds rather than hours.
Many large online retailers, such as Amazon, now have built-in AI summary capabilities displayed above the customer review section. Alternatively, you can simply paste the text of a bunch of reviews into a chatbot such as ChatGPT and ask it to summarize the sentiment and list the pros and cons.
Tennis is experiencing a resurgence, with almost 26 million people playing in the U.S. alone. That number has been on an upward trajectory five years in a row. While the sports renewed cultural relevance can be attributed to multiple factors, brands across fashion, entertainment, and even sports leagues like Major League Baseball are capitalizing on the trend through unconventional opportunities.
On December 8, LoanDepot Park, home of baseballs Miami Marlins, will undergo a temporary redesign to host the Unified Events Miami Invitational, a one-night, first-of-its-kind exhibition featuring top tennis stars Carlos Alcaraz, Joo Fonseca, Amanda Anisimova, and Jessica Pegula in a city with a strong appetite for elite tennis.
Brazilian tennis player Joo Fonseca [Photo: Courtesy of Miami Marlins]
While they have the Miami Open, there is such a fervor for tennis in the Miami market, especially for those players, says Molly Pendleton, SVP of MLS, Touring, and Unified Events.
To tap into the markets enthusiasm, Pendleton and her team originally planned to host the event in a traditional arena, a common choice for these exhibition matches. However, due to scheduling conflicts and the time needed to set up the courts, Unified Events decided not to take that route. Since both United Events and the Marlins work with sports and culture company IMG, the partners explored creative ways to bring tennis to a baseball stadium. They selected LoanDepot Park because it offered optimal sigh tlines and a high-quality fan experience.
I was skeptical until I saw the renderings of what it could look like and what the fan experience would be, says Pendleton. [I] got on board with the idea [that] this could be a really unique experience for fans and the players.
Anthony Favata, Vice President of Operations & Events for the Marlins, and his team created CAD renderings to visualize the transformation, which sealed the deal.
We have an extremely versatile building, says Favata. Tennis was always on the road map.
A Stadium Built for Adaptation
[Photo: Courtesy of Miami Marlins]
Historically, LoanDepot Park, formerly known as Marlins Park, was built to accommodate a variety of events. After opening in 2012, it hosted an international soccer game, and over the years, expanded to other entertainment, including concerts. Now, with recent investments in its infrastructure, the organization is reimagining the stadiums design to expand its non-baseball slate.
For the Marlins operations team, months of site visits, engineering assessments, and software modeling informed how they will compress the stadiums 130,000-square-foot footprint with 37,442 seats into an 8,700-square-foot environment with 12,000 seats for a quality viewing experience.
Its very important that you have that intimacy and the premium feel of being as close to the court as you can get, Favata explained. One thing that [was] created for us is the need to remove the pitchers mound.
Design Challenges and Transformations
Unlike a tennis court, the typical dimensions of a baseball field is not rectangular but rather a snow-coned shape. To achieve the level of intimacy spectators want during a tennis match, the Marlins will place the court in front of home plate. Based on their CAD visualization, the team decided that the court will run diagonally from first base to third base.
[Photo: Courtesy of Miami Marlins]
One of the most complex design challenges in creating an intimate environment is the full removal of the pitchers mound, an undertaking requiring roughly eight hours by a dedicated five-person crew.
We’ll remove [the] clay, and we’ll make sure it’s flat so that our flooring can come on top of that mound and then we can come on top of it with the cork, explains Favata. This step ensures the installed court sits at the ideal distance from spectator seats so fans have up close and clear views of play.
Previously, LoanDepot Park featured a natural grass field. However, the stadium later transitioned to a turf surface. Leveraging the stadiums in-house flooring system has proven beneficial, allowing adaptability of its turf surface for various events. A team of up to 20 people will lay down a thick, plastic event decking or protective flooring called Terraplas directly on top of the clay comprising the pitchers mound. To further avoid impacting the clay underneath, the team will place a cork-rubber blend called Regupol Aktiv atop the Terraplas, followed by another layer of wood. Finally, additional workers will lay down the professional hard court, which will be transported overnight from the Charlotte Invitational happening just before the exhibition match in Miami.
[Photo: Courtesy of Miami Marlins]
The Marlins operations team will get a head start on the mound removal for another event occurring two days prior to the match. However, the majority of the conversion will happen overnight, involving about 37 people across multiple vendors working from roughly 10 p.m. on December 7 into the morning hours of December 8.
Enhancing the intimacy created by removing the pitchers mound will be the addition of roughly 600 temporary seats. The team will also recline the foul ball netting. While the main event will occur infield, the Marlins plan to restrict access to the outfield.
As Favatas team reconfigures the field into a tennis court, ensuring player safety is critical.
Although it’s an exhibition, we want to make sure that the court is at the highest level of play, Favata said. Some of the best in the world are going to be performing. We want to make sure it’s safe for them.
Creating a Premium Tennis Environment
Beyond the technical build, the team will deliver a complete tennis environment with premium courtside seating, hospitality, and signature cocktails (Miami Ace and Sunset Invitational) inspired by the U.S. Opens Honey Deuce. Partner brand activations include Segafredos specialty desserts and coffee, Geicos tennis bracelet activation, and Penguin Tennis Apparels pop-up retail shop to create an immersive experience.
[Photo: Courtesy of Miami Marlins]
Depending on its success, Unified Events anticipates this invitational being an annual event in Miami. Its already nearing capacity with about 9,500 seats sold, with tickets starting at $40.
In the meantime, the Miami Marlins are preparing for other events in the new year, like the Winter Classic in partnership with the National Hockey League.
We’re very much involved in trying to continue to put this venue at the forefront of the concert and live entertainment business [with] some of those sports that you don’t typically consider in a baseball diamond that are cool, that are splashy, that are global, Favata said. [We want to] draw an attendee base to the facility that may not already be familiar with the venue in hopes that we give them a great experience and they return for Marlins baseball.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
Zillow economists use an economic model known as the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country.
This model looks at key indicatorsincluding home price changes, inventory levels, and days on marketto generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers.
Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power.
According to Zillow:
Score of 70 or above = strong sellers market
Score from 55 to 69 = sellers market
Score from 45 to 54 = neutral market
Score from 28 to 44 = buyers market
Score of 27 or below = strong buyers market
Nationally, Zillow rates the U.S. housing market at 48 in its October 2025 reading, published last week.
That said, Zillows reading varies significantly across the country.
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Among the 250 largest metro-area housing markets, these 20 are the HOTTEST marketswhere sellers have the most power:
Rochester, NY 120
Syracuse, NY 80
Hartford, CT 76
Bridgeport, CT 70
Racine, WI 67
San Francisco, CA 66
New York, NY 65
Albany, NY 65
Lancaster, PA 65
Manchester, NH 64
San Jose, CA 63
Poughkeepsie, NY 63
Anchorage, AK 63
Springfield, MA 62
Norwich, CT 62
Providence, RI 60
Kingston, NY 60
Richmond, VA 59
Buffalo, NY 59
New Haven, CT 59
Among the 250 largest metro-area housing markets, these 20 are the COLDEST marketswhere buyers have the most power:
Florence, SC 8
Jackson, TN 10
Gulfport, MS 14
Lafayette, IN 18
Longview, TX 19
Charleston, WV 20
Macon, GA 20
Terre Haute, IN 22
Brownsville, TX 25
Evansville, IN 25
Asheville, NC 26
Fayetteville, AR 27
Daphne, AL 28
Beaumont, TX 29
Hickory, NC 29
Lubbock, TX 30
Naples, FL 31
Saginaw, MI 32
Bowling Green, KY 32
Lincoln, NE 33
Does ResiClub agree with Zillows assessment?
Directionally, I believe Zillow has correctly identified some regional housing markets where buyers have gained the most powerparticularly around the Gulfas well as markets where sellers have maintained (relatively speaking) somewhat of a grip, including portions of the Northeast and Midwest.
Based on my personal housing analysis, I consider much of Florida (particularly southwest Florida) and chunks of Texas (particularly areas with a lot of new single-family home construction) the weakest/softest chunk of the U.S. housing market. Not too far behind are pockets of Colorado, Georgia, and Arizona markets where theres built-up unsold spec inventory.
What did this Zillow analysis look like back in spring 2021 during the pandemic housing boom? Below is Zillows October 2021 reading, published in November 2021:
This years busiest shopping day was a boon for live-shopping apps.
Even at a time of inflation and economic uncertainty, Americans were ready to spend come Black Friday. U.S. online spending was up 9.1% from last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
While holiday spending has typically been dominated by traditional e-commerce, live-shopping platforms TikTok Shop and Whatnot also reported record-breaking sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
On Black Friday, the livestream marketplace Whatnot reported more than $75 million in single-day live sales, tripling last years total. On average, shoppers bought 40 items per second.
One small business in the sports card category sold more than $1 million in a single show. The highest-priced item sold on Black Friday was a sports card box for $80,000.
“The way people shop is changing, and live is leading it, Armand Wilson, VP of categories an expansion, told Fast Company. People want more than a transaction. They want to connect with sellers, see the product live, and be part of the moment.
These record-breaking sales come as livestream content on the platform has reached 20 million minutes per week. Whatnot also reported a fourfold increase in first-time buyers this year compared with last years Black Friday event.
Whatnot isnt the only platform finding success with livestream shopping over the holidays. According to TikTok, its live-shopping feature also delivered a record-breaking performance this year.
Brands and content creators held more than 760,000 livestreams on the platform, generating 1.6 billion-plus views throughout the Black Friday period. These efforts paid dividends, with this years livestream sellers experiencing 84% more sales growth than last years, according to the company.
Pop Mart, maker of the viral Labubu toys, had one of the most popular livestreams during TikToks Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. The Skullpanda x Wednesday Plush came out as the top-selling item.
From household name brands like Crocs and Kim Kardashians Skims to small businesses and content creators, live shopping is gaining traction across the U.S.
Live shopping is where brand love starts. Its a dynamic, interactive experience that deepens how our users connect with brands on TikTok, Patrick Nommensen, head of strategic initiatives for TikTok Shop in the Americas, told Fast Company.
While it still represents a small percentage of the e-commerce market, consumer trend forecaster WGSN has found that conversion rates for live shopping are 10 times higher than those for traditional e-commerce.
That immediate, real-time engagementintroducing audiences to new products, demonstrating their value, and facilitating direct interactionis what builds trust, strengthens community, and turns interest into long-term loyalty, Nommensen said.
Nearly half (46%) of U.S. consumers have now purchased through a livestream event and would do so again, according to data from market research firm Mintel.
If this years Black Friday sales are anything to go by, that number is only going to go up.
Which terms best represent 2025?
Every year, editors for publications ranging from the Oxford English Dictionary to the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English select a word of the year.
Sometimes these terms are thematically related, particularly in the wake of world-altering events. Pandemic, lockdown, and coronavirus, for example, were among the words chosen in 2020. At other times, they are a potpourri of various cultural trends, as with 2022s goblin mode, permacrisis, and gaslighting.
This years slate largely centers on digital life. But rather than reflecting the unbridled optimism about the internet of the early aughtswhen words like w00t, blog, tweet, and even face with tears of joy emoji () were chosenthis years selections reflect a growing unease over how the internet has become a hotbed of artifice, manipulation, and fake relationships.
When seeing isnt believing
A committee representing the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English settled on AI slop for their word of the year.
Macquarie defines the term, which was popularized in 2024 by British programmer Simon Willison and tech journalist Casey Newton, as low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user.
AI slop, which can range from a saccharine image of a young girl clinging to her little dog to career advice on LinkedIn, often goes viral, as gullible social media users share these computer-generated videos, text, and graphics with others.
Images have been manipulated or altered since the dawn of photography. The technique was then improved, with an assist from AI, to create deepfakes, which allows existing images to be turned into video clips in surreal ways. Yes, you can now watch Hitler teaming up with Stalin to sing a 1970s hit by the Buggles.
What makes AI slop different is that images or video can be created out of whole cloth by providing a chatbot with just a promptno matter how bizarre the request or ensuing output.
Meet my new friend, ChatGPT
The editors of the Cambridge Dictionary chose parasocial. They define this as involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series . . . or an artificial intelligence.
These asymmetric relationships, according to the dictionarys chief editor, are the result of the publics fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles, and this interest continues to reach new heights.
As an example, Cambridges announcement cited the engagement of singer Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce, which led to a spike in online searches for the meaning of the term. Many Swifties reacted with unbridled joy, as if their best friend or sibling had just decided to tie the knot.
But the term isnt a new one: It was coined by sociologists in 1956 to describe the illusion of having a face-to-face relationship with a performer.
However, parasocial relationships can take a bizarre or even ominous turn when the object of ones affections is a chatbot. People are developing true feelings for these AI systems, whether they see them as a trusted friend or even a romantic partner. Young people, in particular, are now turning to generative AI for therapy.
Taking the bait
The Oxford Dictionarys word of the year is rage bait, which the editors define as online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content.
This is only the latest word for forms of emotional manipulation that have plagued the online world since the days of dial-up internet. Related terms include trolling, sealioning, and trashposting.
Unlike a hot takea hasty opinion on a topic that may be poorly reasoned or articulatedrage baiting is intended to be inflammatory. And it can be seen as both a cause and a result of political polarization.
People who post rage bait have been shown to lack empathy and to regard other peoples emotions as something to be exploited or even monetized. Rage baiters, in short, reflect the dark side of the attention economy.
Meaningless meaning
Perhaps the most contentious word choice in 2025 was 6-7, chosen by Dictionary.com. In this case, the controversy has to do with the actual meaning of this bit of Gen Alpha slang. The editors of the website describe it as being meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical.
Although its definition may be slippery, the term itself can be found in the lyrics of the rapper Skrilla, who released the single Doot Doot (6 7) in early 2025. It was popularized by 17-year-old basketball standout Taylen Kinney. For his part, Skrilla claimed that he never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to.
6-7 is sometimes accompanied by a gesture, as if one were comparing the weight of objects held in both hands. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently performed this hand motion during a school visit. The young students were delighted. Their teacher, however, informed Starmer that her charges werent allowed to use it at the school, which prompted a clumsy apology from the chastened prime minister.
Throw your hands in the air?
The common element that these words share may be an attitude best described as digital nihilism.
As online misinformation, AI-generated text and images, fake news, and conspiracy theories abound, its increasingly difficult to know whom or what to believe or trust. Digital nihilism is, in essence, an acknowledgment of a lack of meaning and certainty in our online interactions.
This years crop of words might best be summed up by a single emoji: the shrug (). Throwing ones hands up, in resignation or indifference, captures the anarchy that seems to characterize our digital lives.
Roger J. Kreuz is an associate dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor at the University of Memphis.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
When people use hand gestures that visually represent what theyre saying, listeners see them as more clear, competent, and persuasive. Thats the key finding from my new research published in the Journal of Marketing Research, where I analyzed thousands of TED Talks and ran controlled experiments to examine how gestures shape communication.
Talking with your hands
Whether youre giving a presentation, pitching an idea or leading a meeting, you probably spend most of your prep time thinking about what youll say. But what about the ways youll move your hands?
I grew up in Italy, where gesturing is practically a second language. Now that I live in the United States, Ive become acutely aware of how cultures differ in how, and how much, people move their hands when they talk. Still, across contexts and cultures, one thing is constant: People do talk with their hands.
As someone who studies communication, Id noticed how some speakers seemed instantly clearer when they gestured. This made me wonder: Do gestures actually make communicators more effective?
The short answer is yes, but only when the gestures visually represent the idea youre talking about. Researchers call these movements illustrators. For example:
When talking about distance, you might spread your hands apart while saying something is farther away.
When explaining how two concepts relate, you might bring your hands together while saying these ideas fit together.
When describing how the market demand is going up and down, you could visually depict a wave shape with your hands.
One video included in the study provides an example of a TED speaker onstage gesturing as he presents his talk. [Photo: YouTube/TED David Agus: A new strategy in the war against cancer]
To study gestures at scale, my team and I analyzed 200,000 video segments from more than 2,000 TED Talks using AI tools that can detect and classify hand gestures frame by frame. We paired this with controlled experiments in which our study participants evaluated entrepreneurs pitching a product.
The same pattern of results appeared in both settings. In the AI-analyzed TED Talk data, illustrative gestures predicted higher audience evaluations, reflected in more than 33 million online likes of the videos. And in our experiments, 1,600 participants rated speakers who used illustrative gestures as more clear, competent, and persuasive.
How hands can help get your point across
What I found is that these gestures give listeners a visual shortcut to your meaning. They make abstract ideas feel more concrete, helping listeners build a mental picture of what youre saying. This makes the message feel easier to processa phenomenon psychologists call processing fluency. And we found that when ideas feel easier to grasp, people tend to see the speaker as more competent and persuasive.
But not all gestures help. Movements that dont match the messagelike random waving, fidgeting, or pointing to things in the spaceoffer no such benefit. In some cases, they can even distract.
A practical takeaway: Focus on clarity over choreography. Think about where your hands naturally illustrate what youre sayingemphasizing size, direction, or emotionand let them move with purpose.
Whats next
Your hands arent just accessories to your words. They can be a powerful tool to make your ideas resonate.
Im now investigating whether people can learn to gesture betteralmost like developing a nonverbal vocabulary. Early pilot tests are promising: Even a five-minute training session helps people become clearer and more effective through the use of appropriate hand gestures.
While my research examined how individual gestures work together with spoken language, the next step is to understand what makes a communicator effective with their voice and, ultimately, across all the channels they use to communicatehow gestures combine with voice, facial expressions, and body movement. Im now exploring AI tools that track all these channels at once so I can identify the patterns, not just the isolated gestures, that make speakers more effective communicators.
Giovanni Luca Cascio Rizzo is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Southern California.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A meeting drags on. People are talking, but no one is saying the thing that needs to be said. Direction is unclear, the energy dips, and everyone is waiting for someone to speak with authority.
When you finally do speak, the words come out softer than you intended:
– Maybe we should consider . . .
– I think it might be good if . . .
– Sorry to interrupt, but . . .
One of the biggest challenges leaders face isnt just what they decide, its how they communicate it. Clarity, confidence, and authority are what set the tone for the room.
If you tend to soften your tone or worry about sounding pushy, being more direct can feel uncomfortable. I coach leaders through this all the time, and heres what they learn quickly: Directive leadership isnt about being harsh. Its about being clear. And clarity is what builds trust, drives ownership, and gets results without raising your voice.
Your words signal your authority or they undermine it.
From Apologetic to Authoritative
One of my clients, a senior director at a biotech firm in South San Francisco, was brilliant, respected, and deeply collaborative. But she had one blind spot: Her communication was consistently too soft. Her requests sounded tentative, her decisions felt optional, and her team often left meetings unclear on priorities.
She told me, I know what I want to say, but in the moment, I dont want to sound demanding. In one meeting, a project was slipping. She needed to make a call. Instead, she said, Maybe we could try moving the deadline? Im not sure, what do you think?
The team debated for 15 minutes with no direction.
We worked on one shift: aligning her language with the authority she already had. Not louder. Not more forceful. Just clearer.
Two weeks later, when another deliverable slipped, she said, This is a priority. Were keeping the original deadline. I need everyone aligned. The room settled. People nodded. The project got back on track.
Afterward she told me, It felt clear, decisive, and grounded. I felt in command rather than trying to keep the peace. This is what leadership is supposed to feel like.
What the Best Leaders Do Differently
Think about the leaders who command respect in your organization. Listen to how they speak.
– They dont hedge.
– They dont apologize for having an opinion.
– They say what they mean.
And heres the part many leaders get wrong: This isnt about personality. A significant number of the leaders I coach are introverts. Theyre thoughtful, measured, and often worried about coming across as too direct. But directive communication doesnt change who they are. It simply changes how clearly the room understands them.
Ready-to-Use Leadership Language
If being directive doesn’t come naturally, you need the actual words you can use in real situations.
Set clear expectations
I need you to . . .
This is a priority. Please focus here first.
This needs to be done by Friday. Let me know if theres a barrier.
Give direction confidently
Heres the plan were moving forward with.
Ive decided well handle it this way.
Im asking you to take the lead on this.
Own your authority respectfully
Im making this call.
Let me be direct . . .
Im accountable for this outcome, and I need your partnership.
Hold people accountable
This didnt meet our standard. Lets discuss how to improve.
What we agreed on didnt happen. Lets get back on track.
We missed the mark here. How do you plan to fix it?
Notice what’s missing from all of these: apologies, hedging, and room for endless debate.
The Leadership Mindset Shift
These aren’t just communication techniques. They reflect a deeper shift in how you see your leadership role. Youre moving from:
Seeking permission Providing direction
Hoping for consensus Making decisions
Avoiding discomfort Addressing issues directly
Clarity gives your leadership weight. Your team doesnt need you to be louder. They need you to be clearer. They don’t need you to wait your turn. They need you to step forward when direction is required.
Put It Into Practice
Pick three phrases from the lists above that match what youre dealing with right now: an unclear deadline, a drifting project, or a team member who needs firmer expectations.
Then choose one upcoming situation where you tend to get soft. Prepare your words in advance. Practice them out loud once or twice. Then use them in the moment.
The shift is immediate. People stop debating. They start executing. And you feel the difference between managing the conversation and leading it.
Because when you speak with clarity and authority, people dont just listen, they follow.
It’s been an unprecedented and brutal week for the advertising industry. The finalization of Omnicom Groups $13 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group (IPG) (the biggest takeover in advertising history) is affecting tens of thousands of workersmost immediately the 4,000 expected to be laid off by the end of the year.
Both Omnicom and IPG own many different ad agency brands, all of which will be profoundly impacted by the merger. Omnicom is retaining only McCann from the IPG roster of agency networks, while folding FCB into BBDO, and both DDB and MullenLowe into TBWA, in order to achieve Omnicom Chairman and CEO John Wren’s goal of $750 million in synergies.
These are more than just a collection of acronyms, though. They are major agency brands, built over decades and generations, that will now disappear as their parent holding company fights to grow, survive, and remain competitive.
You’d be forgiven if you think the ad world is an alphabet soup of who’s eating who. But there is another side to the business that’s steering clear from the publicly traded drama. Independent agencies are growing in number, and in the scale and scope of work theyre being assigned by major brands.
It’s a trend that has been bubbling up for years. According to an Ibis World report, the number of U.S. ad agencies grew 2.2% from 2019 to 2024. Even anecdotally, there has been a surge in new creative shops. Isle of Any, for example, was launched in January by former Droga5 execs, and has already done work for The New York Times, A24, OpenAI, and Coinbase.
Part of the indie boom is undoubtedly a cultural correction to the mess that is major ad holding companies, as talent flees corporate bureaucracy for greener, more creative pastures. But it’s more than that at this point. In recent years, major brands have shown an increased willingness to work with these small shops despite (or because of) their size.
For years, independent agency Rethink has been winning industry awards and getting business results for Heinz. Mother, an agency founded in London 30 years ago, has a range of big clients, including Buick, Uber, Cheerios, and Stella Artois. And, of course, independent agency Wieden+Kennedy is known for its work for Nike, McDonald’s, Ford, and Michelob Ultra.
Amid all the ad world chaos, I spoke to indie agency execs at award-winning shops Rethink, Tombras, Joan Creative, Haymaker, and Mother about what the ad industry landscape looks like from their vantage point at this moment. As technology, data, and, in particular AI, levels the playing field in so many ways, these independents see a distinct competitive advantage in the combination of original creative and strategic thinking. Most crucially, though? They see clientsnot investorsas their primary stakeholders.
Holding company drama
The massive consolidation of IPG-owned ad agencies is the latest in an ongoing trend among publicly traded advertising companies over the past decade to boost profits and efficiency. In 2018, holding company WPP combined Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson (JWT) into Wunderman Thompson, and VML and Young & Rubicam into VMLY&R. Then in 2023, it combined them all into just VML.
How did that work out? WPP shares are down more than 60% year to date, and have hit a quarter-century low. Reports emerged last month that France-based holding company Havas was exploring an acquisition or stake in WPP. Havas has denied the reports, but it’s the state of the industry that made it so believable.
Jay Kamath, founder and chief creative officer of Haymaker, says there’s nothing wrong with mergers if there is a strong vision behind it. These arent visionary mergers, theyre survival mergers. The model is aging, margins are shrinking, and they think scale is a life raft, says Kamath, who believes scale does little to really help clients. In reality, it’s speed, not scale that brands care about as they vie for customers’ increasingly divided attention. They need faster teams who bring sharper ideas and are accountable partners, he says.
Dooley Tombras, president of Tombras, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based agency with additional offices across the U.S. and in Buenos Aires, sees holding companies as a model in managed decline. As holding companies continue to consolidate to compensate for a loss of top-line growth, the winners will likely be in the independent space.
As they consolidate brands, offices, and people to deliver cost synergies to Wall Street, they will naturally shore up to protect the billion-dollar-plus clients, Tombras says. Many major national brands spending in the $50 million to $100 million annual budget level will get lost in the shuffle and look to make a move. And it will likely be to a scaled independent.
Advantage: independent
Tombras’s theory seems to be resonating. Geoff Cottrill, former CMO of Coca-Cola, Converse, and Topgolf, recently commented on LinkedIn: If I were still a CMO, Id be looking for creative partners outside these massive machines.
So I called him up and asked him to elaborate. His answer should be encouraging to any indie agency, and to many of the impending holding company exiles looking to be hired. Marketing, as an industry, has kind of lost the plot, says Cottrill of the industry’s infatuation with data, AI, and money.
He notes, If you’re a midsized brand trying to fight for attention, needing to get the right creative ideas, get the right service levels, account management, you’re better off with a smaller, more nimble creative shop like Wieden+Kennedy or someone like Opinionated (an independent ad shop out of Portland, Oregon, whose clients include Adidas, Panda Express, and Hinge).
For Lisa Clunie, founder and CEO of New York-based Joan, being independent is a superpower. Brands want partners who can prototype, pivot, and produce without waiting for multinational approval chains, she says.
This is not a new concept. Back in 2021, Domino’s took its brand to a small, 23-person indie shop called WorkInProgress. At the time, the pizza chain’s then-CMO, Art DElia, told Ad Age, I really feel that the independent agency model gives us more flexibility and less distractions.
Tombras believes that brand and culture are at an inflection point given the proliferation of AI. Machine value will decrease, he argues, while human value is poised to skyrocket. The whole reason brands have gone to agencies in the first place is to get highly unique perspectives on how to solve business problems, he says. Independents are in an exponentially better position to attract talent because people are tribal; we want to play for teams.
For Teri Miller, U.S. CEO of Mother, the holding company business model, and now consolidation, feels a million miles away from what is actually happening on the ground in the business of creativity. Its just a totally different vocabulary, rule set, body language, she says. Clients who have hired Independents as an antidote understand why: We know who we are, why we exist, what our strengths are. We arent trying to be everything to everyone.
Creative advertising versus Public Company
I’ve been covering brands and ad agencies in one way or another for almost 20 years, and I’ve seen that great creative work is not exclusive to independent agencies. Agencies owned by holding companies, including those being shuttered through the Omnicom consolidation, have produced incredible work over decades. In fact, McCann, FCB, the Martin Agency, and TBWA/Worldwide were all on Fast Companys 2025 Most Innovative Companies list earlier this year.
Still, holding company agencies are facing bigger challenges, as the media landscape continues to fragment and the demands of clients have become more complex and immediate. In a media era that prioritizes cost and efficiency, the great work these agencies are making increasingly feels like it’s despite being part of a public holding company, not because of it.
The global publicly traded conglomerate still has advantages in scale, particularly in media buying. But there is no discernible advantage in terms of solving business problems with creative ideas and strategy. Joan’s Clunie says creativity and public ownership aren’t enemies, they’re just bad roommates. While public companies optimize for shareholder value, independent agencies optimize for creative value.
“When you need to hit quarterly targets, the easy moves are cost cuts, procurement deals, and operational tweaks,” Clunie says. “The risky move? Betting on a bold creative idea that might take two years to prove itself. Guess which one gets the green light at 11:59 p.m. before earnings?
It’s not that public companies can’t do brilliant work, she says. It’s that their wiring makes the safe choice easier and the interesting choice harder. And in our business, interesting usually wins. Independence means we can take the long view. That’s not romanticit’s structural.
