Chris was frustrated. Hed used Artificial Intelligence (AI) extensively in college. Now at his first job, he saw very few of his colleagues ever experimenting with it.
At first, Chris tried bringing up AI conversationally. He mentioned creating a meal schedule, as well as planning a cool weekend trip itinerary. But when he suggested to his manager how they might want to incorporate AI into their workflow, he felt rebuffed.
Chris isnt alone. As the first group of highly experienced AI users is starting work, they have experience with AI. However, they lack the credibility and subject matter expertise to transform workflows. Championing change management initiatives (especially those involving new technology) can be an uphill battle, but the following can help you enter the AI-conversation with your colleagues.
1. Understand the cultural reticence about AI in your organization
A lot of experienced experts have real, valid concerns that AI will replace their expertise. Recent stats suggest that almost a quarter of workers feel AI could make their job obsolete, while almost half see that it will change their job significantly over the next few years.
So its important to first take some time to have conversations with your team, to ask them about their experiences and concerns when it comes to. Heres a starting list of curious questions you can ask to get a better sense of where your group is currently:
What have you heard about others using AI at work?
Have you used AI yet (personally or professionally)? If so, what has most impressed you about AIs abilities? Was there anything you found particularly frustrating in your AI experiments?
What most worries you about AI at work?
Once you understand your manager and colleagues overall stance on AI, the next step is to talk to them about potential small next steps they could take using AI. Ask them what frustrates them at work, then zero in on one part of one workflow that feels most wasteful to people in your group. Offer an AI workaround for that part. Once you have an AI-inspired project, the next step is to help increase your groups own comfort with using AI.
2. Host an AI lunch and learn at work
It can be hard for many at work to admit they dont understand some of the newer technologies. Also, the less people experiment with AI, the less likely they are to see its true potential.
Consider offering a fun learning activity where you can demo the potential of AI. As a bonus, reach out to some of your AI-savvy colleagues to design and launch the training. This demonstrates to management youre willing to design and lead projects. It also shows that you can collaborate with your peers in a productive way, and that youre committed to adding value to your workplace with new technology.
Here are a few things you can incorporate into your AI session:
Bring a list of prompts that people can use to get started on how to interact with the AI interface. One of the hardest barriers for new users to overcome with AI can be how to start the conversation with this blank screen.
Split the group into smaller working groups to use AI to design a logo for a company product or service. You might want to think about prizes for originality and the groups top-rated logo.
You can provide key objectives for a real or imagined team off-site and have small groups work together with AI to design an agenda that people in the group agree would be helpful. These outputs can also be useful for your next team meeting.
3. Bring your manager into some of your AI-aided problem-solving sessions
You might need to get your managers full buy-in before they are open to inviting others to an AI training. As noted earlier, the more people experience AI, the more they can picture it in their workstreams.
To do this, when there is a piece of your work that requires brainstorming with your manager, ask if you can bring your laptop and connect it to a visible screen to incorporate AI into your brainstorming session while giving your manager a sense of how AI contributes. AI brings some great out-of-the-box thinking and endless ideas that can often help teams generate more innovative answers as a result.
Another easy-to-try strength of AI is as a meeting notetaker. See if your manager would agree to a pilot test of AI team meeting summaries for a few months. That could give your whole team a sense of AIs capacity to summarize the main points and generate key next steps that help all attendees. It can even offer key insights to those who were absent.
A move towards an AI-enabled workplace
In the end, Chris decided to cautiously bring ChatGPT to his meetings. First, he used it as a notetaker and distributed the notes afterwards, which the team found beneficial. Then, whenever his teammates engaged in a brainstorm, he enlisted AIs help and shared AI-generated suggestions with his group. Within a few months, more of his colleagues were experimenting with AI, and his manager would regularly enlist Chriss help to figure out how the company could use AI to lighten the teams administrative load.
Whether you decide to try one of these three steps, its important to recognize that moving to an AI-enabled workplace can be a cultural shift. And of course, AI is still evolving. It can hallucinate and it can lie. Thats why its better to go slow when approaching these types of transitions. You dont want to force change on someone, or a team, whos just not there yet. For AI to provide the benefits that it can bring, you need your whole teams buy-in. Your team might be the tortoise, not the hare, in this AI race, but you can still powerfully influence their journey and build momentum in your organization to take advantage of whats ahead.
You’re probably winding down from work and getting ready for a few days at home with your family. But anybody with caregiving responsibility knows that the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks will not be relaxing. Since the United States does not have a federal policy that gives workers paid time off after giving birth, having a medical procedure, or to care for a loved one, many will cram this labor into their precious holiday time.
Many of us have a colleague who will come back to work exhausted after spending time with a dying parent, having taken advantage of the time off from work to figure out hospice and funeral arrangements. Or one who will be caring for a sibling or spouse who is recovering from surgery or managing a terminal illness. And then there are parents who will spend the week taking care of infants and toddlers while daycare is closed.
Many women, who bear the brunt of this caregiving, have found it impossible to balance work and taking care of loved ones. From January to August 2025, an estimated 455,000 women left the workforce, often because they had to care for children and aging parents. This isnt just bad for those who are giving up their income; its bad for the U.S. economy, which is losing productive workers.
[Image: Paid Leave for All]
Starting today, Paid Leave for All, a nonprofit fighting for the government to pass paid family and medical leave for all working people, is drawing attention to the way the lack of paid leave hurts American workers. Its encouraging people to post out-of-office messages that reflect how theyre using their holidays to care for family members since theyre not granted any other time to do so.
The organization will be displaying these real out-of-office messages in prominent places. There will be a scrolling mosaic of messages in the New York and Washington, D.C., airports throughout this week, which happens to be the busiest travel week of the year. These messages will also be posted on a billboard in Times Square. On social media, the organization is encouraging everyday people to post their out-of-office messages publicly. After the break, when Congress returns from their recess, Paid Leave for All will deliver these messages to lawmakers and argue for the importance of passing paid leave.
Out-of-office messages tend to be generic and polite. Some companies even mandate what employees post. Dawn Huckelbridge, founding director of Paid Leave for All, says that in many ways, these messages obscure the real story of workers’ lives. “The messages are designed to sound like people are getting a break from work,” she says. “But in fact, there is a lot of labor going on during these periods out of the office.”
With this campaign, Paid Leave for All invites everybody to post out-of-office messages that more accurately reflect what theyre doing when away from their desk. They may say things like: “Thanks for your message! I’m OOO because my mom is having surgery. But like so many Americans, I don’t have any paid leave so I will be back on Monday.”
Or: “Thanks for your note! I’m OOO because my parents are getting older and I can’t manage their Rx and 500 unread emails at once. In-home care is $60K and I have limited PTO. Will get back to you ASAP!”
Most workers feel like they cant publicly share how overwhelmed they are by their caregiving responsibilities, because it might suggest that they’re not competent. But Huckelbridge hopes that by encouraging people to openly discuss these issues through their out-of-office messages, it will reveal that there is actually a systemic problem in the U.S., which is the only developed country with no national paid family and medical leave policy.
“There’s a crisis in the workplace that people are not talking about,” she says. “We’ve had one of the steepest declines in women’s participation in the workplace, partly because these women are burnt out from working full-time jobs while bearing the brunt of caregiving.”
After the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Huckelbridge will deliver the messages to Congress. “It is unlikely that a Republican Congress will pass these laws,” she says. “But we’re playing the long game here. And it’s encouraging to see that more and more Republicans are recognizing how valuable paid leave is for workers and the economy.”
Leaving your corporate job for a solopreneur path is a bold moveand it can feel terrifying. But as long as youre prepared, it can be a smart move, especially in the current rocky job market.
I worked at one corporate job for 15 years. Then I pivoted to a new career in marketing. Eighteen months later, I was working for myself as a full-time freelance writer. Within two months of going solo, I had replaced my salary at a marketing agency, but Id also taken a lot of baby steps in advance of making the switch.
You can make the transition to solopreneurship easier if you build a safety net before you walk out the corporate door. Heres how.
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Calculate how much income youll need
The first step is to be brutally honest with yourself: How much of a reduction in pay can you stand?
Odds are, youll have an in-between period: Youll have left your corporate job, but not built up enough of a solo business yet. Can you withstand 25% of your current salary? 50%? Do you have savings to supplement the rest?
I know some people who wont leave corporate jobs until they earn enough with a side hustle. But thats incredibly difficult, since youll basically be working two jobs for a period of time. However, if thats the only way to make it work for your finances, its an option.
Youll also need to consider that youll pay self-employment tax. A general rule of thumb is to set aside 25% to 30% of your earnings. Youll also be paying your own expenses, like any apps or tools you need to run your business. When youre thinking about how much you need to earn, take your costs into account.
Build your network
If youre going solo, your network is a substantial asset during your ramp-up period (and beyond). The people you know become your clients, your referrals, your sounding board for ideas.
I started posting on LinkedIn consistently a full 18 months before I struck out on my own. At the time, I had no idea that I would become a solopreneur. It just seemed like a good idea to build a network since Id started a new career.
While youre still at your 9-to-5 job:
Start connecting with industry peers, potential clients, and former coworkers.
Join groups (like professional associations or Slack communities) where your future clients hang out.
Show up on LinkedIn, adding value and building credibility.
Even though youre still working your 9-to-5 job, you should gradually reframe your personal brand. You want to become known as the person who can solve XYZ problem. That way, by the time you leave your job, youve planted the seeds for your solo business.
Side hustle, if you can
If your job and life allow, keep one foot in your corporate role and build your solo business on the side.
This gives you some huge advantages. You can test out your pricing, positioning, and processes without the pressure of needing to replace your salary. Youve also got a revenue buffer since your 9-to-5 will keep all of your bills paid. If you put all of the money from your side hustle aside, you might have a nice cushion once youre ready to launch.
I started freelancing alongside my 9-to-5 job two years before I became a solopreneur. I was able to build a portfolio of work and collect client testimonialsboth of which helped immensely when I announced that I was starting a full-time writing business.
Yes, it means extra hustle. I was juggling my 9-to-5 job, three kids, and a raging global pandemic. But I told myself that it was temporary.
Sometimes you dont get to choose the timing
Ideally, you get to choose the timing of your exit from the corporate world. But sometimes its chosen for you. I was laid off from my full-time marketing job. Even though Id been thinking about full-time freelancing for months, I kept telling myself I wasnt ready to make the leap.
Because Id been building in the background, I was able to make a fairly seamless transition. The timing wasnt my decision, but it was the direction I was headed. I wasnt starting from zero.
The more momentum and clarity you build for your solo business, the more options youll have when the moment finally arrives.
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In a new legal filing, Meta is being accused of shutting down internal research that showed people who stopped using Facebook experienced less depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The allegations come as part of a lawsuit filed by several U.S. school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and other social media companies.
The brief, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California but is not yet public, reportedly claims the study, called Project Mercury, was initiated in 2019 and was meant to explore the impact of apps on polarization, news-consumption habits, well-being, and daily social interactions.
Plaintiffs in the suit say social media companies were aware that these platforms had a negative impact on the mental health of children and young adults but did not act to prevent it. The suit also alleges they misled authorities about this harm.
We strongly disagree with these allegations, which rely on cherry-picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture, Meta tells Fast Company in a statement. “The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teenslike introducing Teen Accounts with built-in protections and providing parents with controls to manage their teens experiences.
Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, downplayed the study in a social media post.
“What it found was people who believed using Facebook was bad for them felt better when they stopped using it,” he wrote in a thread on Bluesky. “This is a confirmation of other public research (‘deactivation studies’) out there that demonstrates the same effect. It makes intuitive sense but it doesnt show anything about the actual effect of using the platform.”
While the company’s research showed people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison, Meta chose not to publish those findings and shut down work on the project, Reuters reports.
The company never publicly disclosed the results of its deactivation study, the suit reads. Instead, Meta lied to Congress about what it knew.
Stone, in his social media thread, implied the study was flawed and the company’s disappointment wasn’t with the results, but in its apparent failure to overcome expectation effects, the idea that beliefs and expectations influence perception.”
The filing, though, shows that some staffers rejected Meta’s belief that the findings were influenced by the existing media narrative around the company, with one allegedly saying that burying the research was no different than the tobacco industry doing research and knowing cigs were bad and then keeping that info to themselves.
Meta has filed a motion to strike the documents at the heart of the Project Mercury allegations. The judge overseeing the case has set a hearing date for those arguments on January 26.
Meta has been accused of ignoring similar research in the past.
Two years ago, the company was sued by 41 states and the District of Columbia, who accused it of harming young people’s mental health. The collective attorneys general alleged the company had knowingly designed features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms and violated the federal Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
In 2022, up to 95% of children ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. reported using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media almost constantly, according to the Pew Research Center. To comply with federal regulation, social media companies generally prohibit kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms. Children have easily found ways around those bans, however. That has led some countries, including Australia and Denmark, to ban anyone under 16 from having social media accounts.
The phrase quiet quitting has been cast as a generational rebellion, a disengagement crisis, and a leadership failure, all rolled into one. The narrative suggests that half of your workforce has decided to coast, collecting a paycheck while doing the bare minimum.
According to new global research from Culture Amp, which analyzed the experience of 3.3 million employees worldwide, fewer than 2% fit into the definition of quiet quittingthat is, employees who lack motivation to go above and beyond but still plan to stay with their company.
That finding challenges the viral narrative, suggesting that whats happening inside organizations is more nuanced than a mass withdrawal of effort.
So, quiet quitting wasnt the crisis we thought it was, but leaders still face the challenge of unmotivated employees. This data suggests that leaders ought to focus on strengthening the conditions that inspire people to keep showing up with purpose, rather than on rooting out disengaged employees. Heres how you can do that.
1. Listen like a scientist, not a detective
Leaders can approach disengagement as something to diagnose and fix, but employees can sense when conversations are driven by suspicion instead of curiosity. If you suspect someones sticking around but not for the right reasons, dont jump to conclusions, says Amy Lavoie, VP of people science at Culture Amp. Approach the situation with curiosity, not suspicion. Ask whats really going on for them. A compassionate, candid conversation often uncovers insights that lead to stronger engagement and performance.
In practice, this means asking open-ended questions, such as Do you feel like youre thriving? Why or why not? and listening without defensiveness. When employees feel psychologically safe enough to share whats behind their behavior, leaders can address root causes instead of reacting to surface-level symptoms. That sense of safety is what enables employees to sustain high performance over time.
2. Focus on the 52% who are engaged and committed
Heres an overlooked insight: While fewer than 2% of employees are quiet quitting, more than half (52%) are both motivated and committed, which is the sweet spot for engagement. These are the employees carrying organizations forward, yet they often receive the least attention.
Recognition and growth opportunities are among the strongest predictors of sustained motivation. As Culture Amps data shows, employees who believe there are good career opportunities at their company and who feel appropriately recognized for good work are far more likely to go above and beyond.
Leaders need not wait for performance reviews to celebrate these employees. Recognize them and tie appreciation to future potential. Share something along the lines of, Heres the impact youve made, and heres whats next.
3. Redefine retention: Dont fear turnover, design for flow
Job hugging describes employees holding onto their roles out of fear of change, instability, or a tough job market. This can block organizational flow and stifle innovation. Even if employees are performing well, fear-based retention can limit their growth and engagement. Internal mobility programs, mentorship, and career-pathing initiatives can help employees find roles that are more fulfilling and energizing.
As Justin Angsuwat, chief people officer at Culture Amp, puts it, Fear drains people. Purpose fuels them. When employees stay, it shapes the energy they bring every day. The goal is to make sure employees stay for the right reasons.
Leaders can explore this by asking questions like:
What keeps you here, and what would make your work even more energizing?
Which parts of your role feel meaningful, and which feel stagnant?
If you could design your next step here, what would it look like?
4. Design for energy, not endurance
The modern workplace often demands more output from fewer people, creating what Angsuwat calls the productivity paradox: Companies ask employees to deliver more while giving them less to work with. High-performing teams outside of business, like firefighting crews or surgical units, understand that performance is more about balancing focus with recovery.
Leaders can apply the same principle by building systems for sustainable energy, such as redistributing workloads, encouraging rest, and rewarding behaviors that support long-term resilience. When energy drives performance, employees motivation naturally rises.
5. Test your assumptions: Use data to guide retention
The labor market has shifted, and the employer-employee contract is changing. In this environment, assumptions about who is disengaged or why can be misleading. Culture Amps research shows a steady four-point decline in global motivation since 2021, resulting in tens ofthousands more unmotivated employees in just one year. But data also challenges common assumptionsfor example, remote employees are not more likely to quiet quit, despite many companies fearing otherwise.
As Heather Walker, senior data journalist at Culture Amp, puts it, We dont need to feed the drama of division, as if leaders and employees are on opposing sides. In reality, were sitting on the same side of the table, facing the same problem: how to create the conditions for work to succeed.
Quiet quitting might make headlines, but its likely not happening in your organization. Whats really at stake is the quality of your employee relationships. Motivation, trust, and energy are renewable if leaders intentionally replenish them.
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Marcel Schwantes
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
You cant help but feel uneasy when looking at market concentration. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla now make up more than a third of the S&P 500, more than twice the level seen before the dot-com bust.
AI-related capital spending has outpaced the U.S. consumer as the main driver of gross domestic product growth. OpenAI alone plans trillions in data-center investments while exiting 2025 with about $20 billion in annualized revenue. Of course, there are physical limitations to how fast we can build. Data centers require enormous energy, land, and skilled labormore than trade schools produce todaya concern raised in the Trump administrations U.S. AI Action Plan.
On top of this is a web of circular financing among major players. Companies are using complex structures to fuel the investment wave, adding opacity and risk. Investors like Masayoshi Son and Michael Burry are heading for the exits. In a new Bank of America survey, 45% of investors cite an AI bubble as the top tail risk for the economy and markets. Many believe AI stocks are already in bubble territory.
When a bubble bursts, it is like a balloon losing air. Prices fall, investors pull back, and companies that depended on constant capital inflows often fail. The slowdown can ripple across the industry. But a burst forces a reset, where work with real value continues and the rest falls away.
There is one way out: real growth.
A record of breakthroughs (and setbacks)
There is some consensus among economists that artificial intelligence can become the next general-purpose technology. These are revolutionary innovations with widespread impact that by themselves enable new inventions and change most aspects of our day-to-day lives and work. They do not just improve one industry; they create new possibilities for others. We have seen this before with the steam engine, electricity, and, most recently, the internet.
Growth will require diffusion, a fancy way of describing how new tools and ideas spread to lots of people. New tools never disseminate evenly, and AI is no exception.
AI has been through more than 70 years of breakthroughs and setbacks since mathematicians and early computer scientists began imagining how machines might simulate human thinking. Breakthroughs were often followed by AI winters, when funding and enthusiasm receded.
But since late 2022, when generative AI hit the zeitgeist, we have been on a tear. ChatGPT became the fastest application to reach 100 million users in history and is already used by about 10% of the planets population. Can we continue?
The growth plan
Lets break this out to understand the source of potential growth.
First, there is the consumer segment. For all the excitement around AI, many users still sit in the free bucket. The business challenge now is converting that into durable revenue.
Expect a shift from todays generous freemium models toward tighter paywalls, bundled services, and even advertising-supported tiersmoves already being tested. For example, Canva raised its prices, bundling new AI features, which led to widespread backlash and a rollback of some of the changes. Notion moved key features behind higher-tier plans as it included built-in AI, sparking user criticism over value and fairness.
Some frontier labs are also exploring something Big Tech once swore off: hardware. To unlock new monetization paths, companies are designing devices such as wearables, home hubs, and the next generation of phones around their proprietary AI interfaces. OpenAI, in partnership with designer Jony Ive, is working on a family of devices that goes beyond phones and computers.
Second, there is enterprise adoption, arguably the most important frontier. Enterpriseslarge organizations that buy software and services for thousands of employeespay, stick, and rarely churn when productivity improvements are demonstrable.
But this market is splitting in two. Smaller firms are moving fastest, using AI to level the playing field against incumbents. Norm Ai shows how smaller disruptors can move first, using AI agents to rethink legal work, even launching an AI-native law firm.
Large enterprises, by contrast, are cautious. Their concerns center on reputational risk, hallucinations, and product liability. Yet once they see quantifiable return on investment in a controlled domain, they will scale quickly and pay premium rices for reliability, compliance, and integration.
Barclays shows how major incumbents adopt more cautiously, using AI to support employees, speed service, and personalize banking while keeping humans in the loop. It is a quest for reimagining business workflows and integrating AI into them.
Third: There is the government, where modernization is both overdue and unavoidable. Cities and federal agencies are using AI to improve responsiveness, reduce backlogs, and redesign citizen services that have long suffered from paper-era processes.
As these systems prove they can cut wait times and improve accuracy, adoption will accelerate. For example, the United States Patent and Trademark Office launched its Automated Search Pilot (ASAP!) program to use AI in preexamination review, with plans to accept at least 1,600 applications across technology centers.
On the national security side, the stakes and budgets are higher. Defense agencies are deploying AI for threat detection, mission planning, and intelligence analysis, creating a fast-growing market for companies like Palantir and Anduril, whose surge in government and defense contracts shows the scale of demand.
These multiyear defense contracts secure growth over an extended period. A contract Palantir recently entered into with the U.S. Army topped $10 billion over 10 years. Andurils programs exceed $1 billion, in multiple contracts, creating steady demand.
Finally, theres global adoption. The geopolitical competition for AI markets is intense. As recently reported, even Silicon Valley companies are quietly reliant on Chinese AI components, while Washington, D.C., is pushing to export an American AI stack as part of its industrial strategy. The geopolitical rivalry is as much about who defines the global interfaces, platforms, and rules as it is about the chips that power AI.
Growth is possible, though not guaranteed. It depends on turning early experiments into products people rely on every day. The real race is not about ever-larger models held by a few firms. It is about unleashing competition and letting a diverse market push new ideas into the world. Innovation spreads when many players build, test, and iterate. That is how bubbles become breakthroughs.
The moment is here. Lets get to work.
Below, Ben Rein shares five key insights from his new book, Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection.
Ben is an award-winning neuroscientist who has spent a decade studying the biology of social interaction. He is the chief science officer of the Mind Science Foundation, an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, and a clinical assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo. He also teaches neuroscience to an audience of more than 1 million social media followers.
Whats the big idea?
Loneliness is a problem. Many of us feel this, and all of us are seeing it affect society. But why is isolation so harmful? Why are virtual interactions a poor substitute for getting together in person? What does our brain get out of spending time with a friend? The neuroscience underlying our social interactions adds a crucial component to conversations about the loneliness epidemic and what we can do about it.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Ben himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Our brains are wired for connection
What does it really mean to be wired for connection? In the ancient world, our ancestors faced tremendous challenges, including food scarcity and predators hunting them. Survival was challenging, but humans work together in groups very well. So, when it came to survival of the fittest, the most social humans were the fittest.
As a result, our brains have built-in social reward systems. That means when we connect with others, our brains send powerful signals involving neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, which make us feel good and want to continue socializing. This was the glue that kept us together millennia ago and, therefore, kept us alive. Our brains still have these systems, which means we have a lot to gain from socializing. This is what it means to be wired for connection. Our brains literally reward us for being around each other.
2. Our neurochemistry faces the challenge of a divided world
We are facing a legitimate public health crisis around loneliness. If you look at the data on how much time people spend with others, how many friends people have, how lonely people are, and so on, these metrics are all going in the wrong direction. Between 2013 and 2021, the amount of time the average American spent alone went up by 36 hours per monthalmost a full work week spent in isolation. We are truly becoming isolated.
3. Social isolation is a form of stress
When a person is isolated, their body triggers a stress response in which cortisol levels begin to rise. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes a lot of sense. In the ancient world, if you were split off from the group, your chances of survival dropped significantly. Back then, it would have been beneficial to have an alarm system in your brain that warns you of this danger. Our brains still have this system, but in a world where were spending more time alone, thats a problem.
Those who are more isolated are 32% more likely to die from any cause.
When our bodys stress response systems are constantly being activated, it can result in chronic inflammation and other negative health consequences. Isolation is very bad for us. Studies tracking millions of people have found that those who are more isolated are 32% more likely to die from any cause. Isolated patients with dementia lose their memory twice as fast. And after having a heart attack, the patients who left the hospital and returned to a home where they live alone were more than twice as likely to die in the next three years. This issue needs to be taken seriously.
4. Digital interactions are not the same as interacting in person
When we meet face-to-face, many social cues inform our brains about whats happening in the other persons mind. We can hear their vocal tone, read their facial expressions, and feel their body language, thereby understanding their emotions.
But when we interact online, whether through texting, FaceTime, or arguing on social media apps, we are not getting the same social cues. I believe that this is impairing our empathy online and leading to undue hostility and aggression. What we know for sure is that interacting online does not provide the same benefits as interacting in person. It turns out social media may not be very social at all.
5. Beyond modern circumstances, our brains have some built-in social pitfalls
Research shows that people underestimate how much theyll enjoy social interactions, which can often lead to a night on the couch, even though going out with friends would have been much better for their brains.
We also underestimate how much others like us and discount our own social skills. These are just a few of the strange yet perfectly natural biological shortcomings of the human brain that prevent us from connecting with others.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
When work was drying up for freelance writer Megan Carnegie, she found herself compulsively hopping between apps and social media. LinkedIn, WhatsApp, emailsand it was just terrible for my focus, she says. I was anxious about getting work.
On a whim, Carnegie (whos also contributed to Fast Company) popped into a store selling secondhand computer equipment and bought an old Nokia burner phone. During the workday, she would use the burner for calls, and in the evening, switch back to her smartphone. With no access to apps and one fewer way to access the internet, her urgency and anxiety dissolved. I just loved the quiet, she says.
The effects of social media on mental health have been a popular topic of conversation in 2025. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidts best-selling book, The Anxious Generation, describes the effects on adolescents, including being a significant contributor to anxiety and depression among young adults.
Whats less-frequently studied is how it affects people at work. But a new report begins to demonstrate how what we see online can bleed into our professional lives.
The new study out of Rutgers University, published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, found that what you see on social media while at work can shape your mood, motivationeven how you treat your coworkers.
Social medias effect on your work
Researchers surveyed 133 workers twice a day for two weeks. They asked them to describe the most salient, or memorable, post they saw that day, then describe how they felt and how productive they were at work. Later, the survey was repeated with 141 new participants, this time including their coworkers, who would also rate the subjects behavior and productivity.
The researchers segmented posts into four categories: attractive (thirst traps), family (kids first day at school), contentious (politics or rage bait), and accomplished (job promotions). They then measured how these content types affected employees self-assurance, anxiety, productivity, and social withdrawal.
They found that while posts about family or friends tend to boost confidence, political rants spike anxiety and make people withdraw. Posts about accomplishments can either spur you or kill your drive, depending on your personality. Those with competitive natures are prone to feeling motivated by achievement-related content, while those who arent particularly competitive are more likely to feel demotivated.
The results indicate that some workers might benefit from limiting their social media use at work. But for those whose job involves regularly scrolling social feeds, breaking the habit can prove difficult.
The LinkedIn star who barely scrolls, and the PR person who just can’t help it
Alison Taylor is an author and professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who writes about corporate ethics. Despite being named a LinkedIn superuser by the Financial Times thanks to her more than 60,000 followers, she spends very little time on the platform.
I wake up, I have coffee, I write the post, I dont worry about it being perfect, I correct typos later, she says.
Taylor knows better than to feed the trolls, but she loves a good argument, and cant help but respond to some followers who needle her. While she might come back throughout the day to comment, she goes in and gets out quickly. Its not worth the distraction.
As for those whose job involves spending time on social medialike PR reps, marketers, and social media managersthe stress can be inescapable. Some 77% of people who work in social media are burned out, says a reader survey by Rachel Karten, who writes the popular Link in Bio Substack newsletter.
Nicholas Budler, who works in public relations for enterprise tech companies, scopes opportunities for his clients all day.
The LinkedIn doomscroll has only gotten more endless for me. And its open at work 9-to-5, he says, noting that when engagement is high, it feels good. But when its not, he questions whether social media is worth his time at all.
I think you get a bit stressed in general to have social media open at work, Budler says. While he used to do a lot of social media strategy for clients, he does less and less these days, saying, I consider it brain rot.
Doomscrolling can carry Budler down a deep, dark rabbit hole of looking through peoples job updates and news. And a lot of that news is not good, right? Especially in media, there are a lot of layoffs, he says. Those leave him anxious.
Cutting back on ingrained habits
The anxiety and malaise social media can cause is a common problem: In one small survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, 45% of adults reported being stressed at least once a week because of social media, and 16% reported being stressed every day. Frequent social media use has already been linked to increased irritability in adults, as well as worsened depression.
Some researchers have even submitted the idea of meta-stress, that is, stressing about the stress generated by social media.
Thats made worse by the fact that most adults in the U.S. use social media: 68% use Facebook, 83% use YouTube, and 47% use Instagram, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet theres money to be made in keeping people away from these platforms.
Apps like Freedom, AppBlock, and SelfControl block access to certain apps for periods of time. Some cant be disabled until a set timer expires. Many workers told Fast Company that they rely on these apps to keep them from doomscrolling.
But even those tools may nt be enough to cut back on deeply ingrained habits. Budler is a prolific social media user in his personal life, with accounts on Instagram, the running app Strava, reading platform Goodreads, and TikTok, the latter of which he says is most addictive. His latest screen-time report on his phone recorded just over 20 hours on his phone in the past week, with 9 of those hours on social media.
Rebecca Greenbaum, a coauthor of the Rutgers study, isnt against social media. I think it can be a fun break. It can be a useful break. It can add interestingness to a persons day, she says.
But to avoid the mindless, automatic scroll, treat it like the smoke break of the 1980s, she says. Get up from your desk, go elsewhere, and devote a limited amount of time.
Its a strategy that works for Megan Carnegie. Im trying to be more intentional about how I use those platforms. The burner has been a good exercise in that. Now Im a bit less anxious about work.
Todays job market is more ruthless than ever, leaving many desperately clinging to their roles amid mass layoffs and side-eyeing the competition.
In such environments, a rival colleague or workplace nemesis may make themselves known. Watching a smug colleague get called out for a mistake in a meeting or blundering a promotion is often deeply satisfying (even if we may not admit it).
Many know the German name for this impulse, schadenfreude: pleasure derived by anothers misfortune. But another, more work-related term that has emerged recently is fail watching: a coping strategy born from todays challenging job market as a way to make us feel better about our own position.
Research has shown that seeing others fail can give us a self-affirming boost. Those with low self-esteem are more likely to be threatened by overachievers (and to enjoy watching them fall flat on their face). These reactions are simply human nature.
Yet there are nuances to reveling in others’ misfortunes: from a fleeting, vindictive thought to public gloating or workplace bullying.
This phenomenon is a symptom of a lack of trust within the team, with employees waiting with bated breath for someone to mess up, Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, tells Fast Company. Youre much less likely to see it in a healthy workplace where everyone feels supported.
Fail watching is far likelier to occur in workplaces that dont recognize and reward their employees’ contributions. At present, only 30% of U.S employees feel that someone at work encourages their development, down from 36% in March 2020, one 2025 Gallup survey found.
Duris also links fail watching to Gen Z employees due to the immense pressure younger workers are facing from all angles. Many have had to really fight to get their foot in the door, he says. In the current hiring slump, applicants submitting a résumé today have just a 0.4% chance of actually landing the job, according to Business Insider. Fresh graduates are being hit hardest, with global entry-level job postings falling 29% since January 2024, according to World Economic Forum data.
The competition doesnt stop there. Researchers from Zurich University found that highly competitive working environments foster the perfect conditions for emergence and development of schadenfreude.
Its understandable to feel somewhat reassured if someone else is finding things tough at work when you are too. But theres a big difference between this and praying for someones downfall.
If you notice someone struggling, the best way to respond is to offer help if you can, or just be kind and supportive. If another colleague tries to gossip with you about a coworkers recent failure, change the subjector at least save it for outside of work hours.
As the age-old adage goes: If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all.
Lately, at every networking event or leadership roundtable, Im hearing the same things on repeat.
CEOs are focused on growth in an uncertain context. HR leaders are worried about retention and employee burnout. Managers are trying to figure out how to build connection in hybrid workplaces that feel more transactional by the day. Everyone is chasing new strategies for engagement, inclusion, and belongingyet most are overlooking one of the simplest, most powerful tools we all have: mentorship.
In an age where technology evolves faster than people can keep up, mentorship is the real accelerator. Its how knowledge sticks, how culture travels, and how innovation spreads. The companies that will win the next decade arent just the ones adopting AItheyre the ones teaching their people how to keep learning, growing, and lifting the next generation of leaders as they climb.
The reality is that the workforce is changing in ways that we have never experienced before. Innovations have shifted the way we operate. Roles and responsibilities have changed. And in August, U.S. unemployment rose again, all while the number of new entrants getting jobs decreased by almost 200,000 (compared to the previous month).
Were watching a generational disconnect unfold in real time. The Harris Poll found that nearly half (45%) of Gen Z job seekers feel AI has made their college education irrelevant, and over half (51%) viewed their degrees as a “waste of money.” This is a striking signal that the promise of education no longer feels aligned with the realities of todays workplace. This isnt just about the cost of collegeits about the gap between whats taught in classrooms and whats needed to thrive beyond them. Employers see the same cracks: Theyre struggling to find qualified candidates even as millions of capable young people are eagerbut unsure howto start.
I talk to a lot of peoplenonprofit professionals, business leaders, researchers, and parents of young adults like myself. But its often the conversations directly with young people that reveal the challenge, and the solution, most clearly.
Take Josue. He graduated from college this spring and possesses a sharp wit, a creative mind, and a dream of working in the legal field. But like so many first-generation and lower-income students, he was weighing that dream against financial reality. Was law school even an option?
Through a network of mentors, Josue connected with a seasoned legal professional who opened his eyes to career paths he didnt even know existed, roles in the legal field that didnt require a law degree. In just a few conversations, that mentor helped him explore options, prepare applications, and gain the confidence to take the next step.
Josue is currently working at a law firm, in a job that he loves. This simple act of mentorship provided career exposure and set Josue on a new trajectory in life.
But thats not the reality for all young people navigating the workforce today. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, in partnership with the Harris Poll, surveyed 1,000 Gen Z youth from across the country and found that only 41% felt high confidence navigating todays job market. At the same time, the data showed that 83% of young adults believe a mentor could help them as they enter the workforce.
Young people want mentorship support, even if the mentor doesnt have all the answers. In fact, 84% of mentored young people attribute their mentors to opening doors to opportunities they didnt know existed.
Guidance from a mentor can not only help a young person navigate their entrance to the workforce but can also cultivate the next generation of leaders, foster loyalty, and strengthen workplace culture.
Consider also that HR leaders need confident employees with durable skills, like communication, adaptability, and teamwork. These are all skills that young people attain through mentorship. Companies with mentoring cultures see increased retention, innovation, and employee engagement.
In fact, it benefits them just as much as it benefits young people. For example, UPS has created career exploration opportunities for young people so they can see the careers that exist within the shipping and logistics industry and ask questions. Mentorship holistically supports a stronger, more diverse talent pipeline.
Todays leaders are leaning in by creating access for young people in ways that we can scale. Think back to a moment when you needed a nudge or a champion, who was the person who did that for youthe mentor who helped you see possibilities you couldnt yet imagine? Where would you be without them?
So, before your next strategy meeting or AI pilot, ask a Gen Z employee whats helping them navigate the uncertainty of work and life right now. You wont hear about new tools or training modulesyoull hear about people. Someone who listens, believes in them, and shows them the next step forward.
Thats the opportunity in front of us. To make sure every young person, in every workplace, has access to mentorship. Because the real measure of leadership isnt just how fast we moveits how many people we bring with us.
