The pandemic has either created too much free time or too little. Kitchen-table commutes and reduced social obligations expand mornings and weekends for some, while caretakers and gig workers are ...

Game shows provide vivid examples of high-stakes decision-making biases. Previously, I’ve discussed non-rational bidding on The Price is Right, and today I’d like to consider contestant behavior on ...

It has been almost two years since the economy recovered fully from the coronavirus pandemic, but more than 3 million workers are still missing from the workforce. University of Chicago economics ...

“My father always called me a ‘useless article,’ ” Chris Davis tells me, driving through Bristol, England. “He said it in a rather nice way, of course.” In the midst of my research I had come up to ...

To be idle is to not be doing anything. Idleness is often romanticized, as epitomized by the Italian expression dolce far niente (‘it is sweet to do nothing’). Many people tell themselves that they ...

I was amused and shocked a few years ago when the first kids I know asked for palm pilots for Christmas. Cell phones I could see — we are a yakking culture — but palm pilots for 11-year-olds? Were ...

Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler, draws upon a wealth of resources to shrug off the capitalist work ethic in favour of 'love, anarchy, freedom'. I wonder if that hard-working American rationalist ...