Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤔 Are smartphones to blame for the “Anxious Generation”?
• 🔢 🥊 Why the math world is beefing
• 🏀 Off by nine inches

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~5.33-minute read (1,419 words).

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

–Lao Tzu (6th century B.C.)

Younger Americans today are in the midst of a mental health crisis, with significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicide compared to previous generations at the same age.

And, while experts have yet to reach a consensus on what’s causing the trend, many have theorized it may have something to do with the rise of smartphones and social media.

One such theorist is social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, an NYU Stern professor of ethical leadership and author of a new book called Anxious Generation.

• Haidt argues the sharp decline in US teens’ mental health is directly linked to a rise in “phone-based childhood,” which began in the early 2010s after smartphone usage became widespread and social media exploded in popularity.
• He cites a wide range of studies that show rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide among US teens have all roughly doubled between 2010 and 2021, after staying relatively consistent over the previous decade.

Yes, but… Other experts have pushed back on Haidt’s claims of an established link between smartphones/social media and youth mental health issues, saying the data only shows a correlation – not causation.

• Some researchers also say Haidt doesn’t properly consider the possibility that the many recent world crises could be a source of mental strain for teens, or that increased mental health awareness and acceptance in recent decades has boosted the overall number of diagnoses.

🧒📵 Zoom out: A handful of states have passed laws limiting kids and young teens’ exposure to social media since last May, when the US Surgeon General published an advisory warning of the risks of social media usage for youth.

• This includes Florida, which took the furthest step of any state last week when it enacted a law banning all social media accounts for children under 14, and requiring parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, is the rising popularity of smartphones and social media the main factor behind America’s youth mental health crisis?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

On April 11, our friends at Commons will be hosting an event with LA climate leaders to shape a more sustainable future. Download the Commons app today or tomorrow and you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to win one of five FREE tickets.

The event will include programming on topics like…

• 🍎 Food and agriculture
• ✨ Fashion and beauty
• 🏢 Sustainable company building
• 📖 Climate storytelling

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Download the Commons app here to enter to win one of five free tickets. (Make sure to use the email address you subscribed to The DONUT with).

🌎 Caribbean “golden passports” are getting more expensive. Golden passports refer to programs where foreigners pay a certain country to gain citizenship, which, in the case of Caribbean nations, includes visa-free access to the EU, UK, and other countries. Four countries – Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda – agreed this week to increase the cost of citizenship to at least $200,000, after US and EU regulators voiced concerns that golden passports were being used to support organized crime, money laundering, and tax evasion. Caribbean golden passport programs collectively bring in ~$579 million/year, accounting for up to half of some countries’ annual budgets.

🇮🇱 An Israeli military airstrike killed seven international aid workers in Gaza. The deadly strike late Monday hit workers with World Central Kitchen, an aid group founded by celebrity chef José Andrés that’s considered one of the most important providers of food aid in Gaza. The incident marked the first known deaths among foreign aid workers in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began. World Central Kitchen, which has paused its operations in the Middle East following the airstrike, said its staff had coordinated their movements ahead of time with the Israeli military, and accused Israel of conducting a “targeted attack.”

🇧🇪 A trove of unreleased Marvin Gaye songs was discovered in Belgium. The collection of 66 demo songs was given by Gaye to musician Charles Dumolin in the 1980s. When Dumolin died in 2019, the cassette tapes were handed down to his family – though the right to publish the unheard songs is currently in dispute, since Gaye’s heirs could have a legal claim under Belgian law.

International travelers looking for a VIP customs experience will have to shell out a little more moolah – and practice some patience.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that, starting October 1, the application fee for Global Entry, a government-sponsored five-year program that provides pre-approved customers with a smattering of benefits designed to save them time while traveling, will increase from $100 to $120. It’s the first fee increase for the program in 15 years.

Why now? Picture the scene in the first Harry Potter movie where a deluge of Hogwarts letters start pouring through the mail slot on the Dursley’s front door…that’s currently happening in CBP offices across America.

• From 2013 to 2023, the number of active Global Entry members grew from ~2.2 million to ~12.3 million.
• The agency is on track to receive 4+ million applications this fiscal year, up from 2.95 million applications last fiscal year.

Travelers applying for Global Entry must undergo a background check and interview with a CBP official, which, with current staffing levels and processes, is causing a bottleneck and leading to wait times longer than the DMV. New applications typically take 4-6 months to process, per the CBP – though some customers say theirs have taken a year or longer.

📝 Bottom line: While it works through the backlog, the CBP is advising people who don’t travel internationally multiple times per year to forgo Global Entry and apply for TSA PreCheck instead.

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An attempt to fix issues with a controversial mathematical proof has itself become the subject of controversy, marking the latest twist in a decade-long saga that involves a $1 million prize.

Background: The story centers around a proof published by Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki in 2012, which claims to solve a long-standing problem in mathematics called the ABC conjecture.

However, Mochizuki’s proof, which he spent 20 years single-handedly developing, contained 500+ pages of a brand-new and highly specialized notation that other experts struggled to decipher.

• While a handful of mathematicians have since accepted that Mochizuki’s research solves the ABC conjecture, many others say his arguments are inherently flawed and don’t prove anything. (These disagreements often involve unusually pointed insults.)

A recent proof hoped to clear the situation up – but only added more drama. Kirti Joshi, an associate math professor at Arizona University, published a proof last year that he says fixes the problems with Mochizuki’s work and proves the ABC conjecture.

But Mochizuki, as well as mathematicians who oppose his proof, remain unconvinced. In a 10-page response published last week, Mochizuki said Joshi’s work was “mathematically meaningless,” and that it reminded him of “hallucinations produced by artificial intelligence algorithms such as ChatGPT.”

👀 Looking ahead… Anyone who’s able to conclusively prove – or disprove – Mochizuki’s theory will receive a $1 million prize from Japanese businessman Nobuo Kawakami.

💬 Quoted… “We apologize for this error and the length of time for which it went unnoticed.”

• An error at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, during Women’s March Madness this weekend has the NCAA in full apology mode. For what, you ask? The same thing men around the world worry about constantly – coming up short by a few inches. In the NCAA’s case, the 3-point lines on opposite ends of the court were two different lengths – one fell 9 inches short of regulation – for five games over two days (pic shown above). The discrepancy was reportedly spotted by an eagle-eyed Portland divorce lawyer sitting in the nosebleeds, who, through a series of actions, got the attention of officials who then initiated a change.

💥🚗📉 Stat of the Day: Ready for a bit of good news? Traffic deaths are on the decline. Just under 41,000 Americans died in traffic accidents in 2023, representing a 3.6% drop from the previous year and the second-straight annual decrease, per new National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. The decline in traffic deaths comes as Americans are driving more than ever, recording 67.5 billion more miles on the road last year compared to 2022.

🤔 Did You Know?... A 2020 study of 5+ million race results found women are on average slightly faster than men when races are longer than 195 miles – which is likely due to women having higher levels of estrogen (as well as stronger minds😉).

📰 Worth a Read: The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ → (The Guardian)

• ☝️ Residents across Southern California witnessed streaks of light moving across the sky early yesterday morning; it’s unclear what caused the phenomena, with one expert attributing it to a defunct Chinese space module falling out of orbit.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The Student Loan Strategist

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board (S&P: -0.7%; Dow: -1.0%; Nasdaq: -1.0%). | 🐭🗳️ Disney’s hotly contested board of directors shareholder vote will be finalized this afternoon; Disney leadership reportedly holds a slight lead over activist investor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners, with over half of all shares voted.
• 🚘📉 Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles globally in Q1 2024, down 8.5% from a year earlier; it marks the EV giant’s first year-over-year decline in quarterly deliveries since 2020.
• 🤼 Private equity firm Silver Lake announced plans to take entertainment company Endeavor private at an equity value of $13 billion; TKO Group Holdings, an Endeavor-owned firm that owns the UFC and WWE, will remain publicly traded.

*From our partners: 🎓💸 Got US student loans? Join 14,000 Americans who are outsmarting their debt with hacks from a top student loan lawyer. Every Wednesday, The Student Loan Strategist decodes the news and shares debt-shrinking tips for federal and private loans. Subscribe free here.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏀👀 Monday’s Iowa-LSU Women’s March Madness matchup averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million; both marks set all-time records for women’s CBB by a margin of 2+ million; FanDuel also said the Iowa-LSU game was its biggest women’s sports betting event of all time.
• ⚾ See the top takeaways from MLB opening weekend.
• 🧑‍⚕️ Grey’s Anatomy was renewed for a 21st season by ABC, extending its record as the longest-running primetime medical drama.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Slumber

• 🏥 US hospitals must obtain written informed consent from patients before performing pelvic exams and exams of other sensitive areas, per new federal guidance.
• 🛒 Amazon is removing its “Just Walk Out” shopping technology from Amazon Fresh grocery stores in the US; it’ll be replaced by Dash Carts, which allow customers to scan items while shopping.
• ⏳🌕 The White House has directed NASA and other US agencies to figure out a unified system of timekeeping for the Moon by 2026, per Reuters.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ✍️🚨 Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill that criminalizes possession of small amounts of hard drugs; the law reverses Oregon’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization policy that was enacted in 2021.
• 🗽 Former President Trump posted a $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case, preventing state authorities from seizing his assets while the case is under appeal.
• ⚖️🏥 Florida’s Supreme Court issued a pair of abortion-related rulings on Monday; one allows the state’s six-week abortion law to take effect, while the other allows a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution to appear on the ballot this November. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🪄💰 The new magic number for retirement is $1.46 million. Here’s what it tells us.

Mike and Jeralyn Wirtz were married in 1977, less than 10 years after interracial marriage was legalized nationwide. Now, nearly 50 years later, they've become TikTok sensations. 

📱Influencers at 70... It all started in 2020, when the couple began making videos and posting them for their children and grandchildren during the pandemic lockdown. Fast-forward four years, and the couple has amassed nearly 400,000 followers and millions of views.

• “I like it. I love it. I think it’s fun,” said Jeralyn. "I’m 72 years old, and I’m an ‘influencer! It’s fun and funny for us.”

🦸‍♂️ Trivia: Which newspaper does Clark Kent (aka Superman) work for?

🍗 True or False?... Dave Thomas used to work for KFC before founding Wendy’s.

🤔 Riddle Me This: I have many faces, expressions, and emotions, and I am usually right at your fingertips. What am I?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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🦸‍♂️ Trivia: The Daily Planet

🍗 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Emojis