Podcast Episodes
Back to Search602. Is Screen Time as Poisonous as We Think?
Episode 602
Young people have been reporting a sharp rise in anxiety and depression. This maps neatly onto the global rise of the smartphone. Some researchers ar…
1 year, 6 months ago
601. Multitasking Doesn’t Work. So Why Do We Keep Trying?
Episode 601
Only a tiny number of “supertaskers” are capable of doing two things at once. The rest of us are just making ourselves miserable, and less productive…
1 year, 6 months ago
What Is the Future of College — and Does It Have Room for Men? (Update)
Episode 503
Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially for men, and how to stop the bleeding. (Part 3 of o…
1 year, 6 months ago
EXTRA: Why Quitting Is Usually Worth It
Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the…
1 year, 6 months ago
The University of Impossible-to-Get-Into (Update)
Episode 501
America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to…
1 year, 6 months ago
What Exactly Is College For? (Update)
Episode 500
We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges also operate like firms, trying to differentiate t…
1 year, 6 months ago
EXTRA: Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete (Update)
Episode 351
There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which…
1 year, 7 months ago
600. “If We’re All in It for Ourselves, Who Are We?”
Episode 600
Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of Fordham University, thinks the modern campus could use a dose of old-fashioned val…
1 year, 7 months ago
599. The World's Most Valuable Unused Resource
Episode 599
It’s not oil or water or plutonium — it’s human hours. We've got an idea for putting them to use, and for building a more human-centered economy. But…
1 year, 7 months ago
EXTRA: Why Rent Control Doesn’t Work (Update)
Episode 373
A new proposal from the Biden administration calls for a nationwide cap on rent increases. Economists think that’s a terrible idea. We revisit a 2019…
1 year, 7 months ago