Have you ever walked into a meeting and immediately sensed that something was wrong, even though nobody had said anything? We tend to think meetings begin when someone starts talking, but our brains are reading the room long before that. Facial expression, tone of voice, pace, posture, and behavior all provide social information that helps us determine whether something feels calm, uncertain, or threatening. Psychologists call part of this emotional contagion, the tendency fo

I was on my phone the other night looking for new places to hike. One trail led to another, then to a beautiful mountain range, and before I knew it, I had spent ten minutes exploring places around the world I had never been. When I put my phone down, I noticed something: I felt better. Calmer. More content. Maybe even a little more optimistic. We hear so much about doomscrolling, distraction, and what our phones are doing to us, but it made me wonder: What if it isn't only h