It's Thursday, August the 8th, 2024. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. Today's article is

written by Dr. Jim Denison and narrated by Chris Elkins of the Denison Forum. The news of the week

has been monumental, to say the least, from unprecedented political developments to weather-related disasters to the specter of an escalating war in the Middle East.

So for a day, let's take a break from all of that to consider a whimsical headline that may be a sign of our times.

A.I-powered necklace will be your friend for $99.

Dubbed quote-unquote, The Friend, this pendant is about the size of an Apple air tag.

Avi Schiffman, the 21-year-old Harvard Dropout, who invented it, told Wired that he created the device at a time when he had never felt more lonely in my entire life.

The onboard microphone listens to everything happening around you.

Powered by AI, it will answer questions, but also send unprompted messages to engage in conversation

and offer encouragement.

In other words, it's a technological companion to make up for the real thing.

It should not surprise us that Schiffman is in search of friends. His Gen Z cohort reports

the poorest mental health of any generation in America as they struggle with alarming

rates of loneliness, depression, and suicidal thoughts. They are also our nation's least

religious generation. Perhaps there's a correlation, if not a causation here. By contrast,

actively religious people are more likely to describe themselves as very happy, healthier,

with greater longevity, better coping skills, and less anxiety, depression,

and suicide, more psychologically resilient, with a higher quality of life, better able to handle

economic uncertainty and downturns. Why then, aren't more Americans more religious? When I was a small

boy, I wanted to fly more than anything.

I used to lay in the grass, look up into the clouds, and imagine soaring among them like Superman.

So one day, I took some bed sheets and used them to make myself wings.

...