I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago. Join me as I share how the genre

began, their social impact, and why these stories endure. Listen, wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson, and we have made it to another Friday,

whatever that means. Today's show is full of good stuff. We're going to tell you why it might be a good

idea to put your phone down for one day every week. And you're going to learn a new way to make

sense of some of your maybe less than delightful life experiences. Plus, of course, we've got a

couple book recommendations for you.

But first, we're going to have a conversation about the week we just survived, at least so

far, with two of my favorite humans.

Ariane Nettles is a journalism lecture at Northwestern University.

Ariane, hey.

Hi.

And Patrick Smith is a criminal justice reporter at WBEZ. Hey, Pat. Hey, Greta.

Okay, so I think we should start with a big story from this week, which is that Google is being sued by the Justice Department. The Justice Department is saying the company is monopolizing web search and search advertising. This is huge. It's actually the biggest

challenge to big tech in almost two decades. Google's defense is that there's plenty of other

search options out there. Kent Walker is the company's chief legal officer and he says,

quote, people use Google because they choose Google, not because they're forced to or because they can't

find alternatives. So I thought I would start by Pat. Like, can you name two other search engines?

Bing, I think, still exists. And does ask.com still exist? Yahoo is definitely still around.

...