Vox Sentences - What’s on your mind?

Just the other day, I was chatting it up with my cousin on Instagram when our conversation turned from a viral video about whale oil and renewable energy (you don’t want to know) to Prius dorks and the great opportunity of hybrid cars to help fix the climate. And then he hit me with a question: How much does a forest fire contribute to global warming? What’s the math on a 10k acre — what does that equate to in terms of tailpipe emissions from cars running on gasoline? 

Huh, that’s an interesting question. 

My cousin is a curious person. I am a curious person. A lot of us are hungry to get to the bottom of questions that actually matter. That’s exactly why I became a journalist. And it’s why I’m so excited about a new Vox franchise, Explain It To Me that launched this week. 

Explain It To Me is a weekly podcast, newsletter, and video series where we answer your questions. Are you wondering about why American politics work the way they do? Want to know why going to the dentist sometimes feels like a scam? Or curious about what you can do to help address climate change? There are all kinds of ways to field your questions to us. You can fill out this form and we even have a hotline that you can call. Seriously. Put us in your favorites: 1-800-618-8545. 

With Explain It To Me, there’s a whole new portal for readers like you to direct questions like my cousin had to our team of award-winning reporters. We’ve got a lot of questions we’re eager to explore in this exciting new era for Vox — let us know what you’re curious about. I’d even be happy to hear from you in my Insta DMs.

—Paige Vega, climate editor

Explain It To Me: Are bugs really disappearing? 

Several years ago, my dad took my sister and me back to his family home in Pennsylvania, where fireflies are actually the official state insect (yes, really). He was so nostalgic over their abundance when he was a kid and outright disturbed when we hardly saw any. It’s the sort of foreboding absence that a lot of people have noticed in recent years. For our first newsletter installment, Benji Jones, our excellent environment and climate correspondent, answered Vox reader Gunnar Colleen’s question: “So are all the bugs really disappearing? If so, why does it seem like nobody is doing anything about it? Is there anything I can personally do to help out the little guys at the very base of our ecosystems?” Read on to learn more and — thankfully — the many, many ways you can help support insect life. 

🎧 Explain It To Me: Is my dentist scamming me? 

It doesn’t take much to feel like a captive audience at the dentist. Your mouth is wedged open, the very nice dental hygienist is asking you polite questions. The dentist is recommending …. What? Do I really need that? If you’ve ever felt swindled in between swishing and rinsing, you don’t want to miss our podcast this week. Our host Jonquilyn Hill digs into one of our colleague’s questions: Why does going to the dentist sometimes feel like a scam?

“I feel like every time I go to the dentist, it’s like a little bit of a mystery. Unlike when I’m at my regular doctor’s office, there isn’t this step where they say, ‘Hey, we recommend you do something, and here’s what it’s going to cost.’ That just feels so [different from] how I think about health care — having to think about not only do I want this procedure, but do I want to pay for this procedure? And how do I want to pay for this procedure?”

The Vox Guide to College Application Season 

Navigating the path to college is fraught these days, but my colleague Allie Volpe, senior reporter on our Even Better team, has compiled a fantastic package of stories to help high school seniors chart their path. Allie gets into the application process with seven current students on how to stand out and stay sane and explores what admissions officers really want to read in college essays these days. Finally, she takes a look at how you can pay for college if you do decide to go. 

What if the panic over teens and tech is totally wrong?

Angst isn’t just a matter of college decisions and admissions essays. In his latest column, Adam Clark Estes, Vox’s senior technology correspondent, analyzes the nationwide freakout that’s intent on keeping kids and teens off their cellphones over a (rather overhyped) concern over youth mental health. You don’t want to miss his take on Instagram’s new — and more restricted — teen accounts, the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, and how the panic reached a tipping point this week.

🎧 Your phone is banned, fellow kids 

Red states! Blue states! Florida states! The states are all freaking out and banning phones in schools. To hear more about what these bans really look like in the schools that have banned them, and how hard it will continue to be to actually enforce them … tune into this great episode. 

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