Tuesday's Assorted Links
Ikea plushie, teen AI use, reading, pollen, and business class
Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:
An Ikea plushie is selling for hundreds on eBay thanks to the sudden virality of Punch the baby monkey [Gizmodo]
Just over half of U.S. teens say they have used chatbots for help with schoolwork, and 12% say they’ve gotten emotional support [Pew Research Center]
40% of Americans didn’t read a single book in 2025 [YouGov]
Researchers in Finland have found robust evidence of a link between pollen and worse academic performance [Gizmodo]
A new study finds that scrapping business class could halve aviation emissions [The Conversation]
Last week, the Dick’s Sporting Goods app briefly ranked No. 3 in the Apple App Store, sitting between Claude and ChatGPT. The feature behind it pays users roughly ten cents a day to exercise, and it turns out to be a surprisingly clean lesson in how companies use economics to identify their best customers. If you missed it, it’s worth a read.
Claude, ChatGPT, and Dick's Sporting Goods
Last week, something unexpected showed up at the top of Apple’s App Store. Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude, made it to the top spot following its coverage all over the news. ChatGPT was right behind it at No. 2. Google’s Gemini at No. 4. Some of the most sophisticated software ever built. We’re talking billions of …
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So what you're saying is, if we double emissions, we can expand business class?
Re: reading, I used to read a lot of books. Now, I read many fewer books, but my total overall reading time has increased, thanks to the proliferation and easy access of online articles, blogs, substacks *ahem*, etc I think the medium matters less than the time and content.
If you look at the study, listening to an audiobook counts as reading, while (by omission) reading a substack post does not. Fetishisation of books is an obstacle to understanding