Do things seem…angrier than they used to be? They really are, with levels of anger in congressional speeches, tweets, campaign speeches, and Reddit comments all spiking in the last 10 years, according to a fascinating new paper. Our take? Sometimes it’s best to log off and (literally) hit the rage room.
Scroll down to read about data centers, mental health, and Truth Social.
Stats to power your week
🚅Following recent containment breaches, OpenAI has slowed down training on its upcoming Astra model - a move that’s in line with public opinion, as two-thirds believe the pace of AI development is going too fast. GWI Pulse
🕳️Nowhere is ever a complete echo chamber - they get their fair share of politicaltourists too. Looking at the two most politically polarized social media platforms, Truth Social seems to attract more political tourists than Bluesky does. Just 7% of daily Bluesky users are Republicans, compared with 11% of Truth Social users who are Democrats. GWI USA
⚡The rollout of data centers across the US has put quiet towns in Virginia and the Midwest on the political map, as local protest has morphed into national opposition. What makes them so unpopular? Our research shows the biggest concern is strain on the grid (61%), followed by water use (60%), and higher energy prices (59%). GWI Pulse
🧠Here’s an amazing insight about the cost of living: even though it’s Americans’ biggest overall concern, and 6 in 10 say it’s changed their day-to-day money management, the most common way people track their spending is mental math, or no formal tracking at all - and this is true regardless of personal income. GWI Pulse
Meet the audience: data center opponents
Without GWI data
With GWI data
Picture someone fighting a mega data center, and you might imagine a weathered man with a hand-painted sign outside a rural town hall. It’s a compelling image of an often vocal subgroup, but overlooks the silent majority opinion on data centers in the US, with only 13% unconditionally supportive.
The demographic of Americans calling it a "major concern” is more like a cross between Erin Brockovich and a Facebook mom: 60% are women, skewing Gen X and Boomer, with lower household income than average. They're heavy Facebook users who read news daily, but aren’t plugged into AI discourse. They score high on environmental identity, but not classical activists.
They’re the types that might not show up to a protest due to childcare arrangements, but who are vital in organizing at the community level.
Chart of the week
For this week’s chart, we’re focusing on a trend that also serves as a good case-study in storytelling.
Openness to talking about mental health has grown meaningfully since 2020, making it one of the biggest consensus areas in our research (even if attitudes were already warmer than you might expect).
A trend like that becomes more memorable with the right benchmark. Interest in world news has moved independently of mental health attitudes, but showing that mental health has now overtaken it is a simple way to bring it to life. You could say that interest in the internal world has now overtaken interest in the external one.
More from GWI
Part of the explanation behind consumers becoming more open about discussing mental health might be the effective campaigns of the last few years - here are 6 of our favorite examples.
