Good morning! I start by sharing some good news: this newsletter has won the Vicente Verdú Journalism and Innovation award. Thank you to all the readers! If you’re not subscribed, you can sign up here. Now, let’s talk about this week’s topic: I haven’t written about Pedro Sánchez. When I prepare these emails, I usually review current events and ask myself if I have something to say. I do this because I discovered a reality when I entered journalism: people want to read about the trending topics. They generate much more interest. The difference is excessive, neither fair nor healthy, but that’s how the attention market works. However, this week, the overdose with the president made me decide early on: I would write about something else. And so I did. Here are six interesting graphics on completely different topics.
1. We live in the future: the majority of couples meet online. According to quality data from the United States, a trio of Stanford academics interviewed thousands of heterosexual people to answer the question: “How did you meet your partner?” The result is striking: the internet has swept away all alternatives to finding a partner. It’s a tremendous shift: the way we pair up has completely changed in 20 years. Friends, work, bars… all of that has been replaced by online life and dating apps. This transformation will have social consequences. I wonder if couples will now be more similar in terms of physical attractiveness, income, or political ideas. Additionally, we will choose from a larger pool of people, not just acquaintances. And if that’s the case: won’t we choose better?
2. The cherry blossoms in Kyoto bloom earlier. And that’s bad news. In the beautiful Japanese city, cherry blossoms used to reach their peak bloom around April 15, but now they do so 10 days earlier. The reason? Increasing urbanization and climate change have raised spring temperatures, pushing the cherry blossoms to bloom earlier. The graph shows the evolution, taken from Our World in Data. It’s amazing that we have data going back a thousand years. The cherry blossoms bloomed on March 25 in 2023, earlier than ever before. And this year, they also bloomed early, on April 5.
3. Renting in Spain is crazy: every listing receives 28 messages. In 2021, when you posted a rental ad on the Idealista real estate portal, on average, six interested people contacted you. Three years later, each listing receives 27 contacts. Four times more! Rental prices have risen by 21% in the last three years, according to Idealista, compared to 17% inflation. Going back further, the data is even worse. Over the last 10 years, rents have increased by 78% – triple the inflation rate. They have doubled in the Balearic and Canary Islands, as well as in the provinces of Malaga, Barcelona, Valencia, and Alicante.
4. Children of university graduates study more… but mostly in science and engineering. University students have parents with higher education and better jobs than average. For example, as stated in an interesting report by the Ministry, 46% of students’ parents hold a higher education degree, compared to 35% of others their age. 44% have high occupations – executives, professionals, scientists, and technicians – compared to 33%. It’s not surprising. Parents with education (and high incomes) will pass on connections, information, resources, and even genes that increase their children’s chances of attending university. But what surprised me in the report were the differences by branches. Children of university graduates stand out because they study more engineering and science degrees, which offer better career opportunities.
5. Your favorite music is usually from your youth. Except if you’re a Generation Z. Americans from the boomer generation (1946 – 1964) say the best music was made in the seventies. Generation X (1965 – 1981) prefers music from the eighties, while millennials (1982 – 1999) lean towards the nineties. However, Generation Z breaks this trend by exhibiting more diverse tastes. They consider the best musical decades to be the eighties, the 2000s, and the 2010s. Perhaps their tastes are still developing, or maybe variety is in vogue. Or, as Antonio Ortiz suggests, could the eclecticism of Generation Z be attributed to the internet? They have grown up listening to on-demand music, from Napster to Spotify. Any music. And that was simply impossible until 30 years ago.
6. Can we predict elections worldwide? The graph shows the probability of Donald Trump (49%) and Joe Biden (50%) winning the November elections in the United States, according to the prediction platform Metaculus. I’ve mentioned Metaculus before. This week, I have an announcement: I will be collaborating with them on a tournament to predict the presidential elections in 23 countries this year, from Panama to Mexico and the US. On the tournament page in English, you can see the updated predictions and share yours. Can you help me? Forward this newsletter to anyone you want and sign up for Kiko Llaneras’ newsletter here. It’s an exclusive newsletter for EL PAÍS subscribers, but anyone can receive it for a one-month trial. You can also follow me on Twitter or send me clues or comments at kllaneras@elpais.es. Subscribe to read more. Read unlimitedly.
