Do we all want less noise and clutter in 2026?
Weekly Reads #115 - Things to read, listen to, watch, and think about at the top of the new year.
Happy Friday and happy New Year! I’m popping into your inboxes a bit later than usual. I’ve been fully in “catch-up mode” since Monday. It seems that’s the general vibe across the internet this week: everyone’s finding their sea legs after a long-ish break. One of my personal goals this year is to extend myself more grace - especially around my own editorial calendar - as I think this will make me less stressed and produce better work for you. So…onward!
What did I do during my holiday “break”? (Not really a break for parents of little people, I am learning.) A whole lot of cleaning, organizing, and purging. The third-trimester nesting instinct has arrived with force. Yesterday, I had to stop myself from wiping down every shelf in our garage. I’ve cleared out nearly 20% of my closet, an astonishing amount stuffed into donation bags. I am chucking things left and right, donating, giving away, and trashing. Nothing in sight in our home is currently safe.
I feel this more strongly at the start of this new year than ever before: that I need a clutter-free space in order to think more clearly. I think it’s something we could all use: less noise, fewer things, a bit more room to breathe.
Above the paywall today includes a mini-essay (or vent?) about Instagram and AI, thoughts on Wuthering Heights, and some other fun culture recs.
Under the paywall today: Judging a book by its cover, what I’m reading + watching right now, some thoughts on the “skinny apocalypse” and how women’s bodies are under scrutiny again, a few useful and good new-year-energy Substack newsletters I enjoyed this week, and two small (and free) things that have improved my life immensely so far in 2026.
A DOWNTIME APPETIZER
Three fun things…
Bookmarked: This charming matchbox featuring a vintage illustration of cherries.
Found: An Etsy shop that sells beautiful, tapestry-inspired silk drawstring bags, made to order. It’s giving Sophie Buhai, but not $1k.
Using: A brand spankin’ new planner. Name a better feeling than cracking open a fresh planner in January! I added a little pen clip to mine, and it sparks immediate, utilitarian joy.
A housekeeping note: I’m moving most of my lifestyle-y recs out of these weekly letters and into its own column, which will be less frequent moving forward. There’s always my ShopMy page in case you’re ever curious what I’m bookmarking, purchasing, or wishlisting, etc. My hope for 2026 is you won’t see loads of stuff on that purchasing list…
RECS & LINKS OF THE WEEK
Things to read, listen to, watch, and think about
If you quit social media, will you read more books? Jay Caspian Kang asks this in a recent New Yorker essay (paywalled), and it snagged me because this is exactly the fantasy underpinning my current Instagram detox. Kang’s answer is sobering. Leaving social didn’t magically turn him into a more ambitious or disciplined reader; it mostly just made him less aware of “what was going on in the world.”
I don’t fully buy this for myself. Less scrolling means more time for books; it’s simple math for me. But I found his broader argument persuasive. He pushes back against the recurring panic that “nobody reads anymore!!,” pointing out that we’ve probably never read more words than we do now, they’re just more fragmented clips, faster, and easier to abandon. The more unsettling idea is that the internet may be making us more efficient readers rather than better ones: quicker to find what speaks to our specific tastes, which makes this a good food for thought:“The boredom and impatience that longer texts sometimes inspire can help push and prod one’s thinking more than things that are perfectly distilled.”
A useful provocation, I think, especially for those of us trying to remember how to sit still with a book.
The great millennial rebrand of prenups. I was fascinated by this piece by Jennifer Wilson in the New Yorker on how normal prenups have become. Apparently, 21% of Americans have signed one, up from just 3% in 2010; among this group, millennials and Gen Z account for most of the uptick, at 47% and 41%, respectively1. That’s a huge jump. I suppose battle-scarred millennials have more hard-earned lessons from living through…multiple economic crises.
Prenups can get pretty granular these days: there’s a prenup app (of course) called HelloPrenup which allows couples to add an “Embryo Clause” where “you can decide how you want to allocate your frozen embryos and who will pay for storage fees.” You can also add a “Social Image Clause” to penalize your ex if they post embarrassing or disrespectful content about you on TikTok. How very…2026? (If you’re interested in reading more about prenups, Lindsey Stanberry and Aja Frost wrote an excellent piece with helpful takeaways in this newsletter.)
The official Wuthering Heights trailer is out now. What do we think? I’m not quite sure of the tagline, “The greatest love story of all time” (uhh??), but I admit the soundtrack featuring original music from Charli XCX is pretty epic. The gothic visuals are, of course, stunning as this is an Emerald Fennell production we are talking about. It seems the movie, of course, is sparking many reads and rereads: 831 Stories and Belletrist are doing a readalong of the classic. I’ll personally be picking up a thrifted copy (shocked I don’t own one already!) and doing a reread as I don’t remember much of the story, tbh. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the film and the book.
I had no idea Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino, the novel about a 37-year-old publicist who becomes obsessed with househunting - perhaps to an unhinged degree - is being adapted, and will star the incomparable Greta Lee, no less! Lee will be executive producing alongside Killing Eve writer Suzanne Heathcote. Please say no more, the book just shot up my TBR list. My copy arrives today and I’m thinking we should read it for Downtime Book Club….thoughts?
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Instagram and AI this week, which is saying a lot because I haven’t actually been on the IG app for more than thirty minutes a day since the day after Christmas. If you know my screen time habits, which are dreadful, you’ll know that this is a big deal. (Much thanks to the Opal app - the free version - for keeping me off it).
I’ve taken “breaks” before, but this is the first time my break has felt extended and consistent. I no longer feel the siren call of IG. Perhaps this is because I’ve realized, again, how bad it is for my brain and attention span. I typically close out of it feeling either incredibly anxious, envious, hyperactive, or too inspired to the point of paralysis. I scroll instead of doing other things that actually feel good, like reading and writing and chatting with friends.
A Screenshot of my Opal app: 9 hours, dear lord I had a problem To further bolster my apprehension of the app, a few alarming news pieces caught my attention over the break. The first is a leaked strategy document (*paywalled WaPo link) which highlights Instagram’s main focus for the year: to win back, attract, and keep more teens on the app.
This is an emboldened (and egregious) strategic move by Meta, which has only recently implemented certain safeguards for teens after much public outcry. It’s curious they are doubling down on the teen strategy, even after witnessing the cultural tides that are against them, like the teen social media ban that’s gone into effect in Australia recently, or the swell of parents who’ve read The Anxious Generation and are vehemently anti-phone due to its negative effects on teens’ mental health.
The real reason, of course, is money: more teens and young people on the app means more addicted eyeballs to sell ads against. (Reels now has an annual revenue run rate of $50 billion, compared to YouTube’s $46 billion and TikTok’s $17 billion.) We can hate Instagram all we want. As long as it prints money, none of that really matters. Is this the type of platform I want to continue using and contributing to? An outright boycott doesn’t feel realistic for me personally, but it's still good to know I’m spending less time on an app that’s blind to its own harm. And time + attention is what all these digital platforms want from users. It translates to billions.
The other piece of news that crossed my feed (heh) was this baffling post by the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri. It’s a long essay disguised in a carousel format (which, straight to jail). In it, Mosseri tries to address the AI anxiety I’m sure he senses among creators on the platform. He blames camera companies (??) for allowing people to take beautiful, high-quality photos and videos - aka visuals that could be mistaken as AI-generated content by followers. To combat this and signal “authenticity,” he urges creators to share more “raw” and “unflattering” photos. Nowhere in the essay does he take accountability for Instagram’s role in actively promoting AI features or address how creators will be specifically protected.
My main takeaway is that this is Mosseri’s circuitous way of saying: “AI is here to stay and we are going to make gobs of money thanks to it, so suck it and do better, creators.” It’s a useless tip sheet disguised as a forward-looking philosophical essay addressed to the very creators who helped make Instagram make billions and are now competing against AI-generated content and accounts. If this continues, Instagram will become a sort of digital abandoned mall: endless AI accounts liking each other’s posts in a closed loop, a glossy ouroboros of content with no real audience left inside it. If you’re interested in reading a clear breakdown and level-headed response to Mosseri’s message, I recommend reading this piece by Rachel Karten of the Link in Bio newsletter.
Taking a sharp left turn, what’s on my to-watch list this weekend: Heated Rivalry, the hockey romance taking the world by storm. Of course! I know it’s all the buzz and I’m behind! The actors’ press tour bits I’m seeing are so charming, like this one:
A January book release I can’t wait to read: Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, a comic family drama and debut novel from a young author. The premise is great and it’s been blurbed by Leslie Jamison, and that’s all I needed to know. My full list of anticipated reads coming soon!
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