How much living space does a person need?

The assisted living apartment like my mom's is 452 square feet.

Each time I read an article in the paper about Minnesota’s “housing shortage” crisis, I can’t help but think about all the wasted living spaces we currently have.

While I know there are families that probably need more square feet, most of my interactions are with people who live in homes with too much unused space. The older adults who I drive are mostly single and often live in what look to be three or four bedroom homes. Of which, I am guessing, two or three bedrooms rarely get used.

On retirement, I downsized from a 2900 sq ft house to an 850 sq ft townhome. I did a thorough decluttering. Except when family is visiting, rarely miss the extra space. I do have two bedrooms, the second smaller one I use for an office/guest room, but I am happy with my single bathroom, single kitchen, single living room, and single car garage. My “man cave” suits me quite well. 

My siblings and I moved our mom into an assisted living apartment last fall. Her accommodations shrunk from a small house to an apartment half the size (see photo above). So far, the reduction in living space has not been an issue for her. Might all single adults be able to live in a home of less than 500 square feet? How much room do couples actually require?*

Do we older adults tend to hang on to spaces we don’t really need for far too long, keeping young families from being able to afford homes that give them room to thrive?** I usually attribute my mom’s hoarding tendencies to having been a child during the Great Depression, but we Boomers don’t really have scarcity of the basic necessities as an excuse for our love of “stuff.” And I expect it is our beloved belongings that keep many from moving to smaller quarters.

One governmental push to reduce the shortage of available housing has been to subsidized “affordable” housing units. I suspect they are building places with three bedrooms and two baths since this seems to be the standard anymore. Might a better tactic be to increase the number of very small homes - apartments, townhouses, etc. - to which those now living in big, older homes might move?

It seems we have lots of space in the housing market - it’s just not very well used!

* I've been reading Roberts' novel Shantaram which is set in the slums of Mumabi. Another whole perspective on "needed" space for human beings.

**The current housing market makes it difficult to downsize to save money since prices and interest rates are high.

Shallow-fakes have been around for quite awhile

Dougio

Polar bear on Lake Jefferson, Minnesota

Caught on a date with Laura Bush

It seems like the general public has finally awakened to the fact that not all you read or see on social media is real. After 25 years plus of hammering the importance of information literacy to our students (and staff), will the warnings voiced by school library and technology leaders finally be heeded?

It’s taken pop culture star Taylor Swift becoming the victim of deep-fake pornographic images posted to X to create an outcry. Despite the outright lies and fabrications by politicians and their followers, we as a society seem to be complacent about the sewage that floats about in our social networking feeds. Until now when poor Taylor is being targeted by image prevarication. 

The images above were ones I used in my slideshows when giving talks on the importance of verifying the information one found on the internet. Most often, the images were accompanied by the laughs they were intended to evoke. (I always believe humor was more effective when trying to make a point.) 

The images were, of course, created prior to the now available deep-fake AI tools now available and don’t take a very expert eye to see that my (much younger) face was pasted on to existing photographs. And while the lake in the picture was just outside my backdoor, the polar bear was a stock photo image. To the best of my knowledge, Minnesota has not yet experienced an influx of polar bears on our lakes. 

I do hope the Swifties have more success in combating the naive acceptance of the validity of junk posted on X and other social media than I did in all my years of giving talks and writing articles like Survival Skills for the Information Jungle. Let’s hope they demand some policing of these popular platforms, strengthen their own critical abilities, and don’t simply “shake it off.”

Building exercise into one’s daily routines

While I have long been a committed and active YMCA member and regular walker, I know I can get in better physical condition if I just make a few changes to my daily habits. I don’t know if they will really help much, but I’ve been trying to remember to:

• To go up from sitting to standing without using my arms to push me up. From low seating, this is more challenging than one might expect. It’s not just leg strength, but balance that gets a little practice. Oh, when I think about it, I go the opposite direction without the use of my arms as well - trying not to make a plopping sound.

• To climb stairs without the use of bannisters. Another chance to work my legs and core instead of my arms. It’s another chance to practice one’s balance as well, when descending. I also try never to place something on the stairs to be taken up later. I just make the full trip each time. 

• To purposely park at some distance from the entrance of stores or other venues. Given our -0 temps lately here in Minnesota, I’ve sort of ignored this one. I find my own behavior ironic when I look for a parking spot as close to the Y’s entrance as possible. While the number of steps each time i park may not be many, I expect over the course of a week, they may add up.

• To walk up escalators. I do this perhaps not as much because I want the exercise, but because I lack the patience to simply stand. See “What escalators tell you about people.”

I suspect there are many more habits I could establish in my daily routine to increase my strength and stamina. Dear Readers, let me know what ones you might consciously perform!