“All of us can play a part in healing our society’s wounds and divisions these days by thinking consciously, explicitly, about how to make the institutions that we are part of a little stronger."

Wheatley Fellow Jenet Erickson gave a devotional address at BYU-Idaho about the human need for connection, and how humans are designed, both in a theological and a biological sense, to thrive in a family.

Despite the surge in AI relationship technologies in recent years, little attention has been paid to how such technologies may impact dating and family formation, as well as established marriages and family relationships.

Magnify the Podcast featured Wheatley Family Fellow Jenet Erickson discussing findings from a recent Pew Research study on women of faith. Latter-Day Saint women were found to have very high rates of happiness and spiritual well-being, in sharp contrast to negative pop culture depictions. Pew Research concluded: "“It may be the confluence of the religious values and practices, reinforced by social ties and norms, that give religious communities their powerful effects on so many aspects of human flourishing.”

Brian Willoughby, a Wheatley Institute Family Fellow, contributed an article to the Deseret News about a sharp decline in dating among young American adults. Willoughby cites financial pressures, low confidence, and shifting priorities as factors in this "disconnect from romance, dating and marriage."

Earlier this year, Wheatley Institute hosted journalist and author Jonathan Rauch for a lecture about his book Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy.