"What is their relationship with phone use? Do they feel anxious when it's not around them? When they sit down to eat dinner with their family, do they feel a need to check it? Do they feel compelled to look at it at all times, rather than just answering texts they get?" The NYT takes a look at compulsive teen texters, who share a lot of behavior overlap with compulsive gamblers. I spend most nights obsessively browsing for news stories and habitually checking my stats. Last weekend, I had the entire house to myself. What did I do? I browsed the news and checked my stats ... more. Our screen addiction definitely can feel like gambling. Except when you gamble, there's at least a small chance of winning.

+ Quartz A photographer edits out our smartphones to show our strange and lonely new world. (Incredible)

A televised debate without Trump is sort of like Two and a Half Men without Charlie Sheen, but the Dems still did pretty amazing numbers. "In preliminary estimates from Nielsen, Tuesday's debate on CNN drew a big 15.3 million viewers -- the largest-ever crowd for a Democratic debate and the sixth largest non-sports cable audience on record." (I'm not sure I agree with the classification of a political debate as a "non-sport.")

+ By most accounts, Hillary Clinton won the debate, but Bernie Sanders won the night with this line: "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails." He may not be president, but he has my vote for CTO. Digg provides a look at that moment and the rest of the highlights from the debate.

"The infiltrators weren't Islamic militants at all. Behind the smokescreen was a group of hackers with ties to the Russian government." From Bloomberg: Cyberspace Becomes Second Front in Russia's Clash With NATO.

Back in 2009, two Milwaukee police officers were shot in the face when they stopped a guy for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Yesterday, a jury ruled that the officers deserve millions in damages. But here's the twist: The damages must be paid by the shop that sold the gun.

+ WaPo: People are getting shot by toddlers on a weekly basis this year. (One more reason to be glad my kids are past the toddler stage.)

I'm convinced that a big reason people love Uber is because the tipping is taken out of the interaction. It's a pain in taxis. And it's a pain in restaurants. Can NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer put an end to the tradition? Well, he's about to give it a shot.

If you're a solid and massive stalwart of the American economy, here's one thing the market doesn't want to hear from you: A lower than expected outlook. And the market is punishing Wal-Mart with its worst stock market day in 15 years.

The stuff you put on the Internet is permanent. Except when it's not. The Atlantic's Adrienne LaFrance on the Pulitzer-finalist 34-part series of investigative journalism that disappeared (and the quest to find it): Raiders of the Lost Web.

"Her lips were bright red, her long nails were pale iridescent lavender, her mascara was both white and black in a way I didn't really understand." In the NYT Style Mag, Miranda July talks to Rihanna. And Bret Easton Ellis talks to Quentin Tarantino.

+ And if you've got the stomach for it ... lunch with Jonathan Franzen.

Where "paranoia meets narcissism." That's how one psychologist describes the booming business of selling luxury bomb shelters.

The Peace Corps just saw a 40-year high in the number of applications it received for overseas programs. What was the key to the increase? The application process went from 8 hours to one. (It says something if people find your application to be more daunting that their impending service.)

+ Jennifer Connell sued her nephew who, at the age of eight, got a little too aggressive with a birthday hug which led to a broken wrist for his aunt. She got zero. (But the case really happened.)

+ A Harvard student broke a world record by standing on an exercise ball for five hours. Your move Yale.