So far as I know, no one is assigned to read Psychology Today blog posts regularly as part of a classroom or work assignment. Maybe you have been assigned a few articles here and there, but probably even that is rare. You come here for your own intrinsic reasons – perhaps because you like psychology or you get some insights into matters that are troubling you.
I’ve been writing the Living Single blog here at Psychology Today since 2008. I’ve come to realize that some of the people who read these blogs (and I don’t just mean my own) are in some ways more psychologically sophisticated and up-to-date than even some professionals. Including professionals in mental health. And including some professionally trained researchers.
I’ll give you some examples, drawing mostly from my own writings:
1. You probably know what asexual means. Or you have heard of it. Same for aromantic.
A few years ago, I taught a psychology class in a program for graduate students training to become therapists. I asked the students if any of their clinical psychology courses included a section on asexuality. None of them knew what that was. (It is a lack of sexual attraction.)
I first wrote about asexuals here at Psychology Today more than a decade ago, in an article that became instantly popular. The topic of asexuality has also gotten attention in other media. By 2016, enough scholarly research was published on the topic to support a review article, which concluded that asexuality is a sexual orientation and not, as critics first suggested, a sexual dysfunction.
I’ve written about people who are aromantic, too; they experience little or no romantic attraction to others. That’s separate from being asexual. As I explained here, you can be asexual or not, and aromantic of not, resulting in four categories.
Just recently, I mentioned aromanticism in passing to a clinical psychologist I greatly respect. She did not know what it was.
Mental health professionals take continuing education classes. For many of them, it is a requirement. But those classes do not cover everything that is new in the field, and therefore many trained professionals have done everything they are required to do in order to stay current, yet in some important ways, they aren’t current.
Knowledge about asexuality and aromanticism is important as a counterpoint to the temptation to pathologize experiences that are not the norm. Sometimes a lack of interest in sex can be a symptom of something worrisome, such as serious depression. Sometimes it is a side effect of medication. But what the rigorous study of asexuality has told us is that for some people, it is not a problem at all. They just aren’t interested.
THE BASICS2. You probably don’t believe all the myths about how, if you get married, you will become lastingly happier and healthier than you were when you were single.
For decades, I have been explaining what is wrong with the claims that getting married makes you happier or healthier or extends the length of your life. And over time, research challenging those myths has become more sophisticated and more devastating for the true believers.
3. You also know that on matters of singlehood and marriage, and much else, social scientists do not always agree with one another.
Hundreds of people write blog posts for Psychology Today, so it should be unsurprising to find disagreement. Maybe you have read some articles that suggest just the opposite of what I claimed above. Some social scientists still think marriage makes people happier and healthier. They either haven’t read the latest research, or my arguments, or other people’s arguments such as those of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman — or they don’t find any of it convincing.
Education Essential Reads
Which Trendy Teaching Techniques Actually Work? 
Why Students Should Resist Using ChatGPT I used to teach a course in nonverbal communication. One day I told students about some new and fascinating findings that had just been published. One of the students got angry at me, because the new results contradicted something in the textbook. She wanted scientific findings to be set in stone. Fortunately, they are not. Scientific understanding evolves and often becomes more sophisticated.
When I get frustrated with the singles-bashing that sometimes gets perpetrated under the guise of science, I remind myself that progress is possible. After all, homosexuality used to be classified as a mental illness, in the authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
4. You are probably savvier than many others about the difference between marital status and parental status.
Have you noticed, when you read articles about single people, how often the authors just assume that if you are single, that means you don’t have kids? That happens in casual conversations, too, but I am more struck by published articles because many of them have gone through an editorial process; that means that at least one editor, as well as the authors, have signed off on that misrepresentation.
Although it is true that single people are less likely than married people to have children, there are many single people who do have kids and many married people who do not. In fact, the rise of single parents and of couples not having kids, in the U.S. and some other nations as well, are among the most significant demographic changes of the past decades.
Beyond Psychology Today
I have been focusing on Psychology Today because bloggers here are often writing about cutting-edge ideas and findings hot off the presses. When you read blog posts here, you are often reading about understandings that have not yet made it into textbooks. But I am also a fan of psychology more generally and what it has to offer the people who read about it and study it. (For more about that, see 6 Reasons Why Psychology Is Your Secret Weapon.)