Toward that end, most experts agree that all the inward self-appreciation in the world won't matter until outward social barometers like television and movies stop emphasizing idealized images.

Chicken has become a social and economic barometer.

The Sorollas are, as always, light-filled marvels of bravura, skill on this level being not just a social barometer but having an erotic charge.

Geoffrey Gilmore, the director of the Sundance festival, which ended yesterday, believes the festival is a social barometer reflecting a "cultural subconscious."

He was a highly sensitized instrument, a finely tuned social and academic barometer.

At the turn of the century, it thrived as a social barometer.

"It's a curious social barometer, isn't it, to measure progress by the millions of jobs that you can destroy?"

"Babies and children," he tells WebMD, "are very sensitive social barometers."

And in Italy the social barometer is, unfortunately, on storm.

Our social barometers always stand at 'cloudy' and 'overcast.'