I don’t understand that. Do you think 40s or 50s were better. I would think more about all tech being “social prosthesis” and people just have a lot less social life…
From an economic standpoint for Americans, absolutely.
Post-WW2, the USA was an economic powerhouse. Other industrial nations had just had all their factories bombed, so the USA being untouched meant there was a massive demand for American products.
And back then, companies were loyal to their workers. Dad could get a job at the factory out of high school and it'd pay enough to buy a house, raise two kids, and provide a pension for retirement. Profits funded bonuses. Now, you've got people earning college degrees being barely able to afford an apartment. Profits are held by the shareholders and wages are kept as low as possible.
The problem is people use simple numbers like "GDP" and "Unemployment %" to define "the economy" and both of them grossly ignore actual purchasing power for the majority of American consumers.
For Americans, maybe you’re right, but
I am from east europe, WWII resulted in my country being occupied by russia. For almost 50 years. People moved to gulags, etc. But still, it didn’t get that bad.
Therefore I don’t think economy is the explanation.
Back then there was no stream of constant fearmongering on all the news channels. People read their local newspapers, some obituaries, local ads. There were a couple pages of truly important global news and that's it.
Now even to the most Internet-savvy it's often not clear what's truth and what's the alternative truth. We don't need to look for the things we want to hear - hyperoptimized algorithms deliver it to us directly to maximize engagement, so for majority it really feels like everything is getting worse.
Isn't that a mixture of because they don't expect every child to survive to adulthood, and/or these are subsistence agricultural areas who need more manual labor?
