terminal dissatisfaction [Tuesday lunchbreak]
As I stay away from commenting on whatever is in the news today, as part of my Breaking News Intake Reduction Effort, I spend more time looking at historical trends and reading about history. One thing I'm struck by is how terribly dissatisfied US residents have become with their country. This is not brand new -- the last time a majority of US residents were satisfied was 2004. But satisfaction used to be more of an up and down thing instead of an always down thing. Near the end of Clinton's second term, 71% of US residents were satisfied. We had similar satisfaction levels early in GWB's first term, and the middle of Reagan's second term. There were times during the 80s, 90s, and early 00s when we were mostly satisfied as a nation.
Now we haven't been satisfied at any point within the past 18 years, and our dissatisfaction has been especially high since the pandemic began and even as it has receded. We're definitely not celebrating the end of COVID, we're definitely not celebrating near-record-low unemployment statistics. We weren't satisfied with how Trump handled the pandemic, and we're not satisfied with how Biden is handling its aftermath. We're almost as dissatisfied now as we were during the depths of the Great Recession in 2008 as the global banking system almost fell apart.
I'd like to call all'y'all Americans spoiled brats, but I suspect the main reason we've been continuously dissatisfied since 2004 is the rise of social media and individualized media bubbles. I don't think it is a coincidence that Facebook was founded in 2004. Facebook was part of Web 2.0, which held its first annual convention in San Francisco in 2004.
Web 2.0 oriented the Internet toward user-generated content in virtual communities. And when they put the users in charge of content, the users started pissing each other off --> and then most of us became terminally dissatisfied with our country.
We've also seen a rise in partisanship, but even when one side is in charge of the country their side is still dissatisfied -- being in charge is no longer enough. The mere existence of people who disagree with us has created a terminal dissatisfaction. I mean, people who disagree with us are EVERYWHERE. That's what it feels like, living under Web 2.0. Our news media and social media are algorithmically tuned to provoke our anger and dissatisfaction, because that's what keeps our eyeballs engaged.
Oh, I shouldn't blame everything on one thing. But are there other plausible reasons for why we've become continuously dissatisfied for 18 years and counting?
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I noted the other day that the price of energy, adjusted for inflation, hit its all-time low in 1999 and has been trending upward since. But are we all that friggin' upset about our electricity bills?
Same-sex marriage first became legal in Massachussetts in 2004, and started spreading throughout the country -- is it all same-sex marriage's fault? I find that difficult to believe. Why would that cause so many straight people to hate their own lives LOL. But maybe it's a factor in our political polarization, all the LGBT stuff. Causing straight people to feel less secure in their straight gender roles. Now we have so many identity choices ...
There's been a rise in political polarization, definitely, but that's been going on since the 1940s, and was pushed along by the 1960s political realignment in the South when LBJ pushed for civil rights for black people, which sent Southern Democrats fleeing to the Republican party. But it is possible that part of the growing dissatisfaction has been a result of universal suffrage and the shrinking power of white males? A black President was elected in 2008 and it seems our politics were never the same afterward. We still haven't managed a woman President, people dove to the right for Trump instead. But now we're unhappy with our white male Presidents also.
There's been the long-term trend toward urbanization, which has enhanced the power of rural states under the US Consitution, which has decoupled our politics from majority rule, frustrating Democrats. And another long-term trend against unionization, reducing the power of the working class. The rise of college as an option has created fissures within the working class that didn't exist before, along with a chunk of young adults who are well-educated but also highly-indebted.
There's been increasing economic inequality on a grand, global scale. Accelerating climate change. Increasing crime.
The federal minimum wage hasn't budged since 2009. And historically low interest rates have made it difficult for savers and retirees. Recurrent stock market and real estate bubbles add to a sense of economic fragility.
Economic competition from other countries and immigrants has intensified.
But we in the US have some of the highest living standards in the world, along with the strongest military, well-funded police, well-stuffed prisons, you'd think that people here would feel secure and cared for.
-----
It's not just the adults that respond to Gallup surveys who are dissatisfied, but our teenagers also. Persistent unhappiness among teens has been rising in the US at least since 2004.
Last year 44% of high school students reported persistent unhappiness or sadness at the time of the survey. Some would call this a national crisis, though I don't hear politicians doing much about it, instead they're fighting over whether school curricula or individual instructors should ever talk about race or gender issues.
Can we learn something about our general adult dissatisfaction from the unhappiness of our youth? What's causing our youth to suffer?
They're sleeping less than in the past, they're socializing less, and they're spending way more time on social media. Not the same social media sites that their parents use, but the ubiquity of growing up with phones and social media has led kids to spend significantly less time socializing in person, with other kids, than I did as a kid. Also, their parents seem way less trusting of other adults than parents were when I was young.
Today's kids are hearing the same bad news their parents are hearing --> climate change and gun violence, school shootings, suicides, political gridlock -- but with less wisdom regarding how to handle all of it.
The extent of the climate change problem alone is far worse now than when I was a kid. I've written in here before that the known extent of the climate change problem, and what we would have to do to fix it, is probably driving many of us insane. The chasm between what is known about climate change, and what we are actually doing about climate change, is definitely driving a large chunk of our youth toward existential despair.
-----
So am I engaging in some sort of meta-despair here, despairing about our tendency toward despair in the 21st Century? Instead of doom-scrolling the media, doom-scrolling our collective reactions to the media?
I dunno.
We're undergoing a long-term trend toward less satisfaction among adults, and more sadness among kids, despite having more national wealth than ever ... shouldn't we be having a discussion about why this is so? And then what to do about it? I think we'd all have to put down our pitchforks for a while and listen to each other instead. Listen to each other open up about each other's dissatisfactions. Can we come up with solutions by listening to each other and looking for common ground, instead of continuing to fight over the most divisive issues trumpted by our social & news media? Can we talk about why our kids are sad instead of fighting over what teachers in Florida may or may not say to second graders about race and gender?
I think part of the solution will have to be a sort of mental hygiene with respect to media and the Internet. What are we choosing to pay attention to, and why, and what effects do these choices have on ourselves, our families, our friends and the rest of the world?
And I don't mean just paying more attention to happy stuff on the Internet, although some people would probably benefit from more cat videos and fewer Jan 6 videos.
How are we spending our lives? What are our goals? What can each of us actually control? How can we work with others to achieve mutual goals?
A lot of us are simply worn out and tired, stressed out all the time, how can we help each other to relieve stress and sleep better?
I think the first step to solving any problem is always to say out loud what is happening -- nearly all of us are dissatisfied with our country, and a large chunk of our children are persistently unhappy. We have not always been like this. It's been trending this way for 18 years, but we weren't always so unhappy.
What's causing this, what can we do about it? What can I change at my own individual level, and how can I help others to change --> at the family, community, national, and global levels?
Now we haven't been satisfied at any point within the past 18 years, and our dissatisfaction has been especially high since the pandemic began and even as it has receded. We're definitely not celebrating the end of COVID, we're definitely not celebrating near-record-low unemployment statistics. We weren't satisfied with how Trump handled the pandemic, and we're not satisfied with how Biden is handling its aftermath. We're almost as dissatisfied now as we were during the depths of the Great Recession in 2008 as the global banking system almost fell apart.
I'd like to call all'y'all Americans spoiled brats, but I suspect the main reason we've been continuously dissatisfied since 2004 is the rise of social media and individualized media bubbles. I don't think it is a coincidence that Facebook was founded in 2004. Facebook was part of Web 2.0, which held its first annual convention in San Francisco in 2004.
Web 2.0 oriented the Internet toward user-generated content in virtual communities. And when they put the users in charge of content, the users started pissing each other off --> and then most of us became terminally dissatisfied with our country.
We've also seen a rise in partisanship, but even when one side is in charge of the country their side is still dissatisfied -- being in charge is no longer enough. The mere existence of people who disagree with us has created a terminal dissatisfaction. I mean, people who disagree with us are EVERYWHERE. That's what it feels like, living under Web 2.0. Our news media and social media are algorithmically tuned to provoke our anger and dissatisfaction, because that's what keeps our eyeballs engaged.
Oh, I shouldn't blame everything on one thing. But are there other plausible reasons for why we've become continuously dissatisfied for 18 years and counting?
-----
I noted the other day that the price of energy, adjusted for inflation, hit its all-time low in 1999 and has been trending upward since. But are we all that friggin' upset about our electricity bills?
Same-sex marriage first became legal in Massachussetts in 2004, and started spreading throughout the country -- is it all same-sex marriage's fault? I find that difficult to believe. Why would that cause so many straight people to hate their own lives LOL. But maybe it's a factor in our political polarization, all the LGBT stuff. Causing straight people to feel less secure in their straight gender roles. Now we have so many identity choices ...
There's been a rise in political polarization, definitely, but that's been going on since the 1940s, and was pushed along by the 1960s political realignment in the South when LBJ pushed for civil rights for black people, which sent Southern Democrats fleeing to the Republican party. But it is possible that part of the growing dissatisfaction has been a result of universal suffrage and the shrinking power of white males? A black President was elected in 2008 and it seems our politics were never the same afterward. We still haven't managed a woman President, people dove to the right for Trump instead. But now we're unhappy with our white male Presidents also.
There's been the long-term trend toward urbanization, which has enhanced the power of rural states under the US Consitution, which has decoupled our politics from majority rule, frustrating Democrats. And another long-term trend against unionization, reducing the power of the working class. The rise of college as an option has created fissures within the working class that didn't exist before, along with a chunk of young adults who are well-educated but also highly-indebted.
There's been increasing economic inequality on a grand, global scale. Accelerating climate change. Increasing crime.
The federal minimum wage hasn't budged since 2009. And historically low interest rates have made it difficult for savers and retirees. Recurrent stock market and real estate bubbles add to a sense of economic fragility.
Economic competition from other countries and immigrants has intensified.
But we in the US have some of the highest living standards in the world, along with the strongest military, well-funded police, well-stuffed prisons, you'd think that people here would feel secure and cared for.
-----
It's not just the adults that respond to Gallup surveys who are dissatisfied, but our teenagers also. Persistent unhappiness among teens has been rising in the US at least since 2004.
Last year 44% of high school students reported persistent unhappiness or sadness at the time of the survey. Some would call this a national crisis, though I don't hear politicians doing much about it, instead they're fighting over whether school curricula or individual instructors should ever talk about race or gender issues.
Can we learn something about our general adult dissatisfaction from the unhappiness of our youth? What's causing our youth to suffer?
They're sleeping less than in the past, they're socializing less, and they're spending way more time on social media. Not the same social media sites that their parents use, but the ubiquity of growing up with phones and social media has led kids to spend significantly less time socializing in person, with other kids, than I did as a kid. Also, their parents seem way less trusting of other adults than parents were when I was young.
Today's kids are hearing the same bad news their parents are hearing --> climate change and gun violence, school shootings, suicides, political gridlock -- but with less wisdom regarding how to handle all of it.
The extent of the climate change problem alone is far worse now than when I was a kid. I've written in here before that the known extent of the climate change problem, and what we would have to do to fix it, is probably driving many of us insane. The chasm between what is known about climate change, and what we are actually doing about climate change, is definitely driving a large chunk of our youth toward existential despair.
-----
So am I engaging in some sort of meta-despair here, despairing about our tendency toward despair in the 21st Century? Instead of doom-scrolling the media, doom-scrolling our collective reactions to the media?
I dunno.
We're undergoing a long-term trend toward less satisfaction among adults, and more sadness among kids, despite having more national wealth than ever ... shouldn't we be having a discussion about why this is so? And then what to do about it? I think we'd all have to put down our pitchforks for a while and listen to each other instead. Listen to each other open up about each other's dissatisfactions. Can we come up with solutions by listening to each other and looking for common ground, instead of continuing to fight over the most divisive issues trumpted by our social & news media? Can we talk about why our kids are sad instead of fighting over what teachers in Florida may or may not say to second graders about race and gender?
I think part of the solution will have to be a sort of mental hygiene with respect to media and the Internet. What are we choosing to pay attention to, and why, and what effects do these choices have on ourselves, our families, our friends and the rest of the world?
And I don't mean just paying more attention to happy stuff on the Internet, although some people would probably benefit from more cat videos and fewer Jan 6 videos.
How are we spending our lives? What are our goals? What can each of us actually control? How can we work with others to achieve mutual goals?
A lot of us are simply worn out and tired, stressed out all the time, how can we help each other to relieve stress and sleep better?
I think the first step to solving any problem is always to say out loud what is happening -- nearly all of us are dissatisfied with our country, and a large chunk of our children are persistently unhappy. We have not always been like this. It's been trending this way for 18 years, but we weren't always so unhappy.
What's causing this, what can we do about it? What can I change at my own individual level, and how can I help others to change --> at the family, community, national, and global levels?