AIBU to think that society generally has

[Bubblebu]

just got much much much worse in the last 5 - 10 years?

or am I thinking far too simplistically about this?

i just mean in the way people treat / ignore each other; no support networks (apart from online) and thinking most people really to live to work not work to live (ie just survive) compared with life in the past where there was more balance.

Reality TV of any and every sort.

I entirely agree. It's nothing but needless drama and histrionics. The virtue of modesty has all but disappeared from modern life. It may not be wholly valid, but it's certainly not without some badly needed merit.

enjoy your annual leave.

annual leave from work is so important and in the past I have worked in several places where taking annual leave has increasingly as the years have gone by - has been frowned on so good for you!

literally terrified of have a friendly flirt in a non creepy complimentary way with women they know

Your friendly flirt is my sexual harassment case
I dont work to be flirted with
Im glad men feel off about doing it, they should, Its work, not a bar

I think that every person since the dawn of time has thought this.

It's just part of getting older. Your parents probably said the same thing, your kids probably will say the same thing.

That sounds appalling - thankfully my workplace is big on 'wellbeing' so taking annual leave is OK (as long as you can find a slot to take it).

I miss the 1990s and particularly the internet before social media took it over. It used to be full of obscure maths jokes. Everyone on the internet was either a student, a mathematician or a scientist. It was geek heaven. Now it's all influencers and scammers and people who think what they've had for breakfast is news worth sharing.

your kids probably will say the same thing

I'm a childfree zone, but this sort of remark is typical of the post Y2K internet. Back in the 90s, it would never have been assumed that a user of the internet had or intended to have children.

totally agree about the modesty bit.

no one is expecting people to go round like Victorians.

but on the other hand all those "things" which used to be a thing once (I think...) such as patience, courtesy, respect, etc seem in some quite influential parts of society to have disappeared or no longer seem to matter.

Gosh re reading that I really sound like a very old fashioned person but I do think there is an element of truth to it in the "instant gratification" culture.

Here is another weird one and I might be totally wrong on this but I do think it is true to a degree.
When I was at primary school decades ago we used to have weekly taught lessons about saving the planet, conservation, saving wildlife, saving water, not wasting things etc. I remember enjoying it at the time and with child like optimism really believed that things were going to change and the planet would be "saved". When I got to be a teenager (as teenagers often are) although I did not give it to much thought being too self absorbed I reflected on those lessons and though "that is a bit weird, why was I being taught to save the planet when I was 10 years old? oh well maybe someone older than me has got it all under control".

now to my utter horror not only does it seem that no the planet was not in any way saved and there was actually no plan to do so but at my children's primary school they are being taught weekly lessons on - you guessed it - the fact that they must "save the plant". And their weekly childrens magazine The Week Junior - implores my 10 and 11 year old to sponsor an animal with WWF, save water, never use plastic, know how to recycle everything, insist to their parents they must walk to school and not use cars (they don't they do walk as we are close). My kids love it. But it feels like for decades now the people being targeted repeatedly with the message to "save the plant" are primary school kids and everyone else just carries on regardless.

I might be wrong on that one.... but

squeak

I did not mean at work. I absolutely meant outside of work.

And by "flirt" I mean "have you had your hair done? it looks great"
or "have you been on holiday? you look relaxed and well"

not anything sleezy or awkward at all.

But yes, if so many men do not know the difference then a complete bar on any such communication or flirting has to be consequence I agree.

I agree wholeheartedly OP. Life has changed so much since I was a kid, and a lot of it not in a good way for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Of course we have to have progress, and much of it is for good, but people are certainly different to the way they used to be and the life/work balance is skewed. Also, so many social problems - and yes, I know there have always been social problems, but surely things should be getting better, not worse as they seem to be in a lot of cases.

I'm a childfree zone, but this sort of remark is typical of the post Y2K internet. Back in the 90s, it would never have been assumed that a user of the internet had or intended to have children.

First of all, I wholeheartedly disagree. It is only in recent years that choosing not have children has become accepted. Not too long ago it was just assumed that everybody would have children.

Secondly, it was just an expression. Don't take it so literally. It means that the viewpoint is cyclical. It doesn't have to be OP's children, it can he anyone's children.

You don't say how old you are - when I was at school there was little 'official' thought of saving the planet, but as individuals people made a point of using, e.g. The Body Shop. Now The Body Shop is just another conglomerate.

I do have 2 kids.

However I also know many more people of my generation who could have had kids and consciously chose not to.

When I was growing up the above attitude especially by women would have been viewed as "selfish". Increasingly I think it is now viewed as totally acceptable or indeed the opposite of selfish and I don't think that view is necessarily wrong. (and I don't want my kids to feel guilty when they get older that they have "failed" to save the planet inspite of all the school lessons they have telling them they must do that)

Pelleas - agreed ref the body shop. It had a very very different ethos and message when I was at school / uni to what is has now. Back then and in the early days of its operation I genuinely believe it worked for those values which seemed new and were enthusiastically supported.

Now - none of that. Which feels to have been reflected by other initiatives of the era too - cannot think of examples immediately but I am sure some will come to me.

Yes, my memories of the body shop are them pioneering fair trade in the mainstream beauty industry at a time when most people didn't care. That's certainly changed now.

Ref "The Body Shop" to me at least ditto "The co op"
My sense was back then (cannot put a date on it) they were also very much seen as fair trade; and a fairer operating structure for both staff and people who shopped there.

Now maybe if I spoke to their management they might say to me "we still are" but I just don't get that vibe about the co op nowadays.

I know I need a small vacation
But it don't look like rain
And if it snows, that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain.

Pelleas :)

actually spent my childhood having staycations partly because that was what people just did (esp cornwall if u were wealthy enough - which we were not!) and partly because you did indeed have to be quite minted to take any (let alone multiple) foreign holidays.

(I remember thinking late teens our family had "arrived" when we went to Brittany for two weeks one hot summer!)

There was no such word as a "staycation" cause that is just what so many people did - holiday in the UK.

Now anything but a foreign holiday has become so unusual that "staycation" is actually a word!

Anyway enjoy your staycation and relaxing!

The era of the caravan! I have so many wonderful memories in caravans

It might pay to revisit the empirical evidence
Data on Global Living Conditions

It is strange that people do not notice these improvements. I do not think that the media are the only ones to blame, but I do think that they are to blame for some part of this. This is because the media does not tell us how the world is changing, it tells us what in the world goes wrong.

One reason why the media focuses on things that go wrong is that the media focuses on single events and single events are often bad – look at the news: plane crashes, terrorism attacks, natural disasters. Positive developments on the other hand often happen very slowly and never make the headlines in the event-obsessed media.

The result of a media – and education system – that fails to present quantitative information on long-run developments is that the huge majority of people is completely ignorant about global development and has little hope that progress against serious problems is even possible.

FWIW to me it feels like the world is worse than it used to be, a lot worse. But according to the data, it isn't.

Haven't violent crime rates been going down for decades? Also, re drugs I've read that the levels of drug taking and drinking are down amongst gen z.

There have been some odd things going on. Not worse than all of history, but very concerning.

The effects of the internet are concerning. It's really ramped up certain social trends, and people's loneliness. Fractured and isolated commuities was already a problem, and it made it worse in some odd ways.

People being very frightened and anxious. News I think has a lot to do with this, people see it, and they are affected subconsciously, their brain doesn't realise, that happened on another continent. Kids who are given little freedom grow up even more anxious, and unable to cope, unable to navigate risk.

Increased authoritarianism, worldwide it seems. Increased gap between the rich and poor.

The US is in the midst of being a failed state, and it's so large that the effects of its death throes will be felt across the globe, it is destabilising to all kinds of alliances and regimes. I have doubts whether the EU will survive the next 100 years. China, on the other hand, has their fingers everywhere and so it seems do the Russians.

Agriculture is in trouble, and increasingly controlled by corporations. The media, the Fifth Estate, are increasingly useless.

Yes - it is all very worrying.

Guineapigbridge that link is really interesting. However I cannot help but still feel there are more negative things not reflected in those stats.

Who invested in those stats being produced and what was their motivation. For example of course it is unquestionably excellent that there has been such a dramatic decline in extreme poverty globally but like newton's law of motion there must have been some equal and opposite decline in some kind of wealth or well being elsewhere to achieve this.

I am not saying therefore it was not worth it - I am just saying that is never reflected in these kinds of university reported statistics.

I am not trying to be perversely morbid it is just my own opinion.

Goosefoot I agree with your comments.

I totally agree. You only have to read replies to threads on here to see how insular people are. People just do not like helping or caring about people anymore. Society is fractured.

@Evelefteden - you have hit the nail on the head. This thread is also going to attract differing comments from people in different age groups - older people are going to remember a very different world to younger people and the younger ones will not be aware of how life used to be. They read articles and quote statistics, but those do not always tell the truth.