An interesting thought I had yesterday was how much less stuff people worried about in 1997 verse today. The most obvious difference was there was not a Covid-19 pandemic going on in the United States in 1997, but the virus aside, people have been increasingly on edge at least in the US. There are a verity of reasons for this, two of the main reasons being the over use of social media and economic destabilization. There was a time in the US when you could find a job that paid a comfortable salary and a pension with just a high school diploma or less. Now almost every job that pays decent requires a degree or specialized training like an apprenticeship program. Further more, many jobs that require a college degree pay just enough for someone to live in a small one bedroom apartment and to payoff their student loans if they live in an area with a high cost of living like most major cities. But how does social media play into this?
Bill Maher once said during an interview with Larry King, “at one time people read the newspaper in the morning and saw all the bad stuff going on in the world and said, ‘that’s horrible, but at least its not happening to me.’ Now, they scroll through Instagram and see people on vacation before going to work.” The thing about social media is people usually post positive things that happened to them like vacations or getting a new job, which causes people who spend too much time on social media to have this distorted idea that everyone else is doing much better than them when really most people are struggling in some way. And in 1997 before most social media existed, more people realized not everyone was doing great all the time and they were the only one with misfortune.
I am not disparaging the use of social media, but like any thing else too much of it is not good and social media addiction is a real thing. I recommend taking breaks from social media and always be sure to spend ample time in person with friends and family, but most importantly, discuss person problems with friends and family.
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