Without mentioning smartphones or social media, what societal changes have you noticed over the course of your lifetime?
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From an American perspective, flying on an airplane sucks. 9/11/01 resulted in a whole bunch of security theatre at the airport and airlines have slowly whittled away whatever comfort or convience remained.
Remember being able to walk people to their gate, hug them goodbye, and watch the plane leave? Now you can only do this if you’re taking an unaccompanied minor to their gate.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
More aggressive driving. Statistics even support it so it's not just an anecdotal thing.
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I've noticed an increase in noticing other people being not well, but a decrease in the depth that people care. It used to feel that you might have one or two friends who cared about you deeply. They'd drop everything to help and wouldn't ask for anything in return. Now it seems like everyone cares about everyone but not enough to actually do anything.
It's more like everyone is literally at their limit for taking care of themselves and literally has no energy leftover for others.
I think this is purposeful to socially divide us.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]We used to take for granted that everybody agreed Nazis and Russians were bad.
Nothing against Russians suffering under Putin's boot. We have a whole new sympathy for you now.
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I've noticed an increase in noticing other people being not well, but a decrease in the depth that people care. It used to feel that you might have one or two friends who cared about you deeply. They'd drop everything to help and wouldn't ask for anything in return. Now it seems like everyone cares about everyone but not enough to actually do anything.
Yeah.
We had twins nearly 2 years ago.
I never really expected "help" but when we were pregnant there were people coming over every day telling us how much they were going to help. My wife has a huge social group, it was kinda overwhelming.
Since they were born, there's been 1 person who has just been amazing. She's here for a few hours several times a week and just plays with the kids. She's been really consistent.
No one else really knows how to help I think. Or maybe they think everyone else is helping. Or maybe just doing their own thing (which is fine ofc).
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Cable TV use to be something that teathered us all together in a way. We were all stuck on the same schedule for premiers of new episodes of different shows so we all had a common thing to talk about come the next day. Now I have no idea what’s playing on what service and have just given up on staying up to date on the new shows. I could have access to $TVShow but probably won’t watch it because I don’t like to binge watch so it takes me longer to catch up and by the time I do it has already left the minds of my peers so why bother.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Better but much more expensive insulin, although price has gone down significantly since Affordable Care act.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
The circa 1990 nature of American society has been erased so completely that it is hard to believe how drastically it has changed.
Movies used to depict child molestation (Indiana Jones) or outright rape (Revenge of the Nerds) as normal and to be celebrated when it was done by the heroes. A lot of crimes got viewed through the lens of whether it was “our people” doing them. The thinking features in a lot of old movies.
The cops who beat Rodney King were found not guilty by a jury, in the first trial. After all, they’re the cops, they’re allowed. Drunk driving was fine, as long as you were one of the right kind of people. The cops would beat the fuck out of people and it was fine. The factory in town could be polluting the river and it was fine as long as dad had a job. And so on.
The uniformity of thought that TV enforced, before the internet, is really not well understood. If you thought Israel was bad, then you and Noam Chomsky were literally the only ones. Even as late in the arc as the Iraq War, I would say about 95% of the people who didn’t get their news from the internet supported the war. Watch one of the debates where Ron Paul was speaking against the war with everyone else (except the audience) just weirded out and confused by it, or the “Media-Opoly” short that aired on SNL once and then never again, to get some idea by contrast of how airtight the lock on narrative used to be. TV and newspapers are still kind of that way, but they don’t have the media monopoly they used to. It used to be that someone probably would live their entire adult life without ever hearing the kind of political viewpoints you see every day on Lemmy as normal things.
On the other hand, along with the expectation that everyone was kind of a piece of shit and that’s how life is, came a kind of backbone for resistance that I feel like is missing today. Woodstock ‘99 would be a pretty normal “yeah they robbed us” badly organized festival today. It was way better than the Fyre Festival, and people at Fyre just took it, or called their lawyers. At Woodstock ‘99, the kids threw bottles and batteries at Kurt Loder, broke in the ATMs and stole their money back, and then ripped the venue apart with their bare hands and burned it all to the ground.
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Cable TV use to be something that teathered us all together in a way. We were all stuck on the same schedule for premiers of new episodes of different shows so we all had a common thing to talk about come the next day. Now I have no idea what’s playing on what service and have just given up on staying up to date on the new shows. I could have access to $TVShow but probably won’t watch it because I don’t like to binge watch so it takes me longer to catch up and by the time I do it has already left the minds of my peers so why bother.
Game of Thrones was the last time I had this experience.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Negative: Worse driving interactions (as a pedestrian/cyclist), especially post-covid.
Positive: People are generally more accepting of things, and people seem to be more comfortable sharing parts of them that make themselves different from the "norm".
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The mall was full of stores with good quality products that you would value for a non insignificant amount of time if purchased.
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It's more like everyone is literally at their limit for taking care of themselves and literally has no energy leftover for others.
I think this is purposeful to socially divide us.
Could be. But I also see it as a change of mindset. It used to be you cared deeply for a few people. Now it seems like you're expected to care about everyone. And if you spread it that far it becomes thin.
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From an American perspective, flying on an airplane sucks. 9/11/01 resulted in a whole bunch of security theatre at the airport and airlines have slowly whittled away whatever comfort or convience remained.
i got fed up enough that i decided i'm never flying again. if i can't get there in time by driving, so sorry, i won't be able to attend
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More aggressive driving. Statistics even support it so it's not just an anecdotal thing.
the population of the u.s. has increased by almost 100,000,000 since 1990. that's a lot more assholes on the road
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/population
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“Nonsmoking section” that wasn’t even a separate room, just a half wall divider 🫠
Lol, in my tiny ass hometown it was just tables without ashtrays.
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“Nonsmoking section” that wasn’t even a separate room, just a half wall divider 🫠
before that, it was the whole restaurant
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i got fed up enough that i decided i'm never flying again. if i can't get there in time by driving, so sorry, i won't be able to attend
I'm close. I only fly to see family and drive everywhere else. If I can't complete the vacation without driving I'm just not doing it.
It's weird because flights are cheaper but then I don't have a vehicle where I land and most of the places I want to go I need a vehicle. I'm not much of a city boy.
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Remember being able to walk people to their gate, hug them goodbye, and watch the plane leave? Now you can only do this if you’re taking an unaccompanied minor to their gate.
Actually, it depends on the airport. A lot of them you only need to show ID now, not a ticket.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
When I was still a kid, we went from bring a plate of cookies to your neighbor and introduce yourself to DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS!!
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
I was trying to think of specifics, but they're already getting mentioned. I'd just say a lot of these things stem from there being literally double the amount of humans alive right now than when my dad was born. An individual is devalued immensely and cultural cohesion is completely shot.
