Are people more or less happy than the preceding generations?

ancapailldorcha

Permabear wrote: »

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Greece must have been fun for you.

Permabear wrote: »

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I googled it. They look expensive!

Permabear wrote: »

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I like my Roman history. Plus, it lets me unleash bloodthirsty elephants on virtual Italians which is nice when real Italians cause me problems at work.

That thing is 4,000 pages long! I'm still limping through Robert Fisk's book on the middle east.

Permabear

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rsh118

There's so much damn life porn out there that you can't sit down for 5 minutes to be happy with what you've got before some eejit is talking about which house to get on his 800,000 euro budget.

Or how much someone's life improved when they started juicing.

Or what an incredible number of holidays someone has been on.

Or how to do the interior decor so it looks like Michael D Higgins study/Kim Kardashian's Arse.

It's all the aspirational dirge which gets shoved down our throats from every angle, whether it's TV, Internet, 'news' sources, the latest bloody book out for Christmas.

I'd have to say that it's the happiest, best off generation the world has ever seen, it's just constantly bombarded by every gurning expert out there ready to say that life is sh*te and to try out their diet plan to fix it.

Anyway, with that off my chest, I'm off to buy this new aftershave guaranteed to make me smell like George Clooney, dress like James Bond and attend gala evenings at casinos.

ancapailldorcha

Permabear wrote: »

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Indeed. I find the only way to actually progress with anything is to sit down and just have at it. I try my best to read at least 10 pages a day. Handy for the bus.

rsh118 wrote: »

There's so much damn life porn out there that you can't sit down for 5 minutes to be happy with what you've got before some eejit is talking about which house to get on his 800,000 euro budget.

Switch off. Seriously. I only use Facebook for communicating with friends now. I don't really watch TV unless it's comedy repeats or a decent film. I have TiVo so I can just skip through ads as well.

steddyeddy

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

You would think. Parklife is famous for attracting, how shall I say this, people from less affluent backgrounds. Foresight and prudence would be in somewhat short supply based on the chaps I was living with.



You've stated before what you do. Can't imagine a job where I need to be "on" all the time. I've a friend who works for the BBC. He'd be similar in that he needs to keep an Eagle eye on various sportspeople's Twitter accounts.

Never heard of Blackphones before but I'm not surprised your employer has furnished you with one.



Same here with some games thrown in. I'm fairly quiet by nature so having such options is a real boon. I suspect I'd be quite miserable were I part of my father's generation who emigrated to London to work on building sites. I bought Rome: Total War for £3.74 and have sank over 100 hours into it by now. Value ain't the word!

Try American government research. They start at 5.30 and often work past midnight that night. The simple reason is that if they don't do it there'll be someone else who will.

ancapailldorcha

steddyeddy wrote: »

Try American government research. They start at 5.30 and often work past midnight that night. The simple reason is that if they don't do it there'll be someone else who will.

If I end up back in Donegal soon which isn't unlikely, my Dad will insist on that with no pay!

Seriously though, I value my free time a bit too much. I've heard all kinds of horror stories from some people I know who went to the US for work. I don't know. If I was offered a job...

Shelga

Sleepy wrote: »

I think a huge amount of modern misery stems from a reluctance to accept reality. Only a small number of people will ever get to have dream jobs where they're paid handsomely for undertaking work they'd be doing as a hobby otherwise. Most of us are lucky if we can find something that we're reasonably competent at, which pays a salary we can live on and that doesn't make us want to slit our wrists.

Absolutely agree with this. Think I was going to try make that point also, in the midst of my rambling So many well-intentioned sources tell us to go after our dreams, you only live once, do what makes you happy, yadda yadda. Everyone from teachers to parents and family to friends to life coaches to websites and Ted talks and books and TV and advertisements.

No one says "it's ok if you don't have some massive hidden dream you want to pursue- it doesn't make you a less developed person." I think this constant creeping message to 'chase your dreams' only serves to make lots of people feel bad that they don't love their jobs as much as they're supposed to.

Me, I enjoy my job, I work hard, I take pride in it when it's going well and I know I'm achieving tangible objectives. I aim to develop my career and progress in my chosen field- an area I have no regrets about getting into. However, I certainly would not describe it as a passion, and if I won the lottery I would give it up in a heartbeat. I'd probably use the money to go back into a learning environment in the form of doing other degrees, purely for the sake of learning.

I think my attitude is true of a lot of people, but hand-in-hand with the additional opportunities available to young people goes this insidious message that you should 'love' your job. This is something very few people actually feel, like Sleepy said. As soon as I was confident enough to accept this in myself, I felt a lot more at peace and happier in my work, and more productive as a result. I just hate that this term 'love' is thrown around so freely sometimes.

Pretty sure my parents didn't have these angsty quarter-life crises- they just got on with things. People my age can be quite self-indulgent, constantly questioning their own motivations. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I think young people these days are focused on self-actualisation, whereas my parents would have been in the love/belonging level, and more content as a result, probably.

And of course I don't mean that people with burning desires to follow a certain path shouldn't do that, not at all, but people also need to learn to be content with their lot.

Like my dad says, what it boils down to is people need "something to do, and someone to love".

NotASheeple

JupiterKid wrote: »

I'd say less happy. Too much anxiety and depression caused by information and sensory stimulation overload. Too much comparing one selves to others who appear happier and more successful. Much more insecurity and body image issues.

When things were simpler, people seemed more content with their lot. Of course there is no such thing as the good old days but my parents generation who reached maturity in the 1960s seem happier than mine.

Sums up how I feel about it also. Today a kid/teenager can't do something without some ****wit having a camera stuck in their face. I'm just relieved that I could grow up and make the usual mistakes, without being bullied & shamed on the likes of Facebook.

Permabear

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Permabear

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MRnotlob606

steddyeddy wrote: »

It seems to me the simpler life is the happier or least stressed it is. I did some brief volunteering with tribes like the Masaai and Hadza and their life although simple seems happier r than ours. They seem less stressed and don't seem to find depression an alien concept.

When these tribe members become settled often they become depressed or alcoholics. The same thing is seen with Inuit peoples and other indiginous cultures around the world when they become settled.

I'm around thirty and when I was a postgraduate in UCD I noticed the younger generation seemed more stressed than me or my friends when I was that age. Is depression and social anxiety on the increase and does the complexity of modern life add to that, are people getting more detached from society or is it just a case of people being more open with their mental health problems?

Jaysus did your mammy not tell ya your birthday :pac: ?

Shelga

Permabear wrote: »

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Definitely, work should never be mindless drudgery that you can't wait to escape from. I enjoy many aspects of my job- I find the projects we work on interesting in both content and scope, and get on well with my colleagues. I also like the routine and structure it adds to my life.

But I do think the message of 'pursue your dreams!' can have an unintended side effect of making people second-guess something that in reality, they're perfectly content with and wouldn't have given too much thought to in decades gone by.

...And Justice

For me personally I think life now is way more stressful than it was for my parents. Even one of my children stresses about crap her mates are sending her on her ipod:rolleyes: it's all technology's fault, you can be contacted anywhere, any time.


When I was growing up, I'd leave the house and say "see you later Maaaa"
I'd be gone for hours, now people can't take their eyes off their kids, me included.

Everything is all go, go ,go these days. No time for relaxing.

ancapailldorcha

Shelga wrote: »

Definitely, work should never be mindless drudgery that you can't wait to escape from. I enjoy many aspects of my job- I find the projects we work on interesting in both content and scope, and get on well with my colleagues. I also like the routine and structure it adds to my life.

But I do think the message of 'pursue your dreams!' can have an unintended side effect of making people second-guess something that in reality, they're perfectly content with and wouldn't have given too much thought to in decades gone by.

Things have an odd way of panning out sometimes. I was working as a glorified lab cleaner in Manchester. The work was dreary and tedious and the pay was barely above the minimum wage. However, the other people there were fantastic fun and there was a great atmosphere. I was often helping coworkers with various projects just for the sake of it.

Conversely, I moved down here to gain experience in academia. I'm on better money but the place is barren regarding any sort of social or collaborative atmosphere and I basically spend every day alone processing samples or on this site.

Shelga

I guess it's the difference between happiness and contentment.

My parents were 'happy to be content'- now I feel like people are constantly 'chasing' happiness.

I am only speaking from my own experience- I'm definitely more type B than type A- I think you can certainly achieve plenty without stressing and planning every little thing.

Interesting topic though!

Permabear

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steddyeddy

Permabear wrote: »

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We work until 4.01 AM.........

rsh118

Job creep is the worst too, the idea somehow that answering an email at 2200 makes you a better employee?

Work email servers should shut down an hour after work, and work devices should have to be left at work. I've never received an email after work which was important.

steddyeddy

rsh118 wrote: »

Job creep is the worst too, the idea somehow that answering an email at 2200 makes you a better employee?

Work email servers should shut down an hour after work, and work devices should have to be left at work. I've never received an email after work which was important.

That would be literally impossible for me.

tashiusclay

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Focus on having a great relationship with a wonderful woman and, if you want a child, hoping for a healthy child who is happy.

While you make those things sound simple and realistic to achieve, they can be quite elusive to more people than you may think, especially in these times imo.

melissak

steddyeddy wrote: »

It seems to me the simpler life is the happier or least stressed it is. I did some brief volunteering with tribes like the Masaai and Hadza and their life although simple seems happier r than ours. They seem less stressed and don't seem to find depression an alien concept.

When these tribe members become settled often they become depressed or alcoholics. The same thing is seen with Inuit peoples and other indiginous cultures around the world when they become settled.

I'm around thirty and when I was a postgraduate in UCD I noticed the younger generation seemed more stressed than me or my friends when I was that age. Is depression and social anxiety on the increase and does the complexity of modern life add to that, are people getting more detached from society or is it just a case of people being more open with their mental health problems?

Add your reply here.

steddyeddy wrote: »

It seems to me the simpler life is the happier or least stressed it is. I did some brief volunteering with tribes like the Masaai and Hadza and their life although simple seems happier r than ours. They seem less stressed and don't seem to find depression an alien concept.

When these tribe members become settled often they become depressed or alcoholics. The same thing is seen with Inuit peoples and other indiginous cultures around the world when they become settled.

I'm around thirty and when I was a postgraduate in UCD I noticed the younger generation seemed more stressed than me or my friends when I was that age. Is depression and social anxiety on the increase and does the complexity of modern life add to that, are people getting more detached from society or is it just a case of people being more open with their mental health problems?

Add your reply here.
Off topic but did you notice the massai to have strong non verbal communication skills similar to telepathy or like animals etc. I read this in a book and was wondering if it was true?

poa

The current generation is less happy than preceding generations.
The reason is quite simple; smart phones and social media.
German psychologists studied a group of Facebook users and published a paper on Facebook envy.
High users of FB were more unhappy, and low users more happy.
Narcism, feeding one's ego, envy, and virtual relationships make one less happy.
The more we have real relationships, and less virtual ones; the more happy we are.
In the 1990's when I went clubbing it was before social media and smartphones.
We were less image and ego conscious as a result, getting messy without worrying about our lives being documented on Facebook the next day. A night out wasn't about selfies, or feeding our ego with look at my great social life pictures to make other envy us.
Less pressure to look good, and more happy as a result.
I also think childhood obesity is a direct product of smartphones and tablets. Kids are staying in more to play on tablets and computer games. In previous generations children played outdoors more, and were more physically active.
The over stimulation of young brains means they don't sleep as well; and are therefore more unhappy.
Two of the best things I ever did were to delete my Facebook account, and get rid of my smartphone.
I now spend more time going out and doing things with real relationships not virtual ones, and I am happier as a result.
The sad thing is, I think the next generation will engage more with social media and less with real relationships; and be less happier as a result.