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Are people more or less happy than the preceding generations?

steddyeddy

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?

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One eyed Jack

There's a lot to be said for the idiom that "ignorance is bliss" IMO. We here in the West have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips (and that's both a good and a bad thing), because while it gives us the opportunity to soak up knowledge, it also makes us aware of what we consider must be the suffering of others in the world, and the ability to self-diagnose ourselves with all sorts of illnesses, which in itself can lend itself to a very depressed state of mind. We don't have the immediate and more basic concerns of others such as the knowledge of where to source water that won't kill them or root plants that won't poison them.

The flying mouse

Is it the case the more we have the more we want ? There does seem to be more of a pressure on younger people today, imo more of a materialistic value on life then on a happy with what you got kinda way. Suppose it all goes with having more money to spend than years ago, (as in 70,s80,s)

Dirty Dingus McGee

I'd genuinely say people are less happy than previous generations.

There is much more expectation and pressure on people to have a great life (both internal and external pressure) and I think people who probably have good lives constantly feel like their life isn't good enough (or being reminded that their lives aren't good enough).

50 or 60 years ago if you had food on the table and a roof over your head you were happy enough and people accepted their lot and got on with it.

The second noble truth of the buddah is: The cause of all suffering is desire (at least it is according to Sideshow Bob).

Dirty Dingus McGee

One eyed Jack wrote: »

There's a lot to be said for the idiom that "ignorance is bliss" IMO. We here in the West have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips (and that's both a good and a bad thing), because while it gives us the opportunity to soak up knowledge, it also makes us aware of what we consider must be the suffering of others in the world, and the ability to self-diagnose ourselves with all sorts of illnesses, which in itself can lend itself to a very depressed state of mind. We don't have the immediate and more basic concerns of others such as the knowledge of where to source water that won't kill them or root plants that won't poison them.

100% agree with that.

JackieBauer

I'm too drunk for this sh!t

timthumbni

Modern advances in technology has unfortunately turned a lot of people into neurotic morons. That Facebook for example is a joke where people seem to think they should tell everyone that they are heading into the bathroom to take a dump.

I don't know about happier. I would say that nowadays people want more and more stuff and that in itself could cause people to be unhappy.

gramar

I'd say it's one or the other. Or else it's just about the same.

steddyeddy

I grew up in the eighties and nineties with less money and less stress and less pressure. Things seemed more straightforward. A lot of the young adults I dealt with in college seem more disconnected and under pressure.

the evasion_kid

Less happy I would say... You can't take a p!ss without filling in a form these days...

corner of hells

Dunno , I suppose if your support Spurs , you're as happy as a pig in ****e right now.
Beer always tastes better when football is on too.

Academic

There has been a bit of research into the causes of long-term happiness among adults (as opposed to kind of short-term happiness that comes from, say, eating an ice cream cone), and if I recall correctly one of the single most important determinants is one’s expectations, and these often go back to childhood.

People whose adult lives exceed their expectations of what adult life should be like tend to be happier than people who feel their adult lives fall short of their expectations.

One of the happier generations in the 20th century was the one in which people were children during the Great Depression but went on to live substantially more secure lives as adults. Not surprising, really.

Cheers,

Ac

[Deleted User]

Could it simply be less clothes and more nudity?

steddyeddy

Deleted User wrote: »

Could it simply be less clothes and more nudity?

If you seen the t1ts on the Masaai you wouldn't be saying that.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

Minderbinder

I don't understand the term 'ignorance is bliss'. Could someone explain it too me?

Actually don't bother.

ScumLord

steddyeddy wrote: »

I grew up in the eighties and nineties with less money and less stress and less pressure. Things seemed more straightforward. A lot of the young adults I dealt with in college seem more disconnected and under pressure.

No the 80s were ****. Getting beat at school for doing something wrong wasn't fun. Having the English cousins coming home with clothes and toys for their underprivileged Irish cousins was fun at the time but takes on a new light in hindsight. Perhaps we had lower expectations back then but I don't think people were hugely happy with their lot.

Same goes for most previous times. I think if any of us got to spend any amount of time living like they would have in the past we'd quickly grow to appreciate our own lifestyles. working your fingers to the bone to wash clothes may be liberating for a week or two but eventually the despair would set in as you do it day in day out until you aren't able to do it anymore and have to sit in your own muck, or die.

People only have romantic views of the past, they gloss over the menotomy, bigotry, racism, horrendous lack of scientific medicine (modern medicine alone is enough to turn me off living any further in the past than last week), and basically a general lack of understanding. Superstition still hasn't gone away fully, imagine living in a world where people believed your cold was a spirit trying to take you over and the "cure" was worse than any cold.

wakka12

Theres a lot of pressure on younger people to do well in school , be popular/outgoing and have lots of friends, and to be fit and attractive, and when none of these come naturally to you it can put a lot of stress on you trying to juggle them all

melissak

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

[Deleted User]

FizzleSticks wrote: »

I agree with Dirty Dingus McGee (great username) the pressure to have an amazing life is very real, I feel a lot of pressure to get a masters, get a fantastic job so I can afford childcare, health insurance and to save for a rainy day because we all know the next rainy day in Ireland is only a matter of time

Woah woah there man. Seriously, you are sweating the small stuff. Focus on having a great relationship with a wonderful woman and, if you want a child, hoping for a healthy child who is happy. Forget the "saving for a rainy day" stuff. Yeah, it's important, but not nearly as important as the stuff I mentioned. I don't like my job, have sfa in the bank, have 2 crippling mortgages, but have a wonderful wife and a healthy child and consider myself way up in the life stakes. Like waaaay up. Know people with tough marriages, sick children...all the money in the bank doesn't matter a damn to them, they'd trade all and live off the dole for happiness on those fronts.

Dirty Dingus McGee

ScumLord wrote: »

No the 80s were ****. Getting beat at school for doing something wrong wasn't fun. Having the English cousins coming home with clothes and toys for their underprivileged Irish cousins was fun at the time but takes on a new light in hindsight. Perhaps we had lower expectations back then but I don't think people were hugely happy with their lot.

Same goes for most previous times. I think if any of us got to spend any amount of time living like they would have in the past we'd quickly grow to appreciate our own lifestyles. working your fingers to the bone to wash clothes may be liberating for a week or two but eventually the despair would set in as you do it day in day out until you aren't able to do it anymore and have to sit in your own muck, or die.

People only have romantic views of the past, they gloss over the menotomy, bigotry, racism, horrendous lack of scientific medicine (modern medicine alone is enough to turn me off living any further in the past than last week), and basically a general lack of understanding. Superstition still hasn't gone away fully, imagine living in a world where people believed your cold was a spirit trying to take you over and the "cure" was worse than any cold.

But that's exactly the point compared to now peoples lives weren't as good but people were better able to accept it.People are more ambitious and hopeful now but it probably leads to a greater sense of failure and disappointment with your life than people in the past who probably accepted their lot.

My grandfather is probably the most content person in the world and all he needed to be happy was a roof over his head food on the table and a few pints, people these days expect more from their lives.

timthumbni

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

But that's exactly the point compared to now peoples lives weren't as good but people were better able to accept it.People are more ambitious and hopeful now but it probably leads to a greater sense of failure and disappointment with your life than people in the past who probably accepted their lot.

My grandfather is probably the most content person in the world and all he needed to be happy was a roof over his head food on the table and a few pints, people these days expect more from their lives.

Your granda sounds like he knows the score. Thats what I can't understand about rich people. What more do they want. They don't need any more money. Unless they find the secret to eternal life what are they actually playing at?

Dirty Dingus McGee

timthumbni wrote: »

Your granda sounds like he knows the score. Thats what I can't understand about rich people. What more do they want. They don't need any more money. Unless they find the secret to eternal life what are they actually playing at?

One of my uncles was a multi millionaire (before he died) upwards of €50 million and he was obsessed with work and he actually loved working. I think anyone who is successful at anything must have an inbuilt love for what they do and are successful because of that.

It always annoys when when I hear successful people saying how hard they worked and that's why they are successful but most successful people really love what they do so in affect the hard work isn't work at all.

osarusan

I don't think it has anything to do with generations.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

[Deleted User]

Happy is the wrong word, when life was more defined, there was little choice and people had no accesses to information about any other life or way of living: they might have been more contented, but that was at the cost of suppressing a lot of themselves.

Endless choice does not make people happy though.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

r93kaey5p2izun

I think lack of security is something that worries and upsets a lot of people, particularly in relation to job and housing. People talk about the great opportunities for travel now and not being tied down and that certainly suits some, but not the majority in the long term I think. I think job insecurity and housing insecurity mean lots of people are stressed and worried these days. There have been housing issues in the past too but nowadays it seems to affect even those in so-called good jobs and I think it's hard for many to take that even after many years studying and working and progressing that secure housing can still be a worry.

ScumLord

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

But that's exactly the point compared to now peoples lives weren't as good but people were better able to accept it.People are more ambitious and hopeful now but it probably leads to a greater sense of failure and disappointment with your life than people in the past who probably accepted their lot.

People were ambitious in the past. We have so many stories of Irish people turning up in odd places doing odd things all the way back into ancient times. But it was a very different world, somewhere like India would have seemed like something out of game of thrones to them, they would have been easily impressed by our standards, they would have had completely different ambitions, based on a completely different knowledge. I'd say no matter what time in civilized human history you went to, you'd more than likely find the same basic conversations, the same basic worries and people with the same basic ambitions. Once you cut away the differences in culture, civilized society creates a particular type of human.

My grandfather is probably the most content person in the world and all he needed to be happy was a roof over his head food on the table and a few pints, people these days expect more from their lives.

The other thing we have to take into the older generations accounts is the fact that they have a different chemical make up, affecting our mood, perception and even our memory recall. When you go to actual text from people throughout history it's shocking how familiar their words seem.

Averi Nice Sunbeam wrote: »

I think lack of security is something that worries and upsets a lot of people, particularly in relation to job and housing. People talk about the great opportunities for travel now and not being tied down and that certainly suits some, but not the majority in the long term I think. I think job insecurity and housing insecurity mean lots of people are stressed and worried these days. There have been housing issues in the past too but nowadays it seems to affect even those in so-called good jobs and I think it's hard for many to take that even after many years studying and working and progressing that secure housing can still be a worry.

Which is ironic seeing as housing and job security just didn't exist in the past. At any point you could lose your job or your house and there would have been zero you could do about it, if your boss decided to take he's bad mood out on your that day, you'd just have to live with it. If your landlord decided to raise your rent 200% or kick you out because he liked someone better, he could. Living in built up towns and cities means housing is always going to be an issue in one way or another. The fact Ireland can put roofs over the heads of just about everyone in the country whether they can afford it or not is a huge improvement, it's probably a huge improvement on how it was when the state stated less than a hundred years ago.

Academic

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

[...]

My grandfather is probably the most content person in the world and all he needed to be happy was a roof over his head food on the table and a few pints, people these days expect more from their lives.

Yes, as I and others have indicated, expectations have a lot to do with it. (To be clear, I’m talking about ordinary ‘happiness’ and ‘unhappiness’, not illnesses like clinical depression or any other sort of pathology.)

One sees it all the time: two people have almost identical lives in turns of salary, job, family, and so forth, yet one will be satisfied and the other not. Most often this different response to identical environments is, at least in large measure, a result of different expectations. We all respond somewhat differently to identical situations because we’ve all lived different lives.

It’s important, I think, to understand the phenomenon in those terms, and not to see unhappiness as a form of moral failure on the part of the individual. Ireland has had a long and unfortunate history of doing exactly that. And we all know what the consequences have been.

Cheers,

Ac

Dirty Dingus McGee

ScumLord wrote: »

People were ambitious in the past. We have so many stories of Irish people turning up in odd places doing odd things all the way back into ancient times. But it was a very different world, somewhere like India would have seemed like something out of game of thrones to them, they would have been easily impressed by our standards, they would have had completely different ambitions, based on a completely different knowledge. I'd say no matter what time in civilized human history you went to, you'd more than likely find the same basic conversations, the same basic worries and people with the same basic ambitions. Once you cut away the differences in culture, civilized society creates a particular type of human.

I would say that people of the past in general more readily accepted their lot than people of today and just wanted to keep their heads above water.