You will see that 18-29 year old self-reported happiness is flat when compared with the last thirty years, off the post-1975 lows of 2005, but below the 1985 and 1990 measurements:
> One reason for this shift may be a collective rise in how well Americans expect their lives to go. Happiness is sometimes defined as reality divided by expectations
Is it really expectations rising, or reality falling? I think it's a combination. I know my expectations used to be sky high, and yea my younger years were optimistic. But reality still hit like a ton of bricks.
When I was in my late teens, I was relatively certain I'd be retired as a dot-com multi-millionaire in 10 years or so. Throughout my 20s, I thought, well all I need to do is work my ass off in a tech company and, even if I'm not retiring early, at least I'll be rocking an upper class lifestyle with a few vacation homes! Then, I reached 30 and thought, jeez, I hope my standard of living at least ends up a little better than my parents' one day. Now that I'm closing in on 40, I'm wondering if I'll even be able to afford to raise a kid let alone have anything left to retire with.
really? you expected all that? shit. all i ever wanted was a sports car and a decent apartment, and i have that after quite a bit of work. i've entertained the possibility of striking it big, but never expected it. it's still a goal i work toward but if i were to crash and burn tomorrow i'd probably just go find work on a boat somewhere tropical and warm.
High expectations, no grasp of statistics, and a total misunderstanding of just how much of a role luck plays in everyone's outcome.
That was back when the first dot-com bubble was rapidly inflating, and it seemed that all you had to do was put in a few years at Netscape, Sun or SGI, and then go found a startup, and you'd be a guaranteed success. People really believed this!
In reality, the job environment consisted of those few known companies plus this big spread of unknowns (much like today, actually, except back then they were actually hiring). Nobody knew which ones would go out of business, which ones would succeed, and which ones would mean Maseratis for their early employees. I mean nobody had a clue. If you graduated in Comp sci or Comp eng or EE, you basically just rolled the dice and picked one, and that ended up being the difference between doing astoundingly well and just putzing along after 20 years.
I can relate to his comment. In particular I have no idea how my parents (a young couple in the 80s) decided to have 3 kids, other than blind optimism or a sense of security that doesn't seem to exist for us today.
I wonder how this ties in with the increasing trend of young people living with their parents. In 1999, a quarter of all 25-year-olds lived with their parents. By 2013 this number has doubled, and currently half of young adults live in their parents home. [1]
I've often been thinking how an ideal living situation for me would be a commune-like collaboration between good friends - each (or each couple) having their own space, but in the same building so it's easy to meet, share chores, etc. Something like in the series Friends.
Definitely beats commuting for 30mins to another side of the city just to meet for a 2hour dinner.
With the exception of 'good friends' (unless you're lucky) you're just describing a houseshare.
This is what everyone does in their 20s (and probably becoming the norm for most people through their 30s too) in cities in the UK, London in particular, because rents are so high there is literally no alternative that doesn't involve spending most of your salary on rent.
Even with a houseshare, a 30 min commute is not just normal but actually, rather good! You're usually nowhere near the centre. Again, this is particularly true of London.
I'm sorry to deflate you on this one but I can tell you, having lived in houseshares for years, it is absolutely not an ideal living situation. Everyone in one wants their own place, but can't afford it without moving way out of the city, or saving nothing, or living somewhere truly awful, or some combination of the above. It's not a choice but a corner you're backed into by the market.
If you're contemplating this as something which is optional, you are lucky indeed, and I'd advise you to stick with your current, non-shared, living arrangements :-)
There's a middle ground between living in the same house (your houseshares) and living 30+ minutes away from friends. As your parent described it "like in Friends".
Obviously comes with it's own downsides - it's not so easy out side of TV to think "right, these are the 5 people I want to live near", and not neccesarily easy to find somewhere to live that gives you the space each of you want (e.g. separate appartments) while still being suitible for everyone in your group.
Personally I wouldn't want to live in a houseshare, but in the same appartment building as good friends? Sure.
From 1979 through 1987, I lived in what one called a "group house", with a population that started with four young men and ended with two. It generally worked well enough, though better with three or two than with four. There needs to be agreement on bills, chores, and standards of cleanliness (or, frankly, in our case standards of untidindess). I knew of at least four or five other households not far away, consisting of persons of about the same age and status.
Maybe a bit off-topic, but I have a relatively close example of what you are talking about.
An older friend of mine got together with his childhood friends and built a retirement home, they essentially built a small building with small, private apartments (1 bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and small living room), common areas and so on...
Now that they are all retiring (this friend of mine retired 3 years ago), they are all going there, each couple having their small apartment but being able to socialize whenever they want. Plus, they even have a kitchen service, cleaners, etc, etc because the shared cost is way less of what they would pay to have it at home or what they'd pay in a normal retirement home.
Been thinking that I wouldn't mind doing something like that...
I agree regarding the commune-like situation, though I think I'd prefer a shared small hamlet rather than shared chores. I remember Plato said that best friends should live together, or something along those lines.
I couldn't find the exact # but it seems like between 60% and 70% of all 25 year olds in California currently live with their parents. I'm shocked that the number is this high. I would love to see the same rates for 30 year olds (at which point you are truly considered an adult) but I guess it's not tracked.
Kids are exposed to more information than before to keep them stimulated, but they are also guided down predetermined paths more than before.
Child-rearing has become more data-centric than ever. Parents naturally want to do what is best for their children, which means eliminating all the uncertainties, and sticking with winning formulas.
So while we pay lip-service to celebrating diversity, in reality we're actually going in the opposite direction towards convergence, and risk-aversion.
Kids are happy because they are constantly stimulated, and the guided rearing has led them to believe in certainty of future.
Unfortunately, there is now less 'slack' in the society and economy to accommodate serendipity. And that's what the grown-ups face in the real world.
I stumbled upon this site a couple of years ago--maybe more?
I don't add much to discussions, and embarrassing use it as therapy. Thanks guys for not being too hard on me.
For so long, I didn't even know how certain features work. I
still haven't even read the rules. That would probally explain why forever I didn't know what you guys were talking about with down/up votes. The arrows weren't on my screen. I guess I was banned? They are now there, but I wish the only arrow was a up arrow. Never saw the need for the down arrow?
I only access this site when I'm on my iPad. I guess it's just habit.
I never come back to a post, unless I ask a question. Just don't like to argue, and unless we are talking about the poor, or animal abuse, I don't want to get all riled up.
I did look into this making a HN type site, but haven't succeeded. It would not clone HN. It would just be for a niche group of people, interested in old mechanical watches-- basically their repair. When I found out this site was built with lisp, I immediately got a book on lisp. I still haven't got through it either. See the pattern; I don't follow through.
I can honesly state, I believe this is the best site on the Internet, and I'm so glad Paul Graham decided to build it, and not change it up too much. Thank you Mr. Graham!
>For so long, I didn't even know how certain features work. I still haven't even read the rules. That would probally explain why forever I didn't know what you guys were talking about with down/up votes. The arrows weren't on my screen. I guess I was banned? They are now there, but I wish the only arrow was a up arrow. Never saw the need for the down arrow?
It may sound like a joke, but there might be something to it. It's probably hard to measure, but I can't imagine the easy access to lightweight mood-improving content doesn't have an impact of people. Personally, I don't browse cats too often, but I've experienced many times how a single picture of a cute cat sent by someone can keep me smiling for a long while.
I think this is the tail wagging the dog here, akin to saying that easy access to violent video games makes people violent.
Culture can affect mood, but I think mood affects culture much more strongly than the other way around. We mostly seek out things that validate the way we already feel inside, not go, "I'm feeling pretty crappy today, let me go watch some cat vids to cheer me up." If something comes along that doesn't feed into our current state, we tend to ignore it.
We had the Internet for a lot longer than we've had cat videos. It wasn't that we couldn't have had them or that none existed, they just weren't all that popular. There was a definite turn in the 2000s where people, and the Internet, suddenly got a lot happier.
My theory is that Internetting before Facebook was mostly a solitary thing that loners would do to get away from lives they otherwise hated. With Facebook the masses came, and so everyone all of a sudden had to cater to a wider audience. People who really do want to get away from humanity have their 4chans, but they're in the minority now. Reddit would have been a very different place in the late nineties.
The result of this study really resonates with me. The accuracy of the conclusions it draws may be questionable, but it resonates none the less. I think that we may be finally experiencing the consequences of our irresponsible behavior in earlier decades. Many good changes have been brought about, sure. But we threw away the sanctity of the family unit. We taught everyone that making a modest living is for "losers." We let our schools become daycare centers. And in many ways I feel that we lost our morality. And now that all the money is gone it doesn't work anymore.
>And now that all the money is gone it doesn't work anymore.
There is more global wealth than at any point in human history, and it's still growing. A financial crisis and a decade of "economic stagnation" are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Increasing inequality sucks the wealth into the top. At first, most citizens in developed countries benefits from rising inequality as the wealth from poorer countries are channeled into the country. As inequality rises, the bottom levels start to lose wealth to the upper levels. As it rises past your neighbourhood, you'll see your neighbourhood getting poorer, while the countries' richest get richer and richer. That's why there's more global wealth than at any point, still growing, but it looks like everyone is getting poorer, because almost everyone is. Not saying that's good or bad, maybe it's even necessary in our society for inequality to continue to rise and then collapse. Many communist experiments have already been tried.
Even if that's true, you're average person on earth is generally better off than their parents were. In the United States it's not quite as cut and dry, but in general you are likely at least as well off as your parents. Inflation adjusted wages have been relatively flat, not decreasing (unless new data I haven't seen suggests otherwise).
At a macro scale people in the United States aren't getting poorer, they're just not getting relatively richer over time.
> Inflation adjusted wages have been relatively flat, not decreasing
Inflation adjusted median household income peaked in 1999, and its current level is below what it was in 1997. [0] Mean household income has done better, because the very good results at the top influence the mean, but have no impact on the median.
Real hourly wages for middle- and low-income workers have been stagnant for decades; over a ~3 decade period dropping slightly for low income workers and gaining slightly for middle-income workers. (And lower for both categories than they were a decade ago.) And real hourly wages for young college graduates are below what they were in the late 1990s.
And, in the same time as wages have dropped, the key non-wage benefit (employer health coverage) has also dropped, with fewer recently-employed young graduates (of high school and college, measured separately) having employer-sponsored insurance than in the past. [1]
> At a macro scale people in the United States aren't getting poorer, they're just not getting relatively richer over time.
No, other than capitalists and a narrow slice of elite workers, they're actually getting poorer.
There are several reasons why the Top 1% has done so much better, says Josh Bivens, EPI’s research and policy director. These include tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of Wall Street and big increases in executive compensation. At the same time, the weakening of unions and the failure of the minimum wage to keep up with inflation depressed the wages of the middle class.
Why not? Besides which, the rest of your post is not a defense that the bottom 99% has fared well, it is itself an explanation for why the 1% has done extraordinarily well. On the backs of union workers and the middle class I might add.
You provide no reason not to reference EPI, except maybe an implicit reference to a conflict between their conclusions and your political preconceptions.
If you have a rebuttal to the points I cited then for, including a substantive reason to distrust their numbers on those points, please present it.
It's worth noting that "wealth" can be measured by standard of living which is undoubtedly increasing in some aspects. You can't deny how enriching the internet is for most people, as an example (and it is extremely cheap and easy to acces).
That said, people are being squeezed in other aspects of life that create very low standards of living. Maybe they have to work multiple jobs and do not get a set schedule, so they can never plan time off. Maybe they are struggling with crushing debt and working a min. wage job.
There are a lot of ways that society can be broken, that a person's life can be devalued even if their standard of living rises by some specific metrics.
Something I've been thinking about - why do we deserve the chance to not have to work long hours/multiple jobs? Most of the world has no such opportunity. They spend long hours for even the chance to put food on the table, with no internet access or modern luxuries that we have! They would give so much even for access to that. Meanwhile, it seems most Americans feel entitled to not only their high standard of living but a relaxed (in comparison) work environment and scheduling freedom.
Perhaps the answer is that we all need to adjust to the reality that such freedoms only come with hard work, good planning, and some luck. It seems to be the reality that most of the world has already dealt with.
Because you are talking about different kinds of wealth. Yes, access to the internet and other services improves standard of living, but what does it matter the kind of luxuries being afforded the the poor when they still need to work 60+ hours a week and live insecure about the future, or their next pay check, or having solid health insurance.
It's great we are getting richer, but not always in the ways that matter most.
About damn time. From 17(23 now), I've kept reading news that my generation is flawed in someway or the other. First time I'm reading a news article which says otherwise. This makes me happy.
Possibly we are letting this your special, your opinions carry weight, others should not hold views you find offensive, and such, will come back to bite us in a few years.
Letting kids think they are special is one thing, but the idea of going about it by not offending them and excusing them of failure by redirecting blame as is the current trend isn't going to lead to happy adults, if anything their fall is going to be harder
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/10/194855061560...
You will see that 18-29 year old self-reported happiness is flat when compared with the last thirty years, off the post-1975 lows of 2005, but below the 1985 and 1990 measurements:
http://i.imgur.com/VXpYCy7.png
Older adult happiness, however, is breaking decidedly to the downside.
One can only conjecture why this research is being spun as "happier young people" rather than "less happy old people".