There are also other factors that are not easily quantifiable, even though they might be more important: deep connections with other humans, supportive local communities, finding meaning in something outside of yourself, feeling connected to your vocation etc.

Byung-Chul Han would have a lot to say on this matter.

I would argue that by those measures, we are worse than let's say 50y ago.

I wasn’t alive 50 years ago so I can’t really compare. I would say however that not being dead, mutilated or starving is more important than deep connections with other humans.

I do get your point that many people feel this has been eroded by social media and online culture.

However it’s a tiny blip and I think in 5-10 years we will see the terminally online years (~2016-2030) as a weird period in history.

Of course this is highly subjective and depends a lot on your age and where in the world you live as well…

Materially, most places in the world are better off than 20 years ago, or at least haven't worsened.

But emotionally, people now inhabit virtual places full of relentless negativity. That is the problem.

I agree that it’s a problem but it’s largely self-inflicted — you can just turn of the screen and go outside at any time.

It may sound strange but it’s that easy

Yes, but as a general attitude, this is unrealistic, like ignoring the effects of drugs because they are voluntary. All these things (food, substances, sex, social media, etc) exist on an invisible spectrum of willpower vs circumstances for each individual. In practice, there's some subjective line in that spectrum across which society can't afford to just say "it's your fault, so I don't care" (though wealthy/isolated people can!).

Then we need to solve the problem through regulation. But just as with drugs we (not as single persons but as society) have decided that profits for some wealthy individuals are more important.

But as an individual you can just choose not to participate in social media, I wasn’t trying to invent some magic general attitude that solves all problems.

Also not sure if there is a “single” solution even possible, there is a lot more nuance and complexity to it.

The "problem" is that it's all comparative, even if in absolute terms you are right - life is undeniably better than it used to be by every metric.

But to give you an example - my grandma had 8 siblings, out of which only 4 survived into adulthood. They mostly died before even turning 1, the typical "one day he was fine, the next day he turned purple and died, the nearest doctor was 2 hours away if your neighbour let you borrow a horse cart, so that's just what it was" case. Her father and her uncle were taken into Auschwitz and miraculously returned but never wanted to talk about the horrors they have seen while there. For the rest of her life she endured living under communism, seeing her peers in other countries have access to riches she could only dream of.

So now when you talk to her, how can you blame her for thinking that kids nowadays are spoiled, if they have everything provided for them, they have never experienced physical violence of any kind, but they are all depressed and sad about life being shit and saying how it was better in the good old days.

Like, from her perspective, it's impossible to understand.

But also, from the kids perspectives nowadays, all they know is a world where the "old" people have houses, jobs, stable incomes, and they cannot even hope for any of it. 50 year mortgages, 700 job applications with no interview, social media blasting images of a life that they know they can't ever have.....of course they are depressed. Just showing them stats that say "you live better, comfier, safer andd healthier lives than pretty much anyone else ever in the history of humanity" is not going to help if all they know is how much "worse" they have it than the people who came before them.

I think what definitely has improved, is the survival. We are less likely to starve, die in infancy / childhood, have longer life expectancy, etc. In the past there were also stresses. But I think the stresses were different then. They were less chronic and were more occasional instead (although probably more intense). However, after an acute stress you had a lot of time to recover. Evolutionary speaking, our brains have been adapted for that. It was necessary for our survival.

However, nowadays the stresses are different, they are more chronic / frequent. You have less time to recover from them. This is partially the result of our more complex and fast paced society / economy. Our brains are not well adapted for the modern work / educational environments and to the stresses associated with them, despite they are usually milder in intensity. Today's stress is more like to death by a thousand small cuts. Nowadays people have more anxiety, depression and suicidality. Here is a good video that talks about the modern stress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo1A45ShcMo .

I actually think the social media factor is the biggest reason...we can now compare ourselves to a much, much large circle which makes our relative standing seem much worse. I think relative standing affects our happiness much more than absolute. From a mate competition standpoint, that actually makes logical sense.

Participating in social media is a choice. I get that it’s an unpopular opinion it you can really keep it to a minimum and still interact with people. Of course I’m not a teenager anymore so it might be more pressure for them.

Well, but so is smoking cigarettes, drinking or gambling. As a society we recognize that those vices are both an individual choice and that some people really really really struggle with them. So again, as society we try to put at least some disincentives to all of those activities, while not outright forbidding them.