I am closing in on 50.
A few more years and I will be at half a century old. What this means is I have seen a few changes in culture over the years and my childhood environment was quite different to that of many kids today in the western world. The biggest difference is almost certainly the "tech stack" that dominates so many of the activities, and with this, comes a cost.
When I was a kid, we had a TV from the early 70s and the first VHS machine arrived in the early 90s, with a CD player coming a couple years after in 93. I know this as my first album on CD was Lethal Injection, by Ice Cube. We never had cable TV at any stage, and even though some of my friends were starting to get onto the internet proper in the mid 1990s, it would take me another couple years before I had a connection at home.
But childhood prior to the internet was quite different, where "boredom" meant time to be creative, to explore the world, to get up to mischief, to try to build things, and to ride around the town on bikes - under the power of leg muscles, not batteries. There was very little "fancy" in terms of anything, and school holidays were filled with being outdoors when the weather permitted, and being indoors when it didn't. No trips abroad, no trips interstate, the occasional picnic in one of the national parks close by, or down to the playground by the river.
It was all pretty simple.
There were challenges of course, because the "consumer competition" was starting locally and by the end of primary school, kids were getting teased if they didn't have Nike's or Reeboks (remember when people liked Reebok?), but all in all, it was pretty limited and the "bullying" made people stronger and better able to handle a range of personalities.
Times have changed.
These days the expectations on what is "needed" in order to live has changed a lot, with everything from how much entertainment activity people expect, to the house sizes and what they contain. For instance, there is a "housing crisis" in Australia and the cost of homes have increased significantly. However, the average births per 1000 in 1950 was 23, and now it is 11 - more than half. But, the average house size in Australia was 100 m² in 1950, compared to 236 m² today, despite block sizes getting significantly smaller. Kids don't share rooms like I did with my brother, there has to be large entertainment areas and high ceilings, and appliances have to match perfectly, with all the screens and gadgets synced up and connected to a subscription service.
Is cost of living really more expensive?
Granted, in the modern world in which we live we probably have to have some level of technology, an internet connection, a phone, a screen of some sort - but do we really need what we expect to have and believe we require? I suspect not, but our desire to have all of these things and conditions, pushes up prices across the board for everything. Because while it is nice to be able to think of things as independent, the economy is intertwined and pressure on one area puts pressure on another and at times, the attraction of spending in one, will create a vacuum in another, disrupting the equilibriums of products, services and general living.
We have a consumer culture.
And we have had one for many decades, but what we consume has significantly changed. In the past the consumer goods and services we bought were largely actively used, but now a lot of what we buy is passive. Not only that, a lot of what we buy today doesn't stand alone as a product, as it requires a connection, a subscription, constant charging and even after all that, we just sit in front of them, staring. In addition, the "out of home" entertainment has increased significantly, where a movie once a twice a year and a restaurant perhaps similarly, has become a weekly occurrence, with eating out, concerts, theme parks and all the other superfluous activity to take up our time so we aren't bored, or have to think much at all.
We are consumers by nature.
And what we consume matters. Because it is what we consume that indicates where our attention is being spent, and our attention might actually be the only thing we have that is ours. Yet, most of us have had our ability to control our attention compromised by what we consume. Instead, we spend it passively, absorbing more conditioning that reinforces the beliefs that we need to consume more, have more. We have been convinced that we can't have a good life unless we have all the unnecessary extras, which means that the components of a good life often go begging, because they come after consuming enough.
I get that many people don't see this, because the majority of us are conditioned not to. We have literally bought into a belief system that makes sinners of those who do not consume enough, as if they are pagans sacrificing goats for godly favours. The majority of us can't imagine life without all the accoutrements we have been told we need in order to enjoy life, and we can't stand the conditions of being without them to the point that we become anxious, depressed and unable to cope with the stress of life.
We have surrounded ourselves with convenience, and surprise surprise, we have become weaker, less social, more disconnected and more volatile.
You don't have to believe me, just walk around your house and make a mental note of all that you don't use, and don't need. Take stock of how you spend your time, where you spend your time, and what you get for your time spent. Consider what you create, who you connect with, and what percentage of your day is entertainment activity.
If we consume differently, the entire world changes.
But that is not how we have been conditioned.
Taraz
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Social media kicked our consumption into the stratosphere. Kids as young as two years old using a smartphone as their nanny is utterly absurd but it's happening and those parents think that it is normal!
Definitions of poverty in the west are a million miles from real poverty.
Almost every home has fresh water and sanitation, 3 flat screen colour TV's etc.
I remember when I saw the first 40" colour TV. It was quite frankly shocking! It dominated the room and felt incredibly intrusive. Now everyone has a smartphone (or 4) tracking our every move.
We may have gained a lot of 'stuff' but we have lost so much more. Our humanity has been eroded by our desire for the next shiny trinket.
Unfortunately the people that really need to see this message will never understand the implications. It's their normal and anything that challenges their paradigm is unseeable from their world view.
Times sure have changed.
I know a guy who bought a 60" "backlit" TV that had to be angled and the space behind in the corner could have housed a small family... Flat screen Plasmas came out not too long after :D
I am sure I am not the only one, but I am painfully aware of the erosion. I feel it daily.
congrats on your journey so far, its not always easy, The biggest shift has to be how much technology is now woven into everyday life. Back then, it wasn’t at the centre of everything like it is now and while there are plenty of benefits, it definitely comes with its own set of trade offs.
Is cost of living really more expensive?Yes, the cost of living is generally higher in real terms in with my country for instant, but it’s not just because things like food or housing got more expensive on their own. It’s also because what we consider essential has expanded. A few decades ago, you could function perfectly well without a mobile phone, constant internet, multiple subscriptions, or regularly upgrading devices. Now, those things aren’t just luxuries they’re often expected, even required, to participate fully in work and society we are in.
Exactly. Yes, everything else has gone up too, but all these extras are having a pretty big impact, especially over time.
Absolutely, it really has big impacts.
I think our dependence on technology has changed not only how we live day to day, but also how we view what is important.
If we are going to ever turn this ship around for a healthier future, redefining value is a must.
I see the same things as you do, but I view them as technological progress and a good thing with some negative side effects.
I first used internet at home in Ukraine in 1992 and in 1993 I used it to send emails to my parents from USA. It was like a miracle that email was practically instantaneous after spending about five minutes to connect via dial up.
These days our daughter looked at a rotary phone and said how do you make a call :)
The problem is that the negative side effects are changing us fundamentally as a species and society. Everything from addictions to influencing elections, we have dropped off an ethical cliff.
I'm a bit younger than you but I can see the exact same things and events with technology, we were not so much linked back then... It was better when it was worse we say here, the problem now is the endless connection of devices, keeping kids attached
kids are attached, adults are attached - attached to what though, I am not sure.
In a few months, I'll be half a century old. I got my first black-and-white TV in 1981. In 1989, I got my first digital watch with an alarm and stopwatch. I also got a handheld battery-powered electronic game. In 1989, I started playing a Dendy-style console for the first time (it was a paid game that lasted 30-60 minutes a day). In 1989, I started watching my first pay-to-view movies on VHS. It was probably then that I saw "Wall Street" and began thinking about my future profession :) I spent most of my free time outside with my friends.
Once a year, we took a train to the seaside or flew to the mountainous republics of the USSR. My mother tried to show us big-city life with its theaters and museums. At school, we all wore the same uniform. It's silly to respect someone for wearing designer clothes (but some kids envied those who wore imported clothes).
All this time I read books and magazines. Even in 1997, when I started using the Internet, I could find little there; I got most of my information from books, magazines, newspapers, and TV.
I've been going to the cinema less often (there's nothing interesting there for weeks). I've been going to restaurants less often; simple home-cooked food is still tasty and healthy. But yesterday I bought a dolphin for $356 on Hive. Even if the price drops by half or a third, if I'd spent that money on the cinema and restaurant, I wouldn't have any investments. :)
I got mine about the same time. A blue casio.
This is something I quite liked at my last high school, because it meant I didn't have to think about what I was going to wear at all.
There still isn't much there. Well, there is plenty, everything - but I would say that 99% of what people consume, is useless.
Pretty cheap these days. If history repeats 50%, it will be worth it by far.
I've been to quite a few concerts and I wouldn't say I go because I am bored, I go because I love music. I always have. It's just how I am wired. While I can't perform music, so well, I can appreciate it immensely! I'm still glad I grew up when I did. I like being able to have one foot in the digital world and one in the physical.
I think there is a difference between going to the concert as a music lover, and going to a concert as "something to do". I see people go to concerts who spend the time so drunk they won't even remember it.
I see that a lot too. We also have been to a lot of concerts where people just stand around drinking and talking to each other and not really paying attention to the music. I think "you could have done this somewhere else and saved the $60 per ticket".
And a lot of the shows aren't there for the fans as much as they are there for the ticket sales.
I didn’t grow up in the same era you described, but even from my own experience, I can see the difference between living and consuming. What stood out most to me is your point about attention. It’s true what we consume doesn’t just take our money, it takes our focus and over time, it shapes how we think what we value, and even how we feel about ourselves.
Much tech has reshaped daily life over half a century.