Yes, I feel what you have observed is integral with perception of circumstances.
How did it come to be?
My parents (88 & 90) take good care of themselves in an over 55’s villa complex. Only very rarely do they add or subtract to their home contents, clothes more often, virtually all meals are home cooked and leftovers are used. They socialise with some of the other residents reciprocally, mostly with plates n drinks supplied by all. If someone is sick or suffers a loss others rally around to help with meals and errands.
My Mum only in the last year has got an iPad and in fits n starts uses it for emails, viewing photos from friends and family, googling business addresses and some light reading.
By income, possessions, consumption and wealth they are way down the pecking order, but I know they are happy and they are fulfilled.
There is a downside to the FANGS (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google), Microsoft the enabler, Instagram and Twitter etc, for the reasons you mention imo. Everyone is connected and lives are impacted in positive and negative ways, with the negative barely recognised and rarely discussed.
Digitally induced comparison anxieties, fear of falling behind peers, unrealistic expectations, the as yet lie that everyone can have it all.
But we ain’t going back. So, how to go forward. Lives are impacted by externalities of which there is variable to no control. Perhaps the best bit of wisdom I have heard recently is to focus on what you have some ability to control and of what you can’t, let it wash by.
Back to topic, by pretty much any metric, a majority Australians are doing well within a country that is doing increasingly well. Yet, daily news is awash with what I believe are popular wisdoms to the contrary. If influential social media platforms or influential people using those platforms led the charge, could perceptions change? Or is the lasting impact of all that has spawned from Bill Gate’s ground breaking efforts that global masses can for the first period in human history be easily swayed and controlled by a dangerous mix of minority interests?
Australia is more a microcosm than any other top 10-15 global economy, for its isolation and sheer size. Imo, the disconnect between what we read and hear of our tough circumstances and our actual less than tough circumstances couldn’t be more visible.
