The relationship between age and creativity varies depending on the domain, with some creative types experiencing early peaks and rapid declines. Late-life creativity is underrepresented in gerontology and psychology, and when it does receive attention, losses are emphasized. Creativity generally tends to decline as we age, with adults resorted to less divergent thinking.
New research by UC Berkeley psychologists suggests that creativity generally tends to decline as we age. Through a series of experiments, it was found that adults resorted to less creative thinking. The different dynamics in creativity indicators have been reported from early adolescence (ages 12 to 13) to adulthood (ages 25 to 30), depending on the individual’s brain development.
Creativity generally goes down past your mid-20s based on brain development, but not necessarily with higher age. Cognitive performance tends to decrease with aging, so one may conclude that creativity also decreases with higher age. However, this conclusion is not entirely accurate. Creativity is not fading with age; it is experience that fades the imagination. Studies show that 98 of 5 year olds test as highly creative, yet only 2 of adults do.
One reason for creativity generally tending to decline as we age is that we gain more knowledge, which is mostly an advantage. As adults, we do become less creative, but not in the traditional way. Our continued creative decline is more due to falling into cognitive traps.
📹 If You’re 55-75 Years Old: STOP Wasting Your TIME (WHY)
If You’re 55-75 Years Old: STOP Wasting Your TIME (WHY) “Through the channel, we aim to disseminate life lessons, offer …
Does creativity diminish with age?
The extant literature indicates that there is a decline in cognitive performance with advancing age, which in turn leads to a decline in creativity. Dietrich and Srinivasan observed that the innovative creative phase of artists and scientists reaches its zenith before the age of forty. This suggests that creativity may also decline with advancing age. The study was published in BMC Geriatrics, volume 23, article number 160.
Does IQ diminish with age?
IQ is a measure of intelligence that is stable across the lifespan, but it does not necessarily indicate that our abilities change as we age. IQ is a quotient, calculated relative to individuals of your age, and a high IQ is likely to be high relative to age-matched peers at 90. However, cognitive aging is a real and profound process, and IQ scores are age-normalized, ensuring that IQ scores remain relatively constant.
The intelligence quotient (IQ) does not change during life, but the intelligence ability itself does. The average IQ is 100 in each age group, with the highest IQ level being 100 in age 5 and 50. The intelligence ability increases until age 20-50, depending on the intelligence factor, and then decreases after that point. The highest IQ level varies across people and depends on the type of intelligence.
Will creativity ever run out?
The number of brain cells and connections in our brains is finite, but there are nearly infinite ways to activate them to generate fleeting thoughts that could constitute ideas. This is similar to the infinite number of ways a game of Go can play out, but the possible types of human endeavors are much less constrained. Language is another example of this phenomenon, as explained by Robert Reinhart, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University.
What age does genius peak?
Research indicates that mental abilities peak earlier in life, but many don’t reach their highest point until around age 40 or later. The brain is constantly learning, growing, and changing, and certain mental abilities reach their fullest point in specific periods of life. Information processing and short-term memory are at their highest in early adulthood, while emotional understanding becomes highest during middle age. Vocabulary and crystallized intelligence are at their best from the ages of 60 to 70.
While certain cognitive abilities start to decline later in life, certain mental abilities reach their highest points at specific ages. Understanding when your brain is at its best can help you maintain a healthy balance in your life.
Can creativity go away?
Creativity is a natural process that doesn’t disappear, but it needs space to thrive. It can be difficult to find the time to unleash it, but it’s possible to find a way to do so. For example, a person who worked in uncreative jobs, such as technical writing or communications, felt like they were losing themselves. However, after leaving their last job and slowing down freelance work, they experienced a significant shift in their work style. They felt more inspired and less burnt out, and they felt more capable of writing, which was a feeling they hadn’t experienced in a long time.
At what age does your creativity peak?
Creativity peak occurs around the age of 25, with most people reaching their peak around 35 or 40s. This is when they produce their most valuable work. After 45, most artists’ prolificity starts to decline. As our bodies age, we become slower, move with less ease, and find it harder to remember and perform mental tasks. However, our creative side remains unaltered, except in cases of cognitive diseases like dementia.
Studies and experiments show that a person with great creativity in their 30s will still be at least half as productive and talented by the age of 80. This means that once you have a natural inclination for the written craft, you will always have it, but it may require more time to produce great content.
What age is creative Peak?
Psychologists who study creative achievements throughout the lifespan typically identify a peak in creativity between the mid-30s and early 40s. This peak is characterized by a shift in focus from individual achievements to innovative contributions within specific disciplines.
Does creativity affect IQ?
The threshold hypothesis is a classical theory that suggests that the relationship between creativity and intelligence may vary at different levels of intelligence. Guilford and Christensen assumed a break in the correlation data between intelligence quotient (IQ) and creativity at an IQ level of approximately 120. This hypothesis suggests that high creativity requires high intelligence or above-average intelligence, which is considered a necessary but insufficient condition for high creativity.
People with intelligence below average intelligence have little chance of being very creative, while those with intelligence above the threshold may have the potential of high creativity but it is not related to their IQ level.
Many theoretical treatments of the creativity-intelligence link exist compared to few empirical studies, with only a few systematically examined the threshold hypothesis and conclusions are inconsistent. Some studies provide evidence that does not support the threshold hypothesis, such as Runco and Albert using California Achievement Test (CAT) scores as the estimate of intelligence and Preckel et al.
Investigating the relationship between DT and fluid intelligence with a sample of 1328 German 12-16 year old students and discovering that correlations between both variables are almost equal at different IQ levels.
Recent research has also raised concerns about the threshold hypothesis, as previous studies tested the hypothesis by dividing a sample at a given level and separately estimated the correlations for lower and higher IQ groups. However, empirical studies cannot prove that the threshold should be defined as 120 IQ points. Recent studies have examined the threshold using different data analysis techniques, such as Karwowski and Gralewski, Jauk et al., and Mourgues et al., finding no threshold effect for advanced indicators such as creative achievement across the entire IQ range.
What age is IQ highest?
Intelligence exhibits a non-uniform trajectory throughout the lifespan, with the most pronounced increase occurring between the ages of 2 and 12 years, reaching its peak at 19-20 years. The largest increase in human IQ occurs between the ages of two and 12 years. All rights are reserved for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. The open access content is licensed under Creative Commons terms.
Are humans losing creativity?
Scientific studies suggest that creativity is declining, with a decline in Torrance Test scores since the 1950s. A researcher at the University of William and Mary found that creativity scores began to drop in 1990, leading to a “creativity crisis”. This decline in scores on standard tests of creativity has been ongoing for decades, raising questions about whether we are truly lacking in creativity.
Will AI replace creativity?
Creativity and imagination are essential human traits that enable students to generate new ideas, see the world from different perspectives, and express themselves uniquely. AI can mimic patterns but cannot replicate the spontaneous and intuitive nature of human creativity. EIW aims to protect the creative mind by fostering an environment where students can develop their critical thinking and creative skills without AI interference. The curriculum is designed to challenge students, encourage deep thinking, and inspire creativity.
Educators play a pivotal role in nurturing these traits, providing personalized feedback, understanding individual needs, and adapting teaching methods. At EIW, experienced educators guide students through their learning journeys, offering insights and encouragement that AI cannot match.
📹 Does Anyone Else Feel Like Everything Has Changed?
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I saw a article of a WW2 veteran crying because he’s sad that the world today isn’t what him and his boys fought for, and he said he felt sorry for the younger generation because we will never experience the joys of life that he did, despite him fighting in one of the bloodiest wars in recent history. That’s enough for me to know something isn’t right. (I’m not quoting him word for word so some of the information might be wrong, sorry)
Speaking as a 22 year old, things have changed drastically for young people and what is expected of them, university isn’t what it is, jobs aren’t what they were, family isn’t and friendship isn’t. People are kind of shut off, I think our society is changing and it’s changing us too, the way we feel about things and each other. It’s really scary and sad as a young person to feel so uncertain about why life feels so weird when my parents don’t claim to have felt this same way at my age. Weird.
I’m 22 years old and I feel like a completely new person after the lockdown. I lost the motivation to strive harder in school, doing less in enhancing my hobbies, and just overall feel dread and weary everyday. While it is really sad to say, it is good to know that I am not the only one who feels the changes in the current situation of the world.
I’m only 15, but yeah this article really resonated with me. I feel like my age group is unavoidably blind to what the world has lost, even though we watch all these articles on how the world has changed. I have this unsettling feeling of missing out on a better world from before I was born. the 2010’s weren’t bad to grow up in at all, but now I have the feeling that I’m throwing my life away simply by living in this time period. tbh it feels like I’m waiting for the end of the world. edit: i’d like to clairify that i do think theres hope
I’m 36 now and I can definitely see what you mean. I think the change occurred between 2004-2007, where Facebook, YouTube, and the first iPhone came out. That was the turning point in my opinion. However, since covid, the change has been accelerated. I also remember, as a child in the 90’s and early 00’s, my parents would encourage me to save for a house. I still don’t have a house and don’t foresee ever affording one, and my parents have also given up on that dream. It was easier for them to get a house when they did, and even they’ve understood that those times have passed. I see people of all ages, all races, all backgrounds, noticing that the world is not right. It’s not a nice feeling. To everyone out there struggling: You’re not alone. I see you. We all see you. Just do the best that you can do.
I’m 27 and I remember having this feeling that something was drastically changing 10 years ago in high school. I still can’t fully explain where that feeling came from but it was there and it unfortunately has never gone away since. It’s only gotten worse and it terrifies me how many people seemingly either can’t see it or are in complete denial that something big is going to happen.
Im 66 and our society has literally changed overnight. I think back when I was 6 and I was literally outside ALL the time. Playing with friends, interacting with nature but simply playing with other kids. Never watched much TV. Much more human interaction. Our parents which were the Great Generation had the ability to buy a house, buy a car, send their kids to college all on the fathers salary. Mom could stay home and take care of the kids. Thats not possible today. Our personal friends have shrunk and as family units we are less stable. Thats what has happened. Most of us feel no hope…..I am too old to change the world. Hope some of you younger people will. Good Luck
YES DUDE! I am 30 years old. Born in 1992. I’m two years older than you. And I do feel like everything has changed. I’m alone often and so sometimes I go drive at night and I swear I can feel it in the air. Less people are out on the roads. Things seem eerie. I was thinking last night while I was out ‘where is everybody’? Just driving around in a Saturday night at 8:30pm felt apocalyptic to me. And socially things are different. It’s hard to express yourself without judgment or some kind of minor persecution. Idk man. Maybe it’s because we were little in the past and things felt magical naturally. But things really do feel off.
Being 35, the friendships of today vs the 90s feel empty and without purpose beyond having someone to send a text to. I miss the value and authenticity in having just a few close friends when I was a teenager. Emotions felt palpable whereas now they feel hollow and mostly void of any significance. Everyone is “connected” but only as status in one’s life.
I was born in 89 and think about this a lot. I ask my friends who are in their 40s and 50s if the 90s and early 00s were actually a happier time, or if it was just my child perspective. They all agree that it was a happier time as well. The overall mood of the world was just more fun and light-hearted. I believe it started to shift after 9/11.
I’m 34, I’ll be 35 in a month. I absolutely feel like everything has changed. The flavor of life has shifted so much so that it feels like reality itself is just . . . different. It could be due to events in my own life; but I don’t think it’s just me; at all. I think one of the biggest shifts that has had a dramatic impact is how increasingly socially isolated we’ve become. When I was young, all the families on my block knew each other, moms and dads would keep track of each other’s kids, help each other out, have bbq’s and garage sales together, whatever. It’s not like I imagine it was in the 70s or 80s, but now it feels like nobody trusts their own neighbors, or even knows their neighbors. In addition to this, making friends after college seems insanely challenging to, it seems to me, a great many people, myself included. And the process of getting close to others and really building strong social bonds takes immense work and patience. I feel like our society has gotten so complex that there’s a collective sense of overwhelm and mental exhaustion, and it seems like there’s no end in sight. All this leads to a vague sense of doom or like we’re “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. It’s incredibly exhausting. TLDR; we’re lonely as fuck, a sense of community is needed but hard to find; our society is too complex to keep up with; and we’re all trying to prepare for whatever dark bullshit is going to transpire next. Stay strong my friends. We’re doing this together. ♡
This is the EXACT reason why we need to treasure our elders. Talk with them as much as you can, accociate with them, spend time with them, because i dont think, especially post internet, there will ever be such, organic, and honest people like that again. What i mean is, everyone wants everything, this second. Right now. But, if you were raised before the 90s, even the 80s, you probably spent a lot more TIME learning things. Social behavior, life skills, everything. Atter losing my grandmother this year, i realize, Time is important.
I’m 30 right now. I read some of the comments on here and tbh it’s scary. Really really scary. I used to be a game developer and I feel I at least can articulate a small piece of what’s felt so off about this world. Well, at least in my eyes. To me the answer is progression. Namely the danger behind it. People are beginning to expect far too much far too quickly ( myself included ) Game developing jobs and their rising expectations are a great example of this. When I was in college for game dev at the time, I learned that just a couple years before I entered the school, game designers only needed to come up with great and fun gameplay experiences to qualify for a job. But, my training in the first year wasn’t just to come up with great gameplay. Just a year later I was told now game designer’s have to know how to operate in multiple game engines AND make great gameplay. The year after that now they have to do all that AND be able to map out the levels. This continued well into the time I had graduated to where I was expected as a game designer to know multiple game engines inside and out, the principles of how to make a game fun, how to build out the levels, how to code the ai, characters and all events AND have great personal skills in order to even have a chance at an interview. This is equivalent to making an entire game by Oneself instead of being part of a team. At this point I genuinely believe that humanities’ speed of progression has far outclassed what we are capable of.
I’m 24. Everything feels unstable. Although we now have more job opportunities, it feels incredibly hard to hold onto one, and there’s always this constant feeling that everything will end in the blink of an eye. I’m not saying changing fields is a bad thing, but humans feel safer when they know that there is stability in the comfort zone of their job. Housing as well. I have no idea if I’ll ever have my own apartment/house in the next 10 years for example. I still have more time to learn and gain experience, I’ve been told I shouldn’t be worrying about my future so much, but the fact that so many things feel unstable makes me anxious.
I remember graduating high school in 2016 with such high expectations for what I was to encounter in the world. The years following tore me down hard. After a category 5 hurricane and COVID-19 pandemic I struggled through college and felt isolated and confused at the end. We are fed everyday with information overload, sprinkled with lies, and a slow death to curiosity and discovery. We all hold a universe in our hand in the form of a black box, but we are not God. No wonder we are an anxious burnt out generation.
Im a domestic maintenance plumber We were digging up a backyard last year and all of a sudden we heard this great commotion a few fences over, it was a bunch of boys throwing sticks at other kids hiding in a tree house, it was so strange because it took me back to my childhood, but at the same time I realised I hadn’t heard anything similar to that in many years..
I’m 50, female, one adult child. I’ve never seen the world like this. It feels like the end. I cry a lot about it because it’s so sad. It was never this way. It feels like it’s all over. I’ve never felt this way in my life but the last five years…. All I can say as someone who is older is find a balance between fighting back and really living every minute you can. Buying stuff, consuming, it won’t help you. Connect with people in real life, get outside, reject cashless society, reject automated services, reject AI. Don’t be going to concerts with hologram performers, get off internet dating and go and meet people in real life, get off Instagram, forget Dubai, forget growing your glutes… go and fall in love face to face, hug and hold each other. Sit under a tree, dig a hole in the sand… hold hands. it’s all there is. It really is. We’re on the Titanic and we’ve already hit the iceberg. It’s too sad.
Those of us born in the late 80s/early 90s have the most unique perspective on this. We were alive to experience life when technology/global security was just ramping up (pre-9/11), the transition in the 2000s into rapid development, the rise of social media, the economic collapse of 2008, the invention of the smartphone, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Every major global event has taken a part of life we took for granted and bled it dry. The world of today is so far removed from the 90s it’s almost unfathomable – everyone is a resource to be bought and sold to the highest bidder
Yes. I genuinely feel the early 2000’s we’re the last moments of being able to truly live in the present moment. And the 90’s were peak living. The internet was around. But that’s not what changed everything. It was smartphones. They truly take you away from everything present. They have taken every other tool we used before and plant into one device. Computer, phone, camera, even a calculator (remember when our teachers used to say “you’ll never just have a calculator with you all the time”) and these reasons are why we need to go back to flip phones.
I’m 42….my extended family used to get together every other Sunday and July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas were always special and fun. I was perusal an old tape from Christmas eve 92-99 and litterly for hours everyone was smiling from ear to ear. Then we would skip a Thanksgiving or Christmas and they altogether stopped. We all got together about 11 years ago for my nephews wedding and there were no smiles, no one talked, everyone had their face in their phone and that was it. I have not seen or heard from anyone in my family since. Even my kids who are 18 and 16 just seem to be miserable all the time.
From the comments I’ve read so far alot of people that watched the article were born before 2000s but as someone born in 2001 who just turned 21 this pending fear of a collapsing society is sickening and it’s kind of been something I’ve felt for a while . Post pandemic world has made the institutions that once kept society stable not so stable anymore. Even academia doesn’t hold the same power it once did. I definitely feel something has changed and it’s only going to change more. Would love to hear more about this conversation
The internet stole the magic from the world Edit: I’m not saying the world is worse off. I’m saying the “MAGIC” is gone. Because of the internet we no longer think Bruce Lee could defeat any foe in a fight. Sports don’t feel the same because of the instant over reactions on social media. Japan, Italy, Greece aren’t the same vacation spots they once were because of social media as well. I guess social media is more the problem than the internet but they don’t feel separable 🤔
Thank you all for sharing how you feel. I’ve been majorly depressed since 2013 and I haven’t been the same since. I’m hyper aware of everything. Sometimes I feel like I can feel myself moving through the universe lol. Everyone is so rude and oblivious and just…I don’t know. I remember being so open and real and emotional and honest when I was younger and everyone else was too. Now everyone pretends like they don’t care
Absolutely. I’ve been feeling this dark energy hanging over us for years, and I can’t shake it. It’s like we know an existential threat is coming but we don’t know when. We can only sit here and bide our time until it arrives. I think many people have lost all hope of a better future and can only go through the motions until they depart, but it’s getting harder and harder to even do that. There’s no joy or light heartedness these days. Everything is so serious and peoples humanity and empathy has disappeared and people only care about money. It really does feel like some dark clown world we slipped into and I hate it. It says a lot when my favourite time of day now is bedtime, so I can go to sleep and switch off from it all.
I’m 58 and I feel like this. It’s funny but up until the early 2000s everything felt as normal as it had when I was growing up in the 70s. Then it all started to feel very different very quickly and I’ve noticed it the most in the last 3 or 4 years. Now it feels like the world is heading into a horribly dark future.
I have worked at a retirement facility and have been fortunate enough to get to know people who lived through the Great Depression and WWII. One women who just passed was born in 1919. It is so special to hear their stories because there’s not all that many of them left. They are like talking history books. And they are so humble and grounded and wise. Such a beautiful generation, it has been so survival to be able to know them
It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who felt this way. I’ve been trying to explain it to a friend how everything just feels odd and dreary. As if in an alternate reality. Of course things change, especially after the pandemic but now I just feel as if I’ve seen it all in the world (even if this isn’t true). Things just seem to be getting worse and worse as the years go by.
Speaking from South Africa…It feels like the world is about to implode. Many people are on edge and waiting for something bad to happen. Personally, I feel like we’re perusal a slow disaster unfold…and we have no idea what to expect from our future. I have endeavored to try and find something small and meaningful in each day…even if it’s just a nice cup of coffee or perusal the clouds. ❤
i think this is the unfortunate reality that comes with having so much information right at your fingertips. Back in the day, your world was only your family, your friends, your town, maybe the next town over, etc. Now our world is…well, the whole world. It’s a lot, maybe too much. I know for me, the constant state of dread definitely comes from hearing bad news constantly in places where i have no hope of ever making any sort of change. Even stuff in my own country is mostly out of my grasp and that’s a hard thing to deal with. Honestly though, it reminds me of when i first learned about WWII for example in elementary school, how it just felt like such an insane thing for people to have just let happen. That feeling of helplessness and hopelessness I had back then is similar to what i feel now, most of the time. That saying that ignorance is bliss is true in my opinion LOL
I’m 25 feeling like going on 50. Technically, I shouldn’t remember the 90s at all, but with the way things have been lately, I am feeling such an intense nostalgia for this decade, that I am trying to simulate it at home as closely as possible more and more. I think it’s the way the world is spinning faster and faster, how you’re bullied into tons of subscriptions everyday, how “influencers” lie directly into your face, the feeling of being helplessely stuck in a wheel with no way to go up jobwise etc. Everything went wrong when these damn smartphones got introduced to the world.
I’m in my early 50’s and since 2016 things haven’t been the same. I’ve really got the intense feeling that something is just “off” lately. I can’t put my finger on it. My relationships with my wife and kids aren’t as good. None of them act the same anymore. I don’t act the same anymore. We all seem different. Our friends and extended family all seem different. Everything feels so weird. Like a glitch happened.
I’m 62 and yes things have changed and will keep changing, not for the good I fear. But what can make things more bearable is take a vacation from the media. Take a walk, bake some cookies, smell the roses, read a book. I’m guilty of not doing these things very often but I do realize taking a break from technology helps reset the mind for awhile.
I’m 70 and can say for sure that the world and people has changed for the worse, there’s a lot of hatred and manipulation going on that wasn’t there when I was growing up. People take offense over nothing like they went phsyco which I find it quite disturbing. People were generally decent and kind but not anymore now they often seem to take pleasure in being mean and objectional.
I’m 17, and I’m sure a lot of people similar to my age remember the innocence of childhood. For me, it was the period between 2010-2015 that felt organic. Most people would agree that something was brewing under the surface of reality but it feels like everything has fallen down in 3 years. I still fear that 2023-2024 has something to hide and we won’t know until it happens.
I would say yes, the world has changed. After 2 years in lockdown, it gives a bitter after-taste. It shows how easy the population can be mass controlled. Also, the high rising inflation reveals the gap between poor and rich even more so. There is a heavy unbalance going on. It can not be, that a few have it all, and the rest have nothing. Of course this was allways the case. But the gap was not so huge. I think Capitalism + Internet accelerated the process.
I talk about this feeling all the time with my family. It’s just a cold and dark feeling. It seems as if there’s more questions than answers to things. It seems as if there’s more hurdles than achievements. It’s more difficult to trust anyone. It’s more difficult to live a life of contentment and peace. It’s scary
I’m in my early 50s. The sober feeling that pervades now is similar to how I felt in the 80s. Music was rubbish. No one had any money. AIDS was new and was going to kill us all. Manufacturing was dying and there were no jobs. I knew many people who PAID their employers to be allowed work for them- just to get experience/foot in the door. The only thing I had was hope that I could build a good life for myself through hard work etc. So I worked extremely hard for decades. It didn’t quite work out for me (I’m not a multimillionaire). But I didn’t fail either. I’m financially secure. What I’ve learned: We are each the captains of our own ship. Stop worrying about calamities unless you are going to become a politician or have control over big decisions in that regard. If you really care become a leader. Otherwise let it go and focus on your position in the wheel of life. You must just look after YOU. You don’t need to know how the phone works. (Your life does NOT depend on a phone btw). My advice: learn how to bake bread and buy a mountain bike. Keep your worries and focus small. That’s the secret to individual success and survival.
I am 25. I feel like I have spent the last 5 years in a weird fog of internet.I was kinda internet addicted before that, but when I was 18 it really took off. I do still have memories of the last 5 years and have even done some extraordinary things that most people will never get to do but everything feels like it is flat and somehow not real. I have spent the few months doing everything in my power to make life feel more real again. The biggest successes I had were joining a religious community and starting a weekly discussion group with a purpose.Then as people who are lost we can all try to return to reality and try to climb out of the pit together.
I’m a 63 year old woman, and my answer to your question is: yes. Evidently, from the comments, I have a lot of company. 2016 keeps being mentioned. Smartphones and social media keep coming up as well. I got off social media several years ago, but I have not been able to get away from the smart phone and iPad. Obviously. My husband and daughter have it even worse. I think these devices are a big part of the reason why we feel so disconnected and everything feels “off”.
I have been trying to explain this feeling to everyone in my life, and nobody can quite put their finger on it, but everyone can sense the difference. I think it began when touch screen smart phones had fully taken their place in the world. I didn’t start feeling this way until 2016, when I had turned 16 years. Once everyone and their grandmother had easy access to the internet and facebook, the quality of our social lives began tanking immediately. Back then we thought things like Gangnam style and cat pictures were just these funny new things called “memes”, yet they were really the signalling of the new technocratic era. When everyone in the world from New York to Zimbabwe was making Gangnam style dance articles, something changed permanently. The ability to influence the entire world population instantly over a small cell phone in their pocket is what triggered the downward spiral we find ourselves in today.
it is quite a relief to see so many people who relate to the sense of impending doom and the odd feeling that something is terribly off. I am quite young, but I still feel the huge change in the past 10 -15 years and its horrifying. i know i am not the only one in the world, as i know some people around me are feeling the same thing, but its just a very strange feeling, to know something is going wrong yet only being able to spectate as it does.
I work construction so from 6 am to 4:30 pm I feel like I’m in the real world. Interacting with my crew, building things in dangerous situations, reading plans that were engineered by very smart people. But when I get home, something changes. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but no one seems to understand my job or what we go through to build everything. Not to mention the war I served in. Afghanistan. Has disappeared just like the Korean war. I can’t quite put my feelings into words, but, I do agree something has changed drastically socially.
Couple weeks ago i was eating dinner with my dad and i just said to him, “hey dad, is it me or are things like really really weird outside?” And he said “there’s definitely something wrong, ive seen tough times but theres definitely something deeply wrong today.” That gave me chills, simple as it sounds it just felt very eerie and made me think about my future. If something were to ever go down in the world, id be powerless to do anything about it.
I was having this very conversation just a few weeks ago with a close friend. Things just seem ‘off’ in society as a whole, like there’s a disturbance in the force. I’ve seen five decades in my lifetime, each one with an impressive rate of technological progress and development. Society hasn’t kept up with this progress, if anything we’ve gone backwards, desensitized into numbness by the constant bombarding of information. In the last decade, there’s a strange disconnect, one that is ironic as we’ve never been so seemingly able to be connected with others. We see all these events happening around the world, yet these events are interpreted and reported differently depending on who is doing the reporting. Living in this artificially-filtered perspective it results in a fuzzy, often surreal understanding of what is actually going on, on what is actually important. People can tell you who won a sports tournament, can name the stars in a reality tv show, or which celeb is dating who. But they can’t tell you who the world leaders are, how the monetary system works, or whereabouts Ukraine is on the map and I find this skewed view of priorities odd. So yes, it does sem like there’s a glitch in the Matrix/
im born in 1998 and to me it feels the world drastically changed after 2012. I dont know why and cant really explain the feeling, but most people seem not as happy and free as they were before. I thought it was just me growing up and being nostalgic about the great memories in my childhood. But i guess the world is changing at an incredible speed and its hard to keep up.
I had a strong feeling of impending doom back in 2019, so when covid hit I thought that was it. But the feeling didn’t go away. Then the war in Ukraine happened and I thought “This is it!” But that wasn’t it either because I still can’t shake this feeling that something really big is about to happen, something that will alter the trajectory of human history. I pray that it will be a change for the better even though it feels like a kidney stone right now!
I’ve had a realization that one of the main drivers of this feeling is that everything has becomes hyper-optimized with the corporatization of the internet. Everything now is about data, and the mass collection of it has led to a very streamlined and uncreative culture. Even things like graphic design, architecture and fashion have stagnated into bland minimalism. The internet 20 years ago was a place of optimism and creativity, led by small teams of forward-thinking individuals. It was a new domain to explore with saturated webpages, customizable layouts and lighthearted content. Even thinking about YouTube, the hit articles were things like Fred and Smosh, silly skits where people didn’t take themselves too seriously. Eventually people and businesses caught on to how profitable it could be and over the next decade, it all became about monetization. We then came to understand the massive amounts of data we could collect online and it has created a mold for optimized business. People aren’t as incentivized to push boundaries. We know what works and we know what generates profit, but with that we lose the soul. I saw a bo burnham interview a bit ago where he talks about expansion being the backbone of capitalism. In the beginning, we expanded into new territories, terrorizing the people and bastardizing the land. The internet became another domain for businesses to conquer. Now, capitalism is expanding into our attention. Everything from news to social media has become emotionally charged clickbait.
I tell people all time that post Covid things feel…different. Like how pre Covid memories feel like a different time, place, me as a person and my perception on everything. It’s like a paradigm shift for me personally. It’s incredibly hard to describe since I’m trying to explain deep emotions and just me as a person.
I was born at the tail end of the baby boom and there was a big disparity in what my older siblings could achieve and what I could just based on our time of birth. And yes, I have lived through several economic crisis in my 63 years and never felt as unsettled as I do now. I fear for what the future has to offer. The NOISE that comes at us daily from ALL directions is mind numbing. The only way to slow the process, IMO, is to turn the noise off. Love and peace to everyone. We are going to need Love to fight the ugly.
I am 74. I was raised right after WW2. Almost all the males I had dealings with were in the Military during the war. My father, our pastor, my teachers, my Boy Scout leaders the man who ran the five and dime, all veterans. All of them were damaged, they all drank to much, they were all emotionally unavailable to their children. In 1964, when the Beatles came along with all the rest of the British bands, the Adults were Alarmed and horrified that the youth were getting away from their control. Well what did they expect? They never talked to us! They never tried to listen to the music or understand the paradigm shift. They would just get into a drunken rage and tell us teenage boys that we weren’t shit! We didn’t have what it takes, we could never match up to what they did. Without actually telling us what they did. I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t miss that time much at all. Also you can’t tell me that the internet had any bigger cultural impact than the introduction of TeleVision. When the TV came into every home every thing else collapsed around it. TV dinners ( god awful things, I can still taste that horrible Salisbury Steak,)gag! No more family dinners where we talked, the TV was on. First thing my mother did in the morning was to turn on the tube for the morning news, Dave Garraway with that wall of clocks with all the time zones and that stupid monkey! For those of us that can remember those times this doesn’t look that bad. We have been in the vortex of a cultural cyclone for 70 years and it is not going away any time soon.
As I get older (in 50’s), my memories are starting to be marked by events. The first real one where I felt the world view and behavior change was 9/11. The second was COVID. So the 20-25 years cycle change they talk about seems to be pretty darn close. I was born late to older parents, so my father was born before the Depression, lived through the 2nd World War, saw the world change massively through technology. I learned as time went on…that old man had ALOT of wisdom, and I had better start listening. Miss you Pop. Man, I am feeling old now. LOL