Go to the ‘Lifestyle’ section of a broadsheet and they paint a picture that we are all struggling to deal with stress and overwhelm. This is portrayed as an unavoidable feature of modern life.

A few things make it hard to believe –

  • Firstly, it just doesn’t square with my daily experiences. I’m not stressed out and overwhelmed, while living a pretty normal lifestyle with full-time work plus childcare and sports etc.
  • The stats don’t bear it out. Working time has gone way down – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#Average_annual_hours_per_worker – it’s below 35 hours a week most places, 46.25 in the highest in that table. Yes when I worked 80 hours a week I was exhausted, but that’s not the norm, and the papers talk about it like it’s some inescapable trend.
  • Then there’s the stats on TV-watching. How can it be true that modern life is hectic AND people watch telly for three hours a day?

I know this is coming across as a rant diguised as an AskLemmy question, but I have real curiosity about it… am I the exception for not feeling busy? Is there some explanation I am missing for why people in a society with 35-hour workweeks feel busy? Do you find the ‘hectic modern life’ narrative relatable? Do you think people are lying about being busy for some reason, e.g. to avoid being asked to do things?

  • Analog@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    6 hours ago

    I don’t think I can put it better than them. So I won’t, but I’ll add that any major medical thing adds immeasurably to the stress. Financial and otherwise.

    For reference I own a fairly nice house and pay more than my mortgage for health care that barely covers anything. I am not at my max out of pocket (2/3s there) and could have purchased an economy car for how much I’ve spent on health care (past my premiums; not counting them.)

    • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      6 hours ago

      I had cancer last year and lost 25 years of life expectancy

      What I’m talking about is the stuff like, “Life today is so busy and hectic! How can we cope with the stress? We are all under constant pressure!” – but are we really? People watch 78,000 hours of telly

      Health problems, sure, they’re an adversity, but they’re also very normal, that’s the standard package of human life.