[swamy_g]

Well said. Anxiety is sometimes a signal that there's an underlying imbalance in your life. Just like you start tearing up when you feel sad. Crying isn't bad in that scenario.

Anxiety works similarly. You gotta start asking yourself, why am I feeling anxious? Where could my life be out of balance?

[rabidrat]

What if the anxiety seems to come from a place of the entire human society being out of balance? I pretty much think if you're not feeling anxious, you're not paying attention.

[chubot]

Do you think that society is more out of balance now than it was 30, 50, 70, or 100 years ago?

If so, I’ll be glib and say you haven’t paid enough attention to history :-)

To pick a random anecdote, in the past senators have been physically attacked and maimed by their colleagues on the senate floor, i.e. while at work.

Campaigns were dirtier than they are now. Politicians would accuse each other of being murderers and even cannibals. (e.g. look up the coffin bills and Andrew Jackson.)

The mainstream media printed many things that would be unacceptable today. (Jon Stewart had a good bit about this a long time ago.)

Not to mention the total war involving multiple continents that happened a couple times in the last century...

Not to say we should think that stuff will never happen again. It absolutely could. But depending on your viewpoint we’ve always been on the brink of collapse, or on the brink of greatness, etc.

-----

Also, I don't believe that reading or watching news counts as "paying attention", especially if you're not in the position to take any action as a result (i.e. you don't work in politics, policy, etc.).

It's generally a very passive activity. The time would be better spent observing what's going on in your town/city rather than "the world". Or even just doing something constructive in your area of expertise, e.g. writing free software, etc.

[nostrademons]

Standards are higher now. We're more aware of more potential emotional triggers.

I've observed that with the Internet increasing our potential access to information by > 1000x, the adaptive emotional response to any given piece of information needs to be toned down by a factor of 1000x to maintain emotional stability. Wouldn't make me very popular at parties to say that the proper emotional response to kids getting murdered at a festival is to shrug your shoulders and say "By the numbers, your odds of getting killed in a mass shooting are still one in a million, which is less than when we were kids", but that's both a true and a rational statement to make.

[asdff]

Personally, I find it a little grotesque how many people share in these poor parent's horrifying tragedy. So much airtime and public eyes watching the absolute worst day of your life as a parent on national television and all over the internet. It's pretty horrible all around yet uniquely American.

What I think is worse is the contrast of how flippant people are with flu shots. We rightfully scorn anti-vaxxers, yet people aren't lining up to get their flu shot every year. 50000 people died from the flu in the U.S. alone last year. That's sixteen 9/11s, and almost as many U.S. soldiers were killed in action in the entire Vietnam war. In one flu season.

There's nothing political about the flu, nothing to be outraged about (except if you are me), no votes or money to be made by people reading and sharing it's coverage, and therefore it is buried into the footnotes far below the more profitable ad spend. Another statistic, but something that everyone could actually do something about if they walked into a CVS and got their fucking free shot.

[Retric]

That’s not accurate, mass shooting deaths are up:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United...

[dorchadas]

You might like the book Lost Connections by Johann Hari. The premise of the book, from what I can remember, is a mix between yours and GP's comment. It's basically that things are being over-prescribed, such as depression if you haven't stopped grieving after a year from the death of a loved one, as well as it happening more because our basic human structures are crumbling (namely, community). I definitely want to do a reread of it and pursue some of his leads more.

[jpernst]

I'm glad somebody mentioned this book, I was just about to reply with it myself. I'd summarize the core premise as anxiety and depression, while some people are more naturally predisposed to them, aren't things that "just happen", and it's not your brain suddenly misfiring for no reason.

Our culture has become increasingly individualized and isolated, in contrast to millions of years of evolutionary selection for tribal behavior in the great apes. Anxiety is a natural response to being separated from your tribe, since it increases your risk exposure to many things. It's not enough to just have colleagues or acquaintances, but people who actually know and care about you and will notice if you're missing or if something is wrong.

A fantastic book. I borrowed it from the library, but I think I'm going to buy my own copy.