[whimsicalism]

social media means people have realized how poor they are relatively. otherwise we are not in a substantially more capitalist world in the west and people are only more affluent than in the past.

obviously social media cannot explain everything about fertility, but i suspect it explains a significant portion of modern economic discontent among the professional/middle+ classes

[voshond]

I tend to disagree, I think a lot more in our society has changed due to the commodification of basically everything combined with the capitalist tendencies to pervert and corrupt anything, as there is no limit to greed. I think the housing market, food pricing and many more aspects of live have started to outpace the average workers wage to a point where it’s hard to be optimistic about a brighter future. The dream of ownership, a car, a family has gotten significantly more expensive in relation to incomes. At least from the POV of an European