[thewillowcat]

This is mostly true, but things were almost universally worse in the mid-to-late 1970s. There was a similar feeling of anomie, stagflation, and a sense that the country was on the wrong track. But people still reported themselves as happier than now.

[daymanstep]

Happiness is to a large extent related to how many close friends you have and how much time you spend with your friends.

[torginus]

This is something I have observed too. I think one of the ways things have gotten worse is generally people are less social, we're interacting with each other via screens, not in person.

While one could meme about being introverts, I just feel like the writing in older media, movies and other records of the time makes me feel people back then were just more comfortable with each other, more practiced in natural social interaction, and this lack of understanding has not only made modern media less compelling, the fact that we don't understand in general what people are really like has been a detriment to the fabric of society.