Isolation And Loneliness”: 25 Problematic Trends In Current Society

We look at how the world has changed and have to admit there has been quite a shift in many aspects. From technology to principles and values, people's ideologies have undergone significant transformations. However, whether these changes are necessarily good or bad is rather subjective. There are some things that many people admit they have observed that left them rather concerned. This led to one Reddit discussion asking, “What worrisome trend in society are you beginning to notice?” going viral. Folks responded with opinions varying from overconsumption to the introduction of AI and others which we've shared in the gallery below. 

#1 The sheer lack of empathy people have now. It's genuinely startling.

Image source: newmamamoon, Cameron Casey

#2 The absence of critical thinking in any sphere of influence.

Image source: lingeringneutrophil, Ave Calvar

#3

Illiteracy- it’s an actual pandemic. Image source: UrsulaAthena, Getty Images

#4 Anti-intellectualism, part of the distrust of 'experts' and 'elites'.

Image source: Heavy_Direction1547, https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-working-at-night-at-home-4384141/

#5 People can't spell. Most often noticed in online postings, but even novels and professional articles are frequently riddled with typos or other mistakes.

Image source: NakedSnakeEyes, Valeriia Miller

#6 Overconsumption.

Image source: hnb2596, Getty Images

#7 Parents aren't parenting anymore -kids need rules, consistency, and structure!

Image source: silkentab, Pixabay

#8 Instead of helping someone in need, whip out that phone camera and record it.

Image source: Adorable-Writing3617, Ave Calvar

#9 Wages are not keeping up with prices.

Image source: ItsColdUpHere71, Aleksandar Pasaric

#10 People don't believe in facts when they don't fit their opinion. They also don't make any effort to look something up if they don't know it, instead, they make up their own "facts".

Image source: pfeife_, SHVETS production

#11 We don’t own anything. Everything is subscription.

Image source: Responsible-Sea-423, Anastasia Shuraeva

#12 AI starting to use AI as a source.

Image source: UnoriginalUse, Sanket Mishra

#13 Everyone is on their phone and missing the life right in front of them. Children feel ignored because their parents are staring at screens instead of them.

Image source: BeneficialBrain1764, ira dulger

#14 The lack of common manners like please and thank you.

Image source: misachanburner, Monstera Production

#15 No business takes responsibility anymore. You just always get the run around. If you have a problem, there is, in many cases, nobody who will fix it.

Image source: Rev-Dr-Slimeass, Karolina Grabowska This month, I had $700 overcharged on my phone bill. I called customer service, and after waiting an hour on hold, they said I needed to go to the store. I went to the store, and they said I needed to call customer service. I convinced them I had and they told me someone would have to do it another day. Ended up having to go back a few times to get it fixed. Or a couple years ago, I ordered groceries from the website of the grocery store. Something got messed up and I called the store. They said I needed to call some other company who actually does the shopping and have them fix it. The other company wouldn't even take my call! Just a robot that wouldn't help. It used to be that if you had a problem with a business, you could just settle it with the business. See a person and they'd work it out. If you didn't feel like going in, a customer service agent on the phone would fix it. It wasnt even that long ago. Hell, I remember in 2015 or 16 having an issue with Amazon and getting offered a free month of prime. No chance that would happen today. It really wasn't that long ago that things were much better.

#16 Me-ism. It's become all about what someone wants, everyone else can go to hell.

Image source: handandfoot8099, Daiga Ellaby

#17 How much the rich people treat us like expendable puppets. Getting us fighting each other over the dumbest s**t, keeping us distracted, bribeing our governments, and of course invading our lives at every angle they can get.

Image source: InsertBluescreenHere, Pixabay

#18 The rejection of evidence-based science.

Image source: greeenmints

#19 Every damn person in the U.S. is expecting you to tip them.

Image source: hsmith9002, Lala Azizli

#20 Death of Expertise. Everyone's opinion is now valid.

Image source: BigWhiteDog, Getty Images

#21 Authoritarian personalities being accepted as ok again. As if we don’t have endless examples from all eras of history showing how bad that turns out.

Image source: TheKingOfDub, Mika Baumeister

#22 Social media making people feel like their lives are "less than.".

Image source: Brief-Locksmith-8628, Kerde Severin

#23 Lack of humanity, empathy and community. Being primitive, ignorant and sociopathic is becoming more and more of a virtue. Society is becoming more and more mean-spirited.

Image source: ElvishMystical, Kindel Media

#24 Our brains being cooked by short internet content, 6 seconds at a time. Find it harder a harder to pick and focus on a book..

Image source: dive_down, Nik

#25 The difficulty of using the internet.

Image source: Bawat, AS Photography Yes I accept the cookies, close the advert, skip the sponsor, oh no this video is 30 minutes on how to toast bread, find a 5 minute another one, no dislike button, ah yes let me favourite it, on no I was auto signed out for security reasons, get my phone to 2fa, oh I need to also type in the code from my email, 2fa into my email, no I wouldn’t like an office 365 subscription, complete the recaptcha, oh my password expired and can’t be set again as the old one? I’ll just login to YouTube using google. or was it using my Apple ID? Or Facebook? or twitter, or Microsoft account… oh god I can’t remember which one I originally used. Oh and while I’m ranting, search engine results have definitely gotten worse over time.