‘Everything used to be better’, but how come?

Although, glory days… Various studies show that ‘everything was better in the past’ was also said in the times that we now see as ‘better’. Researcher Jason Feifer read newspaper articles from the 1950s, the days of radio and the rise of TV. He researched whether people thought they lived in a ‘golden age’ in which solutions were found to many problems.

That turned out not to be the case. In the 1950s, people said, “It used to be much better. Now we have unique problems, such as environmental problems, racial tensions, political conflicts and the threat of a devastating nuclear war. So people must have had it better in the past.” And in the 1950s, they were thinking of the 1920s.

the 20s; that was the time of the rise of the radio and the automobile. Even then it was said: “It used to be better.” With the rise of radio and cars, a youth culture has emerged. “Young people no longer respect the elderly and do whatever they feel like. The idea of ​​what a reasonable person should be does not catch on anymore. It was much better in the 1890s.”

And so you can go as far into history as you want. “It used to be better, because in the past children just listened to their parents, at least they were educated decently and that soft stuff was still far away. If only it were earlier, when the grass was still green and the youth still civilized.” Sounds familiar? Do you think so too? It was the Greek philosopher Socrates who already 2400 years ago was so empty about the youth in his time.

It should be clear, we humans are just a disgruntled species, it seems. Whatever time we live in, we always look back with nostalgia for ‘the past’. How did that happen?

The answer to this question lies in the way our brains are programmed. Your brain ensures that you perceive more misery in the moment itself, because you have to see every possible danger quickly in order to survive. After a while you relativize the same misery.

There are three reasons for thinking that everything was better in the past; the first is a really interesting trait that humans have in order to survive. Sorrow and pain are slowly but surely repressed or softened by time. You can still feel it, but it is slowly getting better. At the same time, positive things have a much stronger tendency to linger.

You can see the functioning of our brain as a network of events and people, things or times. The connections between these packets of information can be drawn as lines within that network. The moment we think back to a beautiful memory, the line between the two ‘packages’ becomes a bit thicker and stronger. By regularly thinking about these positive memories, thicker lines are created, so that we can remember the positive things better. Thinking about positive memories more often makes them seem much more prominent than the negative ones, which can give us the idea that everything was better before.

Another oft-cited reason is that life used to be simpler. This is actually due to two things. On the one hand, it is true that you now have to make different choices. For example, you are now dealing with a smaller world, due to social media and the internet. This can create a feeling of restlessness and pressure, which was not there before.

On the other hand, the feeling that it used to be simpler comes mainly from the fact that you were younger. Young people generally worry less, look less to the future and live more impulsively than adults. So life was really simpler because you just didn’t care. Now you are grown up and you worry more because you think about things more.

A third reason why you get the feeling that everything was better in the past is because you slowly lose it. You can never go back to it and so you feel homesick for all those things that never happen again. You also see that things are different than before, which evokes an even stronger feeling of homesickness.

Do you also long for the good old days? Do you sometimes wonder how things used to go? Then send your question to Find it out!