Are Humans More Stressed Now Than Ever Before?
By Ross Pomeroy
It’s a common refrain: the world is more stressful, and humans are more stressed, than ever before. Commentators implicate a variety of causes: political instability, economic uncertainty, social media, inequality, declining religion, and splintering family dynamics.
And this isn’t just armchair pathologizing. Based on the Negative Experience Index from their World Poll, analytics firm Gallup in 2022 declared the “World Unhappier, More Stressed Out Than Ever.”
Ever? Can this possibly be true? Over the two-decade life of the World Poll, sure. But the human race has endured world wars, famine, and plague in the past thousand years. Tens of thousands of years prior, humans scraped out an existence as nomadic hunter-gathers. Food, shelter, and health were rarely guaranteed. Surely such a life must have been more stressful than today’s…