Society has undergone drastic changes over the past decades. Technological advancements and shifted values have led many to believe things may be taking a turn for the worse. 

These changes also ignited a recent Reddit discussion, with someone asking, “What worrisome trend in society are you beginning to notice?” People got candid about the alarming evolution of artificial intelligence and overconsumption while pointing out the decay in moral values. 

It’s quite a gloomy topic to open up but an eye-opener, nonetheless. Scroll through to find the readers' responses, and feel free to chime in below.

#1

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

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#2

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

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#3

We don’t own anything. Everything is subscription.

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#4

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

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#5

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

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#6

The lack of common manners like please and thank you.

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#7

AI starting to use AI as a source.

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#8

Illiteracy- it’s an actual pandemic.

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#9

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.

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#10

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

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#11

Overconsumption.

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#12

The absence of critical thinking in any sphere of influence.

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#13

Wages are not keeping up with prices.

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#14

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

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#15

The rejection of evidence-based science.

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#16

Isolation and loneliness - meaningful relationships are key to happiness and human wellbeing.

EDIT: My comment was inspired by the book The Good Life by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. I’d recommend reading it if you’d like to learn more about the importance of relationships and their impact on wellbeing.

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#17

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.

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#18

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

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#19

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

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#20

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

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#21

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.

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#22

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".

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#23

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.

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.

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#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..

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#25

Everyone's opinion matters.

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#26

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.

#27

Lack of compassion for disabled people.

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#28

I think the internet is driving us insane as a species and we are starting to make really bad decisions from the bottom to the top because of it. we are all heavily addicted to our devices and science has clearly shown this has SEVERE adverse effects to our overall mental health.

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#29

We've become society of achievement, depression and burn out are becoming prevalent, everyone has to achieve and if you don't, then you're loser.

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#30

It's a symptom of a larger problem, but I've noticed that a growing number of people seem to think that space travel and exploration is entirely fabricated. I've also noticed that a growing number of people believe in spurious pseudo-archaeology ancient aliens c**p. So basically a bunch of people believe that the greatest achievements of mankind are either fake or that they are not products of humanity. If people are no longer inspired by things like that, will they still strive to push the limits of what is possible for humanity? Will they teach their kids to think that way?

#31

Acceptance of obesity.

Whatever they say, I continue to see people support obese people and tell them to accept themselves as they are when that is dangerous and leads to health problems.

I don't understand how years ago, in the mid-2000's we all agreed that models and extremely thin people (bulimia/anorexia) were a problem and how there should be a change but currently we accept obesity and even some praise it but do not realize that anorexia/bulimia and obesity are two sides of the same coin: eating problems.

#32

The difficulty of using the internet. 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.

#33

The generations that could afford things are having trouble in retirement. What does
That mean for my generation?

#34

The bystander effect. Instead of helping people when they're in a dangerous or harmful situation, no one does anything. They just watch, or they take out their phone and just record. It's really concerning.

#35

I feel like people are starting to lose the ability to have actual, meaningful conversations. ? It’s like everything is either an argument or super surface-level small talk. Social media plays a huge part, I think everyone’s so quick to jump on trends, cancel someone, or just share their hot takes without really thinking things through.

It’s worrying because we’re all connected more than ever, but at the same time, it feels like we’re drifting further apart. Like, can we just chill, listen to each other, and not immediately try to “win” every discussion? ?.

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#36

Here’s a concerning trend I’ve noticed:
the growing disconnect between people and genuine human connections. Young adults are experiencing increased loneliness, while everything, including relationships, has become disposable and monetized.

The rise of social media addiction across all age groups has led to a decline in real-world social skills and in-person interactions. When emergencies happen, people now instinctively reach for their phones to record rather than help.
What’s particularly troubling is the decline in empathy.
People are quick to mock others’ misfortunes rather than show compassion, often using phrases like “f**k around and find out” instead of offering support. This lack of emotional intelligence makes many societal issues exponentially worse.

The subscription-based model taking over everything from software to car features, combined with rising wealth inequality, means fewer people can truly own things anymore - from homes to digital media. We’re becoming perpetual renters in an increasingly disposable world.

Image credits: diy-romania

#37

Increased use of disposable products and lack of efforts to recycle, reduce, and re-use. People just put stuff in the trash bin and it magically disappears.

#38

The embracing of ignorance, trolling and being uneducated.

#39

Sephora for kids.

#40

How stupid people are.

#41

Blatant and intentional littering. I'm shocked by the frequency with which I see people just toss their trash on the ground or pitch their fast-food trash out a car window.

#42

The rise of manufactured outrage as a business by professional grifters.

Find a group of people who feel disenfranchised, tell them the source of their woes is because of X group/thing that is unfairly targeting them or keeping something from them, and to never, never, never ever question themselves because they have a massive victim complex.

It's become a multi billion dollar industry at this point.

#43

A generalized increasing sympathy for authoritarianism, in people of all political stripes, and particularly in young people.

#44

People not living life for the enjoyment of it, more for social media.


I was in Portugal last week. Went past the beach and it was around 17 Celsius and sunny. Not hot, not cold. There was a young girl in Bikini doing her thing recording videos and taking pics while her miserable looking, fully dressed boyfriend sat on a towel. Afterwards she put her phone away, threw on several layers of clothing and f****d off. Obviously she was just there to brag about how hot it is and how great the beach is for her social media even though it wasn't really true.

#45

The Dunning Kruger effect has never been so observable on a global basis. So many people think that their 20 minute Google research makes them more knowledgeable on a subject than those who have dedicated their adult life to it.

#46

Probably not so new, but the complete lack of consideration for privacy. Take photos of your trip, share special moments you had in public, but leave the public out of focus

Like those trends where people take pictures and/or videos of a random stranger somewhere and post them online without consent to bash them for what they're wearing or what they're doing. Let people just live their lives without fear of judgement.

#47

Misinformation. If their beliefs are proven wrong, they cling to anything else that does even if it’s false and spread it like a virus.

#48

More people are rude. .

#49

Social media will destroy us. We will live in "Black Mirror" future.

#50

We shrug off the real problems we are not meant to notice because they are too difficult to solve, and or some of us profit off some of them so we don't want it stopped.

#51

Increasing stress, anxiety, and depression are becoming normalized, especially among younger generations.

#52

Rapidly reduced common civility.

#53

Housing affordability.

#54

People voting for hate.

#55

FOMO. This covers a lot of scenarios.

* too much social media and you compare your life to people literally only posting their best pictures (or rich strangers literally paid by companies to go on expensive vacations). 
* feeling like your ordinary loving relationship "isn't enough" and you might regret missing out on dating other people. 
* hating your own body/face because all you see is celebrities with photos done via professional lighting with a whole team whose *only job* is to make them look good (including heavy photoshop editing after).
* It can even be something as stupid as enjoying DIY projects but getting so discouraged by the immaculate houses you see on google images that you give up trying.

I think people lack a lot of perspective to realize how artificial and curated the internet is. I think the more you remove yourself from it the less you'll feel worthless... because honestly you're comparing yourself to something unachievable! And even if you *were* a millionaire with a whole team dedicated to making your life as easy as possible guess what, marriages can still suck, friends can still suck, you'll still get bored lonely and sad sometimes--no one posts about that online so you don't see it.