LogFAQs > #986297483

Social media (addiction) is indeed a large driver of way a lot of things are uniquely so bad right now but even if you waved a magic wand and stopped the Casual Revolution of 2007 things would still be shit because of Reagan's presidency. Those graphs that show how wage growth and productivity (and actually a whole lot of other things economic and not) all of a sudden wildly diverge after 1980 despite having been basically a single line all the decades before aren't coincidences. Reagan and his policies are the prime driver and origin point of the massive (and ever increasing) wealth inequality in society and this was decades before social media was a thing. I'm not sure I'd say Reagan's policies caused the social media shit down the road (although maybe you could make a case that all the deregulation culture set the stage) because it's not like "out-of-touch number must go up!!!" shit came into existence with him. Though he did finally manage to undo the round of regulation we put up after the last time that shit got out of hand (Great Depression) and that ethos has continued on strong ever since. That part is just a "feature" of unregulated capitalism.

We just happen to live in the wonderful era where we get to suffer through both at the same time.