I think this is right. At least the lonesomeness and monotony. That's how I remember my childhood and I grew up in Alaska in a tiny fishing town in the 70s-80s

I think this is right. At least the lonesomeness and monotony. That's how I remember my childhood and I grew up in Alaska in a tiny fishing town in the 70s-80s (...) so that put a lot of my experiences back a bit, but the flip-over of the internet in the 90s and then, you know, phones, just changed everything. The way that extra time can be absorbed now, entirely without friction, is a step change on the pace of how a person experiences the world. Long idle times are more painful now, though they were always a little painful. That acute discomfort drives us back into "action" and we've built a world around ourselves that is one big dopamine feedback loop and . . . that's fine. Like it's not better or worse but it's just how we live and it's extremely different than how we lived 30 years ago (and so on down the pike) and these huge step changes happen more and more often the richer and better at communicating we get. Which is totally, totally fine. Sometimes you gotta marvel at those fast changes. Glad to see people studying/documenting this. Amazing to think how this suite of emotions will be coded in another 20 years.