We just think things are bad. Probably because most are on social media where outrage and hate get the most clicks/attention. Witness MTG, aka, the Moscow cow and her deranged/idiotic rants.

I would recommend you to read the book factfulness, it's available for free because Bill Gates thought everyone should read it.

Tl;dr: who knows?

This is an interesting question. I’m sure someone will say yes and use data. My thoughts are I don’t know and we can’t truly know.

If we’re more aware of the shittiness, then how can we be sure it wasn’t just as shitty before or less shitty than now? Data relies on documentation and documentation has been, and continues to be, reported sporadically or things are unsolved and thus omitted.

Definitely the latter. If I can recommend a book please read it despite it's title: "Everything is Fucked" by Mark Manson.

The title is supposed to be a joke as when things get better we still will find even the smallest of problems, everything isn't fucked it's our perception. This is human nature. There's other really interesting observations in the book that I really enjoyed, but that's the main theme.

Things are shittier by design. It's called planned obsolescence. Things are designed to maximize profits:

• crappy quality
• high price
• bonus of making you buy another one when the first one breaks

I don't know if we're more aware or just more sensitive to it.

There are things that are better and things that are worse

Mostly we're more aware of the shittiness. On the whole, most things that were problems decades, generations, or centuries ago are objectively, measurably better now. However, there are specific things that are recurring problems or newer problems that have never existed before. Some of those are very serious problems that we are currently trying to, don't yet know how to, or have failed to deal with. Things like climate change, mass misinformation in the information age, nuclear threats, gun violence, political corruption, war, and threats reproductive rights, LGBT human rights, and religious rights. So.... bit of column A, bit of column B.

Neither, we just tend to look at the past with rose-colored glasses, forgetting how shitty things have always been.

It certainly feels shittier now than what I remember the 90s being like.

Things are as shitty as they where, maybe even worse. Sometimes it is fabulous though.

Source...I am over half a century old and manic depressed.

According to the Grandpa association the good old times are way back before you're born, so how would you even know?

It's really all based on what you think has gone shittier.

But for a large part, it does feel like things are just shitter and we're finding out one by one as to what it is.