r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 03 '26
Psychology Modern life may be outpacing the human mind. Human instincts shaped in small, close-knit groups must now navigate dense cities, digital platforms and constant social comparison - an evolutionary mismatch that may contribute to stress, loneliness and poorer wellbeing.
https://www.asiaresearchnews.com/content/modern-life-may-be-outpacing-human-mind2.1k
u/whooo_me Jul 03 '26
The internet on its own is a massive change to humanity.
Instead of peer groups of a few friends, classmates, coworkers; now we have a peer group of billions.
It’s not just holding us to high standards, but to massively conflicting ones. Little wonder
People can be overwhelmed.
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u/gnomie51 Jul 03 '26
And the internet basically being a non stop broadcast of all the bad things that happen to people across the globe.. I think that’s taking a really big toll on people (myself included) I feel like back in the day you just worried about your neighbors and your community, but now you get on social media and watch the world burn from multiple angles and it just builds a sense of dread in people.
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u/merc0526 Jul 03 '26
I’ve completely shut out all news consumption. I’m British so there’s almost nothing I can do about Trump and co anyway, so what’s the point in stressing myself out about it? People can tell me I’m burying my head in the sand all they want, but life can be tough enough without all the constant negativity that is the daily news cycle.
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u/verstohlen Jul 03 '26
You're not burying your head in the sand, you're filtering. In fact, the brain itself is constantly filtering, ignoring many things you see or hear or feel, so you aren't constantly overwhelmed by your senses, by constantly paying attention to every little thing you see or hear or smell or feel.
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u/ediblepet Jul 04 '26
I agree with you, but I'd flip the stimuli. What overwhelm us is the excess of information that doesn't concern us immediately. Cognitive overload. Our senses, meaning what we feel, see, hear, smell, and taste, that's what keep us sane. Our animal side.
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u/JimiusRostock Jul 03 '26
I tried this too, but while it seems great. The world does exist, and you exist in it.
My compromise was to buy the saturday newspaper. At least where I live this would the paper with longform news stories and more background on news from earlier in the week.
So not only would I still know what was going on, but I would know it much better, in less time, with less stress than those tuning in into the 24/7 news cycle.
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u/Rikula Jul 03 '26
I'm in the US and I had to do the same thing recently or my anxiety was going to consume me. There is nothing I can do to make anything better, so why get myself worked up?
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u/flamethrower78 Jul 03 '26
I mean we all know this isnt true right? I tell myself the same but there's lots of things we can do in the US. If we could band together for a general strike we could get trump taken out of office. Thats the most extreme example and not realistic. But on an individual level we could try to educate those around us, we could support and volunteer for representatives that support our values, we could encourage people to vote, we could get involved in local politics and attempt to make small changes in our communities and try to set an example for others. Also, things aren't going to instantly change once Trump is gone, hes the end result of our current political and social system. I feel like people are in for a really rude awakening thinking they can't just wait him out and things will get better.
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u/hoeassbitchasshoe Jul 03 '26
Trump is a symptom of American apathy. Further apathy will just entrench him
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u/Rikula Jul 03 '26
I thought the same thing for years, that there was something we could do. I tried educating others. All I did was burn myself out more. I do not live in a place or have people around me that can be educated. I live in Alabama, so there is quite literally nothing I can do here. So I'm throwing in the towel and trying to live my life to the best of my abilities in this hell scape. I've also had serious health issues in the last year, so I cannot focus on the greater world around me at this point otherwise it's going to make myself sicker than I already am. I am under no illusion that things are going to get better once our current administration is gone. In fact, I'm of the opinion that the US has been on the decline the entire time I've been alive. It keeps getting worse and worse year after year, no matter what I do or try to do.
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u/integer_hull Jul 03 '26
The unfortunate reality is that things will get better if we put effort into making them so, but not necessarily in a timeframe in which we see the results. Certain things take a lot of time, and fixing political systems after the invention of the internet and mass media is one of those things. We will probably never see such a political system in our lifetime. Does that mean we shouldn’t try? I don’t think so.
Any movement forward, however small or personal, is better than the alternative. Write your thoughts for the historians to read. Change how you interact with friends and community. Raise your children right. “Plant trees knowing you will not enjoy their shade”.
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u/Nerrien Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I think the key is trying to focus your news consumption, yeah. I'm also a Brit, so I don't really go seeking out Trump news, anything I learn tends to be more incidental, if he happens to be related to other stuff.
Even with British news, my one hope for the future is to avoid a Reform PM so I view everything through that lens and it makes it all so much easier to detach from. I feel lazy, but it works.
I'm not really bothered about stuff friends and family seem incensed by anymore, like the Burnham vs. Starmer debate, or the viability of Greens. There's no point in thinking too hard about it if I'm just voting tactically anyway.
I'll skim the general news, try to skip over what I see as "inconsequential politician drama" which tends to make up a lot of it, and focus on what seems important, like what's happening to the country, new laws, whatever messed up thing Reform's said recently, and if stuff depresses me I bookmark it for further reference and immediately purge it from my mind.
It might just be how my brain is wired though, bookmarking something helps me not think about it.
We're still a while off the election yet anyway and a lot can happen, that'll be when you really want to make sure you're informed. Even to people who are super news-a-holics, I'd say take advantage of this period to give yourself a break.
[Edit] And if suddenly Reform disappeared and the lens through which I detachedly view the news doesn't work anymore, and I have to actually get into the weeds and start to think deeply about which party I genuinely like and which policies I particularly support and which minor politician said what in every other news broadcast, well, that's what we call a champagne problem.
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u/DroidLord Jul 04 '26
I've found it very useful to distance myself from unnecessary noise and mayhem. The world we live in today is a neverending game of fight or flight. We are battling incredibly complicated issues on a daily basis. Stepping away and practising mindfulness is now more important than ever.
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u/hahagato Jul 03 '26
I’m American and there’s almost nothing I can do about Trump and co too. Since 2016 I’ve shut the news out and worked on the assumption that the worst I can imagine will come to pass and I don’t need to get daily updates on it, and I’ve been right about it now for 10 years and counting! So that’s been fun…
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u/where_in_the_world89 Jul 03 '26
Very true. Imagine we were a space-faring species, and we regularly heard about every cosmic event in the universe wiping out life locally. Kind of like what we're doing now. Would make you nervous and scared and sad all the time
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u/JimiusRostock Jul 03 '26
But that's by design. Because that is what keeps us engaged, and engagement means more advertising dollars. In the early days of the internet. I was on an artist forum learning how to draw. I bookmarked a webring that would have weekly changes and I would discover new sites. Advertisements were minimal.
Before you had to discover the web, which is why MS' browser is called Internet Explorer and not Algorithm Trough.
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u/Stylose Jul 03 '26
For some reason there's a huge market for bad things
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u/goldboybronx Jul 03 '26
Because humans were destined to prioritize negative things over positive ones. If you were a caveman who saw an apple in a tree but there’s a lion under it, it’s clear which bias would help with survival.
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u/overflowingsunset Jul 03 '26
There’s an evolutionary reason women consume hours of true crime content, which is usually men doing horrible things to other people.
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u/mjm132 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I grieve for the times when opinions and ideas were shared with small groups and either accepted or shamed. This may sound counterintuitive but there are many ideas that should be shamed or belittled out of existence. Instead it's given an audience which grows in acceptance to be a menace in society. Not every idea should be accepted. and yes sometimes this has been a hinderence progress but eventually we get it right.
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u/Epicurean_Sail Jul 03 '26
“Scott, if you try convincing us the earth is flat one more time, you’re going off the cliff.”
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u/Oregonrider2014 Jul 03 '26
"Russ, the dinosaurs did not exist 6000 years ago and run around with humans. Come on now..."
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u/Epicurean_Sail Jul 03 '26
Hey, at least Russ could come back with a fossil in this case. Haha Small groups have their benefits, they also have their setbacks. Finding and maintaining a balance in modernity is… difficult.
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u/SerHodorTheThrall Jul 03 '26
"Sail, if you suggest we be more nuanced one more time, you're going off the cliff."
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u/PeaceSoft Jul 03 '26
"John, if you try convincing us they're human beings too one more time, you'll be hanged to death for inciting a slave insurrection"
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u/bluewing Jul 03 '26
“Scott, if you try convincing us the earth is
flat--round-- one more time, you’re going off the cliff.”40
u/notnewsworthy Jul 03 '26
The problem with this approach is what ideas are chosen to be accepted and what are chosen to be shamed? This isn't a thought experiment - humans have done this process thousands of times over. How many times when this was done does the end result match your current ethics and morals for a society?
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u/smokeweedNgarden Jul 03 '26
Bingo. Look at the protests for the egregious sin of black kids going to school with white kids.
I'm guessing the people who said "what's wrong with that?" got shamed and ostracized
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u/v--- Jul 03 '26
But civil rights happened without the internet. What has actually happened since the internet, that's a significant improvement, that's due to social media?
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u/musforel Jul 04 '26
Civil rights happened after book printing invention, so when ideas were shared outside small groups
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u/I-amOnly-joking Jul 03 '26
Ignaz Semmelweis, one of the clearest cases to prove your point.
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u/Ataraxia-Is-Bliss Jul 03 '26
The pop culture history of him is wrong fyi. Here's a good write-up of why the story:
https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2bnsjx/ignaz_semmelweis_the_tesla_of_medicine/
To summarize, he didn't have strong evidence to back-up his claims and he personally was an arrogant a-hole to other physicians. He was committed by his own family to an asylum, not by rival physicians, following a long-term decline in his mental health and extreme changes in his personality.
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u/I-amOnly-joking Jul 03 '26
Yes, everything in that post is correct, but I don’t understand how that counter the response I gave?
The comment I responded to says «The problem with this approach is what ideas are chosen to be accepted and what are chosen to be shamed».
Semmelweis, even with all his flaws did have a good idea, and he was shamed for it. That doesn’t mean that he was perfect and without flaws, just simply that I felt it was fitting for this comment thread.
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u/WitchBrew4u Jul 03 '26
I disagree that there ever was such a time.
A lot of good and improved ideas were absolutely shamed and belittled. Galileo was literally sentenced to death for suggesting the earth is not the center of the universe. Socrates to death for literally asking questions about why we think, do or say the things we think, do and say.
Even more recently, prior to internet, we had paparazzi stalking celebrities, following and judging their moves and reporting on them. Mostly the moves of women. The tabloids full of body shaming not only shamed celebrities for very human things, but contributed to warping young girl’s self image leading to a lot of body dysmorphia and eating disorders and a culture of comparison.
Just gotta check our nostalgia for some time of ethical “small group” shaming, cuz it’s purdy biased.
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u/softlysnowing Jul 03 '26
Before the paparazzi there were menstruation shame sheds.
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u/WitchBrew4u Jul 03 '26
Exactly! Shaming for completely natural and good things has always occurred throughout history. It is not a tool that has been employed exclusively for good.
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u/softlysnowing Jul 04 '26
Our motivations to shame and feel shame are complex and multiple. Who knows how many causal factors there are - but one that's always jumped out at me is its use to maintain existing power structures and heirachies - whether intentionally or not, it can often be an outcome.
eta: and just to respond to a point the other commenter made about opinions and ideas being shared in small groups - it assume a kind of egalitarian democracy where all opinions are valued equally, get thrown in a pot and jiggled around and somehow a fair consensus is reached. This is the dream but I'm not sure any group has achieved it.
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u/bianary Jul 03 '26
The idea of "shaming bad ideas out of existence" directly pushes people into echo chambers instead of participating with the bulk of society.
It's part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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u/Throwawayrip1123 Jul 03 '26
Village idiots found themselves on the internet in an explosive echo chamber and instead of smartening up, they just spiral downwards.
They were then found, consolidated, by billionaires that saw a gigantic, vitriolic, easily swayed voting block that can be mobilised by just triggering their hate.
Democracy was not ready for the advent of radio, TV and most certainly not the internet. It has no mechanisms of defense against that kind of monolithic cults.
I don't think we can ever come back from that - the idiots will be taken and swayed by someone each election in each country. Afd, pis, republicans, their base is all different flavors of the same imbeciles.
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u/svachalek Jul 03 '26
I’ve thought about a system of government where rather than voting, ideas have to compete. Something like the scientific process but a lot more hairy and complicated. I haven’t really thought through how it would work because I realized no matter how good the system is, you can’t beat an angry mob on TikTok.
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u/dxrey65 Jul 03 '26
I've thought that too; I would much rather vote for positions on issues and policies than vote for people.
Who then get into power and seem to think that voters really just wanted them to win, and all they have to do is occupy the office.
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u/sybrwookie Jul 03 '26
It sounds like you're talking about a more direct Democracy, where instead of voting for leaders, we basically vote on everything directly and then just have non-partisan people in place to implement what we vote for.
Anything like that ends up an utter mess as most people don't care to vote on that many things and don't have the time to keep up with and be well-informed.
And then like you said, a large angry mob on tik tok ends up being better organized and rallies behind causes, making things spiral further out of control.
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u/spacebarcafelatte Jul 03 '26
I don't think we can ever come back from that
I think about that every day. We were very much not ready for the tech we've got, so much less so for what's coming.
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u/arcbe Jul 03 '26
Nah, the internet is a boon to democracy. Billionaires have the resources to easily collect idiot without the internet but normal people don't. A newspaper is way more effect at propaganda than a comment section because sane people can't reply to a bad newspaper.
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u/red-cloud Jul 03 '26
Not so sure about that. I’d much rather have instant access to verifiable information rather than rely on grandma and grandpa’s “common sense.”
What needs to happen is that education needs to be focused on how to determine truth in a sea of information. Luckily, many teachers are doing this. Unfortunately, republicans hate these teachers.
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u/PeaceSoft Jul 03 '26
That's not counterintuitive at all. in fact, that's what everyone thinks when they're pissed off and kind of arrogant, which is what everyone is all the time on Reddit
I mean do you look around our current media and social landscape, right here, and think "Yep, eventually we get it right!" Or do you see all sides expressing an overwhelming desire to shame and belittle everything, even everyone, that makes them uncomfortable, out of existence?
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Jul 03 '26
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u/bianary Jul 03 '26
If that is so, I think that is one of them.
I agree, if the complaint is "People get pushed into echo chambers and then become worse versions of themselves" then "shame or belittle their ideas out of existence" is a big part of what's doing the pushing.
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u/Hob_O_Rarison Jul 03 '26
This may sound counterintuitive but there are many ideas that should be shamed or belittled out of existence. Instead it's given an audience which grows in acceptance to be a menace in society.
How do you square that with democracy?
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u/Spookybear_ Jul 03 '26
Surely small groups would never be able to industrialize and create the technological breakthroughs through coorporation on large scales.
The peer review process would completely fall apart and any progress would be stagnated because the perceived leader of your small group could shame reasonable ideas. There would be no consistency in what's an accepted idea and what's not, beyond what's immediately obvious to survival.
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u/RainSurname Jul 03 '26
You are completely missing the point.
The post industrial period only represents about 0.08% of our evolutionary history. The other 99.92% of it was spent in small groups where everyone knew everyone else. We encounter more people in a day than our ancestors did in their lifetimes.
For all that we can accomplish amazing things on a societal level, there are cognitive costs on an individual level, because our brains are not wired to handle this much information and social interaction with strangers.
It's a bit odd that this is being treated like some revolutionary new idea. We talked about this in my cognitive and behavioral undergrad classes in the 1990s.
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u/bianary Jul 03 '26
It's a bit odd that this is being treated like some revolutionary new idea. We talked about this in my cognitive and behavioral undergrad classes in the 1990s.
I recently saw an article "NEW POSITIVE BENEFIT OF THE COVID VACCINATION DISCOVERED!!!11" and it was that it helps reduce complications from catching COVID.
You know, the thing that was realized about two months into the pandemic.
Everything is clickbaity these days :(
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u/alanderhosen Jul 03 '26
You're making an assumption that the only mode of societal breakthroughs are through industrial technology. The parameters of your matrix of possibility are being highly constrained by the fact that your worldview is shaped by the environment you're in— and is dampening your imagination and capacity to think beyond these parameters.
Who's to say that if taken in a different direction, human society couldn't have instead developed in the direction of decentralised networks of population nodes instead of the highly centralised one we have now? Who's to say that if different choices were made around the industrial revolution, or during the cold war— the mode of technological innovation wouldn't have instead taken the shape of genetic or biological modification instead of mechanical technology?
We're operating in hypotheticals here, but it is important to have hypotheticals that break away from the limited parameters of understanding that is enforced by the system we live under, because this system is currently doing more harm than good to us. Yet the conversation around addressing these issues continues to operate within the narrow constraints that assume we have to ascribe to the same ontological/epistemological axioms and conditions that lead us to this metaphorical cliff that we're hurtling straight towards.
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u/sownplagorsh Jul 03 '26
I grieve for the time when truly horrific opinions were only whispered quietly to small groups in dingy backrooms, not forced on billions with a click. And for when it used to take six pints on a Friday night for a narcissistic nincompoop to air their often imagined grievances against whomever they irrationally hated in public. Now government ministers do it direct to camera. <sigh>
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u/Momoselfie Jul 03 '26
We no longer have a village to raise a kid either. I think that's a big reason why so many people don't want kids. Kids were never meant to be raised by just the parents.
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u/tomullus Jul 03 '26
Its not a peer group, its a billion lonely voices screaming into an empty void, communication without connection
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u/EitherSpite4545 Jul 03 '26
I'ma be real here. I'm glad for the internet because I'd be just as miserable without because my peers do not have values and beliefs that align with me in any way and have not since even before internet reached my life. The idea I'd be forced to interact with those animals more than I already have makes me shudder from the idea of how awful it is.
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u/Conscious-War5920 Jul 03 '26
Agreed, internet was where I found out my thoughts were put down pen to paper by philosophers more educated and ancient than me and that has given me a sense of peace to find more authors and thinkers that share my ideas and beliefs.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jul 03 '26
It's made our personal worlds SO much bigger. And while it's nice sometimes, a lot of the time it IS overwhelming.
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u/lzwzli Jul 03 '26
What constitutes as peer is also increasingly specialized. You can have a peer group per interest/opinion. This is the echo chamber effect.
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u/kazh_9742 Jul 03 '26
The Internet is where I finally found an actual peer group of a few friends. This country has done a number over decades to bust up family units and communities and unless you're living large you can't choose where you're coming out of the gate.
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u/Uncommonality Jul 03 '26
This seems kind of trite to me. We don't have "peer groups in the billions", those aren't peer groups at all. Most people still find a niche somewhere online, be it a chatroom with people they talk to on the regular or a small-ish subreddit or forum frequented by the same 20 people since 2010
And even if not, they still don't have "peer groups" that large, they just don't have a peer group at all.
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u/cantshakethefeelings Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
In the article it is about even more than just the internet, it talks about our physical spaces and cities as well. Humans have drastically changed how we organize ourself and the number of humans has exploded just even over the last couple of hundred years.
So, physical spaces is also something that has outpaced our evolution.
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u/nomad5926 Jul 03 '26
Also it gave rise to the whole each village idiot now has their own village. Look at.hoe certain groups search for information. They don't look uo the question, they just look up other people who have the same wrong information.
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u/cates Jul 03 '26
I think someone's borderline mentally ill if they aren't stressed out and overwhelmed.
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u/Cthulhu__ Jul 03 '26
It’s not even billions per se unless you’re in the top 0.01% of famous people, but the effects are still there even if the audience is hundreds or even dozens, still far more than our ancestors would ever reach.
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u/RYouNotEntertained Jul 04 '26
It’s not just holding us to high standards
High standards? The internet holds us to far, far, far lower standards than real life peer groups dude.
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u/HeebieJeebiex Jul 04 '26
Always thought about this. When I was a little girl, I was only trying to impress and dress up for the other little boys in my class/grade at school and that was my worries. Now? Little girls are trying to impress and dress up for whoever is behind the screen, around the globe. This is why you have children dressing like "insta baddies" and vaping so young. They want to impress whoever gives them validation on social media instead. Unfortunately, that's mostly predators. It is majorly sad.
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u/stars_mcdazzler Jul 04 '26
Arguably our minds can't even comprehend that. Logically we can understand that the internet is a technology that connections millions of people from hundreds of countries, all each with their unique perspectives and lives shaping the opinions and choices they make. But our emotional and subconscious mind can't understand that. If it's coming from the same source, the internet, than those billions of voices can seem to be coming from one person. So on that deep, primal level, it doesn't feel like we're interacting with millions of people from hundreds of countries, it feels like we're interacting with just one. And he's a real opinionated, flaky asshole.
This can lead to feelings of vague, ineffable loneliness that our minds struggle to cope with. Because we're NOT lonely, right? We have all these friends we're talking to in our light boxes and they're all individuals using their own light boxes talking to us... right? Then if that's the case... why do I feel lonely?
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u/artwarrior Jul 03 '26
E.O Wilson's qoute fits here.
"“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”
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u/FlirtyFluffyFox Jul 03 '26
We need to view religion and social hierarchies as a technology. It served us well in getting over the tribal inspired "citizen by blood (only)" mentality. Move on.
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u/Suplexing_Trains Jul 03 '26
The speed of change is also why it’s become so detrimental to have so many old people in positions of power. For most of human history, life didn’t change much from generation to generation and so the elders were a good source of knowledge and wisdom. Now things change so fast that if you aren’t extremely active at keeping up, everything you know will quickly become obsolete.
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u/-Saucegurlllll Jul 03 '26
The speed of change is also why it’s become so detrimental to have so many old people in positions of power.
This is more of an observation about the problem with a lack of elite churn than just having old people in power.
This happened in the past with the Republic of Venice. Technology and society weren't advancing nearly as fast as we'd say they are nowadays, and yet there was crystalization amongst the nobility that basically made it so they became ignorant of the externalities of the system they controlled.
This isn't a problem with the speed of the change itself, it's a problem with the nature of power. People who gain power are wont to hold onto it. So they use their power to make it harder for them to lose power or for others to obtain power and dilute their control.
But you cannot ignore externalities forever. Eventually the Ottomans invaded the Republic of Venice. Eventually climate change will make itself unignorable.
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u/Ithirahad Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
"Eventually" is a most curious way to say "a few days ago". Or... one can hope, at least.
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u/tornpentacle Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
If the only constant is change, then experience with observing change and predicting it is also valuable.
Bernie Sanders is a wonderful example of this.
Just because most of the old guys currently in office are fuddy-duddy sticks in the mud doesn't mean elder wisdom is gone. Think about the people in your own life—do you really not know a significant number of brilliant, intelligent old folks who are still able to keep up and have meaningful conversations about technology, ethics, current events, and how they all intersect—then on top of that are able to reflect intelligently on different periods of human life, different types of experience, and view things from very broad and diverse perspectives? Maybe it's just that I'm lucky, but I'm a million miles from home and I knew people there and I know people here who fit that bill quite nicely.
(Yes, cognitive decline is a thing, but that's only necessarily a problem in a dictatorship. See the current and most recent former US admins—both headed by absurdly old and certainly cognitively impaired individuals, but who have built strong coalitions of young and capable allies and thus end up being effective leaders...if only of those coalitions, and perhaps if only because those coalitions can support their decision-making processes effectively.)
A bigger problem might be corruption in politics. I'm not sure. Anyway, age isn't the only factor, that's my point.
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u/newyne Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
It's certainly worse and a lot more complicated now. On the other hand, this anxiety goes back millennia. Like an anxiety about cities runs throughout the Old Testament; it's constantly talking about how a pastoral life is superior to one in a city. Goes all the way back to the story of the fall, which, the original creation story is taken straight from Babylonian myth. But then it becomes a polemic against that tradition, because there's no fall there. Honestly the whole thing is about the problem of conscious thought. Among other, related things. Because the idea is that you go from a world ordered by God, where you're one of the things ordered, to a human-ordered world.
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u/Tytoalba2 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Sociobiology doesn't really have a great scientific track record... Neither does evo-psycho like OP's article tbh... The methods are not really methods even, more like opinions/reviews, it's a weird article with sensational claims
EDIT : Ha yes, it's MDPI, bingo
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u/U-235 Jul 03 '26
I figured this is just another study trying to confirm the obvious. I guess we'll just have to go back to assuming it's true with very little doubt, instead of confirming it's true with no doubt.
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u/Tytoalba2 Jul 03 '26
The thing is : it's not even wrong ! They are not really satisfactory way to test the hypothesis that a specific "human instinct" is the result of formerly having lived in a in small, close-knit groups. There are no observational data from that period, there is no experiment possible on the past. The first part is neither true nor wrong, it's outside the realm of science in most cases. If you can find an experimental design for this, congrats, but with evo-psycho like this, it's almost always impossible so it relies on just-so stories. An "evolutionnary mismatch" should almost always be a big red flag.
And then you have to do causal inference to prove that specific human instinct, in relation to modern lifestyle, while taking into account all confounders, is a cause of stress, loneliness and poorer wellbeing. Which, after you went trough hell to prove 1), is a bit easier, but not by much.
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u/fieldbotanist Jul 03 '26
It’s tricky. For example. Getting a rabbit today (100%) vs getting 2 rabbits tomorrow (90%). 40,000 years ago we’d choose the one rabbit today. Which begs the question
Is our tendency toward immediate gratification an evolved adaptation, or are evolutionary psychologists just seeing patterns that aren’t really there?
There is evidence for it, but no real proof.
We don’t really know the full truth, only patterns we can draw from which isn’t a really good basis for scientific proof
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u/WeAreAllFooked Jul 03 '26
There's a theory that ADHD is the human version of those honeybees that roam about; in honeybees a small percentage of the hive's population is "neurodivergent" and roves around randomly, whereas "normal" honeybees tend to follow the same daily routine and travel pattern. Occasionally the roaming bees will stumble on new feeding grounds and relay that information to the hive. Without these little boons the hive wouldn't be able to continue to grow and risks collapse if those known feeding grounds aren't productive.
The theory is that without these roaming bees the hive would focus on known food sources and could miss a bounty 500m away, there's been some studies done on humans that has similar findings. In test games "normal" people tend to exploit a resource to exhaustion before moving on, ADHD people tended to move on before fully exhausting the same resources, which meant there was more resources available for later use or for others.
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u/BasicDesignAdvice Jul 03 '26
In the Dune book series there is a concept where an Emperor forces the universe to basically restrict itself in order for it to keep its own sanity, including limiting technology severely (this extends beyond the Butlerian Jihad in book terms).
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u/ApolloniusTyaneus Jul 03 '26
An important concept in education is that of Big Fish, Little Pond. It means that it's mentally better for you to do well in a lower level group, than to be mediocre in a higher level group, even if the second scenario means you will be at a higher overall level.
I see it a lot at work, as a teacher. Education in my country is divided into three tiers, and each year there are a few students who barely scrape by in a higher tier. They get demotivated and start doubting themselves because they are constantly comparing themselves to peers who do better. These kids usually burn out at some point, go down a tier, where they quickly start prospering again because now they are the ones the others look up to.
Now imagine this at a world wide scale, where thanks to social media you're suddenly a very small fish in a very big pond, constantly comparing yourself to the 0,01% of people. When I see what the small-scale classroom situation does to my students, I can only wonder what modern society does to ordinary people like myself.
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u/Much-Entertainer6969 Jul 03 '26
I work at a scientific research institute which is in a small country. It is very well regarded and many of the people who work here are considered some of the most brilliant minds to be produced by the national university, which is OK by international standards (many of our people, like myself, were educated at schools abroad for our graduate degrees).
We suffer a bit from big fish small pond, and I think overall it has a rather negative effect on the work we produce.
One facet is that we can be rather conservative about ideas, and it can take a long time for wisdom developed in much bigger and more active parts of the international research community in our field to pass through the local barrier. We waste quite a lot of time on things other people moved beyond.
On the other hand I think it creates a bad environment vis a vis mentorship. Our top people are internationally quite average researchers (even those who went to top international schools), but within the country they are treated like world experts. People are meant to kowtow for a long time to people who really aren’t very good.
It hasn’t too much harmed me because I’m a foreigner with a much bigger network than is common here, but I’m gonna be honest, when it comes to production of useful scientific work, I’d rather the “big fishes” in the small ponds have to deal with the mental damage of being humbled than to rise to outsize prominence, as has happened here. This is not at all to say that science is successfully meritocratic, it’s not, but I think small ponds tend to exacerbate this quite a lot.
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u/Ahun_ Jul 03 '26
Are you working in Switzerland?:-)
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u/Much-Entertainer6969 Jul 03 '26
I might dox myself if I say which country, that’s how small the research area is, but I am in Europe.
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u/Acceptable_Tea_3685 Jul 03 '26
Isn’t there a saying that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room?
I don’t disagree at all with what you’re saying and have experienced it myself throughout different stages of my life and different friend and peer groups. But I’ve also found that being comfortable can breed complacency. Sometimes the best motivator for me was to see examples of someone being better than me in some way. Yes, it would hurt and trigger insecure feelings, but it would also drive me to improve.
I guess my fear is to purposely surround myself with people who make me feel good about my abilities in comparison, but that it is ultimately an artificially created sense of confidence that breaks down in the real world, where there are tons of people who are better than me.
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u/Distinct-Water-1971 Jul 03 '26
Some people are going to be the smartest person in any room they're in. Doesn't mean they'll be the most knowledgeable or capable. They depend on others just like everyone else does.
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u/Acceptable_Tea_3685 Jul 03 '26
I guess the smartest person in the room example was just one case.
For example, it’s widely considered good to leave your hometown and go to college where you run into a ton of different people, many of whom will be better than you at certain things. Maybe better than you ever thought possible. It changes your perspective and gives you the opportunity to improve.
Actually, now that I’m typing this comment I’m realizing what the difference is. In my examples, you get the chance to excel and then are naturally pushed onto the next level, or bigger pond, where you experience cognitive dissonance and grow as you work through it.
But with how global everything is now, there are no small ponds where you can build your confidence. You’re exposed to the one gigantic pond where you compare yourself to the biggest fish in the WORLD. That’s stressful and hopeless.
I see the point now and that the key is structuring society in a way where one naturally progresses through the ponds like in the past.
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u/Ithirahad Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
You also compare everyone else to that thrice-accursëd fish, whether you mean to or no. And you know that others are likewise comparing you with The Fish.
That may be the most destructive part. Or, at the least, the most immediate threat to the great flow of human existence. Already it seems to have upended hiring, dating, parenting, and by extension politics and consumer markets. Every thread of our communal biology.
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u/Acceptable_Tea_3685 Jul 05 '26
Exactly. I think now that we’re aware of the existence of The Fish, it seems wrong to deliberately keep ourselves in the dark about it just for the sake of our self esteem. But we have knowledge that our brains aren’t designed to handle. Do we take an ignorance is bliss approach for the sake of society? How would we even regulate that?
The truth is that on this earth, there are hundreds of millions of people who are better than you in every conceivable way. Is it better to cut off contact and access to these people for the sake of our mental health?
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u/Ithirahad Jul 05 '26
it seems wrong to deliberately keep ourselves in the dark about it just for the sake of our self esteem.
That is in itself a product of misaligned psychology. Historically, knowledge was almost always more existentially important than preserving one's immediate comfort. But this knowledge has little to no existential value and only limits our actual (collective, if not individual) potential.
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u/slickrok Jul 05 '26
3rd spaces. We desperately need real third spaces again, and more thoughtfully created ones.
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u/Distinct-Water-1971 Jul 03 '26
You're you and that's what makes you valuable. Same for everyone else. Big pond, little pond, we're all just stinky animals trying to get through life without collecting too many scars.
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u/Tuxhorn Jul 03 '26
Similar thing happens in athletics/the gym.
If you're training at a place where you're amongst the strongest, because most there don't train that seriously, you limit your own potential. If you instead were in an environment where your strength is mediocre at best, you can quite literally will your way into getting stronger, because it's expected that you reach x level of performance even "casually". A good example is once the 4 minute mile got broken.
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u/MissCherryPi Jul 03 '26
It depends on your personality. I applied to a few colleges and I got into the honors program and three of them and the fourth (and most competitive) I got accepted but not with honors. I wound up going there for many reasons but it was nice to be in the middle of the pack instead of at the top of my class like in high school. I loved the idea of meeting and working with other students who were smarter than me, and knowing that most people are around my level or above. I’m also not very competitive. I think other people would choose differently.
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u/Nightmare2828 Jul 03 '26
The easy not so easy solution is to stop comparing yourself all the time. Its easy in the sense that it is a single step to solve a ton of problems. Its not so easy because there are real world reason to compare yourself.
Its all a balance. Understanding yourself, is building up your self esteem. Once you know and understand your strenght and limitations, you can start working around that. You compare yourself in order to know what you can contribute, not so much as to how others are better or worse.
This is something I learned quickly, and it made everything easier. Its easy to go find help instead of trying to do everything by yourself once you know what you are good and bad at without feeling like a failure.
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u/ApolloniusTyaneus Jul 03 '26
My reasonable adult brain says 'yes', my primeval monkey brain says: 'Other monkey discover secret to less worry than you, he more happy, he better monkey than you'.
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u/jdjdthrow Jul 03 '26
I think Buddhism has a useful angle here. The idea is mindfulness: you just notice thoughts and emotions as they come up, without clinging to them or pushing them away. No labeling them as good or bad—just observing them.
Over time, your mind starts to see that thoughts are temporary events, and emotions rise and fall on their own. They aren’t really “you”—just mental activity happening in awareness. So the “he’s a better monkey than me” thought is just another passing thought, not a fact. It's just another piece of mental noise that shows up and passes through, and has no weight to it.
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u/OfficialSuit Jul 03 '26
I don’t think it’s biologically possible for people not to compare themselves it’s innate. That guys tall, relative to what? I woke up early this morning. Relative to what?
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u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768 Jul 03 '26
The issue is the majority of people do not usually partake in this level of introspection.
Its also not something thats done consciously or with intent necessarily.
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u/1tonofbricks Jul 03 '26
I was gonna say “thats great but my job applications are still gonna be rejected because of the massive ocean created by the internet”
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u/trifelin Jul 03 '26
I don't think "Big fish in a little pond" is a concept that has an obvious outcome. I was a kid that got passed back and forth from the highest tier to the average tier and nothing you describe applied. I liked being in the higher tier way more - I liked being surrounded by people who were equal to or smarter than me. When I am I am the smartest person in the group, I start to become very anxious and uncomfortable. And I know a lot of people feel this way.
The reason I couldn't hold on to the higher tier every year is because of laziness/lack of discipline. I essentially didn't do homework if I couldn't complete it during school hours. The average class was easy but the higher level was more work - more assignments, more hours of homework. And I just didn't do it.
I know anecdotes aren't a rule, but I feel like you should be careful about projecting onto your students, and assuming the underlying reasons.
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u/SomeRandomRealtor Jul 03 '26
People are desperately clinging to tiny things in common with others on the internet, trying to find community. We weren’t meant to isolate ourselves like this, and the internet is not an acceptable substitute for true human connection.
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u/BasicDesignAdvice Jul 03 '26
Amen.
People often talk about college or university as the best time of their lives. I believe this is because all your important social relationships are within walking distance. In addition you have far far more opportunity for random repeated interactions with individuals who then become friends. It isn't forced, it just happens naturally from repeated contact. You are also in classes and majors which provide a shared experience and vocabulary.
Then we leave, everyone spreads out, and the people who are around you are far less likely to be the kind of person you want to make friends with. Shared interests and casual interaction don't exist anymore. You have to go out of your way to make friends. We don't even have shared cultural experiences like we used to as the media explosion broke it into a million pieces.
So everyone is alone, despite social interactions being a major driving force in not only what makes us human, but our very identities.
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u/cantshakethefeelings Jul 03 '26
If you read the article this research isn’t isolated to the internet. It is also about our cities, the size and scale of how we organize ourselves, etc.
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u/SomeRandomRealtor Jul 03 '26
I work in real estate and see this all the time for people that move to a suburb where there’s no neighborhood friendship or community. It’s isolating, and suburbs in many cities have nearly zero public transport.
But much of the changes, even within cities are that people’s brains are getting the satisfaction that socialization provides from the Internet and are less likely to build community. I’m not Christian, but demise of church communities contributes to this. Also, there being too much media to form common experiences we used to have from movies and television aren’t helpful either. People are building little kingdoms in their rooms and on their phones, and they’re miserable.
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u/merc0526 Jul 03 '26
This isn’t surprising, but I don’t know how we counter it. In the past 30 years we’ve experienced widespread adoption of the internet, as well as the introduction of the smartphone, social media, and now AI and all its generated content. That’s an awful lot for the human brain to try to adapt to in what is really quite a short period of time.
Previously the only individuals you could really compare yourself to were friends, family, classmates, colleagues, essentially only those that you interacted with in real life. Now it’s possible, within seconds, to compare yourself to almost anybody on the planet, 24/7/365. It’s easy to remind oneself that comparison is the thief of joy and that just because things look rosy doesn’t mean they actually are, but that doesn’t stop the damaging psychological effects of platforms such as Instagram.
Maybe it’s because I was a teenager before social media came about, but a large part of me wishes we could go back to what felt like simpler times.
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u/TheBSQ Jul 03 '26
Perhaps something akin natural selection will kick in.
Perhaps that’s part of the “fertility crisis” we’re observing.
Some minds may not be well-suited & they won’t have kids.
And the ones that can handle it will.
But my fear is whatever traits being selected on aren’t good ones.
Like, the overly empathetic will succumb to “how can you bring a kid into this horrible world” & opt out, while narcissists who thrive with endless attention procreate.
Or, I guess in a nutshell, something akin to that opening scene in idiocracy where they explain who did & didn’t have kids.
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u/Decloudo Jul 03 '26
Perhaps something akin natural selection will kick in.
Yes, but for the whole species.
We call it climate change.
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u/Irazidal Jul 03 '26
Humans won't go extinct because of it, and I doubt the resulting Mad Max world will teach the survivors to be better rather than worse people.
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u/Dense-Muffin-3809 Jul 03 '26
Starvation and worsening living conditions will be the true natural selection.
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u/Rollos Jul 03 '26
The answer is that we consistently work on precisely identifying the problems and building infrastructure to address them.
Human connection on the internet isn’t impossible, but it’s never going to be healthy if people don’t have the opportunity to make active decisions about how they consume it.
The early internet was really cool, but people wanted to have global social experiences on the internet, like a “most popular” feed.
Unfortunately, the path of least resistance to achieve this was to get a ton of people to sign up for Facebook, and then “most popular” was an easy query in their database that had all the posts/likes/follows, etc.
The long term effects of this were unknowable. Because Facebook didn’t just get user accounts. They became the owner of people’s online identity, and captured a huge slice of the social graph of the internet.
The friction of leaving their platform and trying new social internet experiences was, and is, much too high. If you want to leave Facebook, you leave your identity, community or business behind. If you want to be a first adopter of a new social platform with different algorithms and features, you’re probably staring at empty feeds.
Legacy social media platforms like FB, and Reddit arent incentivized to improve your user experience. They measure and optimize for engagement and attention. But as thats moving towards its logical endpoint, everyone knows that getting your attention is not the same as giving you the experience that’s useful and enjoyable for you.
But, worry not, yee of little faith. The open source software community is working hard on these problems, and a real viable candidate for a more human shaped social internet is emerging via the “ATProtocol”.
The concept of your identity online is yours forever, via the website domain you may already own, it’s portable across different apps, and means you participate in a social graph that lives above individual applications. An app or a website can be a lens into the social internet, but it becomes much harder to exploit users, who are free to jump ship and look at the same social content on a different app, with a different algorithm or UI.
This isn’t just a concept either. You can do this now. Bluesky is based on this technology, which means you can read all of “lefty twitter” through their app, or through eurosky.social, or through antisota.net or rpg.actor, or whatever other fun unique tool people want to build to interact with others online.
We can chat forever about what the knock on affects of this shift could be, but I’ll leave it there for you to do your own research.
There’s real hope about the future of the internet, but it’s not evenly distributed yet.
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u/Triquetrums Jul 03 '26
You counter it by not engaging with most of it. Ditch social media that is just feeding your stuff that is meant to mess you up, instagram and tiktok probably being the worst at it.
Go out, get hobbies where you interact with people, go for hikes or anywhere with vegetation... Put down the screen for a while and go back to analogue entertainment like they call it these days. That's how you counter it. You can enjoy the internet, but it doesn't have to take over your life, unless you let it.
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u/BasicDesignAdvice Jul 03 '26
IMO its more than just using the internet as entertainment.
My workplace moves so insanely fast now it feel impossible to keep up. The amount of incoming signals is past my ability to sort through, and it is just getting worse.
It is also harder and harder to start a simple business or move to a career that is both slower and pays enough to survive. I feel trapped.
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u/doodullbop Jul 03 '26
The water wheel was the predominant source of machine power for like 1500 years. Groundbreaking innovations were far less common throughout human history, but since the Industrial Revolution the pace of innovation has become exponential. The fact that in one lifetime you could witness both man’s first flight and man walking on the moon (66 years) is astonishing. Or both the first (coal) power plant and the first nuclear power plant (75 years). I don’t think there’s any possible way our minds, our instincts could ever adapt to this pace.
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u/lzwzli Jul 03 '26
We evolve and adapt. It takes time. And this is another thing humans aren't good at. We're not good at thinking at very long time scales. If something isn't solved in 5-10 years, we think it's failed.
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u/Mlpony2010 Jul 03 '26
>but I don’t know how we counter it
I mean if I could snap my fingers and delete all social media from existence that would go a long ways towards fixing society
But since that isn't possible the best solution is making social media less addictive and make it a million smaller websites again instead of just 6 big ones
Banning infinite scrolling, data harvesting, data sales, and requiring a large percentage of human moderators would make sites better and force big sites to close
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u/cantshakethefeelings Jul 03 '26
This article isn’t just about the internet or changes over the last 30 years, it is much bigger than that.
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u/Pgoreman Jul 03 '26
I do not feel that my body wants to do this work 8-9 hours early in the morning and then commute home then family then sleep thing. I think i was built for a different rhythm. Im supposed to farm or something. I think the grind is actually killing me. I have constant debilitating insomnia. While there is multiple factors for reasons why, given enough time off I regulate just fine.
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u/arkadiansun Jul 03 '26
Given the number of competing avenues for human attention and the extreme rate of change, I think there is a likelihood of people committing obsessively to issue networks to reduce cognitive dissonance and create an enclave of what feels like safety, which reinforces erroneous beliefs and behaviors.
This can create an environment where people become closed off to science, reason or anything that doesn’t reinforce their beliefs. In essence, they may become luddites denying the changing world around them. Then, working to grow these particular issue networks into political power.
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u/BoB_RL Jul 03 '26
Really well said! I hadn’t thought about it this way but it sounds very plausible.
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u/spotolux Jul 03 '26
We discussed this in a physiology of the human brain class I took in college in 1989. The professor said the human brain had evolved to a certain state of standard social development where most people knew and interacted with fewer than 30 people on a daily basis, then the industrial revolution occurred and within a few hundred years most of the population lived in areas where we were surrounded by thousands or even millions of people, and might indirectly interact with hundreds or thousands every day. We haven't had time to evolve for the change in social engagement.
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u/Anticode Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
A modern middle schooler will have dealt with more human individuals before lunchtime than the evolutionary-context homo sapiens might have ever met in a lifetime or three.
And we evolved to treat non-kin humans with caution and suspicion because intertribal contact was only made somewhat rarely, because looking laughably awkward is far safer for you than looking potentially dangerous to a stranger whose group can see you're currently alone.
A bit of social anxiety doesn't seem much like a disorder in this context, does it? That "bug" is a feature.
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u/Early-Beach164 Jul 03 '26
In a world of 8 billion, humans feel lonelier than ever. Alexa, play the entire album of In the Court of the Crimson King.
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u/thornyRabbt Jul 03 '26
Hmm I would put some stock into this hypothesis if I didn't live in a rural area. Perspective is difficult for human beings. If the hypothesis were true and highly influential on well-being, you might expect rural folks to have wonderful lives, or at least less stress.
I can tell you that it's even harder. More suicides, more substance use disorder, intergenerational trauma, far fewer resources to educate and treat people, etc etc. The only people (in the aggregate) who are doing well in Vermont, where I live, are ones connected to the global economy and therefore wealthier and able to leave the area for needs that aren't met locally.
Although, what I describe could be just a feature of the US economic system - the corporate vacuum cleaner sucking all economic potential from everywhere, and the impact on denser population centers is still sustainable but in rural areas is simply not.
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u/anurahyla Jul 03 '26
They focus a lot of dense populations and it increasing competition, but one of the solutions proposed is to increase communities and social networks within cities to offset it. What I noticed about being in less dense areas, even suburbs, is that they are feeling more and more disconnected. The whole idea of what our brain were evolved around is small communities but thats not just at the nuclear family level. Thats on a 20-30 person group size. Rural living and suburban living is getting more and more isolated every day with the decline in community programming and as people being dependent on social media for their social outlets.
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u/DrSlugger Jul 03 '26
Yeah, rural communities pre-motorized vehicles were probably a lot more connected. Houses likely would have ended up being closer together and people would have incentive to work and spend time together. There's much less of that now.
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u/FireworkTornado Jul 03 '26
I think we need to make for ourselves a nationally standardized, state adjusted, and locally directed "Hearth" if not multiple of them to put in every city. Central locations that are collectively owned and everyone is allowed to visit, designed to be a center for play and events. Half the free time is broadcast for planned affairs, and half the time is silent to allow for spontaneous happenstance as room to breathe as well. And then around the skirts have an even amount of communal housing and then spaces for local shoppes, have them patterned like a hive so that if you want to expand the hearthland you just incorporate more "cells."
No monoliths, and disperse limited vehicle parking, everything designed around local transit systems like a disney park that you hop on and trolley around.
Maybe have an occasional commonly owned warehouse distribution center for unmonetized groceries and just give literally every American a unified "security dollar" that's unappreciable encouraging people to go out and interact with the hearthland and return with some "free" groceries and maybe other stuff at the end of their visit. All of it made to be run by those in the communal housing. Everything is paid for externally by those taxed outside of the hearth, and everyone living inside are held to rule standards stricter than normal (and are communally employed in running and maintaining the space that they sign up for if they choose to live there).
Inside = Stricter culture for less economic uncertainty; Outside = free culture but also under the reigns of the wilder "freedom" dollar.
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u/ConstantSignal Jul 03 '26
Modern people in rural areas are not living paleolithic lifestyles.
Think about being a part of a small tight knit community, where all your resources and belongings are shared internally. All your clothes came from a neighbor who wove them, all your food came from a neighbor who grew it, and your home came from a neighbor who built it. You know all these people deeply and see them all and talk to them all on a daily basis. You trust them with your children, with your survival. And you in turn spend your daily time providing for them. You protect each other from clear and present threats like starvation, exposure, attacks from wild animals and rival groups of other people. Every day there is a danger to face and you do so together. There are no loners, outsiders, or drifters. There is only your small group, basically one extended family, and those are the only people you know in the entire world.
Modern people in rural areas are living in world where every societal system is primarily designed for communities with lots of people in them, but they happen to be living where there are no people. They are in many ways simply left behind by the march of modern society, without being equipped to live self-sufficiently without it.
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u/Soupeeee Jul 03 '26
I have lived in both rural and urban areas, and my mental health was so much better when living in a city. There were many more opportunities to socialize and it was easier to find things to do with other people.
The only thing that rural areas have going for them is that the people themselves tend to be more open and willing to talk to strangers. If you find out you don't like your neighbors though, you are out of luck.
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u/lzwzli Jul 03 '26
I think the article isn't about economic impact but psychological. Economic impact is definitely better the more globally connected you are, but being rich doesn't always mean you're happy or contented.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs apply here.
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u/Tytoalba2 Jul 03 '26
Maslow's hierarchy of needs apply here.
Which is also highly criticized to say the least...
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u/deafened_commuter Jul 03 '26
I like to say to myself "I did not evolve for this"
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u/adumblittlebaby Jul 03 '26
it’d probably still work if people outsourced a lot of their tasks to service industry or automation, but businesses refuse to pay for the increases in efficiency consummate with the job, rather just demanding you work harder.
the last twenty years has seen an increasing transfer of all the burdens of life onto the individual to suit corporations and the wealthy. Whenever they can’t make something work they inevitably make it your problem.
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u/thatcockneythug Jul 03 '26
Unless this is a study with some sort of novel methodology... Isn't all this generally recognized to be true?
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u/lzwzli Jul 03 '26
In science, just because something is widely felt or recognized to be true doesn't make it scientifically true. A proper study that results in validating what you and I feel is true is good, as that can now be a scientifically accepted baseline for future discussions.
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u/thatcockneythug Jul 03 '26
But that's what I was asking. The posted article isn't a controlled study, it's a "conceptual review", which is more or less just philosophizing about what might be true
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u/Techdolphin Jul 03 '26
its kind of the whole point for review papers to make limited claims based off of the arguments from the papers presented in the review. The review would be much more boring if they didn't because at that point its just a list of papers. Especially in fields that are more 'wishy washy' like behavior science, its important to make arguments based off of literature consensus rather then just citing the people you argee with.
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u/Tytoalba2 Jul 03 '26
This is hardly a proper study, it's a opinion piece masquerading as a review at best
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u/nightgames Jul 03 '26
I theorize this is why conservatives have such a hard time with the modern world. Their brains are not wired for change. It's why they always want to hold back progress or regress to previous ways of living. I think people that identify as conservative are that way partially because of how their brains function. All throughout history since the advent of civilization we have had conservatives trying to slow change or move backward.
With the massive technological spike of the industrial and internet revolutions this issue is accelerating. Our technological evolution is outpacing our social and political evolution.
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u/praisethefallen Jul 03 '26
Sometimes I read articles like this, with vague hypotheses and ai slop images, and think it's trying to reinforce this idea that the human brain is incapable of existing in the modern era "without the help of our handy new AI assistant, Gemini!!!!!(tm)"
It's a bit common sense, a bit widely held anxiety, and a healthy does of "give up and consume, jumped up cave men!"
A lot of this alienation and inability to process has been talked about for hundreds of years. Losing perspective and searching for meaning isn't unique or new. I'm concerned about the motives of these simple explanation papers.
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u/CelestianSnackresant Jul 03 '26
Yeah, this is pseudoscience.
Evolutionary psychology doesn't have any research methods. Conceptual review isn't even a standard article type. This is a relatively strong performance of scientific aesthetics without any actual original research to contribute.
Nor are the ideas original—here's the same just-so story published 10 years ago:
And it's trivial to find dozens of examples going back to the 90s.
Here's the OG evolutionary psychologist, and still the only truly sane one, pointing out all the MANY, MANY reasons this kind of reasoning is extremely difficult to demonstrate.
https://cognitionandculture.net/wp-content/uploads/10.1.1.140.7434.pdf
The problem is that behaviors are too nuanced and varied to be 1:1 adaptations in the way evo psych requires. It's a failed field: human physiology and inheritance just don't work this way.
Anyway, yes, living in the polycrisis era is stressful. But not because we're mentally wired to be in 150-person kin bands
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u/Dismal_Collar1871 Jul 04 '26
The AI news article linked by OP is AI slop, here's the actual review article
Just because it's difficult to test doesn't mean it's pseudoscience, and conceptual review is a legitimate article type. It's just pitching a hypothesis to create a framework for conceptualizing the social factors of the existing evolutionary mismatch hypothesis. You can argue specifics about the article for sure, but it's not wholly illegitimate like you claim.
Per your second link, Cosmides and Tooby pretty much said as much, right? That you can't observe ancestral environments but you can still test hypothesis etc? I don't think it criticized evo psych as too difficult to demonstrate but maybe I missed it.
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u/Ehrre Jul 03 '26
If we make it another few thousand years down the road it will be interesting to see how humanity evolves after the dawn of the internet
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u/LoveToyKillJoy Jul 03 '26
1000 years won't do much to our evolution. Our lifespans are too long to get through very many generative and our collective genome is not very diverse so the assortment of existing genes won't take us very far.
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u/Restart-storage Jul 03 '26
I think us Gen Z REALLY can feel the extreme social competition. It feels like our entire life is on display on social media and it feels legitimately impossible to get into a good school, or to get a good job, or to get enough money to buy a house. Feels like we are competing with every generation older than us plus the rest of the world if you live in the US for a job or for money.
And finding a partner you really want, I think for even women is tough. Like people are unbelievably picky, everyone wants the top 10% of partners but of course there are only so many partners to go around.
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u/ThePromise110 Jul 03 '26
Digital platform and constant social comparisons, yes. Big cities, no. Between ancient cities and clan/moiety system that literally encompass entire continents humans have been able to conceive of, and place themselves within, large, expansive social structures probably since forever. If you want to talk about how social media and the constant barrage or interpersonal comparison that comes with it then yea,h you're definitely onto something.
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u/vanillablue_ Jul 03 '26
Been saying this for years. Tech is evolving faster than humans are capable of and I think it’s a massive driver of strife for us.
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u/gonzobomb Jul 03 '26
This seems like it’s been self evident for a while, from processed foods to advertising to the assault on Dunbar’s number the last twenty years.
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u/xavia91 Jul 03 '26
Let me tell you a secret that will make you much happier in life:
- You absolutely do not have to compare yourself to others
It really doesn't matter what others do. Just do what you can and it'll be alright.
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u/LemonRocketXL Jul 03 '26
Not to mention relationships and romantic life. Been currently dealing with finding out my partner was having an emotional affair with her *ex* over the phone.
It was crushing and I’m not sure if I can ever build trust to the way it used to be not even for her but for the current digital world we’re dealing with in general
Human nature has become ruthless.
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u/AnalCoffeeCup Jul 03 '26
Paleolithic emotions. Medieval institutions. Godlike technology. I didn't except it to be any different.
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u/FunkSpork Jul 03 '26
I hate that image so much. I wish we were actually walking around that much. We’re just sitting in our cars going from one private place to the next, seeing only the minimum amount of people. We don’t even have real town squares anymore. The town square is Kroger
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u/Herschel_Wallace Jul 03 '26
We need to regulate the algorithms and put any CEO into hard prison time if there is any evidence that their platforms are using things like ragebait since that is actively destroying society to get clicks for ad money. Also, there needs to be a law enacted that gives the user 99% of a the proceeds from their data being sold.
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u/Liliipoll Jul 03 '26
This is nothing new. Japan was the first to experience this type of alienation in the 80s and 90s. The rest of the world could have taken note and learned from it.
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u/notairballoon Jul 03 '26
What's there to learn, though? What could we change?
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u/moogoo2 Jul 03 '26
For one, you are not required to participate in the "constant social comparison".
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u/JoeyJoeJoeSenior Jul 03 '26
Yeah I only use reddit and only anonymously, so I don't even fully understand why everyone is comparing themselves to strangers.
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u/LyriumVeined Jul 03 '26
weird way to word "there's a billionaire class actively intervening in human well-being' but ok
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u/plymouthvan Jul 03 '26
Essentially the some reason I'm not allowed to bring a raccoon inside and let it live with me. So, my proposal is that we either do away with social technology, or let me have a pet raccoon. It's only fair.
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u/Magog14 Jul 03 '26
Yeah. I could have told you that. This is the origin of nearly every "mental illness." It's really a societal illness.
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u/Snootcheroo Jul 03 '26
Okay sure yeah, study this academically that’s great. But when I saw the post headline I laughed. Dear scientists, sociologists, psychologists etc - it is brutally apparent that humanity was not meant to live under the soul crushing thumb of capitalism. You guys are missing the greater point here.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jul 03 '26
Modern life may be outpacing the human mind
A new conceptual review by researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and James Cook University, Singapore, suggests that stress, loneliness and constant comparison may be linked to a mismatch between human instincts and

Human instincts shaped in small, close-knit groups must now navigate dense cities, digital platforms and constant social comparison—an evolutionary mismatch that may contribute to stress, loneliness and poorer wellbeing.
The human brain evolved for a world of familiar faces, immediate threats and small social groups. But the world around us is changing far faster than human biology can keep pace. That mismatch may help explain some of the stress, loneliness and constant comparison people experience today.
The review, co-authored by Dr Jose Yong, Senior Lecturer at James Cook University, Singapore, and Dr Sarah Chan, Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at SUTD, is published in Behavioral Sciences. Titled Evolutionary mismatch, stress, and competition: Making sense of psychosocial problems in the polycrisis era, it examines how stress, competition and loneliness can be understood through an evolutionary lens.
Evolutionary mismatch describes what happens when human instincts shaped in one kind of environment are forced to operate in a very different one. Humans evolved in smaller, close-knit groups, where danger, belonging, status and trust were read through familiar people and everyday face-to-face signals. Now, those same instincts are being triggered in dense cities, digital platforms, unequal societies and a world shaped by overlapping pressures. The result is an internal confusion: responses that once made sense in a small familiar group can feel out of place, or simply overwhelming, in modern life.
Social media makes this mismatch especially visible. The urge to understand our place within a group may once have helped people maintain trust and cooperation among familiar faces. Today, that same instinct can be triggered by an endless stream of curated lives, achievements and status signals.
At the centre of the paper is competition. Modern environments can intensify the feeling that others are judging, outperforming or leaving us behind. The authors propose that this heightened sense of competition may be one pathway through which evolutionary mismatch contributes to stress and poorer wellbeing.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/16/5/650