zlacker

> 500 years ago, what were people worried about?

It wasn't so much different from our time. Read "Don Quixote" [1] and be amazed.

Whether the updates you read are actually playing out live, or happening in a book doesn't make much of a difference, unless you are actually influencing events.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

>>smokel+(OP)
I think there is a difference in the shear density and speed of information. With modern news and social media apps, information can be pushed into someone in a way that just wasn't possible that long ago.

>>Night_+h6
I agree, I think it relates to the number of channels we're exposed to at any one time. Think about the rate at which that has changed over the past 20, 200 and 20,000 years. Now think how our biology has changed to handle that. And then think how our social structures and work time expectations have changed over the same time periods.

>>Night_+h6
That may be true, but I'm not entirely convinced about the difference.

Just moving your head around in a forest also gives an amazing amount of input. And if you're being chased by a tiger through a jungle, you cross about 1,000 different species of plants and small animals.