Self-Absorbed America

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By Don Varyu

Jan 2025

 
 

In our last issue, in a piece called Voluntary Confinement, I talked about how Americans are happily retreating from the outside world into the comfort of their  homes. Maybe it’s a hangover from COVID--maybe not. In any case, that trend is evident in how we work, how we eat, how we shop, how we entertain ourselves—and how we meet potential love interests. 

But the way we live is only half the story. We’re also turning inward in the way we think.

iving in Our Minds

What we do is tangible. At any moment, we occupy a specific space, doing a specific thing. What’s not apparent is what’s going on inside our heads. 

Consider it this way: if someone asks you what you “think” about a certain issue, your response comes from one of two sources:

  • First, from your own personal experience; you know what you’ve lived, seen and experienced. 

  • The second is what you’ve learned from others. That comes via what you read, watch, and hear. But this second source is problematic, because it depends on the reliability of the person or organization providing that information.

So, let’s break that reliability factor down from a few angles: 

Mass Media

  • Not too long ago, Americans typically consumed news from one of three spigots: newspapers, magazines, or radio/TV broadcasts. Everyone who read or watched any one of these particular source saw or heard the same thing. There were accepted facts. Of course, you would filter those facts though your own experiences, and then decide on their accuracy. But initially, we all drank from the same wells.

  •  In 1990, according to Pew Research, total daily newspaper circulation in America was over 60 million. Today it’s barely 20 million. And the vast majority of those readers are into their Social Security years.

  • Viewership for local news broadcasts across America dropped 30% in just six  years. And again, younger viewers are notably absent.

  • Overall, Pew says Americans are losing interest in the  news itself. In 2016, over half of adults said they followed the news closely. Six years later, the number was 38%. The declines are apparent in every age group, and again, particularly among young people.

Staying in Our Silos 

  • Cable news channels have filled part of the void created by declining traditional broadcast news, but few would view them as unbiased. Fox News and MSNBC occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum, and while CNN promotes itself as a middle ground alternative, overall, its hosts lean strongly to the left. Each source proclaims it presents “facts.”  But fundamental bias is ingrained; not in how those stories are covered, but in the initial decisions on which stories are covered. On cable, we drink from distinctly different wells. 

  • A comic once said the three most dangerous words in America are “social media post.” If a friend puts something up on a feed, the truth of that post is colored by your trust in that friend. And since you choose your friends largely on the basis of whether they think like you do, our wells can turn into echo chambers. 

  •  The term “podcast” didn’t exist until 2004. Today there are more than four million of them globally. More than half of Americans (from middle school age and up) listen to at least one episode a month. Operating apart from any pretense of fairness or balance, podcasts are breeding grounds for destructive conspiracy theories. Podcast wells can be dangerously tainted.

In the end, the idea of accepted facts has evaporated. All we have left is what we “believe.” And the chasm between the two means we are progressively (and maybe permanently) divided from each other.

iving in Our Identities

“Who am I?” Some 2,500 years ago, Socrates said, “an unexamined life is not worth living.” Americans have more than taken that to heart; our favorite topic is “me.” As we become more distrustful of the “fact” world, we compensate by looking more deeply at ourselves. This is all aroung us…evident in several ways: 

  • Aspirations

In the middle of last century, the iconic Gallup poll asked kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. For girls, the top responses, year after year, were teacher or nurse—because those two essentially defined their universe of professional options. 

But that was long ago, and things changed. Years ago the top choice for girls became something entirely different: they started saying they most wanted to be “famous.” 

So, Gallup changed its terminology to drill down and ask about actual careers. Their top choice for girls sounded noble—“doctor/nurse”-- but after that, a variety of “famous”. And boys are now right there with them. Here are the most recent responses (in order):

For girls: doctor/nurse; actor; musician; artist; YouTube/video streamer

For boys: pro athlete; YouTube/video streamer; musician; professional gamer; doctor 

With the exception of the doctor/nurse responses, each of these career goals centers on one thing: “me.”  Kids want the spotlight. Being famous is still where it’s at.

  • Social Media Usage

Becoming famous is, at best, a one-in-a-million shot. But social media has increased the odds. On the list of the top ten largest  Instagram accounts in America, you will unsurprisingly find Taylor Swift and Beyonce. They obviously have an overload of talent that merits their fame. But that top ten also includes four  different members of what I call “The Kardashian Group of Properties.” These are individuals with no discernable reason to be famous--other than being famous. It’s hard to blame a young kid for thinking, “hey, if they got to be rich and famous, why can I?” Drawing attention to oneself used to be viewed as vanity. Now, it’s more like a necessity.

  • Therapy

There is a positive side to self-focus, and that’s therapy (or other forms of mental health counseling). The number of people in therapy began growing steadily from the turn of this century—but then jumped sharply with the pandemic. In just four years beginning in 2018 and through 2021, the number of Americans reporting sessions increased by more than 50%. And since the pandemic, it’s leaped even faster. In 2022 alone, nearly 30% more people reported sessions than the year before. Reactions from patients are almost entirely positive. This is a good thing.

However, by itself, this does not correlate to a more “open” or interdependent society. On the contrary, therapy begins with “me,” even if that then concerns people in the “outside” world (e.g., brother-in-law, boss, neighbor, etc.) At some point, it begs the question of whether self-focus takes time that could be devoted to making the outside world a better place. I don’t know, maybe the two aren’t mutually exclusive. But there is undeniably an increased societal forcus here on “me.”

don’t have predictions about where my observation of voluntary confinement—both physical and mental-- might lead us. It could very well be that this is just a temporary condition. After all, it’s widely said that humans are inherently social animals; interacting with others comes naturally. But I’m not convinced of that, either.

The Smithsonian says that humans began living in small villages 12,000 years ago. Which is a lot of time learning to  interact with people outside family. Thus, it might seem inevitable that people will get back to pre-pandemic levels of “normal.” 

However, the magazine also reports that a cave in Kenya, in a cliff walling the Rift Valley, was first occupied by humans 58,000 years before those first villages were formed. We humans lived alone with our families a very long time before we settled in alongside others. So, what is heredity? Which is the true “natural” here? Are humans biologically destined to be social—or Isolated?

For now, it appears that while many Americans still want to go outside and tackle the world…a growing number is just happy to stay at home and watch that world on Netflix.