Have you considered that signaling could play a large part into this? A European friend of mine once said, “people in the US try to do everything in high school.” Because, to get into a top undergraduate program, Americans have to signal very hard. Worse, a master’s degree is quickly becoming the new high school diploma, due to signaling to employers.
When kids are spending their lives trying to signal stronger, it’s a lot harder to balance it with friends. It used to be dating as an undergraduate made sense—people would actually get married during or out of college! Now, it makes less sense to date for a year or two and try to maintain a long-distance relationship as you split off into different PhD programs.
Maybe, that makes sense to me. As an offshoot of that (sort of), I would also say on the internet really produces so much FOMO—and a lot of people feel resentment over that, especially coupled with loneliness nowadays. Browsing social media just makes so many people feel worse.
So, people are signaling more and those “left out” feel worthless amid FOMO as if they are behind or ‘not living their best life.’
Have you considered that signaling could play a large part into this? A European friend of mine once said, “people in the US try to do everything in high school.” Because, to get into a top undergraduate program, Americans have to signal very hard. Worse, a master’s degree is quickly becoming the new high school diploma, due to signaling to employers.
When kids are spending their lives trying to signal stronger, it’s a lot harder to balance it with friends. It used to be dating as an undergraduate made sense—people would actually get married during or out of college! Now, it makes less sense to date for a year or two and try to maintain a long-distance relationship as you split off into different PhD programs.
Maybe, that makes sense to me. As an offshoot of that (sort of), I would also say on the internet really produces so much FOMO—and a lot of people feel resentment over that, especially coupled with loneliness nowadays. Browsing social media just makes so many people feel worse.
So, people are signaling more and those “left out” feel worthless amid FOMO as if they are behind or ‘not living their best life.’