The Trust Crisis: Why Everyone Feels Fake Now

on the night of June 17th 1972 security guard Frank Wills was making his usual rounds when suddenly he noticed a piece of duct tape covering the lock of the back parking lot door to the Watergate office building in Washington DC as noted in the security officer's log he removed the tape only to return 30 minutes later to find that another piece of tape had reappeared Wills quickly contacted authorities about his strin observation the local police arrived at the building and searched each office suite and the police along with Wills found five men hiding in the

Democratic National Committee headquarters office what would develop from this incident in the following years would change the history of United States politics forever the truth was that all five of these men had connections to the Republican favorite nominee Richard Nixon when Witnesses testified that Nixon had sanctioned plans to cover up his administration's involvement in the break-in and that there was a voice activated taping system in the Oval Office Nixon's Administration resisted the investigations leading to a constitutional crisis the televised Senate Watergate hearings garnered Nationwide attention and public interest and this eventually led to the first

ever resignation of a president in US history since the Watergate scandal in the 1970s the public trust in our government has plummeted and stayed around 20 to 30% for the past four decades but this is just one section of the multifaceted issue of declining trust in the USA 79% of us adults believe Americans have too little confidence in each other and 70% believe that low trust in each other makes it harder to solve the country's problems there's tons of different areas to discover in this realm of declining areas of trust that go Way Beyond a

simple mistrust in our government so today I want to dive deeper into this blindingly obvious problem and the not so obvious places that this problem is making a huge negative impact on our lives but first let's talk about today's sponsor sunama if you watch my burnout epidemic video you'll know about the concerns I raised about the Modern Age of jobs especially post-pandemic the lines between work and life have become increasingly more blurred and as a result burnout and a lack of rest and Recovery is the norm Sama is the only daily planner application that I've

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talk about a lack of trust between our fellow members of society without talking about the loneliness crisis since 2003 the annual daily average of minutes spent in Social isolation has almost doubled for just about every us individual while nearly every form of social engagement has decreased now most of us by now are aware of the reasons behind this convenience in the form of automated delivery apps remote work and education and Online Entertainment reduces the need to interact with our fellow humans and some of these also have the added detriment of being highly addictive urban sprawl

and the separation of residential and Commercial areas don't incentivize third places AKA places outside of work or home where people meet regularly to hang out and when people see their fellow Society members Less in person they naturally start basing their opinions of society more off of what they consume the most which as of right now is the internet the internet has opened the door of opportunity for us to be exposed to both the greatest and most gruesome sensationalized aspects of humanity and it's more often the ladder that gets promoted through various media Outlets babe I

want to break up with you I want to break up with you huh we're done right now get out of here why because I don't like you anymore you're like boring if you consume enough of this highly engaging exaggerated content it will eventually affect your attitude towards your fellow humans and in the back of your mind you'll always view certain groups in real life as how they are represented the most online you're also free to choose whatever you want to believe in based on what type of content these algorithms present to you the most which

usually begins with you searching for something that already confirms your previous beliefs and if you have the ability to find truth in almost anything and technically everything is true is anything really true this leaves your head in a spiral wondering which side you should believe in who is trustworthy who isn't and this eventually bleeds into real life causing less trust between individuals why options options options we have more options for almost everything the types of shows we want to watch the games we want to play the YouTube videos we want to binge while eating the

philosophies and ideals we want to adhere to the theoretical potential for how many dates and significant others we can find it's all there for us to take advantage of and I say theoretical here in relation to dates because even though it is easier to find a potential partner due to tools like dating apps the quality of those dates and the chances of them going to a serious relationship have decreased hyper individualism AKA when people view themselves as separate entities rather than as members of groups or collectives is the natural result of being able to choose

from so many different personalities morals and ways of living and it's exuding itself through a lack of common neighborly nities that appear to be happening less and less Michelle skeli a Creator on Tik Tok posted a Tik Tok last year about why we have a social obligation to be considerate of people's feelings and be polite to others I think some of you need to realize that even if you think it's [ __ ] or you don't like it there is like an invisible social contract that governs the way we behave with each other in the

world and it's there for a reason it's kind of like I see people talking about like why should I participate in a conversation that doesn't interest me and it's like you don't have to participate in that conversation but you also cannot expect people to not get upset with you when you like break the social contracts of niess and politeness and don't participate there are consequences to that this surprisingly was met with mixed comments it revealed that a lot of gen Z doesn't think they owe anyone anything including basic decency unless it is first earned I

am not laughing at anyone's unfunny joke just because it's nice as this comment put it that's the kind of attitude that I'm talking about she then made a follow-up video explaining why her take shouldn't have been controversial which was well explained are you people telling me that you're not going to like say thank you to someone in the service industry for example like a barista bringing you a cup of coffee or a waiter bringing your food cuz you don't owe them anything so you're not going to smile or nod or thank them cuz you don't

owe them that I had someone tell me that because I think politeness is a good thing it means I support the patriarchy and if I'm polite to men in particular it means that I'm helping the oppressor oppress me like be [ __ ] for real right now you think I'm going to stroll into my workplace and start being rude to all my male co-workers because they're the oppressor really you know it's interesting cuz I understand the sentiment of wanting to be honest and not be inauthentic which I think is the point that people who disagree

with this person are trying to make but if you can't even make like the simplest of nice gestures to someone because you think they aren't worth your time or they haven't proved themselves to you yet that's insane and I think that's also tied to having more options for everything because when you're constantly overc consuming and your daily activities lack depth you're naturally going to treat people as dispensable as the vapid objects that we are now interacting with more a lot of people in the comments of this video put it better than me honestly if politeness

and cordiality feels fake to you that's a personal problem and you should do some introspection I'm brutally honest is only ever said by people who constantly say completely out of pocket things at inappropriate times at the very basis of what it means to feel human and connected to one another is sharing those vulnerabilities and flaws and being real but not being so brutally honest that you criticize a person's every last move unless they fit your exact interests and standards but to those who spend most of their time chronically online in this Ultra poiz digital landscape

they can't discern between that nuance and they couldn't care less about other people's feelings and the more that people engage in stuff like that the less and less new generations are going to trust each other it goes much deeper than this though what I found in my research on the declining levels of trust in America didn't just bring me to the obvious answers it brought me to a really interesting answer that I don't think is being talked about enough our neighbors first let's lay the groundwork with some definitions political scientist Robert putam who wrote many

books on societal issues such as bowling alone distinguishes between two types of social capital or strength between social networks bonding social capital and bridging Social Capital bonding social capital is described as the strong relationships that develop between people of similar background and interests usually include family and friends provide material and emotional support and are more inward-looking and protective in contrast bridging Social Capital describes connections that link people across a cleavage that typically divide Society such as race or class or religion now there's two different areas we need to look at using these definitions and the

first is what type of bonding we now consider our neighbors to be in past Generations we were much more likely to consider neighbors as part of our bonding networks essentially we consider them to be our family and friends but now many of us don't even know our neighbors names according to a 2018 survey from the Pew Research Center only a quarter of Americans said that they know most of their neighbors and another study showed one in four people under 40 don't know any of their neighbors by name social events among Neighbors are also becoming increasingly

more rare although neighborly interactions are still more likely to happen in person than via text or email among the Americans who know at least some of their neighbors a majority say they never meet them for parties or get togethers about three in 10 say they have parties or get togethers less than once a month and 14% say they do this monthly or more often but surprisingly this meeting with others is only exclusive to neighbors and not family and friends which will be important in this second point that I'm not going to bring up in this

data from the General Social Survey in 2022 we can see that social evenings with relatives and Friends remained largely unchanged since 1973 but the two lines that did go down were the blue which is the percentage of Americans who say that others can generally be trusted and the orange which is the amount of social evenings had with neighbors now I'm a little skeptical of the idea that we are having just as many social events with our friends now as we were in 1973 since there's other data that suggests that isn't the case but that still

isn't what's important and it isn't what is causing that blue line which is Americans General trust in one another to go down what this really suggests is that our ever worsening trust crisis appears to be directly connected to the lessening of interactions with our community members rather than interactions with family and friends and the biggest question I was wondering when I found this out is why why are we spending less time with neighbors but not really family and friends besides the blatantly obvious answer that more people are spending more time inside on stimulating devices is

there something else that we're all missing here well I think I found the answer and part of that answer is the fact that a lot of us just don't like our neighbors anymore nearly 34s of Americans dislike at least one of their neighbors and can you guess which generation makes up the most of that percentage it's jenzy but the reasons why Americans dislike their neighbors might be the most funny and surprising statistics of them all I shouldn't be laughing because it's a serious problem but wait till you see this at the very top that represents

28% of the reasons Americans dislike their neighbors is that they give off a weird vibe yeah about onethird of genz get bad vibrations from their neighbors while nearly a third of Millennials say their neighbors are too loud meanwhile Baby Boomers rank rude rudess 27% as the most undesirable neighbor trait sometimes we really are our generational stereotypes but I will say that 74% of Americans are friends with at least one of their neighbors so that's not bad I guess also and unsurprisingly so homeowners have more neighborhood friends than renters specifically 81% of homeowners are friends with

at least one other neighbors versus just 68% of renters and you know who definitely aren't homeowners Jen's which cooperates with the data that shows that they're the generation most likely to dislike their neighbors so if you want to take your mistrust in fellow Americans one step further don't just not make an effort to create neighborly events in your community live in an apartment I'm kidding of course I know the biggest reason why jenz years live in apartments over houses isn't because they don't want to start liking their neighbors more it's because they can't afford it

one thing that also isn't talked about much online that I believe is linked to the increase mistrust between neighbors is how different each generation's thoughts beliefs and lifestyles are now between each generation of the past 100 years or so the leaps in technological advancements and therefore ideals and beliefs have been so great that I feel like we're starting to interrelate with neighboring Generations less and less few hundred years ago Lifestyles behaviors and beliefs between Generations adjacent to each other remained largely unchanged but now the beliefs and lifestyles are so radically different that the young and

old can barely relate to or agree on anything anymore might be crazy thinking like that but if you agree let me know so if we take a look at all the information I've gathered here and connect the dots the patterns pertaining to why Americans mistrust one another and our government more now starts to become clear we not only spend less time interacting in person but even when we do interact in person it's an a way that doesn't uphold basic morals and human decency and on top of that more of us now live in cities and

over finances causing us to be hyper individualistic further giving us an excuse to have no connections with our fellow neighbors with all that being said the solutions to this crisis of trust should be fairly clear but definitely not easy everybody but genz specifically really need to work on their General social skills and being warm and friendly to people even if they are strangers yes it sounds stupid and a lot of people might have done you wrong in the past which you think justifies treating other people like [ __ ] for the rest of Eternity but

I don't think you really understand how far a simple smile and a how are you when walking by someone can go imagine if just 10 of you watching this decided to commit yourself to conversing with one stranger a day or complimenting them or starting up some small talk and I know you hate small talk and it doesn't feel genuine but guess what small talk is almost always a necessary predecessor to getting to know someone deeper then that person you talked to felt their day brightened by you and maybe that would inspire ire them to do

the same thing to the next person that they see and so on and so on and this Snowball Effect would actually work and yes it would make a difference along with that and I know I say this a lot but you have to be the person to create social Gatherings and events that allow people to connect between groups and create more communities be the person that decides to put on events or create communities that maybe start online but eventually bleed into real life so we can start having more in-person networks the next solution which would

honestly fix a lot of our problems is making everything but specifically housing more affordable you see older people you want to understand us another reason that j z feels so much mistrust between older people and the government is because they were promised a dream that could never be fulfilled no matter how hard they work or how many years they put into their education most people will end up with crippling debt and will never be able to afford a house with an average job or they will it'll just take like two decades at age 20 to

save a lot of money as we've now seen having a greater opportunity to own a home and have time outside of work to interact with our neighbors is absolutely crucial to improving Americans trust between one another and with the way that housing is currently separated from residential areas how expensive it is to own a home and how cities and apartments are designed it makes this very difficult and the last thing I want you to consider consider that ties into every single one of our Modern Problems is this question how do we start to change what

Society rewards because right now Society does not reward community and being neighborly what Society rewards is being polarizing and unrealistic what Society rewards is narcissism it's get-rich quick schemes its self-centeredness its degeneracy and its status over death and real connections so I ask you this once again how do we start to create a society which rewards good upstanding morals community and cooperation would love to hear your answer in the comments below and if you're interested in learning more about how America has purposefully designed our cities to make you more isolated then check out this video

right here on the rise of loneliness and individualism and I'm heading out thank you for watching till the end peace