In about 70 years, almost every aspect of the quality of our lives improved. Life expectancy shot up, the amount of free time we had increased. We moved into a completely new way of life in less than a century. This change happened relatively speaking, very quickly. It certainly made life harder for many for a while, factory life was brutal. However this rocky period of readjustment passed, and led into a new era of punctuality and technology. Now schooling is required of children, adults leave home to go to jobs, schedules control our work days, and the need to be cultured controls our nights. Everyone, even the lower classes, is expected to be well rounded and efficient. Yes, we are able to pursue new hobbies and more obscure careers, but does this make us happier? We gave up the ability to control our own days, and we now require schedules in order to get things done. But on the other hand, this time management and structure allows us to explore different activities which are beneficial.

This leads me to wonder, how much of it is curiosity and how much is social convention? Learning instruments and languages had no function for most social classes before the industrial revolution, if you were a blacksmith you didn’t need to know how to play the mandolin. It is important to note that the richer classes have always had the luxury of enough time to muck around with different activities, but that was a very specific and small group of people. Now it is expected for all children and adults to have cultural hobbies like painting or playing an instrument. We are overall very fortunate to have the luxury to learn things like this, but it gets to a point where it just makes you more stressed. I think that the pressure modern society places on people to be productive is extremely detrimental. It kills mental health as well as self worth. Because our lives are expected to be so much richer than they were before, it’s hard not to feel like you’re wasting your time when you are doing nothing. The whole idea of “productivity culture” didn’t exist before the industrial revolution. I personally am not sure If we were happier before or after the industrial revolution, but it is certainly interesting to think about.