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If you think only about creating content, I think you have a very good argument. Historically, not everybody was fit/interested in creating.

However, the underlying theme in these books seems to be one of freedom and our destiny. I don't think they focus much on creation but more on assessing reality and being able to change it.

In the past, at least in my 3rd world country, people were much more interesting in politics, health, education, etc. Nowadays, most people are happy to be distracted so I fully agree with the author here. Over and over, political scandals abound, corruption is everywhere and made plain clear to anyone who wants to see it.. yet, I don't see anyone complaining as they did in the past. It seems we've reached a plateau and we're comfortable enough. Distracted enough perhaps.

Perhaps the potential to create has kept the same, not very high, lots of wasted potential. But the potential to be angry/worried about things that matter seems to be going down the toilet lately. Just see how nobody besides IT people and the media cares about the NSA scandal.

> In the past, at least in my 3rd world country, people were much more interesting in politics, health, education, etc.

I've been thinking about this too, but I can't help but wonder if the higher interest in "politics, health, education, etc." wasn't just mindless distraction in disguise. I grew up in a developing nation where it appeared that people were more engaged with these sorts of things, but it every discussion could be appended with '...but hey, that's the way it is'.

There are periods in time where a society is more engaged as a whole, and there are subsections of society that are, among other things politically engaged. Of course. But I truly wonder how different all that 'reading the papers and discussing politics' actually is from 'looking at funny political memes and reading short blog entries on what's wrong with the world'.

> Just see how nobody besides IT people and the media cares about the NSA scandal.

That is a good point. But have we historically really done much better in this regard (other than some 'flare-ups' like the sixties)?

It's my opinion (not completely fundamented) that people engage more on aspects that they can change in some way. If they have no hope of changing anything in politics, for example, it feels no better than watching sports, so people flock to the later.

There were quite a lot of examples (all over the world) lately of people protesting about politics that couldn't even decide what they wanted.

"Would those of us who are amusing ourselves to death not simply do something else 'mindless' in previous generations? "

Yes. They would probably have to work more to feed themselves, which is also wasted time. The world requires some sisyphean work from everybody, like doing the dishes, but this is increasingly automated.

"All these people mindlessly consuming memes on their devices could be creating something new instead. That's wasted potential. "

At the same time, someone is creating the memes. That's a creative process, as easy as it is today, some of them are irrelevant, some are slightly more involved.

"All these people reading bite-sized articles could be reading meatier material instead."

Yes, I personally try to vary, I think the bite-size material has a role as well.

Basically, when discussing these supposed problems, are they really problems

They are problems for those who think of nations as teams locked in a giant competition, always striving to one-up each other. On another level we have corporations doing much the same thing. It's a rude mêlée and the stakes are very, very high.

I'm currently living for a few month in the country side. People home are filled with stuff they had done by hand. In the past, instead of getting bored, people sewed, diy various stuff, made beer/wine/alcohol/...

Younger generation in the same village have more time thanks to all the benefit of modern life. They spend that extra time watching TV though.

No sure if there is a conclusion in there considering all other variables, but there is a visible effect.

Here's a partial answer: You gain some, you lose some, but in different things. There's a tradeoff, e.g. automatons can do things a lot faster/cheaper, at the expense of "creativity". The nature of society changes in a multi-dimensional way, so it's hard to say whether it has become more or less "mindless".

I don't think this issue is related to creativity. There are plenty of talented creators who choose to waste their time on meaningless stuff because it gives them more fun/fame/money(largely used for meaningless stuff).

And a creator in today's world can waste much more potential than a common man.