Originally it was going to be “over the last twenty years” but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, “no one talks to each other in person, they’re on their phones always” and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
In not particular order, and a kind reminder that I’m not from US so some things may look different if you are from there:
People are far noisier, as there is less concerns by being judged by your neighbors. People used to behave purely out of shame. Now the shame is gone and people are wild.
Vast increase in dog ownership. There’s literally more dog than small kids in my country from several years now.
Vast increase in immigration. Statistics are weird here, as we give citizenship to a great amount of migrants in just two years, and here is illegal to record statistics based on ethnicity, country of origin or any aspect that would identify anyone’s ancestry. But my neighborhood went to 90-10 national-immigrant to 40-60. I live in a poor neighborhood so it’s not the same in all parts of the country, but immigration increase is there and it’s a big change.
Less violence overall. Street violence overall seems lower. Also there’s less of a terrorists threat as we used to have (there were several active terrorists groups here that are now gone).
A housing problem. People used to get a house without issues. Now it’s one of the biggest issues of young people.
Increase of tolerance towards homosexuality. It’s view as something very normal nowadays I think, and it use not to be that way.
Increase of equality between men and women. Direct discrimination is completely outlaw and hard to see. Indirect discrimination may still exist but is on a all time low. Most bosses I have had in all my jobs have been women (for giving a small example).
People go on vacation more often and further away. When I was young people used to just go one time a year on vacation, most of the time to a national place. Now people go several times a year to foreign countries, and “travel” have become the most important thing in many people’s lives (how many dating profiles have I seen in which the person pointed traveling as their life moto).
Most people have university studies. It didn’t used to be that way.
There’s probably much more. Those are the first things that came into my mind.