English Audio Request

Why have social anxieties increased so dramatically in many developed countries over the last half century,
as one American psychologist’s studies suggest they have? Why does the ‘social evaluative treat’ seem so great?
A reasonable explanation is the break-up of the settled communities of the past. People used to grow up knowing, and being known by, many of the same people all their lives. Although geographical mobility had been increasing for several generations, the last half century has seen a particularly rapid rise. At the beginning of this period it was still common for people –in rural and urban areas alike –never to have travelled much beyond the boundaries of their immediate city or village community. Married brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, tended to remain living nearby and the community consisted of people who had often known each other for much of their lives. But now that so many people move from where they grew up, knowledge of neighbours tends to be superficial or non-existent. People’s sense of identity used to be rooted in the community to which they belonged, in people’s real knowledge of each other, but now it is lost in the facelessness of mass society.　Familiar faces have been replaced by a constant flow of strangers. As a result, who we are, identity itself, is endlessly open to question.