I haven’t lived in the U.S. in about 10 years and am interested in what are the more significant changes in lifestyle

35 comments

  1. The vast expansion of work from home jobs and general digitization of almost all administrative type work.

  2. I feel like people are eating healthier and big brands are starting to decay a bit.

    I’m actually optimistic about the next 10 years.

  3. Inflation has been rampant. Cost of groceries and/or eating out has gone up significantly.

    It had already started, but even more so since then, but use of quite a few different words has become a slur in a way it wasn’t previously in many circles.

    Chain restaurants are falling increasingly out of favor and closing up.

  4. Polarization has greatly increased and social media/smartphones are more prevalent, although they were still popular 10 years ago.

  6. The things you would notice aren’t the things people would say here. Probably the single biggest thing you’d notice is how few malls there are. They’ve all gone belly up.

    Couple that with the proliferation of similarly financed self service car washes and storage units. TONS of these have gone up across the country in the past 10 years. Reasoning is similar, financial incentives – low capital input and high profit margin.

    Depending on your region, not as many new homes built. Oh, and way more electric vehicles, even in rural areas. That’s about it.

  7. I feel like food is getting worse , everything seems to be highly processed

  8. For sure internet culture has become more mainstream, whereas before internet culture used to be “nerdy”. Nowadays it’s considered “nerdy but like it’s cool to be nerdy so it’s cool”.

  9. Several random things off the top of my head:

    – acceptance/legalization of same sex marriage.

    – legalization/decriminalized marijuana laws by states

    – you can basically get anything you want delivered to your front door for free in 2 days or less

  10. Chronically online person here:

    The atmosphere around YouTube and other social medias. With YouTube in particular the rules were very lenient and you could more or less upload or say whatever you pleased, I still remember in around 2016 when YouTube got in major trouble because they accidently monetized videos by ISIS, it was just that loose. Of course, by 2017 all the companies had begun cracking down on these sorts of things heavily and now you have the corporate restricted internet that exists in full force today.

    If the 90s was baby internet and the 2000s was the wild west, then the 2010s was the settlement and expansion of the internet and with it comes law and order, however unpopular

    The 2020s so far are looking like it may be the full established settlement, soon to be complete wit regulation up the ass and government oversight. Bill C-11 passing in Canada, and the, “tiktok ban” in the U.S are merely examples of what’s to come, the act in the U.S has only been given up on temporarily, it’s only a matter of time before something like it with all its restrictions pass.

  13. Greater political polarization, and more visible social divide between different groups. Identity politics and culture wars have become prevalent in the mainstream society. I don’t believe the political polarization and social divide are the cause of identity politics and culture wars or vice versa; instead, I believe they feed into each other as a natural cycle of United States civic development.

    I do think people have become tired of what is often referred to as the status quo, and without the need for anything overly drastic or violent, the next logical step is to identify social and political issues while trying to approach them from a different angle, or to embellish them to create different narratives. On paper, the approach to reframe social and political issues can be a genuine mental exercise of which could bring positive changes, but unfortunately, politicians and social critics alike end up appealing more to the lowest common denominator, and a lot of the intricate critical thinking are lost to bandwagoning and extremism.

  14. Social media and Donald Trump have made the country far more polarized than previously. The pandemic has made remote work into a legitimate option. The Supreme Court has legalized gay marriage and overturned Roe v Wade – which both have major sweeping effects. In general support for the LGBTQ+ community has increased dramatically.

  15. Social anxiety have gone up is what I’ve heard, not sure if it is accurate so correct me if I’m wrong.

  16. Delivery has changed a lot. With Doordash/Postmates/UberEats you can get just about anything you want. Amazon Prime also replaced trips to the mall or big box store. Amazon has quickly become the “Everything” store for people. Malls were definitely dying in 2013 and that trend has rapidly accelerated. Social media influencers have become much more popular with things like fashion. Trend come from YouTube and instagram now. The frequency of coming across women who have had their face injected full of chemicals is far more common now.

    Depending on where you are, EVs went from a novelty to something that is extremely common. I live in California which was the early adopter state and I remember the first time I saw a Tesla Model S in Newport Beach in 2012, now I see Teslas and other EVs all the time. In some parts of the country they are still sort of rare though.

    LBGT+ folks are much more visible now. Gay marriage is legal and is much more socially accepted than it was 10 years ago. It feels to me that “Transgender” is today was where “Gay/Lesbian” was in the late 90s in terms of social acceptance and awareness. Interracial relationships appear to be more common, their depiction in media definitely is more common.

    People displaying signs of modified patriotism is much more common. 10 years ago it was American flags, now you will see a lot of people with the thin blue line flag and other propaganda flags. This is a source of social friction.

    The MAGA movement has drastically changed conservatism. In 2013 we were still in the post-Bush and Mitt Romney era. The MAGA movement changed everything and many old prominent conservatives have little influence now and it appears to be run by a lot of different people. Many Republicans I knew 10 years ago are no longer active in the party (they were your Romney types) and many Maga Republicans I know today had nothing to do with the party 10 years ago.

    Physical media has largely been replaced. CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray sales have plummeted. Its pretty much all streaming now.

    The amount of solar and wind power has grown drastically. In my home state of California, during the daytime there will sometimes be 85% of demand covered by renewables. Solar on the CAISO peaks out at like 14GW now, in 2013 I believe it was less than 1GW. It was was a rare sight to see rooftop solar in 2013, now if you go through a suburban neighborhood it is pretty common and is getting more common. Once again like, the EV, this is more regional. But even in regions where you will not see a ton of solar, you will likely see a lot of very large wind turbines. Much more than 10 years ago.

    If you are in part of Phoenix or San Francisco, you will now see fully self driving vehicles on the streets. Cars with no one in them driving around picking up passengers and dropping them off. Seeing a car with no one in it drive itself around town is rather surreal but for these communities it is part of every day life now. This is going to be something that will be spreading all over but mostly in the sunbelt at first. If you live in California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Florida, or any place where its generally warm, this will be coming to your community.

    The urban infill trend has started. Downtown areas are gradually converting parking facilities to mixed use high density housing. In my local downtown, there are several buildings today that were parking lots 10 years ago.

  17. Working from home has become MUCH more common. The pandemic made it much more normal and widely accepted.

    Smartphones have become ubiquitous in everyday life. Almost everyone has a smartphone now.

    Same sex marriage has become legal nationwide and is generally societally accepted now. Overall, social acceptance of LBGT persons is much higher than it was a decade ago. There’s some pushback on this from conservatives, but that doesn’t change that society is generally much more accepting. I now work with several co-workers who are publicly out, while that was unthinkable a decade or more ago.

    Marijuana is legalized for either medical use, or for medical and recreational use, in many more states. It’s still Federally illegal, but the Federal laws on the issue are very rarely enforced except for large-scale interstate and international trafficking.

    Social media plays a much larger role in everyday society. Twitter, Facebook et al is bigger in everyday life than it was a decade ago.

  19. Religious extremists gaining wide-spread political power. We used to laugh at the bible thumping weirdos, but now they’ve infiltrated all levels of offices and are trying to turn the USA into a fascist theocracy. I’m glad the younger voters are rallying against them, but it is frightening how bad these zealots have made life here.

  20. Housing prices have gone up like crazy. Legal marijuana. Legal gay marriage. A lot of trade have a shortage of workers.

  21. To stay on the bright side of things – Asian cultures seem to be more mainstream now.

    10 years ago, I felt like only the Asian diaspora knew what KPOP was. Anime was still kind of a nerd thing. Way more people know about China now. Hell, even Hanfu seems to be making waves like Hanbok and Kimono.

  22. Broadly speaking it is the adoption of digital tech which has reshaped the landscape of news consumption and leisure time. But of course this is across the developed world.

    However, as is clear, because there is a strong correlation between income disparity and political polarization, digital technology has exploited this. The fear that began brewing considerably in the US since 9/11 has heightened tremendously since you left the states, owing to the rise of digital tech and the ability to learn almost immediately the aftermath of police brutality and gun violence. So as to lifestyle, there is greater awareness that danger exists, and this has made general living more generally anxiety prone.

    On the other hand, the rise of digital communication has also allowed for greater paths of empathy among so many people in the US (and of course the world) which we would not otherwise be introduced to. People of color are being seen and acknowledged by white people in a way not unlike the solidarity movement of the Civil Rights Era. This sensitivity to different life experiences and ways of thinking have been bashed by the extremely conservative alt-reich with terms like “snowflake” etc used to combat the threat to their mythological “good-old days when people respected authority and their elders,” etc.

    But the pressure of social change among the youngest generations is changing society and making it more inclusive.

    I’ll add one final thing which is that everything I mentioned is actually happening; it’s not my opinion. Just facts.

  23. The political polarization that has been getting worse over the past 30 years hit the turbo button (and while it impacts both sides it is driven primarily by the Right).

  24. The last 10 years? I’d say the most noticeable thing is the obvious political divide between Democrats and Republicans. People are saying the things they’ve held in, sometimes horrible things, out loud. Talking about how some group deserves to be all disenfranchised or killed, how some groups just don’t deserve the same rights as other groups, things like that. That kind of thing used to be a cause for shame, and now on some circles it’s a badge of pride.

  26. Far and away the largest change in the past 10 years has been the change in attitude toward LGBT culture. 10 years ago the majority of somewhat tolerant people said something like: “well they’re still people, I don’t have problems being friends with them but I don’t want it shoved in my face”.

    Then the 2015 Obergefell decision was made and since then tolerance has morphed into outright celebration of the LGBT lifestyle from nearly every corner including in churches.

    That is far and away the biggest difference between America today and and America 10 years ago.

  27. I was only out of the US for four years, but when I got back things felt different. Uber was new. I still feel very uncomfortable using it. There’s a lot more tech involved with work after Covid. I moved back almost a year after. Vegetables seem like they’re worse quality and I find little bugs in them more than I used to. And the drivers have gotten worse. People seriously drive like they have no idea there could be consequences.

  28. Things are getting more polarized, governments are getting bolder with being more authoritarian, and it feels like idenity based divide is being pushed more and more. My dad is American and my mom is Honduran, and they argue more than ever over petty cultural differences.

  30. Everything is so expensive 😔 Though this is really a post-2020 thing.

  31. Online DMV services

    Work from home/4 day work week

    Black Lives Matter is better received

    More female protagonists in action movies and shows

    More Tv and movie streaming services

    We’ve had a tv celebrity as president

    We’ve gotten closer to the idea of voting a woman for president

    Nerd culture is in jocks are out

    War on terror is officially over

    Russia is revealed to be no more fear worthy than a covid shot

    Malls and buffets are virtually obsolete

    We have become reliant to online shopping and food delivery

    We’re trying to give more of a fuck about the earth by buying electric cars.

    I’m sure I missed something but those are the major points

  33. Amazon and things like it have completely changed most shopping. Bezos is bad but you can’t deny he changed the world

  35. Politically speaking, gay marriage and adoption are now uniform and nationwide. Economically, dollar stores have lost their raison d’etre, as Dollar Tree, the last one that had literally everything priced at a maximum of $1, has now raised most of those prices to $1.25. This is just the most readily apparent sign of inflation.

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