Do you ever long for a time when the world was a simpler and more enjoyable place, when food tasted better, people were more pleasant and tolerant, and summers were longer?

Sliding into a warm bath of nostalgia can be seductive and convincing but none of it is remotely true. Our positive perceptions of the past are mostly influenced by the excitement and novelty of youth.

Memories of a first love, foreign holiday, or Christmas can have a flawless, almost mystical quality because our senses at the time were overwhelmed by the joy of discovery, and they have filtered out and disposed of the mundane, negative bits.

My grandmother used to talk dreamily about the sense of togetherness and common purpose she remembered from living through the Second World War, while ignoring the austerity, the drabness and, of course, the death and destruction.

We spend an increasing amount of time online (Image: free)

She permanently railed against price increases, harking back to the glory days when you could get the weekly shop and the bus fare home for less than five bob, forgetting that wages were also correspondingly lower, that everyone had rickets and most people lived in rat-infested slums.

The reality is that the passage of time has brought advances in technology and more enlightened governance, which have led to higher living standards and a better quality of life for more people.

In short, the world has become a progressively more affluent and tolerable place to live than at any time in human history. So why doesn’t it feel like it?

Why are more people than ever taking antidepressants to relieve symptoms of stress and anxiety? Why is there a sudden explosion of people seeking a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Why have suicide rates risen by more than a third in the past 25 years?

Much of........

© Herald Scotland