For me, the reinforcing anxiety inducing element is the panopticon of the internet. Just as it tends to reward and punish bad behavior and punish and reward good behavior - I think it inflicts a mass conformity - of presentation - not of thought, everyone has a different opinion, but there are activities and behaviors that are justifiable and can be presented (running, half-marathons, food-enthusiasm, vacationing) as well as certain kinds of failure that are within the normative bounds (romantic unrest, difficulty at work, problems of health). To me, I think about the current state of the nation as being one of intense and oppressive conformity, of behavior and attitude - I wonder if this will be looked back on and represented as we represent the 50's now. A time of mindless lockstep compliance. It feels that way to me, where there's no explicit danger in being outwardly really distinct and different, but where the rewards of that simply don't exist, in contrast to say - periods of the 90's where it seemed much more open-ended, in terms of what kind of a person you would be or could be.