High anxiety Screws up our hi-techheaven

Welcome to the "anxiety society". New technology, fear of crime and a tyr­anny of choice are eroding people's quality of life despite considerable material gains, according to new research.

While Britons enjoy greater affluence, more advanced healthcare, a safer environ­ment and a wider array of labour-saving gadgets than ever, a range of anxieties is hampering the growth of true content­ment.

Paranoid parenting — one of the worst manifestations of the trend — may even be slowing children's social and educa­tional development.

The phrase "anxiety society" has been coined by the authors of Complicated Lives. Michael Willmott and William Nelson of the Future Foundation, a think tank which advises government ministries and top companies, write: "Massive gains in material wealth in the past 50 years have not accrued to any significant in­crease in happiness.

"It's the paradox of progress. Today's generation is richer, healthier, safer and enjoys more freedom than any in the past, yet life seems more pressured because it is more complex."

According to figures collated by the Fu­ture Foundation, the proportion of people suffering from "anxiety, depression or bad nerves" has risen from just over 5% to just under 9% over the past 10 years. About eight in 10 people believe that Britain has become a more dangerous place over the same period.

At the domestic level a wider fear of sci­ence is said to be manifested in problems absorbing the latest technology. According to the book, more than 50% of people are unable to operate all the features of their video recorder, while nearly 70% of people are unable to use all the features of their personal computer. Nearly 30% are baffled by many of the complex manoeu­vres offered by their microwave ovens.

"Feature overload" — the problem whereby new gadgets are designed with so many extras that they are rendered al­most impossible to use — is well known to Ben Jones, 31, an actor from London. Jones, who recently bought a new mobile phone, said: "The irony of my mobile phone is that I can make a video on it but I can't actually make a phone call a lot of the time."

In addition to fears about technological advances — brought to life in the Matrix films — and difficulties using new products, a host of other trends are making people more anxious, say Willmott and Nelson.

The rise of individualism and increas­ing specialization in the workplace means that few people even in the same broad field have a full understanding of what others are doing.

The blurring boundaries between tradi­tional male and female roles are leading to confusion, while for others the challenge of organising their leisure time when there is so much on offer is another unexpected source of stress.

The authors note that now “even bor­ing things are complicated” and can pose grave financial risks to those who get them wrong. Mundane products such as elec­tricity, gas, telephones and pensions come with labyrinthine charging structures that can make them almost impossible to com­pare. Some companies, they suggest, may deliberately hoodwink consumers.

In the mobile phone market the num­ber of payment tariffs on offer has mul­tiplied 20-fold in the past seven years. A few years before that, almost none of us even had mobile phones.

Katie Ackland, 29, an advertising man­ager from Bristol, recently approached several companies for finance to buy a car. She said: “The companies used so much complicated jargon that it was really dif­ficult to compare rates. In the end I had to go to a financial adviser.”

Another important form of anxiety, indicated by figures gathered by the Fu­ture Foundation, is “paranoid parenting” — the constant worry that children may suffer an accident, be abducted by strang­ers or fail to keep up at school.

Three-quarters of parents say they would like an electronic bracelet to let them know where their children were, while four out of 10 would like a videolink to their child's classroom.

While most pensioners say that when children, they were allowed by their parents to walk to school without an adult by the age of six, in the 1990s children were waiting until after their ninth birthday to do so.

Diana Appleyard, 42, a writer from Oxfordshire, admitted to being an over-protective mother to her two daughters Beth, 15, and Charlotte, 10. She said: "I don't give them the freedom I had at that age. I don't allow them to use public trans­port themselves; I take them in the car and make sure they have a mobile phone so I can contact them at all time.

"My daughters think I am paranoid but I would never forgive myself if some­thing happened. Even if I give Charlotte permission to play in the field I am often lurking behind bushes to make sure everything is okay."

Professor Frank Furedi of the Univer­sity of Kent, who wrote a book, Paranoid Parenting, published in 2001, said: "Pa­rental behaviour is changing. Parents are extremely worried about what their chil­dren eat, and obsessed about their kids' education.

"If little Mary doesn't do as well as the rest of the class, it's not "she'll do better next time" but a cause for serious concern."

John Lurks

/ From The Sunday Times, Sep 21, 2005. /

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