Tell me how old you are and I’ll tell you which decade you look back on with nostalgia, the decade when the best music was composed, the best clothes were sewn, the best movies were shot, the best football matches were played or the best football matches were played. Families lived happier lives. Of course, if we ask someone of a different age, the answers are likely to change. This is the intriguing reading left by a study carried out in the USA by the organization YouGov; A strange report that comes to an even stranger conclusion: humans are nostalgic creatures.

And it’s not because you’re missing a particular period of recent history.

No. It’s a certain age that really makes us homesick.

When did you become the best? This question, expressed in twenty different ways, is what YouGov asked 2,000 adults in one of its latest surveys. Essentially, the organization asked its interviewees which decade they believed the best and worst music was composed, which decade the best and worst movies were made, which decade had the best and worst economy… And so on, along with a list of topics. different like sports or press.

They even touched on questions of when they believe families are happier, communities are more united, or it is easier to balance personal and work life. The result is a series of graphs with different and disconnected plots. At first glance, they did not point to any period when people in general lived better. The decade in which the most delicious food was cooked did not necessarily coincide with the decade in which the best television was produced or a “more moral” and less politically polarized society was enjoyed.

It’s not the decade that matters, it’s the era. While he’s telling Washington PostThings changed when YouGov, which prepared a comprehensive report on the research, changed its approach. Sorting the data by generation, looking at the age of each of the survey respondents, he noticed that the “music” in the different graphs sounded much more harmonious and showed a melody – a clear trend.

Which? The graphs show that it is age that really influences the perception of the interviewees when it comes to indicating the period in which they believe the country has reached its peak. “This suggests that Americans are nostalgic for a specific age, not a specific era,” concludes Andrew Van Dam, a journalist and columnist in the data department. Washington Post.

What the experts focused on was the temporal difference between each participant’s year of birth and their ideal decade, to which they attributed the best music, political climate, cinema or cuisine. As Van Dam explains, this practice revealed a pattern, albeit an interesting one: The great era of the United States was not the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s… My childhood and adolescence, 11 -I was 15 years old.

So what is the “golden age”? Adhere to. Nostalgia always points to the same range, under 30, but the peak varies depending on what is asked. chart Washington Post indicates that the crown swings when the subject is changed. For example, when participants were asked when they thought society was most united, answers generally pointed to when they were around the age of 10. If the question is when the best music was made, respondents generally point to a time when each was around 20 years old. Regarding food, the answers ranged from 20 to 30.

On a general level, between the ages of 4 and 15, which corresponds to their childhood and early adolescence, participants describe the best time in various sections. In this range they placed, for example, the happiest families, the most moral society, or the best economy and the best shows. If we are talking about music, which already involves certain costs, it ends at the age of 17. Of course, the fact that most survey respondents agreed to indicate the decades in which they were these ages does not mean that they were indicating the same periods; This depends on their year of birth.

So what’s the worst time? The YouGov survey serves to search for the “golden age”, but it also explores its opposite, the worst age. Interestingly, when participants were asked about this topic, a pattern was also seen, albeit quite different. As Van Dam explains, the answers in these cases point to “now.”

The curves of the graphs are once again significant: When asked about the highest degrees of political division, the lowest social unity, the least moral society, the most unsafe society, and even the period when music and television were at their worst, the curves extend from 2020 onwards. This occurs even when asked about the economy, which is at a greater peak in the current decade than in the 1930s.

Ironically, YouGov conducted a survey in 2023 that showed a seemingly contradictory result: When techies asked Americans what decade they wanted to live in, they often answered the current decade.

Nostalgia… and much more. Not everything about our childhood and adolescence is nostalgia. washington post He explains that other readings emerge from the graphs that have little to do with age but are influenced by issues such as skin color or ideology. White Republicans, for example, looked back wistfully on the 1950s much more often than their black or Democratic counterparts. Another important factor, especially when evaluating today, is who is at the head of the Government and whether their policies are shared.

“People whose party is in the White House always have more positive emotions,” adds Joanne Hsu of the University of Michigan. When respondents are asked about the era they would like to live in, the drawing varies depending on whether they are white, black, Hispanic, Democrat or Republican, for example.

Image | Myles Tan (Unsplash)

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