Why do people fear the future?

Do you often think about your future? What thoughts accompany you with this? Scientists of a number of US universities are seriously concerned about issues related to the perception of the future by people. Leading sociologists, psychologists, physicians and even historians took part in these studies, while experts from Europe and South-East Asia were also involved.

As scientists have found out, the permanent fear of the future is inherent in at least 54% of the inhabitants of our planet. Moreover, people are equally afraid of the future both in "prosperous" countries and in the least developed areas.

What do our fears for the future depend on?

"Fear of the future is subjective," scientists say. It is not connected with the material wealth of the family, with the current difficulties and adversities that a person or his family can experience.

Men fear the future more than women. Scientists explain this by saying that the man was originally a hunter and responsible for his family. As a consequence, he was more dependent on the future - on weather, on hunting success. It was important for him to anticipate the approaching crisis situations in time and adequately respond to them. While the woman in many such matters could rely on the man - husband or father.

With age, people are becoming more prone to fears associated with the future. Moreover, people with age become more sensitive to such factors. For example, if a teenager says that in his future a sandwich will cost ten times more, he can calmly accept this as a fact, and this will not even cause him the slightest concern. But if you tell a mature man, say, 60 years of age, that in a year the sandwich will cost 20% more, he can even be very worried, even if before that he was not a big fan of sandwiches and generally avoided fast food in every possible way.

Fears of the future of past ages

In different epochs people are afraid of different things. Today's residents of big cities will clearly seem ridiculous fears of their distant predecessors. So, for example, the inhabitants of London in the middle of the XIX century were afraid that their children would live in very dirty cities, literally they would sink in the streams of horse dung. After all, that era was marked by rapid urban growth, the population of cities grew exponentially. At the same time, the main transport was horses that produced known waste, which for residents of the cities of that time brought much more trouble than today they deliver, say, the exhausts of cars.

A couple of decades ago, residents of large megacities were afraid of gas contamination, which is borne by the development of transport and the increase in the total number of cars on the roads. On the contrary, in our days this fear does not enter even into the top ten, according to a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Not least, this is due to the development of alternative energy and the development of vehicles on power plants that are alternative to conventional internal combustion engines. Hybrids and even fully electric cars have ceased to be a curiosity even for our cities, let alone the civilized world.

What in the future are our contemporaries afraid of?

There are several factors that significantly affect the image of the future and the fears associated with it. Scientists investigating futurophobia, identify three main factors - information hygiene, nutrition and sleep.

People who have little or no sleep, do not observe the regular wakefulness and sleep regime, as a rule, and this is a proven scientific fact, are more prone to phobias related to the future.

However, the current emotional state of the individual influences the perception of the future to the greatest extent, which is closely related to the information that he regularly consumes. If you want to live a quiet life, with a constructive hope for the future, you are categorically countered by the TV. After all, TV programs are the main source of fears about the future, which is connected with the very specifics of creating TV shows and their promotion on TV, which in the future will become even more aggressive and intrusive.

Michael Jurassic, head of the Department of Medical Anthropology at Columbia University, conducted a study among his students and found out the main fears of modern youth. Regardless of the ethnic origin of the students, and also of the region they came to study from, these fears proved to be quite common for all.

In terms of prevalence, from the most typical, to the least typical, the fears of modern youth were distributed thus:

1. Life becomes more complicated.
2. Continually learn new knowledge.
3. Uncertainty in economics and politics.
4. Fear of your health.
5. Fear of the health of loved ones.

It would seem that the fear of health would have to occupy the first lines of the "rating", however, although he got into the top five, but still ousted from the first positions by other fears. The head of the research group, Michael Yurasik, believes that this is due to the medical successes that we have seen in recent decades.