# Why Every Year—but Especially 2020—feels Like the Worst Ever  ## About - Author: nationalgeographic.com - Title: Why Every Year—but Especially 2020—feels Like the Worst Ever - Tags: #articles - URL: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-2020-feels-like-the-worst-year-ever ## Highlights Our ancestors might disagree that 2020 is the worst year on record. Sure, frightening things are happening, but many of those things happened in the past, too, including the 1918 flu pandemic, during which 50 million people died. Plus, the belief that civilization is on the decline is a tradition as old as civilization itself. Even Ancient Athenians complained in the fifth century B.C. that their democracy wasn’t what it used to be. These days, we call that belief “declinism,” or “decline bias.” --- We’re judging the past on its greatest hits, but we judge the present on everything we have available. --- “Lurking,” or scrolling through updates posted by friends or strangers without engaging, tends to have negative psychological effects. --- Psychologists say we may never see the present as perfect, but we can learn to control our biases. The first step is to acknowledge how the media we consume shifts our perceptions. It gives our panic-prone primate brains more reasons to feel stressed and more examples of the present to compare with our highly edited version of the past. When we are mindful of our thought patterns, we can take control of them, and give ourselves a reality check, says Morewedge. ---