"Dealing with it" often just meant becoming an alcoholic, or a woman/child abuser, or other unhealthy outlets for your depression.

Definitely used to be more common, but it wasn’t as if everyone was one of those things. My point was more that people were a bit tougher then, as they had more difficult everyday lives.

You’re not tougher if you’re harming yourself or others to cope.

The idea that everyone prior to contemporary times was harming themselves or others to cope is nonsense.

I think we’re talking about some sort of population average. A median New Yorker.

> The average kid living in NYC a century or two ago was exposed to many more repulsive things on a daily basis than anything social media can come up with today.

I don’t even need a citation here, I’m just curious what you’re imaging when you say this.

Jacob Riis exposed a lot of these things:

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jacob-riis/riis-and-reform.html

The amount of filth, trash, disease, and other unpleasant things used to be pretty crazy in NYC (and in other places like London or Paris, for that matter.)

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/when-new-yorkers-l...

Trash in the street doesn’t seem psychologically damaging in the same way as social media telling you you’re worthless if you don’t do XYZ?

Are you familiar with how squalid the conditions were for many people in the early 20th century? It was a whole lot worse than "trash in the street." More like, animals rotting in the street, ten people living in a studio apartment with no windows or fresh air, diseases widespread, people working 15 hour days in brutal conditions, etc.