Good old days

At the turn of the twentieth century, average life expectancy was approximately in the mid 50's. Performing basic tasks to survive were much more tedious and time consuming. Think about doing laundry, fetching well water, chopping wood for a fire or shoveling snow when no modern plows existed. 

Think also about basic diseases we now take for granted as being eradicated or completely treatable. 

Thus at the macro level things have improved dramatically and yet at the micro level we feel more listless and stressed. As emotional creatures it's how we feel at the ground level that takes preference over whether we have eliminated small pox which used to kill millions. 

The embarrassment of choice plus having more personal freedom hasn't made us any happier. It can even be argued that the distraction of being busier performing more menial tasks was better because it was bolstered by a community spirit of shared experience. 

We also had institutions and family dynamics in place which made the hard work seem a bit more bearable. 

Thus we have both gained and lost which proves that you can't readily make a convincing argument for the good old days at any juncture in our history.