Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Looks Back at Worst Decade in 50 Years

Internet, Cell Phones Are Changes for the Better

December 21, 2009

As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public's recollection of other decades in the past half-century. When asked to look back on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, positive feelings outweigh negative in all cases.

To be sure, the passage of time may affect the way people view these historical periods. For example, had we asked the public's impression of the 1970s in December of 1979, the negatives may well have outweighed the positives.

By a wide margin, the 9/11 terrorist attacks are seen as the most important event of the decade, with Barack Obama's election as president a distant second -- even among his political supporters. And the sour view of the decade is broad-based, with few in any political or demographic group offering positive evaluations.

Happy to put the 2000s behind them, most Americans are optimistic that the 2010s will be better. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) say they think the next decade will be better than the last for the country as a whole, though roughly a third (32%) think things will be worse.

There are a number of recent changes and trends that are viewed favorably. In particular, the major technological and communications advances are viewed in an overwhelmingly positive light.

Clear majorities see cell phones, the internet and e-mail as changes for the better, and most also view specific changes such as handheld internet devices and online shopping as beneficial trends. There is greater division of opinion, however, over whether social networking sites or internet blogs have been changes for the better or changes for the worse.

Most see increasing racial and ethnic diversity as a change for the better, as well as increased surveillance and security measures and the broader range of news and entertainment options.

But the public is divided over whether wider acceptance of gays and lesbians, cable news talk and opinion shows, and the growing number of people with money in the stock market are good or bad trends. Reality TV shows are, by a wide margin, the least popular trend tested in the poll; 63% say these shows have been a change for the worse. Tattoos are also unpopular with many -- 40% say more people getting tattoos is a change for the worse, though 45% say it makes no difference and 7% see it as a change for the better.

A 'Downhill' Decade

The breadth and depth of discontent with the current decade is reflected in the words people use to describe it. The single most common word or phrase used to characterize the past 10 years is downhill, and other bleak terms such as poor, decline, chaotic, disaster, scary, and depressing are common. Other, more neutral, words like change, fair and interesting also come up, and while the word good is near the top of the list, there are few other positive words mentioned with any frequency.

Boomers Look Back Fondly

There is no significant generational divide in impressions of the current decade: Roughly half in all age groups view the 2000s negatively, while less than a third rate the decade positively. This is in stark contrast to generational differences in views of previous decades. The 1990s are viewed far more positively by younger people -- roughly two-thirds of Americans younger than age 50 have a positive impression of the decade compared with fewer than half of people ages 50 and older. The 1960s, by contrast, receive generally positive ratings from people ages 50 and older, while those under 50 offer more mixed views.

The biggest generational division of opinion is in retrospective evaluations of the 1970s. Baby Boomers -- most of whom are between the ages of 50 and 64 today and were between ages 20 and 34 in 1979 -- view this decade in an overwhelmingly favorable light, with positive impressions outnumbering negative views by 48 points (59% positive vs. 11% negative). By contrast, people who were younger than 20 at the end of the 1970s -- who are currently in their 30s and 40s -- offer a less positive assessment; just 28% view the decade positively, 20% negatively, and 52% say neither or offer no opinion.

The decade out of the last half century with the best image right now is the 1980s. While comparable percentages offer positive evaluations of the 1980s (56%) and 1990s (57%), negative ratings for the 1980s are lower than for the 1990s (12% vs. 19%).

And the balance of opinion about the 1980s is overwhelmingly positive across all age groups -- with positive views outnumbering negative by more than three-to-one across the board.

Next Decade Looks Better

Most Americans (59%) think the next decade will be better than the current one for the country as a whole, and this perspective is widely shared across most political and demographic groups. But a significant minority -- 32% -- is of the view that things will be worse in the 2010s than in the 2000s. Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats (42% vs. 20%) to offer a pessimistic assessment of the next decade. Roughly a third (34%) of independents offer a gloomy prediction.

Generationally, Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 are the most pessimistic about the 2010s -- 42% think things will be worse over the next 10 years. This compares with 30% of people under age 50 and just 26% of those age 65 and older. Along religious lines, white evangelical Protestants take a far more pessimistic view of the next decade than other major religious groups. Just over half (52%) of white evangelicals predict that the coming decade will be worse than the current one, far more than the number of white mainline Protestants (29%), white Catholics (24%) or unaffiliated (28%) Americans who take this view.

Continue reading the full report at people-press.org