Remember when social media lit up with complaints like struggling to pick between Scottish smoked salmon and USDA prime steak for dinner? Or the agony of getting dressed for a night out, or a fancy gadget glitching for a second? These rants ended with #firstworldproblems, and it exploded into a craze. Buzzfeed rounded up gems such as “I can’t eat ice cream in my convertible because my hair keeps whipping into it” and “I spent too long taking a picture of my plate and now my food is cold.” The phrase got so big it landed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
These posts are embarrassing and tongue-in-cheek, a sly nod to real global struggles like famine, disease, and war that still plague much of the planet. They’re a deflection tactic—balancing irony with annoyance in our social media age. Deep down, #firstworldproblems mock the faux whining of the overprivileged who know they’ve won the birth lottery. But here’s the twist: in an age of abundance, these “problems” are just… problems for some people now.
The real question isn’t whether they’re ridiculous (they are). It’s how we got here. Deep issues like poverty and conflict haven’t vanished, but in many places, they’re receding. Even amid Great Recessions, austerity, and stagnation, life in the West often grapples with too much, not too little. Compared to our ancestors, we live in superabundance—more money feels essential, yet it’s the excess that defines us.
The Data Explosion Fueling It All
Technology turns the world into a vast data machine. Tweets, YouTube videos, sensor readings from vineyard humidity to car temperatures, web clicks, company accounts, health stats, phone geolocation, CCTV streams—everything’s being “datafied,” bit by bit. Raw, it’s overwhelming and unusable. Processed, it’s gold: companies harness it for actionable insights.
This abundance ties to humanity’s boom. Danica May Camacho, born October 30, 2011, at Manila’s Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, snagged global headlines as the UN’s symbolic seven billionth human—complete with photographers, a woolly hat, and a scholarship (though 220,000 other babies arrived that day). Just 12 years earlier, Adnan Nevic hit six billion in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That’s one billion more people amid rising life expectancy. More humans mean more demand and supply—we consume and produce at scale, stretching resources while multiplying choices.
Population exploded from tens of millions 4,000–5,000 years ago to 600 million by 1700 CE, hitting one billion around 1820. It took all of history until then for that milestone.
Digital Tech: From Scarcity to Overflow
Digital tech doesn’t just hoard data; it flips scarcity to excess across the board. Communications (Skype making international calls free), market access, inventory, content creation, software, consumer choice, services, processing power—all saw massive supply surges and price drops in the last 20 years. The sharing economy unleashed hidden supply: Airbnb for rentals, Lyft for cars, Fon for Wi-Fi.
This builds on history—steam presses and Gutenberg’s press ramped up print long ago. Today, mobile and wearables make connectivity ubiquitous. “Prosumer” culture thrives: consumers crank out videos, photos, behavioral data—superabundant content.
Productivity rides general purpose technologies (GPTs) like steam and electricity. Computation and connectivity are the new GPTs, unlocking waves of growth. Talk of “secular stagnation” misses the momentum.
The Next Wave: A Fourth Industrial Revolution?
The future amps it up. AI, Internet of Things, nanotechnology, bioengineering, super materials like graphene, 3D printing (poised to do for objects what the internet did for data), shale gas, and renewables secure energy. Collaborative commons and sharing economies spark fresh growth, upending industries. It’s exhilarating and unsettling.
Some visionaries see a third Industrial Revolution (computers) giving way to a fourth, slashing marginal production costs—potentially eclipsing capitalism. Picture every person with a 3D printer and materials: abundance on steroids.
Firstworldproblems aren’t just jokes; they’re the canary in the coal mine of superabundance. We’ve engineered a world of excess—data, people, tech, choices. The challenge? Navigate it without losing sight of what’s truly scarce: perspective.
Source : Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess by Michael Bhaskar
Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30512491-curation
Read the Previous Article in the Series :
Thinking Beyond Science 
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