Nothing has changed.. in the 50s-60s it was alcohol for the stay at home mom, then through the 70s and 80s it was Valium.. 90s-00s? What's the new drug? Life is getting more hectic, I read an article in Wired recently that said that we process more information in a year at work now than we did in an entire lifespan just 20 years ago. The ladies around the pool are probably all playing the game of staying ahead of the Joneses rather than being happy with themselves. After watching a few hours of reality TV you can surmise that life in general is pretty boring for a lot of people thus they get into other peoples gossip and business and they start watching "reality" TV to make up for it.