As human beings we need much more than the physical necessities. We mostly compare ourselves with other human beings. Our state of happiness and satisfaction is primarily determined by how we think we are doing relative to others. Till almost middle of last century, most human beings were limited to within walking distance of their homes. The population that we needed to keep tab on were small ( less than 100, except for in few large cities) . Hence it was relatively easy to determine how we are doing just by looking around and over hearing gossips .

With the advent of modern...