> Anyway, I'd say that reality in this context means "subjective reality", the complex of our individual beliefs of what is real.
That's exactly the problem: the phrase is an attempt to identify reality with 'the complex of our individual beliefs of what is real'. In other words, it identifies the objective with the subjective. It erases the distinction between reality, and what one believes is real. Losing that distinction can only be harmful in our world which—I agree—"is becoming increasingly more complex and layered".
It's one thing to acknowledge the power of of ideas to shape one's perception of reality, but the particular tactic used here (of coopting the world 'reality' to mean something antithetical to its most common definition) is underhanded.
If you are willing to limit your statements about reality to things that can be described by (hard) scientific theories, then sure, I'm on board with you (for the convenience of communication and language, i.e. for instrumental reasons).
But if you think that e.g. the evening news represents reality and that people who deny this reality in favour of an alternate reality are harming the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, I'm afraid I don't agree with you at all. It's all shades of grey, there is no binary distinction. That perspective is a political perspective, and it encodes whole piles of assumptions about what is and ought to be.
Times were simpler before because the people were easier to fool, not because we had a better handle on "reality".
That's exactly the problem: the phrase is an attempt to identify reality with 'the complex of our individual beliefs of what is real'. In other words, it identifies the objective with the subjective. It erases the distinction between reality, and what one believes is real. Losing that distinction can only be harmful in our world which—I agree—"is becoming increasingly more complex and layered".
It's one thing to acknowledge the power of of ideas to shape one's perception of reality, but the particular tactic used here (of coopting the world 'reality' to mean something antithetical to its most common definition) is underhanded.