That’s clearly exemplifies a significant problem in society

Same with my parents and my grandparents and great grandparents... My greatgrandparents packed up everything they owned in oklahoma during the great depression and moved halfway across the country on a whim, to go work in a copper mine in southern arizona..the same town i live in now, and both sides of my family are from there. this was obviously long before the interstate system was invented. I sometimes wonder what that trip was like and what made them want to do that out of all the places in this country to go to.
We had an old family friend that lived to be about 105 years old Passed away in 2007 or somewhere around that time, and she would tell stories about her family migrating out west in a covered wagon.. when i hear our generation talk about how they have it so hard, i think they have no idea what life used to be like before all the luxuries we have now... But its easy to sit around and complain about everything while you have indoor plumbing, running water and a smartphone in the hand at all times.. some people need to pick up a history book every once in awhile

 

I still like this one.

 

I don't recall Millennials needing a pacifier to cope with the real world.

 

Google "90s pacifier trend" - I was there, it was thing. As was wearing dog collars and eating dog treats. And don't forget the "millennial tide pod challenge" - which wasn't really a thing, but you wouldn't know that from mainstream reporting.

Each generation has a moment were they go "kids these days" and conveniently ignore the stupid stuff they did as kids and the older generation's reactions to that stupidity. By 'kid' I mean anybody under 25.

 

Thing is I don't recall ever seeing my generation partake in any of that stuff when I was young. I do however see the kids today doing it.

Maybe this is more a rural vs urban thing? I grew up out in the sticks. For context my grad class was about 30 and that included students from nearby small communities too small to have a school as well.

 

Urban versus rural is definitely a thing - they're very different experiences. My high school graduating class was 450ish, and I had friends in neighboring districts.

The bigger thing is the availability of random data points to be turned into national trends.

There is no way that 1990s CNN would do a story on kids wearing pacifiers to school. Even if they did, there was no real mechanism for the piece to be rebroadcast - at least through mediums that adults were aware of, yet somehow we all knew that Marilyn Manson had ribs removed so he could self fellatio. Jacka$$ and CKY were born in the 90s, not to mention "Girls Gone Wild". I downloaded Leisure Suit Larry from a BBS in the early 90s. None of which was worth mainstream attention. If Tipper Gore had heard half the songs that were played in the juke joints/jazz clubs/###### tonks during the 19050s she would have spontaneously combusted.

Now Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are so starved for content that they will amplify anything that will drive ratings. Buzzfeed, FaceBook, Instagram, Reddit are the same - they will amplify whatever is getting clicked on, regardless of the truth.

I don't want to do a JSTOR dive right now, but if you read newspaper articles from the 1950s about "the youths" you'll see the same trends as are being 'reported' today.

Face it - you're just getting old

 

That's because you're not paying attention. At least not to what middle and high school age kids are doing - which is the same stuff they've been doing for 50 years. There are variations on the theme through the ages, but the theme remains the same.