It's never been any different, that's how people are. What's different is that in periods of technological change people will engage in new behaviors which are

It's never been any different, that's how people are. What's different is that in periods of technological change people will engage in new behaviors which are then unfamiliar to us. So we take notice of them and realize that there are a lot of problematic aspects to culture and society. Oh golly gosh, people spend so much of their lives just stumbling through, unthinking, sometimes unfeeling. Anyone who has spent any time studying mindfulness is well aware of how pervasive that mode of living is for all people for most of their lives. It's not that we are automatons, it's just that we are creatures of habit and imitation and we find it very difficult to be truly individualistic. It often takes a great amount of training to be routinely "present" and mindful in every day life. Let us remember the era that has just passed not so long ago prior to the advent of smart phones and prior even to the widespread popularity of the internet. An era when many people in the developed world would digest "the news" from only one local source and be satisfied with whatever they got fed. An era when most people would spend half their non-working waking hours watching whatever was on one of a few channels on television. Yes, people should live their lives a bit more thoughtfully. Yes, people shouldn't be so caught up in all the trappings of documenting and effectively "scoring" their lives via smart phones and social media. But at the same time it's difficult to make the case that this is a decline. This is just different. And compared to people living passive, purely consumptive lives filled with monotony and vast sameness, it's hard to complain. People are doing things, experiencing things, and sharing their lives with their friends. That they are not doing it in the maximally best way is a complaint people could make about any generation in any era. And it's not as though people are wasting their lives in worse ways or to a higher degree than they were before, but merely that we'd grown accustomed to the old ways of doing so, and mentally swept them under the carpet.