My big-picture theory of this is anomie[1]: > The nineteenth century French pioneer sociologist Émile Durkheim borrowed the word from French philosopher Jean-M

My big-picture theory of this is anomie[1]: > The nineteenth century French pioneer sociologist Émile Durkheim borrowed the word from French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau and used it in his influential book Suicide (1897), outlining the social (and not individual) causes of suicide, characterized by a rapid change of the standards or values of societies (often erroneously referred to as normlessness), and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness. He believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for better or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life. This was contrary to previous theories on suicide which generally maintained that suicide was precipitated by negative events in a person's life and their subsequent depression. Just look at when this took off: right after 2008, when any notion that they'd be taken care of and their futures were secure was swept away. The adolescents who came of age during that event will probably spend the rest of their lives with lingering economic insecurity and fear about the future. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie