I agree with you, and the issue seems to be people are being trained to get their sense of identity and worth from something external while also outsourcing the

I agree with you, and the issue seems to be people are being trained to get their sense of identity and worth from something external while also outsourcing their sense of well being to something else. People have always blamed media for societal ills, from traveling theater troupes performing questionable shows to radio dramas to television to TikTok. While those things are a tool which can cause issues, the underlying reason it happens is because people want to turn themselves off for a bit and be entertained to distract themselves from the pain of their lives. The pain never goes away, so the escapism becomes more and more common until people are barely functional without a hit of dopamine. Being bored is painful for my son because he's so used to constant focus on something entertaining. Mostly it's fear of missing out in his case, which is something good for him to learn to recognize and resist.