Nothing gets in the New York Times unless it interests people over 50. Back when the boomers were young there were huge numbers of article about hippies, drugs and all that stuff because old people like to read about what young people are doing and try it out for themselves. It makes them feel young. Old farts have been obsessed with iTunes, iPhones, iPads, and all that i-stuff for Apple as long as they've been making it.
I think people of all ages and social classes are in a bad mood these days.
I saw some rich guy on CNBC this morning and he was pissed because we don't appreciate everything rich people do for us and it is not hard to find pissed off poor people. Lots of old people like Trump because they are pissed off about this or that.
People are pissed off about health care, obamacare, etc. It is so ungrateful when you consider that 200 years ago people had no idea why infectious diseases made you sick, there were no painkillers, no psych meds, no blood pressure meds, no insulin or thyroid hormone. No antibiotics, antivirals, no heart surgery, warfarin, etc. For almost all of human history faith healing was the first line treatment for everything and now people are pissed.
People get pissed off driving and don't think it is a miracle that we have cars, roads, gas, mechanics, etc.
Anyway you've got to get over this idea that any generation is special; often it is much more like 10% of the boomers did it, and 30% of X, and 50% of Y and 70% of the Millenials do it -- most generational change is a "diffusion of innovation" situation.
If you want to understand the post 2000 period you have to understand the 1960s and 1970s and a good book from that era is
http://www.amazon.com/uncommitted-alienated-youth-American-s...
and it explains a lot of things like the hippie phenomenon and then the cult boom, school shooters and why people who don't have it bad join ISIS, all that. It is also the first academic book to use the word "postmodern".
He says "Our age inspires scant enthusiasm." and that is it. People don't really believe anything they are told and just go through the motions. For instance, look at defined contribution pensions. There has been Republican FUD against Social Security since it began, and now we have these private plans which might work if people had money to put in them, and some of us are fortunate enough to do so, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck -- personally I still think investing in the stock market is the best massy thing to do, but looking at the chart of the last 20 years I am not going to blame anybody who thinks it is a casino.
People are not committed, they are not engaged, they don't feel like stakeholders, they don't feel that they are valued, they see organizations such as schools, colleges, the military, corporations as exploitative, treating people like racehorses, burning them out, throwing them away.
At my local startup incubator there was this conversation I just couldn't take from some guy who had all this bullshit and weird ideas about networking and at some point it's like "bud... if you are talking to a VC they want to hear you are working on product and talking to customers"
Yet, disengaged people see something like "Y Combinator" and they see it like Harvard Business School, a credential, social proof because if you are disengaged you aren't experiencing the joy of learning, creating, etc.