Quarterlife, Midlife, or Universal crisis?

Schee and Kong tackle the classic middle-ager's inquiry: are we merely clinging to the "better times back in our day," or are we lamenting a modern society potentially on the verge of something truly unprecedented-- a crisis of factual relativity, societal attention disorder, hyper-transactionalism, and the resulting devolution of human connection. If we apply classic capitalistic fervor within the framework of attention-economics (while adding AI to the mix), what has this done to the bottom-line of our human values, our entertainment, our story telling, or ultimately, our ability to engage anything meaningfully? These "old geezers" reminisce on the olden days, not because they were necessarily better, but because the current day seems to be strange for everyone.