On top of that cultural pressure goes down and people do things - being "morons" - today they we're afraid to do 50 years ago.
None of that is inherently bad as I already said. In my opinion it's actually pretty good. But I do think that it's also why things seem less prestine than a lot of the 'old masterpieces'. It's true that some masterpieces are admired because of the effect they had on their field within their time periods. But I'd argue some of that glamor is also because that content was created for 'people who are better than regular people' within that same time period. And so now we're left with material that nuanced in it's own right, but devoid of that suspension of disbelief that we're witnessing something larger than ourselves.
I think a lot of people watch that kind of "reality" TV just to make themselves feel better about how screwed up their own lives are.
Example: Years ago, when Obama was bailing out the banks, GOP talking heads skewered him. They wanted the banks to fail and rebuild. A few years later, when Occupy Wall Street formed, who were also against the bank bailouts, the GOP talking heads skewered them, even though they had similar political positions about the banks that the same talking heads where talking about just a few years earlier. How many people caught on to that? Lack of critical thinking.
Furthermore, care more about stuff that directly affects you and your family. Jobs is certainly a big one. I care that companies are constantly pushing down wages more than I care about other things, because it directly affects me. Just an example. I care that companies are polluting the river my family visits. I care that the educational system in our state is horrible, I care that health care is fucking expensive.
Also, never read opinion columns, the same is true for TV. The old 6'oclock news is decent because they only have 30 minutes, but all the auxiliary shows and the 24 hour news are nothing but opinion. Unfortunately decent sources like the NYT is half opinion, but at least they label it as such.
But in the past, they thought reading would ruin a generation and ruin their memories (it did kill a tradition, but we really just remember different things). Chess was certainly going to dumb down a generation, and folks were seriously suspicious of the automated elevator.
And we have some records of times before television. In fact, there are still folks alive who remember such things. Heck, I remember times before the internet. My parents didn't have cable at one point. My grandmother remembers not having television in her house as they couldn't afford it. Their parents lived without radio. Their parents wrote down their experiences.
It isn't true that we don't have such a world, it just happened before now. Maybe we won't know who is right, but no one is actually willing to give up what they have and it is rather likely that it will fall into the same doomsday predictions about the new-fangled thing as all the previous one.
Now, ironically, everything is ruining Rock and Roll.