Before I even started reading, I knew it was going to be an attack at the phone. A few centuries ago, they'd attack books. Look back at videos from the 1950s and people didn't talk to each other on the train back then either, their noses were in books, magazines and newspapers. By the 80s, the nerdy kids had headphones and cassette players. By the 90s, people had discmans.

The trouble with articles like this is they don't explore the other factors. Maybe the simply access to information makes kids more nihilistic. And nihilism isn't a bad thing. The universe is absurd, we have no meaning except what we give to ourselves (through religion or belief of whatever). Maybe kids are just realizing this, and it has nothing to do with technology? Maybe they're realizing that because of technology.

Maybe they see a wold that's yelling at them, calling them entitled, where they know they'll be in more debt and less paid than any other generation before them. Maybe it's just the pure knowledge of our place as cogs in the gears.

There are tons of factors for where we are today. The income gap is getting wider, parents are struggling to give their kids a good standard of living. Many parents can't pay for their kids educations like the previous generation could because it's getting too expensive.

The article says "every region in the country." Are they just looking at the US? If you didn't find similar numbers in Europe, where they have the same access to cellphones and technology, they you have to address the other issues such as health care, better pubic welfare, freedom of transportation and high standards of living.