To be honest, in a different society (one that isn't focused on on-line communication, extreme productivity, and always on connections), executive functioning becomes a much less valued trait.
I don't think so.
I mean, I see what you're saying, that many of these demands on our attention are extraneous—bordering on useless. But, and I speak from personal experience as someone who struggles with executive function, that as a problem is disconnected from executive function. To me, what executive function means is that I have projects that I am interested in, that I would like to work on, that I would be happier for having completed, that I am unable to complete. That, like the subject of the article, I want to go and meet my friends for lunch, but have to cancel. Eradicating the 'productivity culture' might, as a side effect, reduce the level of executive function required, but they are not tied to one another. Having executive function means being able to do the things that I want to do, when I want to do them.
What you are interested and what you like to work on (and how you should go about this) is in part informed by said 'productivity culture'. The same goes for meeting friends. I've lived in environments/cultures where the need for 'executive functioning' to pull this off was almost zero, because it'd just be part of the rhythm of life rather than some planned activity.
Just to provide a bit of counterpoint; not saying you're all wrong.
>I have projects that I am interested in, that I would like to work on, that I would be happier for having completed, that I am unable to complete.
That sounds a lot like how depression treats me. I have these "impossible tasks" that sit there undone. And the "lazy procrastinator" in me (thanks, mom) does them at the last possible second.
I think a lot of the "time management" self-help books out there is an honest effort at casting around at ANY way that can help a person become more productive. Whether it's values-based, or workflow-based, or something that just reduces the friction. Sadly, like most of the self-help genre, if you don't "become more productive," you're a bad person.
Asking Neurodivergent people to compensate for executive functioning skills that don't come easy is bound to fail.
The way I've heard/seen it described in ADHD research is more that without executive functioning, putting together events in the past, applying them to the present, with a thought to the future outcome is the main issue. When your executive functioning is poor, your decision making is severely impacted because the ability to chain together past experiences with the current situation to chart a good outcome fails to come together.
So if you wanted to make up a situation in the past that isn't a 'school or workplace', imagine someone on the hunt, failing to correctly interpret signs of a dangerous animal nearby and take appropriate precautions, and therefore dies. That would be a failure of good executive function.
The traits identified in ADHD materials like these (below) are effectively a different way of phrasing the same outcome but those with ADHD may be lacking more in one of these distinct areas: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/chil...
What you're witnessing isn't fear of change, it's people questioning the idea that "progress" is necessarily good.
Which predecessors? We can't really tell how a medieval peasant felt, as they didn't leave any articulate accounts. The accounts left later are generally non-representative, as people who left them were privileged (they were not illiterate). As for the more modern times, not more than 100 years ago alcoholism (strongly correlated with depression) was so rampant that the US banned alcohol sales altogether.
2. Culture changed. In the past, people were told by society to not complain about their mental state, whereas now people are opened up almost to the point of being exhibitionistic. So, you cannot really compare reports from 50 years ago with today's numbers.