Whereas those under-35? takes things online a bit more at face value, rather than what it tends to be - the loudest voices and most extreme ideas being amplified.
I see a lot of people around 35+ remembering how things were better before social media. Things were better because they were kids, or adolescents. It's youth they're nostalgic about.
My father, who is in his 70s, always talks about how his peers always talk about how the 60s were amazing, and how they associate its being great with the things that existed then or didn't exist then. But he always concludes with this: it's not that that we miss. We miss being young.
Social media surely stirred things up, and I personally am for just getting rid of the whole thing anyway. But we have to take the whole "things were better before social media" with a grain of salt.
I think theres just another layer added on by social media in the always-online age.
The people who boomeranged back to their parents basement after college (or after dropping out) are not posting as much as the guy who made $10M on his startup at 25.
Further, especially in HCOL areas, you are often adjacent to exponentially more wealth than you have.. which social media now shows.
Pre social media I wouldn't have known much about my neighbors who are friends with a billionaire family / famous musician / etc and go to various exclusive resorts on their dime a few times a year...
So for some, their basis for comparison becomes too wide and they end up always feeling "behind" when they baseline against infinite wealth.
I think the youth angle has some validity, but it also misses something else. I realized in my late 20s that I was already making more nuanced analysis of 'life' for myself than I did a few years prior. "Experience" isn't an end all/be all, but it does carry some occasionally useful benefits, that if you foster can only improve with age. I like hanging out with people my own age (40s) but also younger and older, because I get different useful/interesting things from doing so, and I incorporate it into the lens I use to make a go of life. THAT only comes from age and experience by and large.
Social media is tooling, which can (and sadly is) leveraged in any number of ways (regardless of age group)...all of which we as a society have allowed. We need to make choices about whether that should proceed as is, or if changes are required.