I recently went down a rabbit hole on how researchers make mice depressed so they can test antidepressants on them. The short answer is they disrupt the mouse's environment in ways that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. It's a standard protocol. We know that this causes depression.

The culture of products not under the control of the customer does the same thing. A culture that sees this as normal is a depressed culture.

To test whether the mice are depressed, researchers give them something rewarding that requires a little effort to get (e.g., sugary water vs. plain water).

The depressed mice give up. They are apathetic.

I imagine the mice believe that there is no way to change things. That might be true for the mice but it's not true for us.