Technology used wrongly
The purpose of the technology we build is to make lives better holistically. What we're seeing is the effect of the wrong intentions of those who are responsible for building the tech we depend on. Not all is bad but the effect of the wrong ones is very obvious in our society today.
Times have indeed changed and the technology we have today has had the biggest influence on the people we see. We call them GEN Z, the people of the AI era, a tech-smart population. Whether we're reaching our goals or not is another thing altogether. The thing to rather focus on is if we even have a holistic end goal as a world and as a civilization. We clearly don't. There won't be wars on massive scales like Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Iran if we actually had a collective goal for our civilization.
The giant tech corporations have one thing on their mind, money. To make money is good and a business model can't run without funding but making it the primary pleasure of success is the real problem we're faced with. They're building tech that people can like and not tech that falls directly into the agenda of building a better civilization. That's the reason you'll have something as addictive as TikTok which I don't hate on but not built or regulated to benefit but to entertain. Entertainment is a good thing but if it comes at the expense of people's sanity, was it beneficial in the end?
Technology is a tool and it depends on who's using it. The same TikTok is a reference source for someone studying and developing a skill that'll actually help society. So to talk down on it is a bad way to approach the issue. The regulations, the nature of its operations and not just TikTok, I'm only using it as an example, primarily all giant centralized social platforms are well designed to milk ad revenue. So they make sure it's addictive enough that you spend hours on it scrolling.
People's sleep schedules have been affected. People have higher expectations because they're seeing a lot of success being flaunted in videos. The tech is causing harm as it seeks to solve a problem or create value. That's happening because the goal has been money rather than value to the world. That's technology used wrongly.