Kids today spend their time in Snapchat or whatever, kids before them were into Facebook, those before who had access to forums, and before that there was TV, and radio, and Beatles. It is easy to arrive at the conclusion that things were better back in the days, but in reality there were just less things to do.
Engagement-driven kids are not dumb. They live in a different world, and it's their world now. The way we look at older people who can't figure out computers, they will soon be looking at us.
Engagement-driven web keeps pushing you to see content outside of your network because that's what makes them money. So, yes, it's a substitute for TV in a sense. I used to watch TV in my young teens, but now YouTube replaced it. The problem is that it effectively discourages person-to-person communication that people want and rely upon.
It's as if your phone line was free, but your calls with your friends and family would get interrupted with commercials and news broadcasts every 5 minutes.
Engagement-driven kids are not dumb. They live in a different world, and it's their world now. The way we look at older people who can't figure out computers, they will soon be looking at us.