Lots of very valid opinions on this thread.
I do believe there was a shift in the world.
I felt the 1980's and 1990's were more manageable to live in.
1.) The internet/smart phones have caused a change.
We are able to, and expect, things to be done at a greater speed.
Job applications, dating, audio-visual meetings, writing letters, booking holidays.
These can all be done with a net connected device.
Previously they need visits to shops, offices, filling in application forms by hand (and in part by using the phone.)
Importantly, we receive answers very much quicker than pre World Wide Web times...often within a few minutes.
We can also do more things and get replies without speaking to another person, from "chatbots" using A.I.
This has caused a change in peoples' personalities and life expectations....greater emphasis on quick reward, less concentration, and more showing off.
Getting a magazine in the 1980's allowed time to read it, and think about it.
Focus on in-depth articles, less focus on beating your rivals to the news by a few seconds.
Reading that magazine was not like reading a social media site or forum, where replies can be made so much quicker than the next month's letter page, and online there exists in some readers an imagined pressure to reply, and to reply quickly.
2.) The workplace.
The balance has tipped in favour of the employer.
Less unionisation, more individualism, less of a community spirit in the workplace.
It leaves people feeling less happy.
3.) World Stability
I think the world has moved to a less stable level.
The Cold War had a nuclear threat, and we came very close to nuclear war in 1962 and 1983, but....it was a threat with a structure; protocols based on nation states.
Terrorism existed as a frequent deadly menace, but on the whole the terrorists used hand weapons and conventional explosives.
Now we have the very real growth and existence of terrorist enclaves, terrorists attempting to get radiological weapons, and an increase in the power of their armouries.
There continue to exist nation state nuclear arsenals, only now we have North Korea (and Iran) who are outside international norms* and are active in testing their armouries and improving them, mixed with belligerent political speeches.
In my opinion that is a shift.
There are caveats that:
*South Africa has been nuclear since the mid-1970's, and was a rogue state at that time.
*Israel has been believed to be nuclear since the late 1960's, and according to military assistant Arnon Azaryahu, the military commander Moshe Dayan did suggest readying nuclear weapons for use on Damascus in the 1973 War, a suggestion curtailed by Prime Minister Golda Meir.
*The USA has twice used nuclear weapons in warfare.