How did "society" fail them? I was born in England right after WW11. We had little to eat and played in bombed out bldg"s. Surely former generations were failed by society. Two class system and not allowed to move up, etc. Difference is we didn't have media telling us we had been "failed" ! Read Main Street.....by Sinclair. Obviously these kids had life too easy. Even in the 1950s kids delivered newspapers. Mowed lawns etc. Whatever went wrong happened after we became a two car, TV in every room and of course computer and games society.