What is really happening is that:
(a) We are an increasingly complex society and this brings out our limitations. Humans evolved to live in societies of about 100 people, where the worst someone could do was bash someone with a rock. This means that the social abilities that were instilled by evolution are not always clearly adequate for dealing with some of the social demands of a huge and interconnected world, and one where it's possible to nuke everyone to kingdom-come.
(b) We get to learn about all the bad things in the world, from TV, newspapers, and the Internet. In the past, the bad things happened, but people from far away didn't get to know about them. Thus, we are more *aware* of the bad things, rather than more bad things happening.
'we see the loss of the English language ... the traditional reading and writing that advanced our society'. In fact, in the fairly recent past, most people *didn't* read or write. It's only in the last 150 years that reading and writing are universally expected in *some* cultures. And reading for pleasure, and regular letter-writing etc, were always minority pursuits. The sort of people, whose *only* regular form of written communication is the text-message, probably didn't engage in regular written communication *at all* 50 years ago. Indeed, I would say that the availability of the Internet probably *increases* overall reading. Many people who would not read books on a regular basis, do read material on the Internet on a regular basis. It's true that some highly bookish people may find that the Internet reduces (rarely actually *replaces*) their time spent with books; but there aren't, and never were, all that many highly bookish people.
One may argue about the value of IQ tests, but in general they indicate a significant *rise* in average performance on intelligence measures since they started being used.
'We see gratuitous violence, unlike any time since the Middle Ages'
I am not a fan of the violence in modern culture; but it has been as bad or worse throughout the past. 200 years ago, people regarded public hangings as a source of entertainment, often taking their children with them. Violence was common in Victorian times, from the street-gangs of the slum areas, to the wealthy undergraduates at elite universities who enjoyed 'ragging' (often meaning physically bullying) other students in a way that no higher education institution would tolerate nowadays.
'We turn on the TV and we see violence disguised as sport, not meant to defeat our opponent but to hurt or to kill them. We see small children in battle rings, being cheered on by their mothers and fathers. They are rewarded for their violent efforts.'
There has always been violent sport: boxing, wrestling, the more violent forms of conventional sports such as football. Children, especially perhaps boys at old-fashioned English boarding schools, were always pressed into activities where there was a thin line between sport and bullying. And that's before we get onto the still less regulated 'sports' directed at hurting animals: cock-fighting, dog-fighting, fox-hunting (still a very controversial issue in England) - all more accepted in the past than now.
In many ways, much more violence and brutality were accepted in the fairly recent past. Domestic violence in particular: it was essentially a man's right to beat his wife and kids, as long as he didn't actually endanger their lives. Doing so too often might engender some social disapproval; but the police would generally look the other way ('not our business') unless a murder was about to be committed. Men had the right to force sex on their wives. Take a guess when marital rape became a concept in British law - 1994! In schools, corporal punishment by teachers was accepted in England until the 1980s; and children's bullying of each other was often seen as 'natural' and 'a preparation for life' (the latter may have been sadly true, but not in any desirable sense!)
I don't think every change in society is a desirable one. I think that our increasingly sedentary life is unhealthy. I think that our increased job-related mobility and our resulting dispersal and the ever-increasing distance between family members and between friends, has had some good effects but a lot of bad ones. I certainly think that the move in many places from an emphasis on manufacturing and production to one on finance and banking, and the ever-increasing power of the corporations, has had lots of disastrous effects.
But I also think it's a mistake to look at the past through rose-coloured glasses: just consider all the shocking evils perpetrated by humans in the fairly recent past ranging from slavery to the Holocaust!
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