Good point, it is about validation - recognition. People want to feel included and important. And like you say, we all need fun and entertainment. I also agree that the change is mostly in scale, but I think the new technologies are also make everything more anonymous and more distant. That's the real danger, in my opinion: validation is now a commodity because recognition is no longer person-to-person. I am an optimistic person by nature, but I do worry about the dumbing down of discourse.