This seems to have a long tradition going even back to Plato’s republic. Sure – the demonstrated fierceness covers only the crudity of the growing identity.
Nevertheless the next generation had an unique exposure by computing power. A recent letter in PH 2008;35:6-7 by Eckert forwards a new hypothesis of the obvious immaturity of adolescents (in contrast to Winterhoff) – computer games keep childre at the omnipotent phase of 3 year olds – who are the center of their own world, where are no real dangers while on the other hand everything moves just on a mouse click. Our world of imagination came by books that are not such easily manipulated, yea, yea.