It seems so absurd to me this could happen. For the boomers I understand, they grew up in an offline world, but the youth? They are raised on the modern web and smartphones but are often clueless too.
Was it the unsanitized, wild west internet era of the late 90s/early 2000s that hardened the millennials against online bullshitting?
Now that I'm thinking about the good old days of virus pop-ups and limewire cancers, has the presence of malware changed that much? Or it is less visible due to mobile architecture and pop-up blockers?
It sure feels that way, explaining to kids that YouTubers will say anything to get you to keep watching, meanwhile the elderly are following Qanon bullshit.
You think millennials are immune to it? I feel like it's only Gen-X that's both cynical enough and was here for the birth of it, to be properly skeptical of everything online.
What generation? I'm an elder millenial and I always thought Google Video/Vimeo/Youtube was/is shit for any kind of actual informential content. Music videos, meme videos - sure. Other than that, veeerrry great amount of suss on any info presented. Same goes for 90+% of people of my generation, who know what kind of a jokepool 90's/early 2000's internet was.
Yeah personally I've found a ton of informational and useful content on YT. There's tons of lectures and presentations available from different colleges and stuff, but there's also just a ton of people that like to spread info. For example, I found one guy thats making his own audiobooks of leftist literature to make it more accessible for the average Joe.