1) For the past three generations, societal changes have been driven from the teenagers up, not the other way 'round. Tony Judt makes a pretty compelling argument in Postwar that children with no adult responsibilities and a disposable income (however modest) were a new thing in the world, and that the Baby Boomers were really the first generation of "teenagers" the world had ever seen. The social movements of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s were all driven by teenagers. I don't think you can say social changes "hit teenagers the hardest" when they're the ones with the baseball bats.

What I meant by "societal changes" was more along the lines of what you mention here:

Parents follow societal cues - as they say, kids don't come with an instruction manual, so most parenting is guided by peer pressure. And peer pressure has, increasingly, been about paranoia.

That paranoia isn't being propagated by the kids themselves, is it? To me it seems like this culture of paranoia very harmful to everyone and as it has increased from one generation to the next, it does seem like it will influence a generation's ideas on how things should be. I haven't really read anything on that topic, so this is really just my perception, but I think there's something to it.

3) I'm not sure "winning" has much to do with it. Consider - it isn't just American teens that are finding themselves isolated. I'd also point out that the culture of "everyone's a winner" has been thriving for the past 20 years. This is also the first time in my long memory that the necessity of college is being questioned. And it's being questioned mercilessly. There sure wasn't no Khan Academy back in my day.

Well, I'd like to point out that the "everyone's a winner" culture is something that very much seems to clash with American professional and university culture. For a while, my father was an associate dean and would have to deal with kids raised thinking that they were capable and deserving of top marks every time. The rude awakening they received in university to a reality they weren't used to, wasn't their fault, but they were the ones that had to deal with it. For a person who is already trying to formulate an identity, that could be a pretty big monkey wrench. One day they're sure that they're #1, the next they realize that they're just another 1 out of 7,000,000,000,000. Or to put it another way, one day they're a winner, the next they're quite possibly a loser.

I'm aware that it's not just American kids who are feeling isolated, but it does seem that at the very least, more attention is paid to the American teenagers who do feel isolated. Also, I don't have much experience with non-American teenagers, except for Vietnamese teenagers, who very much seem to subscribe to the winner/loser mentality. Maybe the attitude of "winning" and "losing" doesn't have much to do with it, but I have certainly met people who have felt alienated by it and from what I've seen, it seems like it might well be a factor in how people feel about how they're doing.

4) Parents are easy to sneak stuff by. In part, it's because lots of parents would "rather not know" - plausible deniability is a powerful thing. You don't need ICQ to pull a fast one on the 'rents, it's just another way of doing stuff. On the contrary, if I wanna throw a keylogger on your laptop you have no secrets from me. There is, therefore, a tacit approval of all the sneaking. I sure as fuck didn't walk around with an Apple LoJack 4S in my pocket when I was a teen.

I'll admit that there is necessarily an element of "don't ask, don't tell" in the parent/child relationship, but with the advent of IMing, there was suddenly a lesser need to use the phone. Sure, a parent could look over my shoulder to try to see what I was typing, but there was much less of that dreaded exchange of calling a girl's house, having her mother answer the phone, asking who is calling and all that. Though my father is probably more tech savvy on some fronts than I am, I don't think that he would have known how to set up a keylogger in the '90's or early '00's.

Anyway, my point was, kids have fewer of those "phone type" experiences now and I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. Learning to express interest in things or other people while not defaulting to embarrassment is something that is beneficial, in my mind.

Edited for stuff and stuff.