One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the transformative effect of technology. Peoples' brains are literally being rewired and molded like putty.
Forty years ago, I was an in-house attorney with Xerox. People may not realize it, but much of the pioneering work for what became the internet was done at Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Way back then, when PCs were almost comically primitive, the Xerox attorneys had on their desks networked systems called Alto that were just about as sophisticated as anything I've used since. (They cost $20K, which is why they weren't marketed.)
Anyway, I always recall one of the PARC scientists saying that the development of the Ethernet was very mysterious. He specifically said, not in an intentionally religious way, "It was almost as though some spirit were guiding it." That has always stuck with me. As I've watched the internet, cell phones and social media completely alter humanity - including in some very destructive ways - I've wondered just what that "spirit" might have been. No prior generation that thought it was in the end times ever dealt with anything this life-altering.