Excluding the microplastics thing, I think that your two latter points are actually both derived from the social media changes.
Life today for almost everyone in the West is better than ever before, but people are exposed to a lot of thought on social media that 1. life is worse now, 2. in your lifetime there will be terrible destruction happening, which contributes to a sense of fatalism and doom.
It is super appealing to the human psyche to think things are worse in [current-time period] than in the past. This is why there is an intuitive appeal to things like "Make America Great Again." Social media only amplifies this effect because people are exposed to things that are maximally appealing to their psyche.
Life today for almost everyone in the West is better than ever before, but people are exposed to a lot of thought on social media that 1. life is worse now, 2. in your lifetime there will be terrible destruction happening, which contributes to a sense of fatalism and doom.
It is super appealing to the human psyche to think things are worse in [current-time period] than in the past. This is why there is an intuitive appeal to things like "Make America Great Again." Social media only amplifies this effect because people are exposed to things that are maximally appealing to their psyche.