When on his deathbed, my grandpa told me of when they had to run Indians off our farm.  The night before he died, he had a dream that little indians were running up his stomach shooting guns and arrows at him.  

He was a homesteader settled the farm in 1872, back before South Dakota was a state, m Great Grandpa was off the boat from Germany and so there were lots and lots of stories of how much had changed from when he was born to 92 years later when he died.  Lots of stories of things that came and went and came back again only new in description.  No running water until the late 40s, before that it was go out to the well and pump what was needed.

What he said about everything from switching to Federal reserve cash from Real metal money to making his own drink in Prohibition and how bad the farm was in the Depression where dirt was everywhere, he was lucky and made it through but he also drilled wells in addition to farming and keeping cattle and chickens and helped in construction when it was needed and many trades to stay above water so he wouldn't lose the land and house.  He luckily didn't owe anything on it as he inherited it from Great grandpa, but  back in the depression there were "City people" pushing to buy for a lot of money (in depression era money value, a pittance in reality), taking advantage of scarcity, same as always.

Things got more comfortable and he loved the luxury of having a color TV and his leather recliner in a relatively modest 3 room house my mom grew up in before he was 80.  Mom was born in 1925 so had lots more detailed stories to tell, like holding a lantern while going to school so she could be found if she got off track, that was in the bad days of the depression and dust bowl era but it wasn't always, she just carried it with her in case it turned windy.  Everything was brown dirt and scrub plants, no nice gridded out roads like now, just paths wagons took and they sort of spaced them out between churches and small towns 15 miles apart were a walk away.  No cars really around until after WW II, but tractors were a big thing that helped the farm.  One old truck is what the family had and it had the well drilling equipment on the back.  People walked to church or the richer ones would drive but it was only like 4 blocks away, as the town kind of grew next to the farm, it made the western border of the town.

The massive changes from Grandpa's stories to now are just unbelievable.  Literally oral history from Old West to the 1960s from grandpa and great depression to Obama from mom.   What is assumed and taken for granted and required has skyrocketed.  The idea of a 2 income family was only for people in debt and they were black sheep.   Moms stayed home and took care of the kids and cooked and cleaned.  A very comfortable lifestyle could be had with one income up until the 90s. (or 70s, depending on location)  The transition from radio to TV to color TV and then electronic computers in a house (rather than a job title a person had as 'computer') seemed like science fiction level advancement.  Just what I've seen since the 70s compresses all those changes and more, too much to even list.   Kids today talking about how they're immediately put in debt holes only a lucky few can escape are right, it's gotten worse, but not insurmountable if you have the will to not jump on every luxury fad for phone benchmark bragging rights.  Handing out credit cards like candy and college a requirement to get student loans hooked really tempts the young ones who have it all figured out, except the money part.

Freedom is nothing but lip service anymore.  We talk about it but have to wait for the right time of year or license or go to a different part of the state or a different state to legally do something, and all of it is 100% monitored, if your phone isn't tracking you, your car is covering it, if you're off that net that's a red flag and a reason to inspect your life with personal information and behavior data Hoover's FBI would have killed a few thousand people to get.

So, little has changed, other than the distance in swings from low to high, greatly expanded, really easy to lose it all with the wrong tweet.  From political right to left, everything is hyper-polarized and people group and love or hate something and everybody has to agree, thus splitting up a common group into many arguing factions which then miss all the details while worrying about a big picture they can't control anyway.   Same thing, just the polarization and number of groups and the chasms between them has grown.