The whole EMO phenomenon can be seen from two angles I guess.
With each generation we not only makes changes good and bad affecting the human condition, we also grow in population. As population growth and humans impact on the world grows, it does not do so not in a cumulative, but an exponential fashion.
If you are a believer in mass consciousness, or mass mental effect, then EMO may actually be able to impact our world in the area of not only politics and economics, but even on an environmental, or mass psychological level.
If you are not a believer, then we are probably just feeling the effects of getting older. I hate to break it to you, but we only think that the kids nowadays are more aggressive than the used to be, or we are on the verge of a revolution not in our favor, when you are past the age of...
I do think that the greatest worries we have in these days are exponentially different from those of the past. But I do not think it is in the actual problems, but in the mass ability to contextualize them. If CNNŽ were during the first outbreak of plague in Europe, how would the US military have reacted? We started the Spanish American war over a fit of carnal jealousy through letter writing, so maybe it would not have made a difference, so the question remains unanswered.