Wich2 wrote:

There's an odd "unengagement with reality" in a lot of young kids I meet. Not sure what has brought it about; likely, lots of things over the last few generations.

Two words, Craig : tele vision (well, I guess that's just one word). To the first generation raised in the presence of hundreds of channels of television, everything that appears on television is reduced to the same level of unreality. Ergo, nothing is real (if it's been on television).