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I can believe it, my stepson is addicted to (what I think) are crappy YouTube channels.

I guess I'm getting old.

Meanwhile they think nowadays TV channels are boring and crappy, generation gap at its working :)

Not sure how much "traditional" TV you've watched recently, but they are very not wrong.

Are you kidding? Television over the last 10-15 years has been in a golden age of scripted drama. There's still a lot of crap on the tube, but there's also more good stuff than there's been at any time in history.

But knowing that means you're 10-15 years behind the attention spans and tastes that new television (and mass media in general) caters to and is increasingly produced by. It's a, if not the, generational shift.

Not the "traditional" TV of free-to-air stations. That is all reality shows and pandering to the lowest denominator.

Your definition of "traditional" TV is extremely traditional. A majority of US households had subscribed to cable TV as far back as 1990 (see https://www.ncta.com/cables-story).

Cable penetration has fallen off in recent years as additional options (satellite, phone-company fiber, streaming) have proliferated, but it's been a long, long time since most Americans' universe of TV options were limited to the original "big three" broadcast networks.

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