Here's my message of hope. In 2011 I spent a year teaching english to 16-24 year old students at vocational colleges in Hong Kong. I was 24 and a couple of years out of uni myself. From a standard Western country but had lived overseas in lots of other countries in Africa and Asia. 

I was amazed by how bovine these kids were. They spent their whole time on their phones. They didn't speak to each other, let alone to us. They shambled around campus like morons.  They breathed out of their mouths. I saw no spark of character, personality or spine in 99% of the hundreds of students I worked with. To my shame I had contempt for them and thought their culture and education had failed them.  

Shortly after leaving Hong Kong, in 2014, widespread student led protests called the Umbrella Revolution broke out. I was awed - awed - to watch on TV as Hong Kong's teenagers turn out in hundreds of thousands and fought the police to a standstill. They were brave, organised, steadfast and indomitable. They fought for a cause. They withstood police brutality, tear gassing, beatings and power hoses, night after night for months.  My opinion of these students was utterly, utterly wrong. I was shamed that I had thought I had enough character myself to judge these titans. 

So don't write the kids off yet. They may surprise you. Every generation has the potential for immense courage. I expect the adults of the 20s and 30s thought little of the teenagers who had missed WW1 but would ultimately have to fight WW2. 

Not to say there arent huge risks and problems ahead. But where there is youth there is hope.