>

First of all, you don't have to give kids smartphones. But second of all, even if things are worse than your experience, keep in mind that many people at the time you grew up had worse experiences than you. Assuming you're talking about the United States, statistically, things have gotten better for black people, gay people, and women, and all those together are a large enough demographic to say that overall things are actually better.
I guess it depends on how long ago you consider "recent history."
Yeah, my childhood was great. Went to college in 1996, partied my ass off, joined a band, played awesome shows at clubs, had a huge group of friends.
My father-in-law's was less great. Finished high school, got immediately shipped off to a jungle by the government, had to kill a bunch of men (one of them with a length of piano wire), watched a lot of his friends die, spent the rest of his life waking up screaming.
My grandmother's was even less great. They, you know, didn't have any food. We have a picture where a rich guy gave them all oranges so he could have his photograph taken with starving immigrant children like they were animals in the zoo. My grandmother looks absolutely fucking pissed off in that photo. She still accepted the orange, though.
It's not that this is one of the "worst" times in the last couple hundred years. It's that the period from about 1974 to 2001 just happened to be the best one in history. Assuming you didn't live somewhere like Bosnia or Northern Ireland, anyway. >

Fundamentally? This is roughly the equivalent of saying 'life is simpler when you're a child'.
Of course you think life was simpler in the 90s and 2000s, you weren't an adult until 2009! Except in very bad cases, someone's childhood will always be simpler than their adulthood, that's kind of the point of childhood!
You're just the new version of every single adult in history talking about how the newest invention of video games/television/radio/newspapers/the printing press/paper/stone tablets have ruined the youth. >

First off that only goes until 2015, which is 7 years in the past. Secondly, even if we do take that as a modern example, the male suicide rate still is nowhere near the peak that it used to be. >

Is this just aimed at Americans because depending on where in the world you grew up over the past 30 years, these could be quite amazing times compared to the wars and genocides of the 90s >

Reddit Rule #1: assume the person you're talking to is American and is talking exclusively about the USA. >

Amateur mistake on part >

I'm guessing you aren't LGBTQ+; things are a lot better now than they were before Y2K if you aren't cis and het. >


...Life was much more simple in the 90’s and 2000’s. Want to hang out with someone? Give them a call on their house phone. Blockbuster, movie theaters, malls, bowling alleys, to name a few, were the shit....

This depends upon the small subsection of society in a small subsection of a state in a small subsection of history. 90s were just as horrifying for the African American population to have children with the introduction of the '94 crime bill that increased the incarceration rates for poor, marginalized populations at an exponential rate. 
It has always been the worst of times to have children by the global south since at least the start of colonisation process. Genocides haven't stopped, divisions have only deepened, violence has been the norm, neocolonialism has only made things worse. 
So, the argument that: 

This is one of the worst times in recent history for kids to grow up in.

Is only valid as an anecdotal piece of assumption for a few lucky people, than a general agreement of reality. >

People just didn't appreciate the Black Death. >

I guess to some people, social isolation is worse than everyone you ever knew dying of horrible pus-oozing boils and the smartest man u know says u can cure it all by taking a bath in human piss.