I am going to say this is an artifact of people not self-learning things on their own before the school or from a job.

I find in my earlier teenage years that internet was great source of knowledge. I read lots of blogs/articles etc from people 3x-4x my age. It made me appreciate them, not disrespect them. And for the most part, when you are on the internet, you really don't know what otherside even looks like for the most part - you only know in retrospect...