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Incessant media coverage of bullsh!t that drives up anxiety in the general public.

Mentally ill people who want to be momentarily notorious play to that 24 x 7, incessant, gazillion channel news machine. Back in the 50s, you had a couple of radio stations playing music with five minutes of news highlights at the top of the hour and three TV stations with a nightly news hour at 6 pm. CNN and the 11 o'clock news had not been invented. On September 2, 1963, the CBS Evening News expanded from 15 to 30 minutes! Prior to the 1960s, the typical late-night newscast was local and lasted a mere 15 minutes.

Then on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman changed everything.

I remember reading a story years ago about a small town out west in Wyoming or Montana that had existed in peace for years but suddenly began to see a spike in nuisance crimes like bar fights, lewdness and vandalism. I think it was around the early 1990s. They hired a criminologist or sociologist as a consultant to come in and tell them how to address the situation.

The guy came to town and spent a couple of days going around interviewing residents, business owners and the local sheriff. After that, he made a very simple observation and recommendation:

"This all began when the town was wired for cable. Just tell your business establishments never to have the TVs set on news stations when they are open for business."