Yes, things have changed, but I'm not going to bewail the changes. Many of them were for the better. Particularly better technology, including medical technology. I had an older cousin who had polio. I was among the first to get the anti-polio sugar cube. Polio is no longer the threat it once was.
In college I had a job as a transmitter operator at a radio station. One of my important duties was to listen for a CONELRAD alert, and turn off the transmitter if the alert ever came (thank God it never did). But I lived under the threat of The Bomb, and that duty made me conscious of it every time I went to work.
My life didn't turn out the way I imagined it would back when I was in high school. On net balance, I'd say it turned out better than I could have imagined.
The religious fervor of those "progressives" to "change" America from its foundations in individual freedom under a written Constitution which strictly limited powers granted to government has resulted in less freedom, less opportunity, and less reliance on "the Creator," "Divine Providence," "Nature's god," and "the Supreme Judge of the World."