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Algorithmic (and I specifically mean the ones meant to drive engagement through rage/fear) social media is the biggest tipping point in my mind, particularly when people started having it in their pockets with smartphones all the time. To a lesser degree, when always-on internet became common.
I think of interacting with people in '26, '16, '06 (no widespread smartphones yet), '96 (no widespread cellphones yet), teens chatting on phones and the newfangled IM thing for those with internet and computers at home, and '86 (though I was rather young) when online communication was still quite niche (BBS's and the like). I would say that that the tipping point came around 2010 +/- a couple of years (probably varying by region).
I would be remiss not to mention the 24/7 news cycle ushered in in the wake of 9-11 (2001) and fox news and such after that also playing in the same dark ways.
Edit: also, third spaces going away changed a lot. We, though moreso people a bit older than me, were involved in community sports leagues, moose lodge (or whatever similar), and other community organizations. This put a lot of people with differing opinions in the same spaces. That doesn't happen nearly as much anymore.
I was part of a third space for years. But I left because people decided it had to be a 'safe space', and started getting nasty and confrontational to people who didn't look/talk/speak like them. This was in '23, like right after we opened back up from COVID closures... basically they wanted to restrict it to only 'the right kind of people'.
It was sad and gross and I left in protest. And they labeled me 'one of the bad people'.
And I have noticed a lot of public spaces are more like this now, they are less public and more about 'only people who aren't different than us' are allowed or invited to be there.
What was being said in this space that people were being confronted about that caused you to choose to leave?
oh no, they'd never confront anyone. they were way too cowardly to do that.
they'd just snipe at meetings behind closed doors and express their 'concern' that 'we aren't not catering people that truly deserve help'. It was all in code dude. that's how these folks work. If you call them out that way they can immediately deny any accountability.
and i raised the question how can you know someone's ethnicity, or identity, or financial status based on looking at them? are you going to ask them that when they walk through the door and then tell them to leave or something if they are the 'wrong' answers? you going to ask them for a tax return or a birth certificate?
Then I was told I was 'being problematic'. Because again, they never directly want to confront anything or address how bigoted and arrogant their presumptions about other people were.
Used to be a really cool space where nobody cared about your appearance, which is why I got involved. all sorts of folks from all walks of life would come and mingle, there was never a really ever an issue. the only time we ever had to ask anyone to leave was one homeless guy who was harassing people and clearly unwell. this went on like this for YEARS
But new people who came in the past few years were completely judgemental douchebags who were only volunteering to score leftist brownie points on their instagram, and would get mad because the people we were helping were 'too white' for them to feel like they were good people. they kept proposing we no longer be an 'open space' but we be like lgbt only one night, latino one night, black one night... it was fucked up IMO. and if you pointed out what about asian or south india night, you were an asshole, because those groups aren't 'oppressed'.
anyway, it sucked and I am not going to participate in the active division of people based on their skin color or their sex. that shit is fucking gross. the joy of the space for me is that I could help anyone, regardless of their appearance.
the folks in question proposing this crap also were all white/asian tech workers... which six figure salaries, of course. trying to min max their social equity scores in their heads. also the same douches who wanted us to start applying for grant money so we could start paying the people who ran the space... e.g. themselves. because what is the point of volunteering and helping people if you aren't also going to get paid to do it?!
anyway i do other volunteer stuff now instead where none of that matters and nobody gets paid, but it's definitely not a third space, because it's outdoors.
Not only is social media designed to be addictive, it hardens our divisions. Combine that with a media ecosystem that saturates us with frictionless content at a scale and speed that are unmatched, a government intentionally stoking division and breaking norms, and an environment that primes us for manipulation, our psyches strain under the weight and the affects are apparent in the way we act and view the world. We haven't been assaulted like this before.