I would bet 100$ that over the last 30 years, qualities such as the one you described dropped massively.

I saw an old picture of a biology note book from a junior high school kid from the 50s. It was masterful and so beautiful. Writing, phrasing, vocabulary, layout, drawing aesthetics. These are all 'useless' in our days of IoT and neural network, but to me it hints at the fact that kids before were way finer raised than today.