And realistically, as a fellow 80s and 90s kid . . . what benefit is there to this always-on 24 hour news extravaganza?

There are not enough relevant things going on in the world to merit a 24-hour news cycle, so the media has to make things up to fill the gaps. But once they make things up, they're pathologically incapable of distinguishing their own made-up crap from actual relevant news items.

So we spend the day glued to our phones flooded in crap.