The search function?
World changing; global health crisis. Sure. Extremely disruptive to education, a lost year for millions of students.
I don't have kids, but how is the pandemic their 9/11 ? Did they have field trips to ICUs that permanently scarred them for life?
And even for our generation, 9/11's effects depend on where you were at the time. Most of us will never know what New Yorkers experienced in Manhattan. Beyond the TV images, I'll never possibly understand the trauma of being there (or at The Pentagon).
- In a real way COVID was way way more disruptive to the lives of kids than 9/11 ever was.
Their entire social network disappeared overnight, they went from tactile in person learning to *trying* to learn via Zoom (which is totally nuts of you've ever been exposed to children at all).
Their grandparents and family got sick or died, others went q-tarded and nuts, they fell massively behind in their education and socialization. Families moved all over thanks to remote work. Our own school lost 50% of its student body as people left the HCOL area and went to sleepy bedroom communities around the state.
9/11 meant security checkpoints at airports, curtailment of personal liberties, and two collosal fuckups in the mid-east, but it didn't really affect the day to day life of the average American (and especially children) in any way close to how the Pandemic did.
So I guess I agree with your core thesis. COVID isn't this gen's 9/11, it's something much much worse.