A lot of this can be applied to modern day middle class life in Stockholm, Sweden, too for example. I guess SV is a bit more extreme, but the same things are there: the lust for gadgets, using podcasts to find conversational topics with your friends, sharing half-read articles, the "perfectly Instagrammed life", and, perhaps most of all: "The reporters all share photos and videos of the homeless person, but no one talks to him."