I have tremendous sympathy for our youth today who have very complex social and communication issues to wade through. But, that does not excuse them from proper use of that technology and to make the effort to learn good communication skills.
I am by no means a grumpy old luddite ... I paid for and bought my first computer in 1989, I had been using them since 1978 when the company I was a partner in became the first Apple distributor outside the US in the world. If you wanted an Apple ][ in Canada, you had to buy it from a dealer who was a customer of mine.
Our local school division had the highest ratio of computers to students in Canada by 1980. Over the last 28 years I have spent far more on software than hardware, and I've spent some real money on hardware. My current laptop is four years old and still has better performance and hardware than most 2016 models being bought right now.
I am comfortable with UNIX, Linux, Windows and MacOS and a few others that few people know or care about. I have been paid by Linux distros to write documentation. That might not sound like much, but trust me, getting money from a company that gives it's software away is no mean feat. Getting anyone involved with Linux to actually make any effort at all on documentation is no small feat either. They contacted me, not the other way around, after reading a How-To I wrote and posted in a forum.
I am only saying these things to show that I am definitely not just aware of modern tech, but I was there on the cutting edge for more than three decades. Teens and young adults learn from me, not the other way around. I know the issues, and I can still remember what it was like to be 18.
Here in Canada there is the beginnings of a push to make texting while driving a Criminal Offence (equivalent to Felony in the US). I have no doubt that it will take no more than five years before we see it come to pass.
When I was a teen, in the early 70's, we saw some films, I don't remember the names, of automobile crashes, mostly from the late 1950's and early 1960's. They were very graphic. And I mean very graphic.
I actually doubt you could show these films in a classroom today, despite how effective they were in getting my classmates to take a long, sober look at the art of driving and the consequences of inattention.
It didn't stop impaired driving, but it laid the groundwork for making impaired driving a Criminal Offence. (The drunk driving laws were in place then, but enforcement was different. Today, it's a zero tolerance thing with all Law Enforcement here, plus penalties have steadily increased.
Young people have different ways of thinking than older adults; we know now that the brains of youth are still evolving and are in many ways primitive until the mid 20's. It makes teaching lessons somewhat challenging when you are up against social mores, because that is king when you are young. But I think there is merit in the idea you can "scare some people straight", as the saying goes. Maybe we need some new videos for the classroom.