Are Older Americans Suffering From Mean World Syndrome?

An 84-year-old Kansas City man was arrested for shooting a 16-year-old black youth who went to the wrong address to pick up his siblings.

Older Americans recently were involved in shootings where, in retrospect, there apparently was no real threat.

Is this purely coincidental? I think not.

I suspect that older Americans are suffering from a virulent strain of mean world syndrome.

The term “mean world syndrome” was coined in the 1960s to describe the impact of media on the viewer’s perceptio…