> They are definitely incorrect. One pop culture way of looking at this is fairy tales. Not too long ago we used to tell children that if they went into the woods they could get eaten by people who lived there and lured children into their houses.

You're probably right that in the past there were more messed up events, which had high chance of being traumatic.

But you're forgetting the role that Perception has in that equation - from the perspective of a human, a traumatic event isn't a comparison exercise to all possible events, or to past events on previous generations.

Your subjective experience is bound to your context.

In that sense, I wouldn't be shocked if there was more trauma now from the amount of stimulus were getting throughout our life, and the volume of dramatic changes we go through, and the amount of people and chaos that comes with it.

For example, we have way more accidents, and we also have higher survival rates from accidents due to safety measures, and a advanced medical care. So, many deadly events in the past became accidents now, and by consequence, a high chance of it being a traumatic event, sometimes for the victim and the family (directly or indirectly).

Not to mention that our life styles don't even allow us to process traumatic events properly.