What's your theory?

Why doesn't "normal" or "average" get the job done like it once did?  More and more it seems that, in order to get our attention, an event or issue must be over the top, sensational, extraordinary; with social media posts being a prime example.  

I think back to the utter contentment of my grandparents who raised 8 children (of 10; 2 died in infancy) on a subsistence farm in the rural south during the Depression and celebrated 73 years of marriage together before death separated them.  They are my Thoreauvian idyll of contentment.  On late winter afternoons/early evenings when the dark came early, we would stop to visit them at home, without notice.  The way we would find them, consistently, still inspires me:  their chairs were pulled close, side-by-side, by the dwindling flames of the fire.  The TV and radio were off.  All was silent except for the occasional whip and whistle of the wind against the woefully uninsulatetd windows or an occasional POP from the fire.  The room was dark except for the flickering light of the flame and a small lamp, lit on a table in the corner.  They were so deep in conversation that they often didn't know we'd come until we opened the door.

I've always wondered, "what were they talking about when we interrupted?"