Yep, old-school cigarettes are vile, disgusting things which lead you to a miserable lung-cancer death. Avoid ever starting since it is so hard to quit.
I don't know where you're from, but in place where I live, I wouldn't say that things is getting worse here. I would say that significantly less people smoke nowadays than it was 15-20 years ago. It's not just people's mindset is changing, but it's also getting too expensive to smoke.
But on the other hand more people starting to smoke things like IQOS, vapes and weed also. Not sure what is more harmful, but trends is changing. Curreent generation ternagers don't even look at these old school cigarettes.