Are we becoming disempowered individuals in the modern world?

I was reading a book the other day that got me thinking about how so many people are unable to take charge of their lives, (despite or due to) the availability of knowledge and technology at their finger tips. In most areas, people tend to cede the control to others (people or machines). Intense specializaion has lead most of the human kind to know MORE and MORE about Less and Lesser.

Take for example an employee of any company, who works very hard at whatever he is assigned/supposed to do. He thinks he is a small cog in a giant wheel. He works diligently with little appreciation for how he contributes in the bigger picture. Now, this employee could be the CEO or a fresher. It's the exact opposite of 'often', that people feel "empowered" for doing things in the true sense.

Individuals also seem to have NO control over how their work impacts the society or the world, let alone their own health. Food companies decide what we eat; Pharmaceutical companies decide what medicine we take, Entertainment companies decide what we watch on YouTube or TV and Pollution regulation authorities decide what air we breathe.

Educational organizations are there to super-specialize or super-generalize the entire crowd of students - leading them to jobs they have no clue about. Most of our 'knowledge' comes from the advertising magazines/billboards, political blabbermouths, corporate propaganda and very less often there are the rare pears of genuine wisdom (restricted to the luckier few among us).

Everyone keeps telling us that we are all "BETTER EQUIPPED" than ever before to do things, then why is it that we see so many disempowered individuals who have absolutely no control over their lives, their families, their work and the social context in general. Does this mean that the 'system' controls us, when it should be the other way round?
Let the engineers here speak.