Two things going on I think.
First of all, at the moment we have much higher case numbers than at any time since last spring. Purely in spread terms, coronavirus doesn't target one age group over another. So there are simply higher numbers of people across all age groups becoming infected. So as a consequence, we're going to see a higher number of people across all age groups requiring hospitalisation.
This does not mean that the virus, or its effects on the body, has changed or become more severe. There is no evidence showing this to be the case. The 'new variant' (bear in mind there are around 20,000 identified variants of covid, with more being picked up all the time) appears to spread more easily, but no one is suggesting that it causes more severe illness, or proportionately affects more younger people.
The other thing that might not quite be happening yet but will definitely start to happen is a shift in the ratios of who is going into hospital. Statistically, we're going to see a (slight) uptick in the proportion of (slightly) younger people entering hospital over the coming weeks.
As I understand it, this will be a natural consequence of the vaccination programme; as more over-80s are vaccinated, the sheer numbers of cases and deaths in that group will drop.
This doesn't mean that 'more' younger people are being affected in pure numbers terms. And it doesn't mean that there is 'more risk' to younger people in terms of effects. It's just that the data will show a shift in the proportions of who is affected, because the most at-risk group should now start to see some protection.
So we might still see a greater proportion of cases and hospital admissions being younger people. (It's worth noting that a lot of the time, 'younger' is not defined.)
Again, this does not mean that the virus itself, or the illness it causes, has changed or worsened at all.
A friend of mine works in a London hospital; he is pretty blunt about all this and he says the typical ICU patient is much the same as it's always been; fat, unhealthy men 60 and up. They see the odd younger, healthier person but it's rare. (That's not to say that fat, unhealthy men deserve to be there, or don't matter because they're fat and unhealthy. It's more to demonstrate that the demographic of the typical covid positive patient hasn't changed much.)
Whether the press will report this with the context in place or not is anyone's guess...
The press articles at the moment are, I believe, there to nudge people into compliance. The NHS is close to overwhelm, is overwhelmed in some places, and this needs a strategy to manage it. That doesn't mean the stories aren't true, in some respect. But they are also a useful public behavioural management tool; a lot of people pay much more attention to their daily newspaper than to a politician on TV, for example.
The other thing to remember is that shock sells, and if it bleeds, it leads. There have always been a small proportion of younger people who end up in hospital with covid. There have always been a small proportion of younger people who are affected by almost any serious illness. These stories tend to make the press purely because they are shocking and rare.
Many years ago, when I was younger, a close friend of mine died aged 22 of a heart attack. She had no underlying conditions (they did a post mortem, as you would imagine) and there was no 'lifestyle' reason that she would have one (i.e. she wasn't overweight, a heavy drinker or anything else). Ultimately they couldn't find a medically identifiable reason why an otherwise healthy 22-year-old would have a fatal heart attack. She just did. It made the press and there were lots of scare stories around about 20-somethings having heart problems, because there are in fact a tiny number each year who this happens to. But the fact remains it's incredibly rare.
I would also caution against reading too much into social media especially. There are a lot of damaged people out there making up frightening fake stories and posting them on MN, reddit, and goodness knows where else. They were doing the rounds back in April and they're doing the rounds again now. There were tales of 'healthy young mums in their 40s' dying of covid that were simply not true (I know this because I saw the exact same posts copied and pasted on various forums, with the details of the 'victim' changed to make it applicable to the forum's audience). That's not to say that all posts aren't true, but it's worth remembering that anyone can post on a forum, or Twitter or Facebook, and nothing is verifiable unless it comes with credible data attached. So it could as easily be lies as truth.