Do high school students have to work harder nowadays?

I happened to come across this old comment thread where Richard Serlin wrote:

Starting early is huge. If you’re a super-workaholic, with great endurance and energy, since kindergarten you’re going to achieve far more by age 40 . . . working your ass off since kindergarten and getting into Harvard as an undergrad makes it much more likely that you get into an Ivy PhD program, and with the resources, help, and prestige you get there, much more likely that you get a job in an Ivy department, and with the resources, help and prestige you get there, . . .

To which I replied:

I’ve been working hard since I started college, that’s for sure. But before then, no, I didn’t work hard. In the U.S. system (at least as it existed when I was a kid), it was perfectly possible to coast up to the age of 17 as long as you had the right background and abilities.

So here’s my question. Do kids have to work harder in high school nowadays? (I think we can take Serlin’s “working your ass off since kindergarten” as hyperbole.) My friends and I did our homework in high school, and I did take some hard classes, but I didn’t actually work hard, setting aside the very occasional late hours when projects were due.

I do get the impression that kids spend more hours doing homework than we did 45 years ago, but if it’s everybody putting in these hours, then it’s not about workaholics. It’s kinda hard for me to compare, even when I see actual high school homework assignments.