> The short term, however, may be different. After decades of insubstantial change — all those alarms notwithstanding — a few indicators point to a genuine drop in numbers of friends, or activity with friends in the 2010s

Seems a bit like cherry-picking to say 'the short term' when it covers a decade and a half of data, including the current period which is spurring the latest concern. This period directly contradicts the title and as a parent I can definitely see this issue is real, at least for my extremely limited sample size. Maybe a better title should have been 'The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic is Finally Coming True"