A similar article at The Atlantic from September by Olga Khazan: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/loneliness...

I think both articles make some good points, esp outside the topic of loneliness. We are defining the role of 'friend' differently now than we did in decades past, as well as the activity of friending. Historically, most of us might have defined someone as a friend if we spoke with them only once a year to spend a day fishing or a weekend visiting their town. Now we connect with dozens of people much more frequently but much more briefly. We actually count our number of friends and publicize that number as if it a longer list were an accomplishment unto itself. That's new.

We also seem more resistant now to dedicating a larger chunk of time to share with another person, and probably do so much more rarely with multiple others. Maybe that's because it's so much easier now to schedule our days more densely than ever before, and tuck nuclear family and various chores into smaller slots now. Regardless, I think friendship is likely to be less less spontaneous and less casual now than in decades past.