That's an interesting data point. I think covid did a lot of damage too. Kids spending formative years stuck in their room texting just didn't get the chance to build basic social skills and habits.

But it's hard to separate out that effect from just earlier and earlier exposure to modern phones. The class of 2018 was ~10 when the iphone 4 came out. And even that wasn't nearly as addicting as modern phones - it was tiny, and didn't have vertical scrolling video (except for Vine, briefly).

It's also difficult to build social skills if your peers around you are stuck looking down at their phones as opposed to looking at those around them.

If you're wanting to meet new people and chat with new people but a large chunk of them are sitting on their phones it makes it more difficult.