Grandmas around the world thank you for your mild inconvenience.

I would guess most people socialize less as the get older. Having kids and constantly drowning in work and household obligations will kill your social life real quick.

I definitely became less domesticated during the pandemic and I’m still not where I was beforehand, socially. I was even in my late twenties when the pandemic hit, so I should be less susceptible than teenagers/younger children were. It was worth it not to kill a bunch of people by spreading disease, but it wasn’t easy.

That said, I also lived alone and went over 8 months without seeing another person in the flesh, which is unlikely to be the case for younger people.

This is the first generation that grew up living as much online as they do in the “real world”

Idk about that. The internet was already heavily adopted by the mid-00s. Millennials are as online as any generation after them. Hell, the Boomers are the most terminally online. Facebook hit the Olds like crack hit the inner cities.

GenZ might be the first generation that's self-aware enough to notice how fucked it all is. They're the ones gagging on the excess of social media and AI slop, which older generations seem to be swallowing placidly.

I think, a lot. The shift during the pandemic of requesting uniquely online presence definitely sped up a trend that could already be detected. And because it was unprecedented, “adults” weren’t able to guide younger ones along the transition.