They're leaving small towns because small towns are not the place to look for education and work.
Idk what constitutes small in your book. I grew up in towns of around 10k to 23k people. Had no trouble being a nerd, playing video games, reading, watching anime, coding.
Now I'm in a city an order of magnitude larger, and more lonely than I've ever been before.
In the eastern US, I didn’t know anyone prior to moving there for work. The city was very anonymous, to put it lightly. The only people talking to you on the street were homeless.
I’d go to meetups and flit around, but it was hard to put down roots where everyone was friends with their college buddies from MIT or Harvard. The school I went to in the West isn’t famous for anything other than football.
I moved to Germany figuring that I didn’t have much to lose, being deracinated and all. It’s strange how many more people try to talk to you on the street. Mostly drivers and older ladies asking for directions.
Since I don’t speak German, I’m very isolated now though. It’s easy to discount interactions with service workers at CVS or Whole Foods when you’re going through them, but I think that it’s the sort of foundational thing even loners like myself need.
My experience is that in smaller towns you see the same store clerks, mailmen, and other service people again and again and they will recognize you. Some will have a little chat with you, and you get to talk about your life every once in a while, even if just a little. That kind of daily interaction is a heck of a lot more than one might have living in the isolation of a big city where the same service people are too busy serving too many faces to really recognize or chat with you. For a total loner, it could mean a lot.
10k is not a small town.
Did you leave the vicinity of that small town because you were into reading?
Or did you leave it to get an education & a job?
Even playing video games is pretty cool and mainstream now.