Anyway, I'm hardly surprised that kids aren't spending time with friends in person, because nobody likes spending time with people in person as default. In my childhood in the 90s, I did it only for events that require it, like board games or sports, or when the alternatives are boring or unavailable, like when I haven't had a new game to play in a while, or my sister was hogging the internet.
The separation has only increased as at-home activities have gotten less boring and more available, and as physical presence became less neccessary for social activities like games.
AIM was great, we could chat without having to be physically together.
Battle.net was great, we could play games without having to be physically together.
Xbox Live was great, we could play games AND chat at the same time without having to be physically together. (many fond memories of high school nights quizzing each other on history while blowing each other up in Halo 3)
Facebook was great, we could share stories and media without having to be physically together, and asynchronously as a bonus.
I am not convinced that face-to-face interaction is an inherent good. The last several decades of technological development have been the story of people striving to spend less time with each other physically. Especially given the article's proposed explanation that "friend groups meet on instragram now, and kids without instagram are lonely", the barriers to telecommunication are lower than ever before.
Or maybe we should cut this thread short and save the discussion for Linuxfest Northwest.