He charts the patterns in how his students engaged with music over his career and comes to the same conclusions you do, shifting from a very highly engaged relationship with bands and acts to a relationship with music as more of an aural thing. Often he finds people don't even necessarily know the names of the songs they enjoy, while in the past people would read liner notes and learn a whole origin story for their favorite acts.
He attributes it largely to the neverending algorithmic feed. You don't need to know anything about the music you like to find more music like it, the feed does it for you. Not always for the best of course. I recently started listening to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack and really enjoy it, but algorithmic feeds seem to associate it with a lot of anime soundtracks and Jpop rather than associating it with jazz and funk, the actual musical genres the soundtrack is in.