Too easy to blame the apps IMO, although they're certainly making things worse. I went to college just before dating apps became ubiquitous and from my experience hookup culture was as much a thing as it is now, only people would first drink their inhibitions into submission before making bad decisions.

If I had to take a (very uneducated) guess I'd say as a society we're currently experiencing an epidemic of unhappiness, especially amongst young people, and what the article describes is just one of many symptoms.