This sounds trivially correct but the short article doesn't do enough to support it other than the few anecdotes that are mentioned. This is similar to today when, as an example, the NYT tries to get in front of a trend by highlighting and cherry picking a few examples of people who are doing what one of their articles purports in so many words is more widespread than it really might be.

Then take a statement like this:

"many laypeople had a “working knowledge not only of electricity, but also of the buttons they pushed and the relationship between the two,” according to Plotnick"

What does 'many people' exactly mean? Nothing at all you wouldn't say 'many people got sick from the pandemic' you'd back it up with some type of figure or number.