I disagree. These linguistic innovations (including "like") serve to soften the message. It signals to the listener that the information is not based on considered truth, but on impressions, vibes. This is genuinely how its used, to signal the difference between a personal opinion and something somebody is convinced of. It's kind of like adding "but I could be wrong" to the end of everything
This is true in the narrow sense of it not changing the literal meaning of the sentence much. In a broader sense, using "kind of" a lot is part of a sociolect (in this caze zoomers) and you would lose some sense of beloning to that group by dropping it from your speech.