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Notes -
I personally think the causality goes the other way on that — Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone in 2000, based on a 1995 essay, and the forces of atomization were already incredibly strong by that point. In some ways, the internet has actually mollified some of the trends against human connection, even as its algorithmization of connection has made the quality much worse. I think people resort to the internet because of the atomization that has already occurred.
Before the internet, people were still disconnected and lonely, they were just disconnected and lonely watching TV or reading books instead of binging YouTube and reading tweets. If anything, I think the great gender disconnection that would lead to our present was well in place by the 90s. I Love Raymond was not exactly a positive depiction of marriage.
Yeah, I've seen people in this general sphere argue that early helicopter parenting and Stranger-Danger paranoia killed a lot of outdoors socialization, combined with the isolation of suburbia and the decline of latchkey kids. The Internet and video games, as much as people might malign them when the topic of the modern Battle-of-the-Sexes comes up, at least provide some sort of alternative to "literally nothing."
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