Communicate? Yes. Socialize? No.

It's easier to socialize when you are physically beside someone.

There are less kids playing in the street. They are no arcades.

As a parent you must bring your child to other children. You must encourage or mandate extracurricular activities.

We are not a society where children are naturally surrounded by other children in their 0-4 years.

We are not a society where adults are naturally surrounded by similiar adults outside of the in office work space.

Its a matter of proximity and what is the default state.

>> We are not a society where children are naturally surrounded by other children in their 0-4 years.

That's shocking to hear. We live out in the sticks, about 25 minutes from the nearest town (of ~10k people) and we make sure our kids get some social time a couple of times every week. From homeschool coop groups to random meet ups/activities planned by parents via Facebook to farmer's markets, library/museum trips, churches, parks, visiting neighbors... seems like my kids are always doing something which seems to help them socialize. I think it would be sad if they just stayed home all the time. I suppose being in a traditional marriage where I work and the wife raises the kids helps contribute to this being able to happen.

> From homeschool coop groups to random meet ups/activities planned by parents via Facebook to farmer's markets, library/museum trips, churches, parks, visiting neighbors

All of these other than visiting neighbors are exactly the things nightowl means when saying they're not naturally surrounded. You're having to arrange the homeschool co-op, you're arranging playdates on Facebook, you're taking them to the famers markets and museum trips. You're facilitating them going to these places, probably by way of car.

Comparatively, growing up most of my childhood days other than school and one weekly extracurricular most of my time was just naturally playing with the kids in the neighborhood. We'd all just play in each other's yards, we would just go to the playground ourselves, etc. These days you would have CPS called.

"people just suck at socializing" is no explanation at all. It is just an observation of a state of affairs. In fact, I don't think people are any worse at socializing than we have been in the past. What has changed is that our entire social lives are mediated by parasitic technologies meant to maximize engagement and our entire economic lives are mediated by a market ideology which only incentivizes maximum flexibility in order to meet our economic needs. Social phenomena do not materialize out of thin air, nor are the cause of evil wizards plotting somewhere. It is, as the saying goes, the economy, stupid.

The question then becomes why; it's not some random fluctuation where every single person happened to fall on the left side of the spectrum of socialization. Have to look at systemic issues for that.