People in rural areas, no matter which country, will almost always be worse off in speaking a foreign language than their urban counterparts.

I agree it is a generational thing, and I believe this does have a lot to do with the Internet and the "international culture" it promotes.

Have you compared some European countries in your age category? It's true that 22-year-old Germans speak English well, but a similarly aged person from Romania, Poland, Denmark or Albania will almost certainly still be better at English than the German.