Board games are more popular than ever before. I would guess a lot of RC airplane use has been replaced with drones.
Model building, that I'm not so sure about. Or engineering toys in general. Lego is bigger than it ever was before, but that's not quite the same thing. Not sure if it's sucking all of the air out of the market. Miniature dollhouse kits are getting more popular, thanks to Chinese manufacturers like Rolife and Cutebee. But beyond that, it's something I wonder about a lot, and I don't know how to answer that.
Twice a week I play board/tabletop card games with two seperate groups in two seprate states. Currently surrounded by kit cars I bought from/with a group of colleagues.
"do kids still bowl", I can't help you much there. Kids are currently socialising both online and in person in ways you and I can't even conceputailize.
TLDR it's not all doom and gloom, HN comments isn't the best for this.
But just in general, this suggests to me more of a sign of the public increasingly turning toward passive or, if you will, packaged entertainment. Does anyone still build plastic models, fly RC airplanes, get together for card games, or bowl?
Maybe though someone in my neighborhood will start up a doom-scrolling league that the wife and I can join. And there's always the watercooler where we can suggest to others that they watch some streaming shows we saw that they've never heard of.