I wonder if the real difference is that everyone has earbuds versus playing through a speaker
We had earbuds in in early 2000s too, just not the wireless kind.
An important part of my observation is that everyone is using them, not just that they are available
And Bluetooth still doesn't have a good "headphone splitter" function to plug in 2 or more sets of headphones, does it?
Most of my friend nowadays (40-42 year old group) either don't listen to music at all or just put on pop radio at work and pay no attention. And almost all of them are weirdly proud of their lack of interest in music and wear it like a bizarre badge of honour. Sucks being the only one left who is interested in music.
I don't really know what my friends listen to these days.