Not the op, but my guess is people weren't glued to their smartphone all the time like they seem to be these days. In '97, '98 I met a large group of folks at a diner they and I both frequented. They just started chatting with me and we hit it off and I started hanging with them.

These days, if the diner even allowed them to hang out and drink coffee for hours on end, they'd be nose deep in mobile FB or whatever zombification they prefer - rather than have "deep" and interesting in-person conversations.

Not quite what I meant but I do think that Facebook and the like endow your existing social network with an extreme and unnatural gravity that makes it harder to meet new people online (outside of a dating sites) and in person.

I had a meeting a few days ago but it took them a while to unlock the door. Ten years ago we'd all have engaged in some small talk but on this occasion everyone immediately dove into their screens.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said that meeting people was "effortless" - they came to me.

Back then, people would look for interesting profiles on Yahoo's proto-social-networking site at profiles.yahoo.com and then send that person a message on Yahoo Messenger... this was before the bot infestation. I developed several friendships that started as random IM messages.