Also there's plenty of old timey black and white photos of people riding the LIRR or similar where everyone is holding and reading a newspaper.

It's not. I really like public transport. It is cheap (I pay 22 euros a month unlimited), I can do something I like like reading or watching something. I don't have to worry about when my parking expires or having to return to a car. It's pretty ideal IMO.

You do have to ignore the people around yes but I don't find that a problem at all.

because it has other people on it? personally I find that sitting down and getting passively carried near to my destination is way less stressful than paying attention to the road that whole time - not to mention finding parking. You don't end up exactly at your destination, but a little bit of walking is good for you.

Assuming you live in a locale with a reasonably efficient system. I've heard some horror stories about north american public transport. Other countries tend to do much better with timetables and routes.

It really depends, I would much rather travel by NYC subway or Vancouver SkyTrain or Seattle light rail if my origin and destination are within walking distance. It's the least horrible option in many cases. Good luck to anyone's stress level and pocketbook trying to commute by car in much of NYC and pay $550 a month for parking.

The other related phenomenon is "I dont believe culture and society can change, so I pick something I am vaguely aware of existing in the past. The people who are old enough to be there know the comparison makes no sense, but it allow me to stop the discussion about change".

Like, there was some reading of newspapers and magazines, but not that much. They were large, you know. Most people stared silently out of the window. Multiple people reading newspapers on the bus would be rare occurrence. And it was NOT noisy unlike tiktok video.

Did nobody read TFA?

> Americans are speaking less and less to one another. The number of spoken words uttered by the average person fell by 28% between 2005 and 2019.

The point is that just because two things are used to avoid a third thing doesn't mean they're comparable when one of them is much less disruptive to those around you. There are people who don't think being forced into interactions because there didn't happen to be a way to decline without being considered rude is a better state that allowing people to opt out. Framing it as "both are examples of the same problem" is based on the (in my opinion flawed) premise that it's an objective problem in the first place rather than the previous social norm that was tilted towards extroverts now having more accomodations for those who aren't as extroverted.