It's the same over here too, especially in the old days. People were much appreciative of personal social interactions in which they could talk about a lot of things freely with other people. I think there was much intrinsic value and a level of depth in these type of situations.
Nowadays, I think the internet has made us more selective in who we choose to interact with and the type of feedback we would like to get. But this often brings the tendency to close off from the bigger world and trying to fight our battles alone. For me, I still default more to the old form of socialization. But I mostly switch between the old and new forms of socialization.