I think loneliness is on the rise due to a mix of different factors. Let's think of Instagram or pretty much any visual focused social media we have - I think it's way easier/lazier to process pictures, videos and alike as a lot of people are more the visual kind I'd say (I could be totally wrong though on this) and letting them impact you and while the marketing industry also successfully claimed social media it's just too "easy" to accept what you've seen to be true. After all you've seen proof, right?
Sadly we also live in a less critical thinking era right now I'd say as such things, same with "Fake News" (aka Lies(God, I hate this term "Fake News" so much...)), are getting consumed by its own. I'm not taking myself out of this because yes, there are articles/authors I'm less critical about so I'm actually not fact checking it every time and I can imagine it's like this for everyone. We all have a blind spot that we just accept as to be true, after all, it's easier on the brain too.
I'd also say it comes into play that at least online you're able to block people you just can't deal with/don't want to deal with, or leave communities behind, exchanging them as you like. You're learning less commitment by doing so. This also leads to a more ineffective way to actually deal with uncomfortable feelings in itself and topics you're getting exposed to with real life contacts. Since you're more used to blocking etc, the resilience decreases, so you're rather withdrawing from your social contacts as soon as you equal them with stress.
Social media offers a comfortable bubble so why dealing with things outside of it since it only get's on your nerves, you can't hear it anymore, it's too stressful etc? After all you have like-minded people and that's easier.
In the end people end up "starving" from unmet physical touch as they're not able to experience them in the same way. People need close, physical contact, it lowers stress hormones and puts the body more at ease.
I also do see kids spending already more time online than in real life which is especially bad for their development overall. I'm not saying that everything is evil but that there are reasoned concerns about it.
Personally I also think the feeling of loneliness keeps increasing because we are living in a very fast paced time. We are so conditioned to reply as fast as possible to others, that, for example, we might not even notice we upset our real life contact with it. We might be physical present with that person while we are divided actually. We are only living side by side. There's always something new, something to "hunt" that we "need" to see (it goes without saying that our primal part of the brain loves to hunt). And to quote Barney from HIMYM "New is always better" - except it isn't as it's damaging our relationships in this case. And shows why issues like Ghosting and more exist.
We didn't learn yet to pace ourselves, we are not living in the moment but always in the future and the future makes us anxious, lets us withdraw and keeps us isolated while also ironically connected as a whole humanity as everyone experiences it. But distractions help, at least for a short time, right? Even tho we will feel more and more disconnected since we are spending more time either at workplace, on social media or other things to unwind from a stressful day to day living/issues we would need to face. It's another form of escapism.
But we can only distract ourselves so much, the feelings still remain and will show up in the time there's no distraction anymore, like at night, in bed, when your thoughts wander and you're not being that highly stimulated anymore so you're suddenly left with yourself alone, there's no validation coming from outside, nothing to keeps the mind busy and people are feeling lonely because of it.
Have you found any ways to combat loneliness or escape from the distractions of the modern world? What works out for you personally?