r/SecondWaveMillennials

The smartphone theory is attractive because the timing seems too perfect. The FT points to the same pattern in different countries where birth rates among young people were relatively stable and then began to fall precisely when smartphones and mobile apps took off. The proposed mechanism is not something mystical. Less time for live communication means fewer couples, a slower search for a partner, increased loneliness, and a dating market that begins to live through screens.

However, Tyler Cowen doubts the flawlessness of this story. His objection is simple because in many places the decline had already emerged, so phones rather pushed it forward instead of causing the crash itself. Perhaps they made the drop sharper, especially among younger groups, but the demographic crisis is most likely caused by several simultaneously accumulated pressure factors. These are housing, delayed adulthood, weakening of couple bonds, social isolation, and a dating market that was becoming increasingly difficult even before the phone took center stage in daily life.

This is pretty accurate for me in the early & mid 2000s

Regis Philbin hosted Live! every weekday morning and he hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on ABC on weeknights.