They probably are. Social media algos are quite literally social programming algos. We will look back at this point in the future wondering "how did people not see it?". We've had a few of these periods in the past already.

i lost my phone and waited a couple weeks to buy a new one... so while on the bus or walking down the street, my head was up observing people. as you say, it's like they were under a spell, and I just started noticing because i wasn't under the spell . funny enough it was some of the homeless on the bus that were still greeting each other with smiles and enjoying the bus ride, i assume because they didn't have a phone and recognized each other from the neighborhood