this, alway laugh when people try and act like everybody in the past was conversing with each other on public transport. People haven't changed in the last 50 years.
My theory is that most people don't want to have to make small talk with random strangers whose #1 form of entertainment is making small talk with random strangers in public places. Such people have and always will exist, and they will always complain that they can't get people to talk to them/entertain them because for some mysterious reason everyone around them has their nose in a book/newspaper/screen/etc. :)