There's definitely a mix of good and bad as language changes.
Losing the word "meme" to the colloquial definition is a loss and a massive disappointment to me, because I think the gene analogy is insightful. When I talk to people about memes-as-in-memetics they're bound to get confused or even disbelieve me that it had any other meaning.
I've been accused of man-splaining in situations where I am legitimately being helpful, am an authority on the subject, and have good intentions, so I kinda don't like that words contribution, personally.
Literally should mean literally, and only literally, because it's useless if it doesn't.
On the other hand, there were all sorts of weird and redundant words that existed in English that probably shouldn't. This probably isn't true, but the word "praxis" seems like it exists because someone important misspoke when trying to say "practice" and then insisted it was a word in itself.
My impression is that the effect the parent talks about is real, though. There is a lot of regression happening in the language even as people get more literate, and the echo chamber of the internet reinforces trends into more lasting changes.
My biggest gripe of all with anyone effecting change on language lies with the marketing-focused actors who think they're doing their job well when they:
1) Appropriate colloquialisms and push them into the mainstream where they have more staying power than they otherwise would.
2) Refuse to expose people to words they're not familiar with because it might not appeal to them. Ever consider some people might want to learn new words? That starts with exposure. Lowest common denominator advertising is a well-funded stupefying force.
3) Create new words and change meanings to suit their narrative/sales pitch. A recent example is an article CNN ran about a new alternative to vapes and cigarettes. What they described is actually just a different kind of vaporizer. It emits nicotine vapor. They're calling it something different to avoid the stigma that shallow media coverage of vaping created, and making the word more ambiguous and less useful as a result.