You raise an interesting point. I used to be convinced by purely data-based and "science"-based points, but due to overly-confident sounding statistics over the past 5 years, I've stopped paying attention to it - particularly with regards to social sciences.
Unless we have cameras monitoring American men at all times, we do not know that they have reduced face-to-face socializing by 30%. What we do have is very intelligent people who are incentivized to produce research that makes waves; some of them are honest, others are not, and I don't really have the wherewithal to determine what the case is here. The reproduction crisis is real and simply accepting conclusions seems naive.
If a study doesn't pass the smell test, is not easily reproducible, and I have no personally trusted people who can vouch for the findings, then - yes - my feelings matter more.
So yes - it is legit for the op's feelings to be more important for op. We should applaud people for not simply accepting conclusions.
(In this case, my personal feelings, for what little they are worth,is that there are a lot of people who socialize less, and I assume it is because there are more people in cities and in circumstances where hanging out is harder.)