It is likely a function of density. India is particularly heavily populated and their cities are very dense.
Suburbia and lower-density neighbourhoods will necessarily reduce the number of chance encounters, and thus possibilities to make friends. In many developed nations the only places to "be social" can often also be places in which you can only participate in through the lens of commercialism (e.g. going to a sporting event, paying to play pool or darts at a bar, etc.). This is often described as the loss of the "third place." It's heavily associated with sprawl and car-centric development, but even without that there's tons of places that don't have nearby public parks or plazas that they can just go and exist in without spending money. The pretext of a place to socialize and hang out changes if you need to spend a significant amount of money to participate.
Another reason could be that having easy access to cheap digital entertainment probably reduces the number of times most people voluntarily leave their house to go be social. I know at least for myself that I can easily hole up in my home and avoid the outside world if I want to. You have to make a conscious effort to decide to go out and do social things, and that can sometimes be very difficult in tandem with my previous point about sprawl. Do I really want to drive somewhere and spend money to be social today or should I just find a new show on Netflix? A hard problem when we structure our own incentives against our desires to make more friends!
Suburbia and lower-density neighbourhoods will necessarily reduce the number of chance encounters, and thus possibilities to make friends. In many developed nations the only places to "be social" can often also be places in which you can only participate in through the lens of commercialism (e.g. going to a sporting event, paying to play pool or darts at a bar, etc.). This is often described as the loss of the "third place." It's heavily associated with sprawl and car-centric development, but even without that there's tons of places that don't have nearby public parks or plazas that they can just go and exist in without spending money. The pretext of a place to socialize and hang out changes if you need to spend a significant amount of money to participate.
Another reason could be that having easy access to cheap digital entertainment probably reduces the number of times most people voluntarily leave their house to go be social. I know at least for myself that I can easily hole up in my home and avoid the outside world if I want to. You have to make a conscious effort to decide to go out and do social things, and that can sometimes be very difficult in tandem with my previous point about sprawl. Do I really want to drive somewhere and spend money to be social today or should I just find a new show on Netflix? A hard problem when we structure our own incentives against our desires to make more friends!