Not sure if you meant it this way, but this comes off as a pretty flippant take on humanity’s evolutionary history and psychology as applied to a middle school classroom. There’s a lot more going on than just humanity’s supersocial nature.

Of course, we’re social animals lol but within that reality, we have largely been able to communicate effectively and engage in learning. What the original commentor is saying is that those kids, apparently one third of each class, are severely lacking in any functional communication skills and framework.

Throughout our species’ history, we have developed efficient ways of communicating and learning. These kids mentioned are not trained to consider (or, in some cases, are completely oblivious to) how their communication and behavior is perceived by peers, teachers, and concerned parents and bystanders. As was stated in the original comment, many kids think/care only about how their actions and words are perceived by their target audience. That has always been part of the learning process, but I see it has become more prevalent and somewhat louder/more pronounced in older kids than it has been in the past.

I see a lot of factors feeding into this, but I think most of them boil down to the increased isolation and anxiety experienced by teens and preteens, today, and the lack of exposure to/familiarity with efficient, substantive, and effective communication.

Growing up is confusing and frightening enough, and, now, these kids are exposed to a lot more information that’s increasingly curated into smaller and smaller sound bytes and memes designed to highlight outrage, anxiety, and disillusionment.

I think a lot of the “brainrot” culture we see today stems from young people wanting to communicate nonsensically as they are desensitized by the sheer amount of similarly coded content and communication they are exposed to. I grew up with other ways to shut off my brain and deal with the anxiety and inherent loneliness that comes with growing up and finding more of a sense of self, but these kids don’t have the same breathing room as I did.

To your last point about education systems fighting against social behavior, I actually see the opposite. A massive amount of studies and practices have been implemented on how best to utilize the double edged sword of our social nature. Nearly every professional development training or meeting I go to deals with encouraging positive social interactions and discourse. I think if you look to schools and districts that actually walk the walk of education, you’ll see a lot of progress.