It wasn't the internet that was the problem exactly. 90s internet was still a haven for nerds because you had to choose to be there over somewhere else. You weren't carrying the net around.
2008ish was really probably the most massive change in this. About every cellphone turned into a web device at that point and social media started it's mega boom as a phone app.
Even when you were out in public everyone was on the net.
Maybe a couple years later. The iPhone came out in 2007 but it was probably around 2010 before it really exploded. I was doing email with an earlier smartphone before that but 2010 or so is when mobile web really exploded and everything associated with that.
And, yeah, the 90s weren't really a mobile era for most people overall. I got a laptop at work in the latter part of the decade because I sort of begged and pleaded but it was mostly unconnected. Even when I became an analyst in 1999, I had to buy my own laptop for travel as I was just given a PC. (And WiFi at conferences was still an adventure.)
2008ish was really probably the most massive change in this. About every cellphone turned into a web device at that point and social media started it's mega boom as a phone app.
Even when you were out in public everyone was on the net.