The whole issue of shyness got worse when cheap and powerful smartphones became available to everyone some years ago. So now, a normal random interaction on the street/bus etc has to compete with an abundant world of music, videos and information.
People some times tend to forget that asking someone a question is not the same as googling something. Even the simplest human Interaction has many minute layers of meaning to our subconscious. Feeding ourselves dat from a small screen will never makes socially smarter.