I think technology is a tool and inherently it does not make users more or less lonely. It can do either depending on how it is put to use.

Pervasive loneliness is I think a product of the capitalist political-economy. Most people who work are drained of the time and energy that could have been spent socialising. It also atomises us as individuals and cultivates an individualistic mentality. If neighbours don't have to rely on each other but rather have to work for eight hours a day so that they can afford to be customers of large coporation which meetd their basic needs, they will not be able to find the time to form tangible social bonds.

Technology then plugs this hole because it is something people can use from the comfort of their homes after a tiresome workday. And again we have to end up being customers for corporations who because of their profit motive do not solve this problem but only exploit it. So I go with this option:

would you say that such Tech toys and gimmicks are potentially a placeholder for our own emptiness…?