Not exactly. Before smartphones, sure, you weren't able to police the kid 24/7. The kid gets out of the house, comes back in the evening, god knows what happened in the meantime. But nowadays parents actually do have the means to exercise absolute control over their kids. That's a huge game-changer. First, most of interaction happens online. If you ban the kid from the internet, your kid won't have friends, problem solved. And it's not like kids nowadays rush to gather outside.

Adults grooming children in chats is absolutely a thing, this is completely different from talking any way they feel like to their peers face to face.