I am a massage therapist and quite often have conversations with my clients while in session that are basically small talk as most people don't like not talking for an hour or more.

I think small talk is still a thing but people aren't as open to starting conversations with strangers in the middle of the day or at random places. We all know how busy people are so don't want to intrude, also in general talking to strangers can tend to lead to convos you want to get out of quickly.

The small village chats aren't a thing anymore mostly because people are either crazy busy or have options other than going out and talking to someone on the front porch.

People still talk to each other though, just in different ways. Plenty of ppl doing small talk in gaming chat rooms or online.