It's totally true. In the 1980s we as kids had to learn a more complete mental model of what was happening inside the computer, just in order to operate it, even without necessarily programming it (although we did that too). Starting in the late 1990s computers became more like appliances. Nowadays university students haven't a clue what's happening behind the fancy interface.

I'm not saying appliance-like functionality isn't a good thing ... for the masses it undoubtedly is.

But as the OP's article points out quite nicely, it's not conducive to lighting a fire inside a young mind.

I remember going to the back of computer magazines and transcribing pages upon pages of BASIC code corresponding to various games ... (on an Apple II) ... those were definitely the days.