For sure, I remember that. I remember that even the most popular, non-techie kids got on ICQ, though it was probably more around 1999 by that point, but every kid that had a computer at home had an ICQ account (though how often they could actually go online and use it was another question, thanks to dialup lol)
Though, still, only the geeky kids like myself were spending numerous hours online and having a high % of socializing occuring online, even then. The non-computer-geek kids would come online for like, an hour or two. I had already been online for hours before them, and would still be for many hours afterward (it helped that we got ADSL in 1998, after so many years of 14.4/28.8 dialup)
Though, still, only the geeky kids like myself were spending numerous hours online and having a high % of socializing occuring online, even then. The non-computer-geek kids would come online for like, an hour or two. I had already been online for hours before them, and would still be for many hours afterward (it helped that we got ADSL in 1998, after so many years of 14.4/28.8 dialup)