Series: 1 of 7
Picture two people.
The first works on a distributed team. She sends and receives messages all day, and video calls fill her calendar. By any measure of contact, she is one of the most connected people you know. Ask her who she’d call if something went wrong, and she pauses for a long time.
The second lives an ocean away from his closest friend. They trade a few voice notes a month, some months fewer. Ask him whether that friend would show up if he needed her, and he doesn’t hesitate.
For years, the public conversation about technology and loneliness has been stuck between two camps. One says our devices are hollowing us out. The other says we’ve never been more connected. Both are pointing at something real, and both are missing the same thing.
Contact and connection are not the same variable.
Contact is how much communication is available: messages, calls, notifications, reach. Technology has multiplied it beyond anything earlier generations could have imagined.
Connection is something else. It’s the felt sense of being known, of being able to count on someone, of mattering to them. It can exist with very little contact. It can be absent alongside a great deal of it.
That’s why this series won’t argue that technology is the problem, or that it’s the solution. Here, technology is the variable under investigation, not the villain.
The question I want to pursue is this:
Under what conditions does greater connectivity deepen human connection, and under what conditions does it erode it?
Over the next six installments, I’ll work through five inquiries: what different cultures mean by “connection”; whether digital contact complements or displaces in-person relationship; what strengthens belonging and mutual support; what weakens it; and which social structures turn contact into connection. Then I’ll come back to this question and try to answer it.
Try This
Think of one relationship where you have constant contact but don’t feel known. Then think of one where contact is sparse but you’d never doubt the person.
What’s different between them?
Try not to answer with the technology. Answer with what is actually happening between the two of you.
I’d like to hear what you find.