The forgotten art of Friendship — returning from our digital deserts

How technology reshapes our connections & the journey back to meaningful relationships

“Media determine our situation.” — Friedrich Kittler.

Last week, I experienced the joy of meeting up with friends — real people, face-to-face. I live outside the city, where many of my friends live; and so, the meetups have become less with time, given work and our family obligations. The anticipation was almost tangible, each glance and embrace a reminder of what we’ve been missing. It’s somewhat surreal to acknowledge, but this is our reality now — many of us have become so entrenched in our digital lives that we seldom lift our eyes to forge a true human connection.

Since 2011, I have extensively explored, in my book and on Medium, how social media — particularly Facebook’s model of friendship — contributes to a misleading sense of connection. We are lulled into believing we have numerous friends when, in actuality, the opposite is true. Now, we’re beginning to recognize the profound social void left by prolonged engagement with social media. It has isolated us within echo chambers of our own creation, severing the threads of genuine, tactile human interaction.