[arstin]

Good points, especially how unplanned interactions have become interruptions. Slumping through life looped into a slab of infinity glass used to be an absurd dystopia...

Sure, most interactions never develop into anything lasting, but you only need one to click every few years...or even a lifetime!

Excuse a slight tangent, since it was on my mind today: I'm sure I'll be defensively sniped at as an "extrovert" here (lol), but I do think we have a duty to each other to be outgoing, warm, forbearing...to make every effort that others feel at ease. Techies will sometimes make icky demands like that a social interaction must be "useful". Yes, looking random people in the eye and talking to them...even when they're not giving you anything...is tough. I know well that it can be among the hardest and most draining things. But I, anyway, believe we're obliged to learn to do so well and to suffer through it.

Resolving to take on this incredibly modest, day-to-day responsibility of making others feel acknowledged and at ease---of trying to bring out the best in everyone---should surely be one key step in addressing your own loneliness.

Obviously part of this skill is respecting the extent to which others want left alone. And I, for one, prefer to spend most of my own time far away from people. Please don't snarl at me for not understanding "introverts"! :) But the point is of course tied with how tech can affect what people in fact expect and want and how tech can adjust the "cost" of an interaction (smartphones, public spaces optimized for laptops inside and cars outside...and on...and on...).