[personjerry]

My understanding is that our body systems have feedback mechanisms. But the system is complex. One system is this loneliness mechanism that values long term attachments and repeated communal interaction, and makes us feel lonely if we don't get them. But the other system is more immediate -- validation and entertainment trigger dopamine releases for a small happiness boost on the spot, i.e. with social media. And like a Goodhart's Law sort of scenario (i.e. metrics eventually get optimized for and cease to be meaningful) we've gotten really good at optimizing for that dopamine hit without all the other variables that would typically be associated with that validation. For example, perhaps when these feedback mechanisms were developed, you'd typically be physically in person, interacting with and being validated by a community, and hence the anti-loneliness system would've worked in tandem with the dopamine system. So we've actually actively gamed our bodies' systems for the cheap feel-good, and now we pay the price of long term loneliness.