| Honestly, I think that is related to the algorithmic collapse of facebook. Facebook was legitimately good for keeping people connected in the first decade or so. Then the monetization enshittification happened, both at the overarching corporate level of facebook and internet advertising in general, and with people becoming exhaustingly self-promoting, which devalued trust between friends and degraded new connections. The weird thing about the world is seeing everyone turn into me when I was in my teens and twenties ... and I was a product of extreme social bullying that really only alleviated in my 40s. Which scares me because it means there is some either low-key or high similarity to the trauma / rejection / betrayal I felt from society being exerted on a massive scale. I used to go around errands trying to engage with people as little as possible, but now, maybe it is projection, I see the effects of isolation on so many people in public, that I get great joy in having a quick exchange with someone. Granted I am now far better at making smalltalk, strangely I slingshotted from being absolutely abysmal at it to well above average. Smalltalk almost seems like rebellion against the oppressive antisocial time-stealing inferiority-inducing powers that have gatewayed using the mobile phone into all parts of people's lives. |