[SirMaster]

>1. time spent in front of screen means you aren't in a face to face interaction with someone

Even if you are video chatting? I video chat with family and friends all the time to keep in touch over longer distances. I feel technology is helping there a lot.

[vouaobrasil]

If there were no video chatting, people would have more incentive to meet in person or not move away as much. Although a small proportion of people will have video chatting over nothing, the GENERAL trend will be more distance between people, even if in SOME cases it means less distance and more meaningful communication.

That's the key also: a small subset of people who benefit in the short-term does not mean that the technology doesn't move things in a worse direction in the long term. After all, the introduction of new technologies like video chatting sometimes just solves problems created by older technologies, possibly leading to a situation of decreasing LOCAL maxima, each of which seems like it is an improvement because it is, after all, a local maximum.