[derleth]

> Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.

Technology has addressed these more than you will ever realize.

As has been said already, technology greatly reduces isolation for anyone who isn't young, healthy, heterosexual, cissexual, and of the majority race in the region they find themselves. The ability to form connections based on mutual interests even when geography is against you is easily the difference between living and dying alone and finding a place where you actually fit.

What's more, the ability to make connections anonymously is essential. Being of the wrong persuasion, whatever that persuasion is, in the wrong environment can be grounds for anything from social ostracism to death. Without the technology to anonymously make connections with others, there are people who would risk death just looking for someone they'd enjoy spending time with.

The only people who think technology can't help with what you call 'existential needs' are the people who are lucky enough to not already know what I just posted. And they are amazingly lucky indeed.

[hosh]

Technology will get you only so far. Really connecting with someone is between you and that person, even if mediated by technology.

Companionship, social relations are not the same as love and affection, though they are related. Love isn't really about mutual interests, though mutual interests can mediate that. Mutual interests make it easier for people to understand and be empathetic with each other, but it is well within human possibility to be empathetic with one another without mutual interests.

I make a big deal of this because, while technology made it easier to connect with other people, I want to make clear that technology is not a replacement for connecting with other people.