[nine_k]

You have time and have nothing better to do with it than to kill it? My condolences. Try having kids; it rids you of free time quite well! :)

Really, with current online life, people have contact less with random strangers and more with like-minded or otherwise interesting individuals. If in an [abstract] countryside you have to talk to you neighbors because there's no one else around, on the Internet the choice is wider.

OTOH your neighbors may be nice and interesting people; some of my neighbors are. Also you might have some local common interest, or could e.g. lend power tools or kitchen utensils to each other sometimes.

[sliverstorm]

You miss the point. I'd rather share a fire with living people, than a glowing screen. Even if those people are less witty than the glowing screen.

Not to mention the internet tends to form echo chambers. It's good to meet people who are not like-minded...

[cylinder]

It's not about staring at the screen. It's about using that screen to contact your friends who live beyond your street to come over and sit around your fire.

People forget that 100 years ago that wasn't really an option.

[sliverstorm]

Friends who live twenty minutes away are far less likely to join on a casual and/or routine basis.

BTW, the telephone was invented nearly 200 years ago. Although, yes, travel options were more limited.

[nine_k]

None of us "misses the point", but our use cases are obviously different.

And yes, meeting people that are not like-minded is very important; is it beside a fire or through a glowing screen, does not matter.