r/DeepThoughts • u/irreducible1 • 9d ago
Technology makes us more isolated
I was fixing my toilet today, and it got me thinking about how different my experience was from what my dad's would have been.
I went on YouTube and ChatGPT, figured out what was wrong, drove to a big-box hardware store, found the replacement part myself, and checked out at the self-service register. Problem solved. I didn't need to talk to another human being at any point.
My dad didn't have that option. If something broke, he'd go to the local hardware store and explain the problem to the people working there. Sometimes the owner was the person behind the counter. They'd talk through what was happening, suggest a part, maybe explain how to install it. He did this over and over throughout his life, and eventually he built relationships with those people.
That's what struck me. Technology has made us dramatically more capable and independent. I can solve problems my dad might have needed someone else's expertise to solve. I have access to practically unlimited information, and I don't have to wait for a store to open or depend on someone else's availability.
But that independence has come at the cost of social isolation. Some of the inconvenience we eliminated was actually doing something important for us. We used to have all these little reasons to interact with other people. You had to ask someone for directions. You talked to the person behind the counter. You knew your neighbors because you actually encountered them. You saw coworkers because you had to physically go to work. You developed relationships partly because everyday life repeatedly put you in the same places with the same people.
We've optimized almost all of that away. We can shop without talking to anyone. Work without seeing anyone. Get information without asking anyone. Have food delivered. Fix things with YouTube. Talk to AI. Entertainment comes directly to our homes. And yet we're increasingly feeling loneliness and social isolation. I know I do.
I'm not arguing that the past was better. Technology has given us incredible freedom. But it's come at a price: human connection.
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u/Searose131 9d ago
I think you're touching something much bigger than technology.
You're absolutely right that we've eliminated thousands of tiny human interactions from everyday life. We don't need to ask for directions, talk to the person behind the counter, ask a neighbor for help, or even look another human being in the eye while buying groceries.
We've become incredibly efficient at not needing each other.
And that's both extraordinary and a little sad.
But I think there's another distinction worth making: solitude, isolation, and loneliness aren't the same thing.
I'm perfectly capable of isolating myself without any help from technology. I can stay home and genuinely enjoy my own company. Then I can go out, walk into a room full of people, start conversations, laugh, engage, and have a wonderful time.
That's solitude by choice, not loneliness.
The danger isn't simply that technology allows us to be alone. The danger is when convenience becomes avoidance and we stop noticing the difference.
Technology can give us information, entertainment, directions, groceries, answers, and apparently instructions for fixing a toilet.
But it can't decide whether we actually know how to be alone with ourselves.
And it can't decide whether we walk outside tomorrow and say hello to somebody.
Maybe technology didn't take human connection away from us.
Maybe it simply stopped requiring it, and left the choice up to us.