When you have your own place, and your best friend no longer sleeps in the next room, I imagine it becomes even more difficult to not gravitate toward digital interactions—tweeting your followers, live-streaming your day, or Skyping whomever. But if the internet is your only connection to the world outside of your empty apartment, there are fundamental human experiences you’ll miss out on. Experiences that are much more satisfying than whatever is on your phone.
“When you engage someone in a face-to-face relationship, there’s something very radical that happens,” Gaztambide explains. “We pick up on certain facial cues, signs of emotion, and the dynamics of somebody’s speech—and naturally, without thinking about it, we put them together and mimic those reactions.”
That mimicry tightens the bond we organically have with that person. “We get into a process of talking, responding, and reacting that we’re pre-wired for.”
I’m guilty of being a compulsive social networker. Even after leaving Facebook & Twitter, I still need that human interaction and it’s hard to truly be anti-social.