Connecting to people used to be free. You saw your neighbors because you shared a stoop. You knew people at church because you went every Sunday. You had friends at work because you were in the same building every day.

Those structures collapsed because we redesigned daily life in ways that made them unnecessary. We moved to suburbs, worked from home, ordered in, and scrolled on our screens instead of calling people.

Every tradeoff makes sense in the moment. And now some estimates say we’re paying $500 billion a year just to connect with people. I guess loneliness has a price.

So what do you think?

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