People say either tech increases or decreases atomization. Maybe math will help convey this best:
let's say you have x meaningful relatinoships and y is your desired minimum number of meaningful relationships. Ignore that I'm overlooking here the very real possibility of having more connections than you'd like.
- you're all good if x / y is about or more than 1
- you're lonely if it's noticeably less
That y is kind of a function of many influences though. In particular social media encourages you to form more connections. y value goes up, so x/y probably goes down, because you probably aren't making connections as fast as you desire greater connection. Because social media technology can't magically convert your wish for greater connection into actual valuable human relationship, it just makes you lonelier. The wider a net you desire to cast, moreso. And dating apps.. you are probably swiping like on dozens if not hundreds of people before meeting up.. that x/y value is gonna hit the floor
But you know what I'm just realizing? What if there were apps that made you less lonely by making you set your y=x.. can't tell if it's bleak or healthy to reduce your expectations for connection in that way, lol..
Online isn't real, tech is not life, and probably industrial forms of economies hinder your ability to meaningfully spend sufficient amounts of time not directed towards economic output so that you could increase that x value without making a disciplined effort if it's quite low to start with.