Honestly, it's probably the phones

Modern life, then, has not crushed our minds and bodies, turned us into atomized machines suffering from toxic levels of emptiness and isolation, or set us drifting apart without human contact or emotion. How did this hysterical misconception arise? Partly it came out of the social critic’s standard formula for sowing panic: Here’s an anecdote, the

... See more

Because people increasingly socialise online, there also has been an “actual erosion in social skills”. For younger people in particular, the loss of experience and opportunities throughout the pandemic has resulted in a lower appetite for social risk, he says: “They’re more comfortable texting than they are talking.”