ours is an era of decline that has turned from the outward to the inward obsession with identity and “authenticity,” both personal and tribal, fueled by digital connectivity. Paradoxically, social media in this sense is anti-social, leading to the disintegration of community through a kind of connected isolation.

Bright lines once separated being alone and being in a crowd,” Nicholas Carr, the author of the new book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, told me. “Boundaries helped us. You could be present with your friends and reflective in your downtime.” Now our social time is haunted by the possibility that something more interesting... See more