Digitally Connected, Genuinely Alone: The Mental Health Cost of Online-Only Relationships
Despite unprecedented access to social platforms, messaging apps, and online communities, rates of loneliness among American adults have reached levels that public health officials now describe as epidemic. The question worth examining is not how much we are connecting online, but whether those connections are actually meeting the psychological needs that human beings are wired to require. This article explores why digital interaction and genuine human connection are not the same thing — and wha