And lately, it feels like everyone does.
Don’t get me wrong—I have wonderful friends and family, and I see them often. But I live alone. I work remotely. Most of my days are spent in my apartment, by myself.
That’s not always a bad thing. I have plenty of hobbies that I enjoy solo—reading, writing, playing music, watching movies. But I also crave connection, and spending this much time alone takes a toll.
I’ve cited this before, but a recent Atlantic article called this era The Anti-Social Century. Americans are now spending more time alone than ever before. But unlike past generations, we aren’t just dealing with solitude—we’re trying to replace it with something else.
Something artificial.
When you spend a lot of time alone, the first thing you notice is how long a day actually is.
This is great when you need a break after you’ve been going, going, going non-stop for days or weeks or months. It’s not so great when isolation is your default, and you’re stuck in an endless loop of solo meals and lingering silence.
So you do what we all do. You fill the dead minutes.
You check Instagram to see what your ex’s new boyfriend got her for Valentine’s Day.
You scroll TikTok and watch a baby DJ on a Fisher-Price turntable.
You open X to see what hate-filled nonsense Kanye is spewing.
You refresh Reddit, where someone is asking, "am I tweaking or are there animals in my bathroom tiles?"
(As it turns out, they were, in fact, tweaking.)
The worst part? You don’t feel better. You don’t feel worse. You just feel hollow.
Because social media isn’t really social anymore.
It’s a game of performance and passive consumption—a digital kingdom of distraction and detachment.
Earlier this week, I came across an article by Hugo Amsellem called The Social Renaissance: Make Internet Social Again. He breaks down the three eras of social media as he sees them:
1st wave - Profile-first: MySpace was like a vast digital city where people wandered, discovered, and connected through personal profiles.
2nd wave - Feed-first: Facebook’s feed turned social media into an algorithm-driven experience, ranking and filtering content based on engagement. This made discovery easier, but it also gamified interaction and created echo chambers.
3rd wave - Chat-first: AI-powered conversations are now replacing passive feeds with personalized, real-time exchanges. AI functions like a dinner party host, curating conversations and connections.
If he’s right, this means we’re moving away from the era of performative feeds and into a world where AI helps us find meaningful interactions.
In theory, that sounds great. Instead of mindless scrolling, we’ll have AI companions that understand us, guide us, and connect us with like-minded people. As Hugo puts it, it will “restore what the feed era stripped away: the feeling of being truly seen, heard, and understood.”
But will it actually bring us closer together?
Or will it push us further into isolation?
Here’s what worries me: If AI gives us the feeling of being “truly seen, heard, and understood,” what stops us from choosing that over the messiness of real human interaction? Why go through the discomfort of awkward small talk, of feeling out of place, of struggling to align schedules—when AI can instantly make us feel validated?
If AI becomes too good at mimicking human interaction, will we still seek out actual humans?
Or will we just get more comfortable being alone?
Ironically, this past week I also stumbled on a tweet by Nick Gray, giving single men advice on how to meet people without dating apps.
We’re going to gloss over what it says about my algorithm that it fed me this content, and instead focus on his main points, which were:
My first reaction? Yes! What a great idea! I’m going to start doing this!
My second reaction? Wait… isn’t this just how people met for thousands of years? We’ve reached a point where we literally have to train ourselves to be social again.
Think about the absurdity of that.
We used to just... talk to each other. Now we need tweet-thread “life hacks” to make it happen.
And this brings me back to my original point.
No matter how social media evolves—whether we stay glued to TikTok or embrace AI companions—the real, unequivocal antidote to loneliness is… drumroll please… SPENDING LESS TIME ALONE.
It’s not optimizing our feeds.
It’s not finding an AI companion that understands us better than our friends do.
It’s getting off the internet and doing real things, in real places, with real people.
So if you’re feeling like you spend a lot of time alone, here’s my advice.
Go outside. Do weird stuff. Embarrass yourself.
Walk into Home Depot and ask for spare parts you don’t need. Go to an Italian restaurant, order three glasses of wine and tiramisu, and pretend it’s the best meal of your life. Take ten tennis balls to a dog park and unleash total chaos. Walk up and down every aisle of your supermarket until you find someone wearing purple, then compliment them like it was fate.
It’s almost too obvious, isn’t it?
This advice isn’t groundbreaking. It’s not new.
And yet—we seem to need the reminder.
This past week alone, after the Eagles Super Bowl win and parade celebration in Philly, I got to see first-hand the power of community, of having something meaningful to celebrate with millions of strangers. I saw the way everyone came together, the way people danced, hugged, sang, shouted, cried, laughed, chanted, and cheered.
It made me realize that random, chance encounters with other humans—those that brighten your day even a little bit—are often one of the simple but profound things that make life worth living.
The idea of increasing your “IRL surface area” may sound ridiculous, and yes, it may be somewhat forced.
But that’s the point.
Because at the end of the day, you get to choose your adventure:
Will you do it alone?
Or with me, dancing in the rain, in the middle of the street?
And lately, it feels like everyone does.
Don’t get me wrong—I have wonderful friends and family, and I see them often. But I live alone. I work remotely. Most of my days are spent in my apartment, by myself.
That’s not always a bad thing. I have plenty of hobbies that I enjoy solo—reading, writing, playing music, watching movies. But I also crave connection, and spending this much time alone takes a toll.
I’ve cited this before, but a recent Atlantic article called this era The Anti-Social Century. Americans are now spending more time alone than ever before. But unlike past generations, we aren’t just dealing with solitude—we’re trying to replace it with something else.
Something artificial.
When you spend a lot of time alone, the first thing you notice is how long a day actually is.
This is great when you need a break after you’ve been going, going, going non-stop for days or weeks or months. It’s not so great when isolation is your default, and you’re stuck in an endless loop of solo meals and lingering silence.
So you do what we all do. You fill the dead minutes.
You check Instagram to see what your ex’s new boyfriend got her for Valentine’s Day.
You scroll TikTok and watch a baby DJ on a Fisher-Price turntable.
You open X to see what hate-filled nonsense Kanye is spewing.
You refresh Reddit, where someone is asking, "am I tweaking or are there animals in my bathroom tiles?"
(As it turns out, they were, in fact, tweaking.)
The worst part? You don’t feel better. You don’t feel worse. You just feel hollow.
Because social media isn’t really social anymore.
It’s a game of performance and passive consumption—a digital kingdom of distraction and detachment.
Earlier this week, I came across an article by Hugo Amsellem called The Social Renaissance: Make Internet Social Again. He breaks down the three eras of social media as he sees them:
1st wave - Profile-first: MySpace was like a vast digital city where people wandered, discovered, and connected through personal profiles.
2nd wave - Feed-first: Facebook’s feed turned social media into an algorithm-driven experience, ranking and filtering content based on engagement. This made discovery easier, but it also gamified interaction and created echo chambers.
3rd wave - Chat-first: AI-powered conversations are now replacing passive feeds with personalized, real-time exchanges. AI functions like a dinner party host, curating conversations and connections.
If he’s right, this means we’re moving away from the era of performative feeds and into a world where AI helps us find meaningful interactions.
In theory, that sounds great. Instead of mindless scrolling, we’ll have AI companions that understand us, guide us, and connect us with like-minded people. As Hugo puts it, it will “restore what the feed era stripped away: the feeling of being truly seen, heard, and understood.”
But will it actually bring us closer together?
Or will it push us further into isolation?
Here’s what worries me: If AI gives us the feeling of being “truly seen, heard, and understood,” what stops us from choosing that over the messiness of real human interaction? Why go through the discomfort of awkward small talk, of feeling out of place, of struggling to align schedules—when AI can instantly make us feel validated?
If AI becomes too good at mimicking human interaction, will we still seek out actual humans?
Or will we just get more comfortable being alone?
Ironically, this past week I also stumbled on a tweet by Nick Gray, giving single men advice on how to meet people without dating apps.
We’re going to gloss over what it says about my algorithm that it fed me this content, and instead focus on his main points, which were:
My first reaction? Yes! What a great idea! I’m going to start doing this!
My second reaction? Wait… isn’t this just how people met for thousands of years? We’ve reached a point where we literally have to train ourselves to be social again.
Think about the absurdity of that.
We used to just... talk to each other. Now we need tweet-thread “life hacks” to make it happen.
And this brings me back to my original point.
No matter how social media evolves—whether we stay glued to TikTok or embrace AI companions—the real, unequivocal antidote to loneliness is… drumroll please… SPENDING LESS TIME ALONE.
It’s not optimizing our feeds.
It’s not finding an AI companion that understands us better than our friends do.
It’s getting off the internet and doing real things, in real places, with real people.
So if you’re feeling like you spend a lot of time alone, here’s my advice.
Go outside. Do weird stuff. Embarrass yourself.
Walk into Home Depot and ask for spare parts you don’t need. Go to an Italian restaurant, order three glasses of wine and tiramisu, and pretend it’s the best meal of your life. Take ten tennis balls to a dog park and unleash total chaos. Walk up and down every aisle of your supermarket until you find someone wearing purple, then compliment them like it was fate.
It’s almost too obvious, isn’t it?
This advice isn’t groundbreaking. It’s not new.
And yet—we seem to need the reminder.
This past week alone, after the Eagles Super Bowl win and parade celebration in Philly, I got to see first-hand the power of community, of having something meaningful to celebrate with millions of strangers. I saw the way everyone came together, the way people danced, hugged, sang, shouted, cried, laughed, chanted, and cheered.
It made me realize that random, chance encounters with other humans—those that brighten your day even a little bit—are often one of the simple but profound things that make life worth living.
The idea of increasing your “IRL surface area” may sound ridiculous, and yes, it may be somewhat forced.
But that’s the point.
Because at the end of the day, you get to choose your adventure:
Will you do it alone?
Or with me, dancing in the rain, in the middle of the street?
