Surrounded by blue, white marks invade my inbox. The messages are short, and I squint to decode the lines. No cordiality, no politeness. The conversations are only numbers, half the asking price. It’s followed by vehement bargaining because I appear richer. A friend explained that it’s normal to bargain, another that it’s a language barrier, and the last that selling on social media attracts this kind of people. But what kind of people are those? Those who do not know how to spell “hi”, a word common to most western languages? Those who do not abide by the basic customs of society? I wonder what the threads with their friends look like: 294, 60, 77, 36. Perhaps there is a new language composed of numbers…
Or maybe it's a symptom plaguing our society.
Everywhere, retail workers are replaced by automated machines, preferred for their speedy process devoid of interactions. Yesterday, I paid for a shampoo and a toothbrush at the robotic check-out instead of walking to the cashier. My excuse: an interesting podcast. How many of us prefer to hide in a bubble of comfort rather than reach out for the smile waiting behind the rolling carpet? And when soulless exits are impossible, rarely do we gaze up to meet colorful eyes, too eager to return to the post forever printed on the internet.
In the last few weeks, I have been aware of my inability to remember the smile I encountered, too absorbed by my day to connect with the human standing inches away. Each face blurs with the previous, and the life stories become irrelevant murmurs in a cycle of routines. Despite their beating hearts, strangers on the streets become no more than avatars moving in the same universe. These “small and meaningless” interactions have been shown to be essential to developing a sense of belonging and overall well-being1. Our inability to recall the eye color of those we encounter is worrisome, especially in a world already fostering isolation.
The disease doesn’t stop there. Online platforms have become our main form of communication, reshaping how we write to friends. No longer do we stay in touch with letters, instead, reels and gifs have become the main currency. No longer do we respond with That's so funny, instead, we resort to emojis lacking personality. It's almost as if a heart is a good enough answer to I love you. We don't say This made me think of you, we simply rest assured that tapping the sharing arrow is enough. Most of our communication now happens online, and updates after updates, personality was removed from our feed to make it easier for our lazy fingers. And somewhere, social media became everything but social.
The Internet may have made long-distance friendships flourish and dating across oceans possible, but as every fantasy reader will know, there is always a cost to magic. You may have endless social interactions, but they will remain one-way. The pictures we like on Instagram, the tweets we read on X, the posts we share on Facebook are read alone, with no chance for nuances and arguments. Some will argue comments are there to start a conversation. Personally, I find them often more prone to venting than conversing. Text after text, we lock ourselves in our interpretation of the world and slowly forget that solutions are built by human complexity, not picture-perfect surfaces. Yet, if there is one thing every evolutionary scientist agrees with, it is that humans took over the world thanks to their ability to connect, because they were extremely social234. But what happens once we lose basic social capabilities?
The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate” ~ J.B. Priestley
Somewhere, as I wrote my thoughts down, it turned political. Whether from the left or the right, polarization rules our systems. Extremism at its core is an inability to hold another's point of view, a blind belief that our view is the only one possible. In this age of political uncertainty, I cannot help but wonder how it is rooted in daily communication, or rather, the lack of it.
If “small and meaningless” social interactions are not practiced, are we not becoming strangers to our communities, isolated in our comfort, lonely in our ignorance? If messages are answered with a reaction, are we not unlearning how to connect? If social interaction is preset and limited by an app, isn’t nuance absorbed? If we remain safely tucked behind our screens, are conflicts ever resolved? If the main form of communication is shortened, predetermined, and edited to meet ease, are we communicating, or pretending? And where are the genuine connections in this world of editing and posting?
I don’t pretend that talking with the cashier standing behind the rolling carpet will change the world, nor that putting your phone down will solve it. I recently met a woman while traveling, whose view of the world is often opposite to mine. Had I not met her at a moment of vulnerability and willingness to connect, I am not sure she would have become one of my closest friends. Our forced proximity enabled deep conversations, often resolved because despite the polished surface we were taught to display, our cores hold the same values.
Now, I don’t wear headphones on public transport, I look into the eyes of the cashier, and lean into the conversation started by my barista. While sitting at a coffee, a woman settled next to me and, together, we reflected on humans’ need for nature and whether generational differences are at play. A few minutes later, the barista shared his view on British vs Swiss work culture as his enthusiasm for coffee brightened his eyes. I doubt any of these moments would have happened if I had been wearing headphones.
So perhaps, moving away from technology, remembering someone’s eye colors and writing back instead of reacting will remind us we are part of an evolving society made of a thousand colors.
And perhaps, this will change the future.
Ascigil, E., Gunaydin, G., Selcuk, E., Sandstrom, G. M., & Aydin, E. (2025). Minimal social interactions and life satisfaction: The role of greeting, thanking, and conversing. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 16(2), 202-213
Bregman, Rutger. Humankind: A hopeful history. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Harari, Yuval Noah. "Sapiens: A brief history of humankind." Asian Review of World Histories 3.2 (2015): 265-267
Bohannon, Cat. Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution. Random House Canada, 2023