exposure is not intimacy

closeness in the digital age

i have this friend (of a friend) who i see every day. i know what she had for breakfast, her preferred cycling studio, what client she landed for her agency, where she and her boyfriend went for their five-year anniversary, the dog bed she got for her poodle (use her code for 20% off your first order), and her mental health struggles.

depending on how frequently i check instagram that week, i know her better than friends i’ve known for 5 or more years.

you know her; you follow her too.

social media has become the town crier. it’s where i go for news, either checking or sharing. there’s been a lot said about the democratization (or policing) of the internet and how it has evened, then broken, the playing field. it’s given tremendous visibility to marginalized voices, built—and taken down—careers, and irrevocably changed our brain chemistry. my first beat as a journalist was ‘internet culture’ right before the internet became the culture.

the industrial revolution of technology aside, social media has also altered my personal relationship with other people—friends, acquaintances, co-workers, exes, and enemies alike. for better or for worse, it keeps us tethered to each other through a series of 0s and 1s.

denouncing the internet, at this stage, is as futile as rejecting cars. you may not like it, you may not use it, but the majority of people you know do and depend on it. what i find upsetting about social media these days is how it’s fostered a false sense of intimacy through exposure.

back when i was online™️ more, i noticed that my catch-ups with friends started to dwindle. by the time we organized a real call or dinner, there was nothing to talk about. we knew exactly what was going on in each other’s lives through those 9:16-ratioed stories. any and all questions (“did you hear about—” “what did you think of—” “have you been to this—”) could be answered by a swipe of the finger.

thanks to the internet, i’ve never been more in the loop with my friends.

also thanks to the internet, i’ve never felt more disconnected from them.

celebrity is a new phenomenon in the grand scheme of human history.

our brains are not biologically equipped to be known by so many people. now, by celebrity, i mean anyone. i have 16k followers on instagram; i’m not sure i know 200 of them. i worry that because we have the ease of broadcasting our lives, we’ve become lax about actually sharing it with the people around us. i’ve seen more job promotions and engagement announcements on close friends than i have through a text message or in person.

and if anyone can see these updates, does your view actually constitute as anything more than a statistic?

same as you, i have an influencer friend who can perform herself for her audience the way most of us change clothes. i asked her how she continues to engage her followers despite the oversaturation of internet personalities. she shrugged and just said, “i just talk to them like they’re my friends.”

the answer depressed me more than i expected—so much so that i’m still thinking about this conversation months later. i don’t want my friends to talk to me via their instagram following like we’re friends; i want my friends to talk to me, 1:1, like we are friends.

in my early 20s, i learned that you can’t post your way through loneliness.

in my late 20s, i’m learning that you can’t replicate intimacy with digital proximity. in the last three years, i’ve lessened my screen time in a hail-mary attempt to bolster my relationships outside my phone. my friend jordan risa wrote beautifully about a ritual she has with her elderly neighbor. when i read the comments, i thought about how far we’ve strayed from genuine quality time—that a walk around the block feels like a novelty.

this detached sense of closeness feels stifling at best and suffocating at worst. the former u.s. surgeon general already declared loneliness to be an epidemic; the false familiarity that social media gives us has only exacerbated that. we know that everyone curates their feed (even their ‘candid’ crying pics), but we haven’t seemed to shake off the habit of taking social media at face value.

how much would you know about a person if you took away their digital avatar?

how much would they know about you?

parallel with the rise of ai is an uptick in in-person experiences. the data doesn’t lie: people are hungry for connection. it’s why we’re all willing to shell out $175 just to stand in a room with strangers. i’m just wary that we’re losing our muscle to build intimate relationships on our own.

there was a brief period in human history where social media was the bridge to getting to know someone. now, it’s replaced it entirely. i feel like rose from the titanic, gazing wistfully at the past and waxing nostalgic about how things used to be. the internet has overwhelmingly improved our lives, but i long for the days when we had to call each other for updates.

every couple of months, someone i know (sometimes me) will suggest that we bring back letter writing. there is almost always unanimous agreement. it never happens. my theory is that social media was only ever meant to be appetizers for communion. but with how accessible and prevalent it is, it’s become a replacement for the real meat of relationships: effort.

i’ve heard even the most charismatic people i know lament how hard it is to make friendships. it’s even harder to keep them.

with internet proximity, you don’t have to worry about picking the right hangout, consistently following up, learning conflict resolution (!!!), or shouldering the awkwardness that comes with getting to know someone for real. there’s a desperation that comes with trying to take a relationship from acquaintanceship to friendship. i’ve never felt less dignified than when i’m trying to get to know someone, or letting someone know me.

but i miss the effort. i miss the first-date feeling of an early friendship. i miss deepening that bond through coordinated hangouts and inside jokes and experiences that can’t be replicated through an algorithm. these things might be endangered, but they aren’t extinct (yet).

if i’m being honest, i haven’t seen your instagram story.

i may have tapped through it, but i make an active effort to not consume my friends’ content (unless they need the engagement for business). i do this to preserve our relationship because i want to spend hours at a restaurant, catching up on everything in your life, and still run out of time for all the updates.

so if you’re reading this, maybe let’s do that instead of just giving a like.