More Connected, Less Close

In his 2016 book Deep Work, Cal Newport warned of the impact digital technologies were already having on our capacity to concentrate on demanding cognitive tasks. In a more recent New York Times opinion piece, he goes further, suggesting that we may be losing not only the time for deep thinking, but the capacity itself. Drawing on emerging research, he points to a troubling trend: under the influence of constant digital stimulation—and increasingly, AI-supported thinking—our ability to sustain attention, reflect, and engage in complex thought may be steadily eroding.

What happens to our relationships under these same conditions?

In 2012, with Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, psychologist Sherry Turkle opened an important conversation about the influence of communication technologies on our social bonds. Her research led to a conclusion that has continued to fuel debate: the very technologies designed to bring us closer may, in fact, be pulling us apart.

More recent research suggests that smartphones, while highly beneficial in many respects, expand our evolved needs for self-disclosure and responsiveness across broad virtual networks. In doing so, they may undermine immediate interpersonal interactions. This creates an evolutionary mismatch between the technologies we use and the social behaviours required to form and maintain close relationships.

Since these early concerns were raised, technology has become even more deeply embedded in how we think, learn, and relate. Society is now grappling with the consequences of its widespread use, particularly for children and adolescents. Social media companies are increasingly challenged in courts by younger users who have grown up with these technologies from their earliest years.

In everyday life, the change is visible everywhere. Walking down the street, sitting on the metro, standing in line at an airport—our devices are rarely out of reach. Moments that once allowed for spontaneous human contact—a glance, a conversation, a fleeting connection—are now often absorbed by the screen. Opportunities for small, unplanned relational encounters quietly disappear.

We have expanded the number of our connections while weakening the conditions that allow them to deepen.

The average teenager today maintains hundreds of social connections online—often between 150 and 300 per platform, with many far exceeding that number. My daughter, who is nineteen, has several hundred contacts, and this number continues to grow as her social and academic life expands. At her age, in the 1990s, my own relational world consisted of a handful of close friends and a slightly wider circle of acquaintances.

What strikes me is not only the difference in scale, but in experience. She often describes feeling overwhelmed when opening her communication apps—there are too many messages, too many threads to respond to. No matter how much she engages, it is never enough. The result is a constant, quiet sense of failing others—of not being a good enough friend.

The challenge is no longer how to find connection, but how to sustain it. The choice many young people face is no longer between isolation and connection, but between the abundance of connection and its depth.

In earlier times, relationships were also lost—through migration, life changes, distance—but rebuilding them required effort, time, and emotional risk. Communication technologies have made it possible to maintain relationships across distance, which is undeniably valuable. Yet something subtle has shifted.

I think of the phone booth where I used to call my parents. I would stand there with a prepaid card, watching the minutes run out, knowing that each word mattered. We chose carefully what to say. We listened differently. The connection, though brief, was intense—almost concentrated.

Now I text them almost daily. The connection is constant—but thinner.

As relational networks have expanded, the quality of individual connections has often become diluted. This is the paradox: we are more connected than ever, and yet many people feel less connected.

The erosion of depth is not only a matter of numbers, but of time and attention.

Research suggests that forming a friendship requires a significant investment of shared time—roughly 50 hours to move beyond acquaintance, and closer to 200 hours for real closeness to develop. Intimacy remains time-bound. It also requires a particular kind of attention: sustained, undivided, and engaged.

Yet this is precisely the kind of attention that is being steadily eroded.

Even when couples spend time together, screens are often within reach. Attention is fragmented, continuously pulled elsewhere. Many couples I see in therapy describe precisely this experience: they spend time together, they organise activities, they “do the right things”—and yet intimacy remains elusive.

When I suggest a simple experiment—to switch off all devices and spend one evening fully focused on each other, whatever the activity—many find it surprisingly difficult. Those who do try it often report something striking: the conversation deepens, the connection feels more alive, even physical intimacy shifts.

It is not that we have lost the capacity for closeness, but that the conditions required for it are no longer readily available.

We are now entering a further phase of technological development, in which artificial intelligence begins to compete not only for our attention, but for our relational engagement. People increasingly turn to AI to process difficult experiences, to reflect on their emotions, even to explore their relationships.

There is something both fascinating and unsettling in this development.

Human relational needs are well understood: the need for validation, for recognition, for being understood, for making an impact on another person, for expressing care and receiving it. These needs persist throughout the entire life cycle.

AI systems are remarkably good at simulating responses to these needs. Some of my clients, who use AI tools to explore their internal and relational worlds, notice how readily these systems validate their experience, affirm their thinking, and mirror their emotions. The response is often immediate, coherent, and reassuring.

But something essential is missing.

When these relational functions are performed by a system that cannot feel, we are offered something that resembles what we need, but does not fully meet it. It is like offering a hungry child a toy cookie—convincing in shape and colour, but without nourishment.

A fundamental component of intimacy is mutual involvement. Human relationships are shaped not only by what is said, but by the presence of another mind—another subjectivity that can respond, resist, misunderstand, and be affected.

AI can simulate dialogue, but it cannot participate in this mutual process.

This makes the experience of connection with AI both powerful and limited. It may soothe, clarify, or organise thought—but it does not replace the complexity of human relational exchange.

If, as Newport suggests, these technologies are already diminishing our capacity for sustained thought, they may also be affecting something equally fundamental: our capacity to remain present with one another.

This is where the two domains converge.

As with any powerful tool, the effects are uneven. Those who already experience relational deprivation may be particularly drawn to these forms of interaction. Digital technologies—from smartphones to AI—are highly engaging, and in some cases addictive. Where opportunities for meaningful connection are limited, the pull toward simulated connection may become stronger.

The question, then, is not whether technology is good or bad for relationships, but how it reshapes the conditions under which relationships can develop.

And here, therapy offers an interesting contrast.

In therapy, we deliberately create conditions that have become rare elsewhere. Phones are switched off. Attention is undivided. Presence is practised. The relationship does not avoid tension—it moves toward it.

Much of the work happens precisely at the moment where contact would usually be lost: when something difficult is said, when discomfort arises, when withdrawal or defensiveness begins. Instead of moving away, we stay.

The capacity to remain in contact at the point of tension is one of the defining features of a living relationship.

Outside the therapy room, this is much harder to sustain. Distraction is always available. Avoidance is easy. The pull of the screen offers a constant alternative to the discomfort of staying present.

And yet, the capacity itself has not disappeared.

The ability to be present, to give attention, to remain with another person—even in difficulty—is still available to us. It is not a lost skill, but an underused one.

Perhaps the question is not whether we are condemned to navigate increasingly shallow relationships, but whether we are willing to recreate the conditions that allow depth to emerge.

To put the phone away.
To hold the other’s gaze a little longer.
To tolerate the moment of discomfort instead of escaping it.

In a world saturated with connection, depth may become less a given—and more a choice.