In her 2013 book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, MIT professor Sherry Turkle explored the role of technology in human connection. She worried that we’d replace real intimacy with superficial online connections. As we developed even more artificial connections, we’d lose or forget something at our core.

“People are lonely,” she wrote. “The network is seductive. But if we are always on, we may deny ourselves the rewards of solitude.”

When the book was released, some accused Turkle of being a technophobe. Turns out, she was right on the money. In fact, studies suggest that she might’ve even undersold tech’s problems a bit. Turkle worried that people would forget how to be alone. Turns out, one of the biggest problems we have is that we still feel alone—even when we’re technologically surrounded.

A new story from Bloomberg reminds us about something that we’ve already known: Social media can make us feel lonelier. Even though social networks such as Facebook and Instagram are built around the promise connecting people with one another, Bloomberg reports that “Internal researchers acknowledged that Meta’s social networks could be exacerbating loneliness instead of alleviating it.”

From the story:

Another study from November 2018 … found that certain Facebook experiences increase loneliness—like seeing “negative posts or hurtful comments,” seeing friends having fun without you, or seeing posts that lead to social comparisons. Facebook use made people feel “less lonely” than some other activities, like using Twitter or dating apps. But people also said using Facebook increased loneliness more than other activities its researchers surveyed, including video games and TV.

Research also found that more time you spend on Facebook, the lonelier you’re likely to feel. Another interesting stat: One study found that 42% of users felt simultaneously more and less lonely after using Facebook.

That doesn’t seem to make sense, right? But in context, I totally get it. When you’re on Facebook or another social network, you really are “connecting” with people, in a way. You read updates from friends, see pictures of family. It can help us feel a part of the action even when we’re scrolling through our feeds.

But while those updates may make us feel a little closer to loved ones and acquaintances, they also remind us how far away we are. And sometimes—if we see friends at a get-together we didn’t attend or vacation photos from associates from a place we’ll likely never be able to see—that can spark even more difficult emotions: jealousy or insecurity or anger. It can make us feel more isolated than ever.

It reminds me of what it was like to attend “virtual church” during the height of COVID-19, when most churches shut their doors. That experience helped made me feel connected to my own particular faith community. But even though that connection was better than nothing, it also emphasized that the connection couldn’t replicate what “church” is for so many people. You can bring the sermons and songs into your home, but you can’t really duplicate community.

Again from Turkle’s book: “Whether you are online or not, it is easy for people to end up unsure if they are closer together or further apart.”

With COVID restrictions being lifted or relaxed in most parts of the country, we feel like we’re getting back to normal again. We’re filing back into churches and movie theaters. And perhaps many of us are grateful that the internet and social media allowed us to connect with each other as much as we did.

But the connective give and take of Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms remains. While it can be better than nothing, it can’t replace real, face-to-face connection. God designed us to live in community—incarnational real community, not a virtual one.

Back when the Apostle Paul was doing his thing, he communicated with many a church via letter. When he was traveling as much as he was, it was the next best thing he could do to being there in person. I’m sure if the internet had been around back then, he would’ve done plenty of Zoom meetings with the Ephesians and Colossians.

But he knew letters could not replace human contact.

“As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy,” he wrote in 2 Timothy 1:4. In 1 Thessalonians chapters 2 and 3, he tells his faraway flock about his “great desire to see you face to face.” In Romans 1:11-12, Paul writes, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.”

Connection, real connection, can’t be done virtually, no matter how good the technology is. The Bible reminds us that while we can and should use whatever means we have to connect, true community requires more. It requires presence. It requires us to be with one another.

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