Social media (and television before it) provides a surrogate of connection — it creates the feeling of interaction without requiring vulnerability. You get the sense that you’re engaging with people, which partially fulfills the connection need, but you’re not actually showing yourself. You’re not vulnerable. And without vulnerability, there is no real connection.
This makes social media particularly insidious for lonely people. It offers just enough of a hit to feel like connection, dampening the natural drive that loneliness provides to seek real human contact. Meanwhile, the curated perfection of social media feeds reinforces the shame that drives loneliness — “I’m not shredded, I’m not beautiful, I don’t have the private jet.” The comparison makes what you perceive as wrong with you even more vivid.
Joe frames this as part of a broader societal pattern: more forms of avoidance, more geographic mobility (chasing opportunity rather than staying in community), more parental distraction — all compounding to make genuine connection harder to come by and easier to substitute with surrogates.
“What social media does… is it gives you a surrogate of connection. It says, ‘Oh, I’m interacting. So part of this thing is fulfilled, but I’m actually not showing myself. I’m not vulnerable.’ And so it’s not giving you the real connection that you need to not feel lonely.”