Brett Cooper

And that is not an exaggeration.

Now, in reply to that comment somebody else said on Reddit, I actually think this is a huge point.

Plus, more than discomfort, I think the internet provides connection, or at least a sense of it.

Shit, I'm talking to you.

right now.

But it's also way easier, way less pressure, no stakes, more interesting, no social anxiety, which increases actual social anxiety.

The content is curtailed to me and it doesn't necessarily need structure to make sense.

Plus small talk is non-existent, which to this commenter, they say, has always been a huge waste of energy.

Now I would disagree with that.

I think that small talk is how you build, have a good rapport, you make a joke.

Sometimes the small talk then grows into something else.

You kind of have to start with the awkward small talk.

Unfortunately, that is just a normal human experience.

Just

Gen Z, get over it.

Anyway, this is the same conversation, guys, that we have had about AI relationships, for example, like time and time again.

We are stripping the humanity out of our social lives.

This beautiful awkwardness, the learning curves, the necessary skill of dating and flirting and small talk, all of that, thanks to the internet, is gone.

You can live a life and have friends and talk to people without doing any of that.

And so again, I say like, how can you blame people?