>It’s hazardous and frankly inhuman to boil down human interaction into metrics like “number of participants.”
the tech today allows to for example easily and frequently Skype with your family, like parents, sibling, nephews residing on the other continent. A humongous improvement compare to previous modes of expensive international phone, especially when many of those participants didn't have a phone back then. What is inhuman here?
It also allowed for communication like we have here on HN. Before, it would be limited to just watercooler chat with colleagues at work with very limited exposure and exploration of genuine opposite/conflicting opinions, whereis we can have a bleeding-trolling-edge blast online.