have you been outside recently? I mean outside without a phone for a couple of months. Give yourself a no-data diet, and just observe what is going on in others. Wait alone at a bus-stop or alone at a pub or cafe. You can see them addicted to their screens everywhere. It's the norm now to immediately reach for the phone because god forbid they might otherwise feel 2 seconds of boredom. They are no longer human as far as I'm concerned. The problem is never that AI and technology will replace us. We are becoming (actually we have already become) so much like AI/robots that it's impossible to stomach. Everyone isolated into their own little algorithmic prisons without any need to listen to others. It's much much worse than any hard drug you could be addicted to because with hard drugs you still have others who you can do them with. Just do yourselves a favor and never unplug because what you see might be so upsetting that you might wonder if it's still worth living.

I won't even get started on the problem of "fixing loneliness" with an app. You don't "fix" loneliness with an external tool. The only solution to fix this is inside you (and it hurts if you do it right). Pain is part of it and anyone who claims they can take away the pain, or make it easy should be metaphorically incinerated.

These things aren't increasing empathy. They're the opposite: They are empathy sinks!

y'all do yourselves a favor and read Jacques Ellul "La Technique" (The Technological Society) and stop peddling and defending more Tech just for the Benjamins.