I’ve kept in touch with some childhood friends digitally. And I’ve worked while in coffee shops and offices.

I have much more authentic interactions with my friends over Discord than I do with strangers or pseudo-strangers in public. In public then interaction is intentionally inauthentic (which feels emotionally isolating to me, at least); the person wants to be nice to me to get a better tip, I want to be nice to my boss to get a better review. The online interactions with my friends are somewhat hampered by our inability to read body language over a mostly audio medium. The former will require deep societal changes to make into honest interactions. The latter can be fixed by Apple & co using cameras and gyroscopes, which they are already pretty good at. I’m much more optimistic about the latter.