"Sitting in front of infinitely interchangeable and accessible screens, each of us stupidly needs to feel special, and will do what it takes."

The Crisis of Intimacy in the Age of Digital Connectivity

By Stephen Marche

"Or, rather, there is no more and no less intimacy now than there was during the analog era; the intimacy has been transferred to another format. Human beings are intimate creatures. After entering a world of impersonal connection, human beings cannot help but respond by rendering every interaction as personal as possible. Faced with a civilization based on the Uniform Resource Locations, we express ourselves in lust and hunger and violence. Sitting in front of infinitely interchangeable and accessible screens, each of us stupidly needs to feel special, and will do what it takes."