‘Social media isn’t the problem – our confusion about connection is’
Opinion: "As loneliness, dating burnout and digital fatigue rise, it’s tempting to blame social platforms themselves. But the real issue may be how and where we’re trying to meet very human needs," says Jamie Love, founder of marketing agency Monumental
By Jamie Love
It’s become a kind of modern fridge-magnet truth. Repeated, nodded at, rarely interrogated. A convenient diagnosis for loneliness, burnout and emotional disconnection. But what does it actually mean?
If we take a step back, humans are not wired for isolation. We are wired for connection. Wanting to know what’s happening in the lives of the people we love, to feel included, seen and emotionally close, is one of the most fundamentally human instincts we have.
Social media exists because of that instinct. Without us, these platforms are empty boards. We supply the stories, the images, the conversations, the meaning. Yes, our experiences are shaped by algorithms designed to retain attention and monetise behaviour, but the raw material remains profoundly human.
Which raises an uncomfortable question: are we blaming the wrong thing?
After more than a decade working in social media, I’ve grown tired of the instinct to villainise platforms themselves. In many ways, this feels like a familiar cultural misfire. A case of don’t hate the game so much as examine how we’re playing it.
Used consciously, social media can genuinely bridge the gaps modern life creates. I grew up in an international environment; my family and closest friends are scattered across continents and time zones. Without social platforms, much of each other’s lives would be invisible to us.
Instead, I get to watch friends’ children grow up. I see milestones, celebrations and quiet moments that would otherwise pass me by. That visibility isn’t shallow; it’s connective. And more importantly, it becomes a prompt for depth: a message to ask how a first day at school went, a spontaneous catch-up because someone happens to be nearby, a reminder to show up.
The depth, however, doesn’t live on the platform. It lives in what we do with what we see.
This is where things start to fracture. Many people are searching for connection in spaces that simply aren’t designed to hold it. Platforms that prioritise speed, anonymity or ephemerality often leave users feeling lonelier rather than fulfilled.
Take Snapchat. Used playfully and in small doses, it can be light, creative and fun. Fleeting, shallow interaction has its place. Escapism, occasionally, has its place. But Snapchat can also function as a place to hide. Conversations disappear almost instantly. Identities blur into usernames made up of letters and numbers. Interaction becomes fleeting, unaccountable and strangely hollow.
When connection feels inaccessible in the real world, it’s understandable that people look for it elsewhere. Social platforms offer immediacy, distraction and the illusion of closeness, all without the vulnerability real connection requires. Used briefly, that can be soothing. Used as a substitute, it can quietly deepen the sense of absence it’s trying to relieve.
This isn’t a judgement. It’s a human response to unmet needs.
You can spend hours “connecting” with people without ever being known. That isn’t meaningful connection – it’s escapism. And confusing the two is a fast track to feeling disconnected from yourself and from others.
The issue isn’t the platform itself. The issue is mismatch. If you’re feeling grounded and using a space for what it’s designed for, it can be entirely fine. But if you’re lonely, unanchored or looking for meaning, seeking depth in environments built for speed and erasure will often amplify that loneliness rather than soothe it.
We see the same dynamic play out even more starkly in modern dating culture.
Dating apps, like social media platforms, are ultimately empty containers. Structures designed to activate our deeply human desire for romantic connection. When people show up honestly, with clarity about who they are and what they want, and when platforms are designed with appropriate safeguards, these tools can facilitate genuinely meaningful relationships that might never otherwise exist.
For many queer people in particular, especially outside major cities, apps have historically provided access to connection, visibility and community that simply didn’t exist before. That context matters.
However, many larger platforms still reward the opposite. A lack of transparency and accountability can actively encourage shallow or dishonest interaction. On popular sex apps, it’s entirely possible to present yourself however you choose, to be any age you like, with any intention that suits the moment.
That flexibility isn’t inherently wrong. Apps like Grindr can serve a clear, consensual purpose: immediacy, sex, brief escapism. And when that’s what someone is consciously seeking, it can work exactly as intended.
But if you’re feeling lonely or craving emotional depth, it’s rarely the right place to look. In those moments, the speed and disposability of interaction can leave people feeling more invisible than before. Mistaking attention for intimacy, and activity for connection.
Connection built on misrepresentation rarely feels nourishing. Because, at its core, it isn’t really connection at all.
In my view, true connection is built on honesty, clarity and vulnerability. Qualities that require courage rather than concealment. That’s why ideas around vulnerability, popularised by thinkers like Brené Brown, have resonated so deeply with me. Vulnerability isn’t weakness; it’s the prerequisite for being truly seen.
Spaces that prioritise anonymity, performance or sexualised distraction may deliver dopamine, but they rarely deliver connection, meaning or intimacy. And mistaking stimulation for connection is one of the quiet ways modern loneliness takes hold.
Social media isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s a mirror, sometimes a magnifier, of how we relate to ourselves and each other. If we keep blaming platforms for our disconnection, we miss the more uncomfortable but necessary question: are we showing up as ourselves, in spaces capable of holding real connection, or are we numbing our need for intimacy with noise in places devoid of meaning?
The difference matters.
Because one leaves us more human.
The other just leaves us scrolling.
Jamie Love is the founder of Monumental, a growth marketing agency. His work sits at the intersection of growth marketing, human behaviour and modern culture, exploring how psychological and cultural shifts shape the way people use platforms, respond to brands and make meaning online.