Why Are We Unhappier? The Death of Real Connections
I used to believe that friendship was about the collision of thoughts.
I isolated myself, trying to find partners who were spiritually and highly compatible, while dismissing everyday trivialities as insignificant.
But now, I realize the importance of shared experiences.
It seems that the friendships we’ve had since childhood—through elementary, middle school, high school, and university—were all built on unique shared experiences, simply because we studied together.
As the saying goes, affection grows with time (“ri jiu sheng qing”). I always felt that friendship was lofty and shouldn’t be so simple—not just coming together merely out of familiarity.
Yet, facts have proven that it is indeed the case. Human nature dictates that shared experiences make it much easier to build friendships.
However, our current environment increasingly violates human nature.
The reduction of non-consumerist public spaces, smartphones offering instant gratification, the shrinking of natural environments, and terrifying working hours are making human beings more and more lonely.
Perhaps the online joke that “rich people really don’t use Douyin or look at their phones” actually makes sense.
In reality, they possess extremely rich, high-quality, and intensive physical shared experiences—something unattainable for ordinary people trapped by long working hours. Lacking rich offline shared experiences, ordinary people are more prone to falling into the virtual companionship built by smartphones.
Ordinary people can get enough to eat, but spiritually, they seem to be heading toward destruction.