"Interface is more meaningful than face to face"

I'm a huge fan of the new Blue Man Group show here in Orlando, which should come as a surprise to no one who knows me. Cultural commentary by this troupe has always been a little more subtle, unless you listen to middle part of The Complex, which still hits deep for me. But toward the end of this show, there's a video piece with people walking around heads-down looking at screens, whilst falling into manholes and such. There's an "A.I." character on screen that checks in at various points, until it starts thanking the audience for mindlessly plugging in and sharing everything, including endless attention. But there's a line that sticks with me:

"Interface is more meaningful than face to face."

I don't know if that's meant to be a scathing critique of our culture, but it lands that way for me. I think that's where we are. Life is measured in engagement, giving up privacy, becoming product for platforms, and that's gross. (My answer is TogetherLoop.com, obvs!)

Being out of work means that I'm not getting a lot of face time with humans. I may paint myself as antisocial sometimes, but really I'm just "discerning social." When Facebook killed my account, I felt FOMO at first, which gave way to the realization that it wasn't really giving me anything anymore. It forced me to lean into non-network interaction with my distributed social circle. Since then, every face to face interaction has felt vital and important.

I'm not sure that I have a point, other than we have to unplug from platforms that don't serve us. I'm not against "social" interaction via the Internets, but not like it is now. We need to get back to our niche online forums and communities. The more independent the better. We should give them a few bucks if they ask for it, instead of giving our eyeballs to Google ads. Because Cory Doctorow's "enshittification" is real, and feeding the interface will not improve our chances for meaningful face to face.