As the country opened, there were articles about how people were having a hard time adjusting back to their normal lives. At first, it was light and understandable. But then a darker dimension appeared. People feel incapable of socializing. “Cave syndrome” entered the lexicon, describing Americans who can’t seem to leave their homes.
We became zombies in front of screens and forgot how to connect with each other in a real way. As Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari notes in his new book, “The Unbroken Thread,” we human beings are social animals, and “our sociality depends on bodies, on embodied experience.”
This summer, we have to recover this crucial but neglected aspect of what makes us fully human.
Stay off your phone as much as possible. If you have the option to go back to your office, take it. Stop texting so much. Make an effort to have real conversations, unmasked face to unmasked face.
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