Has social media given us more “friends” but taken away our sense of self?

It starts subtly. A close friend shares a story on Instagram—new haircut, new job, soft-filtered sunset. You react with a heart emoji. You haven't spoken in months. But you feel caught up. Connected, even. Except you're not.

You know the updates. You don’t know how they’re really doing. You don’t know what’s weighing on them, what they’re afraid to say out loud. And chances are—they don’t know what you’re carrying either.

You used to talk about everything. Now, you double-tap and move on. They post. You scroll. The relationship survives—but only as a trace. A signal. A memory with motion graphics. And that’s the tension. We’ve never had more “friends,” and never felt less seen.

On paper, we’re hyperconnected. The average person has over 400 social media contacts. Platforms remind us of birthdays, tag us in memories, archive every inside joke. You can keep up with your entire college class without sending a single message. But connection isn’t the same as closeness.

We’ve traded mutual attention for ambient awareness. Instead of conversation, we get updates. Instead of checking in, we react. Instead of time spent, we get time stamped—“Seen 3m ago.” And that quiet shift—toward convenience, toward consumption—is starting to hollow out our relationships. Friendship used to be a space of presence. Now, it’s a highlight reel, a comment section, a public performance of intimacy that plays well in the feed but feels paper-thin in real life.

Because here’s the truth: being witnessed isn’t the same as being held.

Start with the numbers. According to a 2023 Pew survey, 49% of adults under 30 say they feel lonely "often or always." That number climbs even higher among daily social media users. And among Gen Z, the paradox is especially stark: always online, rarely emotionally reachable. There’s even a name for it: the friendship recession.

But we rarely talk about it out loud. Instead, we stay digitally present while emotionally distant. We say “Let’s catch up soon” under posts we never follow up on. We respond with laughing emojis but don’t know what’s actually funny in their lives. We know the milestones—but not the meaning behind them. The performance of friendship has replaced the practice of it.

Even the ways we show love have changed. We post birthday collages but skip the actual call. We send memes to stay close, but avoid the vulnerability of “Hey, I miss you.” We become curators of our social presence—crafting a version of ourselves that’s just sincere enough to feel real, but polished enough to remain safe. The algorithm loves consistency. But real friendship isn’t consistent. It’s messy, contradictory, sometimes raw. There’s no filter for that.

Let’s be generous. There’s a reason we do this. Social media offers convenience, control, and validation—three things real friendship can’t always guarantee. Posting is easier than explaining. Reacting is easier than asking. Curating is easier than collapsing. In a world where attention is currency, it feels safer to manage impressions than to risk vulnerability.

We don’t want to burden people. We want to be liked. So we become strategic with our presence. We only share once we’ve processed. We wait until the anxiety is poetic. We treat pain like content and delay connection until it’s “interesting” enough to post.

And when friendships become public-facing, the relationship becomes a performance. You’re not just talking to your friend—you’re talking to everyone watching. So you smile. You crop. You caption. You protect the image. Even if you feel nothing like it inside.

The cost isn’t obvious—until it is. We lose unscripted presence. When’s the last time you called a friend without scheduling it? Showed up without a reason? Said something you hadn’t already rehearsed in your head?

We lose permission for emotional mess. In real friendship, you can show up tired. Or insecure. Or annoying. And still be loved. But in digital friendship, we show up as our most “engaging” selves. We lose room for contradiction. Algorithms reward consistency. But people aren’t consistent. We’re layered. Unfinished. Real friendship allows for that.

And most of all—we lose the muscle of mutuality. We get used to broadcasting, not exchanging. To sharing, but not receiving. To being seen, but not really known. That’s why so many of us feel invisible, even when our notifications are full. We’re not missing interaction. We’re missing depth.

Let’s not blame tech entirely. Social media didn’t kill friendship. But it did rewire how we manage it. Platforms reward behavior that is scalable, predictable, and easy to measure. Friendship is none of those things. The “friend” label on platforms is misleading. Most of our connections are acquaintances, colleagues, or people we haven’t spoken to in years. But the design encourages us to keep them—because connection equals data. And data equals profit.

So we keep collecting people. We fear unfollowing. We feel guilty for muting. We call it “cleaning up” our feeds like it’s some sort of spring ritual. But what we’re really doing is managing social exhaustion—without admitting that we’re overwhelmed by the emotional noise of proximity without intimacy. And here’s the hard part: we play along. We use these platforms to maintain the illusion of closeness. We post to remind people we exist. We scroll to feel included. We fear becoming irrelevant. So we stay visible—even if it costs us real connection.

Millennials remember a world before the scroll. Gen Z was born into it. That difference matters. Millennials are often torn between old models of friendship (call, meet, talk) and new ones (like, react, post). They feel the dissonance more sharply. The loss is felt because the contrast is real. Gen Z, on the other hand, is fluent in the digital dialect of relationships. They build intimacy through voice notes, photo dumps, DMs at midnight. But they’re also more likely to conflate presence with performance—because the medium has always been the message.

And across both groups, the outcome is similar: more friends, less friendship. We know how to maintain contact. We’ve forgotten how to maintain connection.

Let’s not romanticize the past. Friendship has always been imperfect. It’s always taken effort. The difference now is that it’s easier to simulate. And simulation is tempting. It’s tidy. It doesn’t interrupt your day. But friendship is supposed to interrupt you. It’s the unexpected check-in. The inconvenient visit. The real-time unraveling. The ugly crying in someone’s kitchen. The long silence over dinner. The laugh you didn’t see coming.

It’s the voice message that’s too long. The confession that takes three tries. The apology that doesn’t fit in a comment box. None of that is scalable. But all of it is real.

This isn’t a call to delete your account. It’s an invitation to reclaim your friendships. Mute the ones you scroll past in bitterness. Unfollow the people you’re competing with in your head. Stop checking who watched your story before deciding if you matter. And more importantly—reach out to the people who actually matter.

Not with a like. With a message. With a question. With presence. Social media doesn’t have to be the enemy of friendship. But it can’t be the replacement for it. Because in the end, being visible isn’t the same as being known. And being known is the only real friendship worth fighting for.