Advice from Cicero … and science

Cicero’s words about friendship have haunted me since I first heard them eight years ago.

He said that if someone “could ascend to heaven and get a clear view of the natural order of the universe, and the beauty of the heavenly bodies, that wonderful spectacle would give him small pleasure if he had no one with whom he could tell what he had seen.” 

He didn’t just see communion with others as one of the goods available to us; he considered it the indispensable context that makes the other goods worthwhile.

If he’s right, it’s no wonder people are experiencing more mental health problems than ever. 

Today, we seem to have forgotten our need to share our experiences.

If we used to understand that experiences were only worthwhile when we can include someone else in them, now we seem to prefer experiencing life alone.

When I was growing up, the television was vilified for destroying family life, because it replaced living room conversation with a glowing talking box. But today, the family gathered together around the TV would be a welcome, unifying alternative to what typically happens in households, as we each seek individual pastimes apart from each other.

The business model of video streaming services banks on the fact that we will enjoy ourselves alone. Whereas Netflix and other services once released episodes in such a way that communities of fans could build and invite new fans to the show as it developed, the new business model releases encourages binge-watching, in which one person, alone, watches episode after episode of a show late into the night.

But Netflix didn’t invent solitary entertainment. It has been growing for decades. You can draw a straight line from the introduction of the Sony Walkman in the 1980s to the situation now, when ticket sellers surveyed audience preferences and found that a majority of customers prefer to attend concerts alone.

We used to be in charge of engaging each other. Now we have machines to do that.

Author Christine Rosen in her 2020 book The Extinction of Experience shares several examples of this phenomenon. One example she gives is telling. 

“A few years ago,” she writes, “going to a Clinique counter in a department store meant receiving solicitous service from a white-coated assistant who would offer skincare advice and even a full application of makeup. Today, Clinique booths feature a sign that says, ‘Carry a Clinique browsing basket and we’ll leave you alone. Promise.’”

Corporate America realizes that their customers, from self-checkouts to fast food apps, don’t want to interact with another human being. They want to do things themselves.

In his 2000 book, Robert Putnam noticed that Americans were Bowling Alone rather than in bowling leagues, which had predominated throughout the 20th century. In our day, technology has super-charged that tendency. We are more likely to play the “Monopoly Go” app than the Monopoly board game; we are more likely to play Scrabble online with strangers or with the app than with our families; and we are more likely to interact on social media than to interact in person with friends.

But the more we outsource our care for each other, the more anxious we become.

In 2014, Pew Research Center found that 55% of teens were texting daily, but only 25% of them were meeting up daily with friends. In 2025, an American Psychological Association poll found that 60% of people felt emotionally disconnected; lonely. 

While loneliness harms, community heals. As developmental psychologist and author Susan Pinker explains, “face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters. And like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future. Shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust, and it lowers your stress.”

That means Cicero was right.

What Cicero described is the adult version of what children experience when they say, “Look at me!” on the playground when they are enjoying themselves most. Adults agree that “doing almost anything is better with friends,” according to extensive research.

We delight in one another and feel most ourselves when someone else is noticing us, and when we are noticing them. That means that our first step toward finding happiness is sharing our lives with one another — starting with the show we watch tonight.