Together again: The value of our encounters, offline

This article is a protest against the trend towards ever greater online contact at the cost of, or as a replacement for, in-person interaction. Increasingly, meetings and events are ‘hybrid’ or take place entirely online. Even when physically near others in shared spaces like streets, parks and cafes, we are often glued to our screens. But I argue that we lose something of value when online contact comes to dominate and crowds out in-person interaction. Our offline interactions are valuable in ways that, for the most part, our online encounters are not. I begin by defending the social value of our encounters with one another, drawing from literature in democratic theory, architecture, and urban theory. I then tackle the strongest argument in favour of online forms of encounter, on the grounds that they are a less costly and more inclusive alternative to their offline equivalents. I argue that enabling online participation is both an insufficient amendment to an ableist and patriarchal society, and a far from all-purpose one. The article then makes the case for putting down our screens, going in-person to meeting and events, and refusing to distract ourselves with our virtual lives when in parks, public squares, cafes, and the like. First, I argue that physical encounters are distinct in the proximity that they force and the subtlety of gesture they permit. Second, I argue that, by contrast to in-person encounters, online encounters permit only an attenuated form of the connection that we need with fellow citizens. Indeed, with the rise of AI-generated content, online platforms may fail to offer any connection to another human at all. Third, I draw attention to the ways in which the commercial nature of these online platforms threatens to subvert our online encounters far more systematically than the selling-off of public spaces that has often troubled democratic theorists.