People are often wanting to meet other people. And other people are everywhere. But everybody want to meet specific kinds of other people, and that makes things much trickier.
For one thing, you have to avoid all those people you don’t want to meet, which means not just accepting bids from strangers on the street. For another, reciprocally, you have to get past everyone else’s screening processes—that is, somehow distinguish yourself from a stranger on the street.
Consequently, the streets are full of lonely people, including many who would like each other, but can’t meet for lack of a good screening process that would identify them to one another.
In the old days and other cultures, the low bandwidth screening processes are an even bigger impediment to meeting people than now. For instance, it was improper to greet someone at a party without being formally introduced by an appropriate person.
In the future, if we manage to keep using AI without catastrophe, I wonder if it could herald a world of very high bandwidth screening processes, where you could just happily meet people on the street all the time, in any case where you are properly introduced by an appropriate AI system.
I think party is a good analogy for social media in general. In many ways the internet is like having 24/7 access to a non-stop party. I am surrounded, at all times, by conversations and amusing activities. Over here, a bunch of my close friends are joking and gossiping, over there, some people I know slightly (hi Katja) are talking, in the distance I can see a celebrity telling a story. I can wander around forever, dipping in and out of these different rooms, talking, laughing, flirting, networking, just observing, goofing around, or having intense, serious, life-changing conversations. For someone like me, who loves parties, it’s incredibly appealing. And incredibly dangerous.
Can't think of anything more stressful than a party.