Staying Human
How do we foster Human Connection in an age of AI?
Dear Friends,
As graduation season unfolds, I’ve been in more conversations with fellow parents.
Parents of older children often voice concerns about their kids’ economic futures. What jobs will still exist in the age of AI? What roles will automation take—or leave behind?
(More on that in a future post.)
Meanwhile, parents of younger children tend to focus on teen mental health and technology use.
Two major efforts are emerging in this space:
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a law requiring every school district to create a plan by July 2026 for restricting or banning cellphone use on campuses.
The move follows growing concerns that excessive smartphone use among youth is linked to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.
The goal is to help young people cultivate more meaningful human connection and a better relationship to technology.
AI as a Friend?
In contrast, Mark Zuckerberg recently launched a new AI app designed to give people more AI friends, noting that the average person has just three real-life friends—and suggesting AI might help fill the gap.
Of course, this raises complex questions:
Should we use AI for business? For writing? Investing? Therapy? Friendship? The lines are getting blurrier by the day, and we’ll have to navigate them with care.
But one thing is clear to me: We need HUMAN friends! And the last person I’d trust in this is Meta—and Zuckerberg.
They have not had the best record.
Recently former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams told senators on the subcommittee for crime and terrorism, “It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure, and [Meta] would take that information and share it with advertisers.”
Meta allegedly tracked when a teen girl posted a selfie and then deleted it—only to later serve her beauty ads. This is heart wrenching to me.
Drawing the Lines: What We Know
We know one of the most powerful contributors to well-being is genuine HUMAN connection.
And no child should be targeted with manipulative ads in their lowest moments.
AI holds enormous potential, and I am all for it in many ways. But as Sherry Turkle reminds us, “If AI can cure human loneliness, we are no longer human.”
Let’s use AI, but not lose our humanity in the process. Here are some ideas:
Prioritize Human over Tech. Focus on the person over the tech. Do we really need to look at our phone when with another person? Or can we make space for contact?
Open Our Senses — smelling, hearing, tasting … enjoy the dimensions of the human experience. This part of the beauty of being human.
Take Time to “Be” Each Day — Every day, we need space to be, to stop, to receive, and to feel life as it unfolds.
Maybe we need just the opposite of Zuckerberg’s approach: we need more time OFF our devices, and more time with ACTUAL friends.
Warmly,
SOREN
Wisdom 2.0 NEWS
Thank you all for joining us at Wisdom 2.0 2025! We so appreciate it.
My new book, THE ESSENTIAL: Discovering What Really Matters in an Age of Distraction, launches May 20th. More on that soon.
As part of this, our THE ESSENTIAL SERIES (by donation) explores how we can live from what actually matters. Join live or lesson to the recordings.
A good start is telling stories about our experiences as humans. What we remember throughout our lives are the stories, and stories are the transactions of human contact.
There is no replacement or substitution for intimate human connection. Intimacy is not just a physical expression. It is the ability to engage and express thoughts & emotions freely. Connect with human to human energy. Our source. Technology only desensitizes our multi-sensory human experience.