We have just talked about how to read people's intentions through attention to behaviour and detail. But there is a context in which this reading becomes even harder, because the details are filtered, edited and strategically presented: the digital world. And yet, more and more of our relational life unfolds there. Which raises a question I consider urgent: can real connection be built through screens? And if so, how?

My honest answer is yes, it can, but not in the way we usually go about it. The default way we use technology for relationships produces the illusion of connection rather than connection itself. And confusing the two is one of the most subtle sources of loneliness in our time.

What the digital environment does to connection

The digital environment has fundamentally transformed the conditions in which relationships are built. It has eliminated geographical barriers, made communication instantaneous and provided access to an apparently infinite number of potential connections. All of this seems like an advantage and, in part, it is.

But the same environment has also introduced mechanisms that work against depth. The first is abundance. When you have access to thousands of people with a scroll, your brain unconsciously activates a mode of rapid evaluation, similar to the one we use when shopping. People become options rather than presences. And this mentality of infinite options makes deep investment in any one of them difficult.

The second is emotional compression. Digital interactions compress communication to text, emoji and reactions. All nonverbal signals, the tone of voice, facial expression, posture, the rhythm of breathing, the elements that transmit the most in human communication, disappear or are simulated through conventions. A "😊" doesn't transmit the same information as a real smile seen on someone's face. And over time, we communicate more and know each other less.

The third is permanent self-performance. Social networks are presentation platforms, not authenticity platforms. People publish selected and edited versions of their lives. And when our interactions are built on these versions, the relationships that result are relationships with characters rather than with real people.

Digital connection versus digital contact

I think it is essential to distinguish between connection and contact. Digital contact is easy: a like, a comment, a short message. It produces a small dopaminergic stimulation, ticks the superficial need for social contact and disappears quickly without leaving anything lasting.

Real digital connection is something else entirely and is far rarer. It is the conversation that moves beyond the exchange of information and touches something personal. It is the message sent not because you "had to" or because you saw a post that gave you a pretext, but because you were thinking about a person and actively chose to let them know. It is the video call in which both people are truly present, not half-attending to the screen and half elsewhere.

The difference is not in the medium but in the intention and in the quality of presence. You can have a superficial conversation face to face and a real connection through messages. The medium facilitates or hinders, but doesn't absolutely determine.

What building a real connection in the digital environment looks like

The first thing is to give up broadcast communication and move towards personalised communication. There is an enormous difference between liking someone's post and sending them a message in which you tell them specifically what in what they wrote touched you and why. The first is an automatic gesture. The second is a real relational act.

Personalisation shows that you saw the person, not the content. That you allocated real attention, not automatic reactivity. And people feel this difference, even through a screen.

The second thing is to move important conversations into richer formats. Text is the poorest channel of communication, because it loses tone, rhythm and expression. Voice adds one layer. Video adds another. And a face-to-face meeting, when possible, adds all the layers missing from digital interactions.

You don't need to abandon text, but if a relationship truly matters, it deserves occasionally a richer format. A twenty-minute call can do more for a relationship than weeks of exchanged messages.

The third thing is intentional consistency. Digital relationships erode easily because they lack the natural structure of physical proximity, which forces interaction. If you don't live with someone or work in the same place, there is no external force to maintain contact. Everything becomes voluntary and, in the absence of intention, the voluntary slides towards occasional and the occasional towards absent.

This means that distant or predominantly digital relationships require more conscious intention than face-to-face ones. Not necessarily more energy, but more deliberation. "I'm thinking about person X this week" is already a relational act, if it is followed by something concrete.

The specific traps of digitally built relationships

There are a few traps I observe frequently and which deserve to be named.

The first is false familiarity. You follow someone's life on social networks for years and come to feel you know them. But what you know is their curation, not the person. There is a significant difference between knowing what someone posts and knowing how they behave when tired, how they react to conflict, or what they look like on the days when they are not their best version.

The second is replacing depth with frequency. We exchange messages often and have the impression the relationship is active. But the frequency of superficial contact doesn't produce depth. Ten short messages a day don't replace an hour-long conversation in which both people show up genuinely.

The third is dependence on digital validation in place of real connection. Likes, comments and followers create a form of social recognition that can partially substitute for the need for connection, but doesn't satisfy it in depth. It is empty nourishment for a real need. And the more you consume of it, the more the underlying need remains unsatisfied.

What we can do differently

I believe healthy digital relationships require the same intention, the same presence and the same authenticity as face-to-face relationships, perhaps even more, precisely because the medium doesn't facilitate them naturally.

This means choosing a few digital relationships in which you truly invest, rather than distributing superficial energy in all directions. It means being present when you communicate, not semi-present. It means showing up real, with your doubts, with your less-than-perfect things, not only with your edited version. And it means moving, whenever possible, valuable connections from digital space into physical space, which remains, however many screens we interpose, the environment in which the human being truly feels seen.

Think of the most valuable relationships you currently have. How many of them were built or are maintained predominantly digitally? And what could you do concretely, this week, to add a layer of real depth to one of them?