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Finally, I sit back and take stock of how I can use my phone to improve my existing friendships. I remind myself that we are all busy, and how much I like it when my friends call and suggest things to do. I decide to just be that person for them, to use my powers of organization to our mutual benefit. I start calling my best friend more often, and it has the added effect that she starts calling me more as well. I get Siri to remind me to call and see certain friends regularly. I block off certain evenings in my calendar with a new colour-coded block labeled, Friend Hang, with the same repeating feature I use for my Sunday Frisbee games, and make sure that I fill those slots. I turn Twitter friends into real live ones, planning coffees and lunches. I use Facebook to find events that my friends are interested in or attending and make plans to meet them there. I use the myriad scheduling and planning features available to me, not just for work, but for friendship. I combine existing activities, like going to the gym, with friendship. I start attending the gym with my friend Sarah, which increases the time we spend together and talk, both at the gym and outside of it. I feel closer to her in the three months that we’ve been doing so than I ever have before. By making and planning for friendship maintenance, my expectations more closely mirror my reality.

Even after a few months experimenting in what social media offers to cure loneliness, I don’t have the answers, and I can’t tell you that you or I won’t ever be lonely. But I no longer see my phone as an evil loneliness machine. I have been able to use my phone and social media to do more of the things that increase my connection to other humans – meet them, see them, talk with them, and interact with them. It has to be a conscious choice not to let your phone take you down the path of passive engagement and superficial communication. But when loneliness is described as being worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, it’s a choice that’s necessary, not only for your own health, but for our collective benefit. In a world that is becoming increasingly fragmented and polarized, we need each other, and connection, more than ever.