I’ve seen a communal trend emerge that I find interesting and also worth deeper inquiry. It gives me pause, and I’m not sure what to make of it. A craving for connection with a desire to disconnect.

two people sitting on a couch reading their own books

A couple of weeks ago, the Patton Middle School principal shared this anecdote in his newsletter:

“When the students were reading a passage, there was a scene with a student who was sitting alone. [The teacher] asked the students what they would want someone else to do at that moment for them if they were sitting alone. Our initial thought was that students would want someone to come over to talk with them. One student did even voice that they would want a close friend to come talk to them. However, the overwhelming majority of them said they would want to be left alone.”

What an interesting and unexpected response, right?

The principal identified in this response students’ desire to recharge and disconnect after feeling perpetually “on.” Meanwhile, loneliness is an epidemic. We are overwhelmed by the demands on us from those seeking to monetize our attention while also craving genuine, human-focused, unencumbered interaction with others.

Our attention is constantly being yanked from us without providing anything of emotional or spiritual substance in return. We’re drowning in empty yet exhausting “connection,” tethered to our devices and digital spaces. But we have little to show for it in terms of communal fabric or social satisfaction. We’re inundated with and depleted by empty connection, while sorely lacking the human connection that feeds our souls.

Silent “parallel” gatherings to create community while disconnecting

Community organizations seem to be responding to this disconnect with silent, structured “parallel” gatherings. They bring us into physical spaces together without demanding much from our social brains.

Silent reading groups and audiobook walking clubs are trending, both of which you can find at the Kennett Library. Silent reading groups meet in a shared space to read their own books. Audiobook walking clubs listen to their own audiobooks while walking in community, but (presumably) without speaking much to each other.

Note: Check the Kennett Library calendar for upcoming dates to meet for silent reading groups and audiobook walking clubs. The nearest upcoming events are linked above. I haven’t seen them on the Rachel Kohl Library calendar yet.

I am an introvert, and can more than appreciate a quiet space. But it’s almost like our bodies know we need human connection, while our social interaction muscles have atrophied? Maybe I’m reading into it too much (no pun intended on the book club theme).

While not exactly the same, “admin parties” offer an example of this parallel social hang. Bring your computer and to-do list to knock out the mind-numbing administrative tasks of life while sitting together with friends around a kitchen table. A little bit of talking, mostly doing your own thing, but in the physical company of friends.

The appeal seems to be that these silent or parallel gathering modes offer a middle ground: the comfort of physical proximity and shared experience without the social performance demands that many find exhausting. It’s a community on terms that honor both our need for connection and our need for rest from constant engagement.

But what gives me pause is the feeling that the social demands of human gatherings have become prohibitively exhausting.

What does that say about society?
What can we learn about the taxing nature of devices that leash us to the demands of the digital world?
Are we willing to let those devices go, to some degree, in exchange for a more fulfilling human experience?
How will this change as artificial intelligence rapidly penetrates nearly every aspect of our lives?

I’d love to know your thoughts. No wrong answers.