> It’s not that people lack friends, she says. Facebook, Instagram— scroll around and you find a country bursting with mugging, partying companionship. It just

> It’s not that people lack friends, she says. Facebook, Instagram— scroll around and you find a country bursting with mugging, partying companionship. It just isn’t real, that’s all. “There’s a real me and a masked me. We have a word for the lonely gap in between that: kodoku.” I find this to be incredibly true in the US as well. I'm a university student, and there is a marked difference between how I know my friends are feelings vs. how they post on social media. I went through a long period of depression a few years ago because (for a variety of reasons) I was isolated from most of my good friends. Spending tons of time with them on social media didn't make me happy. It was confusing, feeling like I was still in touch with all my friends but at the same time not getting any of the usual positive emotions. There's really nothing like human companionship. EDIT: I say "how my friends post on social media" because I stopped using it. I'll log in and skim every once in a while but I stopped posting about myself entirely a few years ago. Instead, I try to call or email my friends. For some reason, email feels much, much more personal than Facebook. I've really gotten to know some of my friends better by writing back and forth with them. Different media inspire different conversations, I guess.