It depends on what you define value. The ancients wrote extensively about friendship and attributed very high value to it, and that value degraded gradually, fi

It depends on what you define value. The ancients wrote extensively about friendship and attributed very high value to it, and that value degraded gradually, first with christianity and then with industrial way of life. I think such a utilitarian view is a post-hoc rationalization rather than a useful way to look at it. But even if we follow this line of thought, it is not clear that family, for example is of such high value that it has to be detrimental to everything else. It seems more to me that family benefited from the time freed up by not having friendly relationships, but whether people derive more value from family than they did in the past is very debateable. Spending more time with it is not proof that it has higher value - people will always do something in lack of alternatives.