Connection in the digital age tends to feel contradictory. Although phones and social media enable instant global communication, the technology often seems to have only pushed everyone farther apart.
Instead of engaging with the people around us, many now opt to hunch over their screens to pass the time. But look back in history, and it’s the hobbies as well as productive tasks that people spent much of their free time on that helped fuel human connection.
We played pinochle after dinner and gathered in basements and garages on the weekends to play poker. We made jam and canned veggies for all our friends. We sat in groups, chatting while doing tasks like mending clothes or knitting blankets…