What We Lost When We Stayed Inside

On comfort, connection, and the quiet cost of AI

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were walking through the neighborhood where she raised her kids, and we passed her old house. Like all the others around it, hers was built before air condition was a thing. Every house on the street, no matter the size, had a big front porch. She said that in the early days of her life there with her young family, you’d see people outside regularly, especially in the summers when it was more comfortable outside than indoors. People approached each other and talked through unplanned story-sharing, often lingering longer than intended. Porches were part of the social fabric.

Then, people started installing A/C.

For a gal like me who grew up in a home without it (and a dishwasher), I imagine this was like magic. I was always jealous of my friends who had air conditioning — their houses were way more comfy.

But my friend said that this invention, this machine that miraculously shifted internal temps by ten degrees, also shifted something social. It was now more comfortable to stay inside than to go out. Porches still had chairs on them, but they were now empty. The ordinary, repeated contact that was once part of the rhythm of every day life, slowly disappeared.

I have been thinking about that lately, because I suspect we are living through a similar shift: not with air, but with answers.

Just the other day I was wondering about the upcoming transition we will have when our son graduates and leaves home. I asked a chatbot about it.

When our sweet old dog was in the last several months of her life and I was worried about her, I called our vet only after I had gotten a thousand answers through various apps.

When I wondered where I should plant new shrubs in my yard, I didn’t ask my friend who is an expert in landscape design. I opened my laptop.

If I could inventory all the questions I’ve asked a computer to process for me — from basic Google searches to more sophisticated AI — my guess is I would find that 75% of them were questions that 5 years ago I would have called someone else to help me with. I would have journaled, prayed, or sorted it out in a way that required discomfort, mental labor, and social or spiritual connection.

On the surface, it feels like simple efficiency. And when I am trying to figure out the best way to set up a spreadsheet for a business analysis, I am head-over-heels. (Or maybe I just don’t have a lot of close friends who know a lot about spreadhseets?)

But something else is happening too.

When I ask for help from others (or even myself or God), there are relational side effects, benefits beyond getting the answer. When I find myself face-to-face with my own limitations, whether of knowledge or emotional capacity, I am vulnerable. When I ask someone else, I let them see that. It builds trust. It builds connection. When I ask a machine, there is no risk, no friction, no fear of interrupting, no concern about how I sound, no discomfort.

Those conversations used to be second nature to me. Question about my baby not eating? Call my best friend who is the baby-whisperer. Question about the kids’ homework? Call mom. Question about weird spot on my skin? Call my doctor. Need to process funky emotions? Go find my spouse.

Now, they are no longer my default, probably because I have slowly drifted to the more comfortable, less risky option for getting answers. It’s no different than how I now use GPS every time I drive anywhere new, even though when I first learned to drive 30 years ago, I thought it was fun to navigate just using highway signs (and I got good at it.)

I obviously still have relationships. Great ones. I see my friends and my mom and my spouse and my doctor and I still take the dogs to the vet, I promise. We stay in touch. It’s more structured now: we usually text first or make appointments with each other. But it has been a very long time since someone has called me just to talk, or I’ve called someone just to see what they think of an idea that popped into my head. And this lifelong diary-keeper is especially embarrassed to say that it’s been way too long since I’ve journaled my way through something difficult.

I suspect these moments matter more than we realize. They are how we come to know one another, how trust is built, how perspective is widened, how care is expressed. They are, in a sense, practice: quiet repetitions of connection that accumulate into something durable.

I am not sure we have fully accounted for what happens when we lose those reps.

This is not an argument against technology. I think humans and what we make are extraordinary. I also think that with every technological advancement, from lightbulbs to the car to TV that you don’t have to record on a VHS tape to watch it at a convenient time (THANK YOU UNIVERSE), there comes a cost. A cost that sometimes we don’t see or question because we are so googly-eyed over the new thing.

Because we typically choose ease over suffering, climate control over sweating, new conveniences change not only our individual behavior patterns, but social and cultural norms. The world doubles down on the new default, usually with our blessing.

How does this matter in the practice of leadership? Because leadership is really only required in times of change. It’s taking people somewhere new, and this always involves uncertainty. It works best when we can say “I don’t know yet,” and move towards answers together. It’s not efficient; it is generative. It builds shared understanding and shared ownership.

When answers are always available, it becomes easier to bypass that process, easier to arrive with something already formed. Easier, perhaps, to appear certain when what is actually needed is curiosity. Easier to look pulled together than to do the sweaty work of pulling people together.

I am not planning to step away from these tools. I will not un-install Google or Netflix or ChatGPT. And I will never again live without air conditioning and a dishwasher. #gratefulformiracles

But I did first write this on a piece of graphed notebook paper in between coaching sessions on Friday. It came to me as I felt a blast of cold air through the vent, and I decided to turn a page instead of open a machine as I captured this memory and meaning into an essay.

I want to get more reps because I don’t want to see what happens if I continue on the path of robot-first Q and A. So maybe I will choose to sit on the porch on a humid bug-filled day while there are zero mosquitos inside my house; or ask the eager store associate their advice rather than search for product information on the app while hiding in a corner. Maybe I’ll rebuild the courage to choose uncomfortable connection over comfortable privacy. My guess is that will result in a bigger miracle than even my most beloved creature comforts, hair dye excluded.