Why we need each other · Proxima Connect

Ask people near the end of their lives what mattered, and the answer is almost never work, money or what they read on a screen. It is the people closest to them. Not connection with the world at large, but the intimate kind: the person whose face you know better than your own.

This library exists to look at that kind of connection honestly. What does the research actually say about why we need each other? What happens to two people when both of their minds are somewhere else? And what small things help? We try to say only what the evidence supports, and to say clearly when it is still debated.

We are built for connection

The strongest single piece of evidence is a review of 148 studies covering 308,849 people. Across those studies, people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the follow-up period than people with weaker ones.¹ That is a very large effect for something as ordinary as having people around you.

In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General issued a public advisory on loneliness. It reported that about one in two American adults say they have experienced loneliness, and that the health impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.²

None of this means lonely people are doing something wrong. It means connection is closer to sleep or food than to a hobby. We need it, and we notice when it is missing.

Closeness is built in ordinary time

Close relationships are rarely built in grand moments. One study of how friendships form estimated that it takes about 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, about 90 hours to become friends, and more than 200 hours to become close friends.³

Couples who live together already have the hours. Most evenings, they are in the same room. The question is not how to find more time together. It is what happens during the time they already share.

Attention is how connection travels

Psychologist Alison Gopnik describes two kinds of attention. Spotlight attention is narrow and focused: it locks onto one task and shuts out the rest. Lantern attention is broad and open: it takes in the whole room, including the person next to you.⁴

We need both. Spotlight attention gets the email written. But connection lives mostly in the lantern: noticing a sigh, catching a look, asking a question nobody planned to ask. You can’t easily be in both at once. Read more about the two kinds of attention.

Where phones come in

Phones are very good at spotlight attention. That is not a moral failing on anyone’s part. They are designed to be absorbing, and most of what we do on them is useful, kind or simply restful.

Still, many couples notice the pattern. In a 2019 survey of U.S. adults, 51% of people in a relationship said their partner is at least sometimes distracted by their phone.⁵ See what else that survey found.

It’s worth being careful here. Large studies find that the amount of screen time, on its own, explains only a small share of differences in wellbeing.⁶ A famous experiment suggesting that a phone merely sitting on the table harms conversation did not hold up when it was repeated.⁷ Phones are not the villain. Here is what the research does and doesn’t show.

What seems to matter is what the phone quietly replaces: the glance, the question, the hand on a knee. Those small moments are easy to lose, and easy to get back.

Small moments count

Two nervous systems in the same room affect each other. A calm face and a warm voice can settle someone faster than good advice. Calm is contagious looks at the research on that, including what is well supported and what is still argued about.

The good news in all of this is that connection doesn’t need a date night or a weekend away. It needs someone to look up.

Try tonight

The next time you notice you’ve both been on your phones for a while, put yours face down and ask one small question out loud, like “What made you smile today?” “Nothing much” is a perfectly good answer. The point is the pause, not the reply.

Where Proxima fits

Proxima Connect is a small app built around that moment. When you and your partner are close to each other and both of your phones have been in use for 20 minutes in a row, both phones give one soft pulse and suggest the same small question to ask each other. Nobody has to be the one who says it. Then the app steps back. Read how it works.

“It’s all about love. Even if it just adds a smile, that’s enough.” — Gys, who made Proxima

Sources

Last reviewed 14 November 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Read how we choose and label evidence.