I just deleted a fairly long response talking about real friends vs. social network contacts, mutual support, social safety nets, and stress-induced aberrant behavior. Then I realized I was just pissing into the wind.
We’re undergoing a collapse. The causes are myriad. It’s going to run its course no matter what “solutions” we try individually or collectively. We’re facing multiple predicaments; resource constraints, financial instability, environmental degradation, an economic environment dependent on continuous growth, and a political environment dependent on promising a continuously better future for different constituents, even though a “better future” for one constituency is often in direct conflict with that of another constituency.
By definition, a predicament has no solution other than trashing the system that caused the predicament in the first place and starting over. There’s going to be a lot more trashing going on.
The only thing knowable about where we’re going is there will be a lot fewer people involved.