In a world increasingly mediated by technology, the lines between kindness and hospitality have blurred, leading us to replace true communal warmth with shallow, transactional interactions. We hear calls for kindness, but I think it’s misguided. We need more hospitality.
Let me explain.
While kindness involves individual acts of goodwill—a comforting word, a thoughtful gesture—hospitality is something more profound: it’s the creation of spaces where people feel seen, cared for, and part of something larger than themselves.
The rise of technology has ironically amplified this confusion, leading us to prioritize personalization and individual experience over the shared bonding experiences that connect us deeply to each other. But what if we could turn this tide?
Take streaming services like Netflix, for example. Decades ago, television was often a family affair. Families would gather in the living room, each person’s presence subtly influencing the group’s experience. They’d laugh together, debate over plots, share popcorn, and argue over who controlled the remote. Through these small, often silent interactions, they came to know each other’s quirks, tastes, and values.
Today, while streaming services offer each viewer their own “personalized” experience, they’ve killed the communal act of watching together. Everyone may “get what they want,” but they’re isolated in their preferences, in their rooms, and in their screens. We’ve gained individualization but lost the nuances of knowing each other.
Technology, meant to connect us, often deepens our isolation by putting the individual experience above all else. This individualization has subtly eroded practices of hospitality, like shared family dinners or neighborhood gatherings. Taking friends out for lunch. Bringing housewarming gifts as gestures for families that have moved in recently. Calling people you haven’t spoken to in awhile, not for a specific objective, other than to catch-up and see what they are excited about in this season, and how they are doing.
Even though our digital tools allow us to customize and optimize nearly every experience, they have made the simple act of being together feel increasingly rare. The more personalized our technologies become, the more we risk missing out on the serendipitous connections that only come from sharing time and space.
Imagine if we reframed how technology could work to foster hospitality over personalization. Instead of algorithms that prioritize individual preferences, what if they curated collective experiences? Imagine if Netflix, rather than recommending shows solely based on individual tastes, suggested content that an entire family or group would enjoy together, using insights from everyone’s collective viewing history. They already have individual profiles, why not do something collectively with it? Or, imagine grocery services that align shopping lists for entire households, suggesting meals designed to be shared, encouraging family dinners that could become anchors in our busy lives.
We could even apply this approach to the pressures of modern work. Many parents struggle to find time to gather for a family meal because their schedules conflict. But imagine an AI scheduler that arranges work meetings, childcare, and activities around the goal of having all family members home by dinnertime, prioritizing communal meals as a central part of family life. It’s a small adjustment but a powerful one, recognizing that some of the most meaningful human moments happen when we’re physically together.
These shifts could help recover what our society has lost in the push for individual convenience—those countless tiny moments that create bonds, deepen relationships, and cultivate empathy. When we only interact with people on our own terms, we miss out on learning about others in ways we don’t control: the stories they share, the body language they convey, the surprises they bring into our lives. Hospitality, unlike kindness, is a sustained, shared openness to each other’s lives and needs, and it requires an environment where we can be fully present.
Our society doesn’t need more kindness in the form of digital hearts, thumbs-up, or recommended shopping lists. What we need is a way back to a life that honors hospitality—a way of being that’s about creating spaces where we’re not just individuals but connected, interdependent members of a community. To get there, we must start viewing technology as a tool to enhance togetherness, not separation.
Imagine a future where technology isn’t merely a means to fulfill individual desires but a tool that encourages shared experiences. In this world, we’d reclaim the dinner table as a place of laughter and storytelling, the living room as a site of shared entertainment, and our neighborhoods as places where people aren’t strangers but neighbors. When technology serves this vision of hospitality, we might finally regain the sense of community that we’ve been missing all along.
