My new chapter is called “Never Enough.” Smartphones allow us to access therapy from the comfort of our homes, connect with friends across the globe, and track our mental health in ways that were never possible before. As Joanna Rodriguez and Nadine Page highlight in their article Your Smartphone Could Be Good for Your Mental Health, technology has revolutionized the way we approach mental health. From telemedicine platforms offering greater access to therapy, to apps that help monitor our well-being, we’re more connected to support than ever before. These advancements seem to promise a more efficient and accessible way to tackle mental health struggles, offering convenience and instant access to resources we couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.

Yet something in this convenience doesn’t quite add up. I was initially drawn to online therapy for its practicality—no commute, no scheduling conflicts, just a simple click to begin a session. It seemed like the perfect solution, a way to receive help without the hassle of real-world barriers. But over time, I began to feel a growing disconnect. Something wasn’t right. The therapy I was receiving lacked the emotional depth I had come to expect. Rodriguez and Page suggest that telemedicine and digital platforms can indeed offer some benefits, but there’s a fundamental difference between a conversation on a screen and one held in person. Without the physical presence of a therapist—the eye contact, the subtle body language, the energy in the room—it felt more like an exchange of words than a therapeutic process. The connection was fleeting, and I realized the “help” I was receiving lacked the profound empathy and nuance that only face-to-face interaction can provide.

This disconnection isn’t just personal; it’s rooted in science. Our brains are biologically wired for in-person interaction. Research shows that face-to-face communication activates parts of the brain that digital interfaces can’t replicate. A study published in Psychological Science demonstrated that when we are physically present with someone, we experience a deeper emotional connection and trust—something that a screen, however convenient, cannot mimic. The human brain responds to physical cues like body language, facial expressions, and tone in ways that digital communication simply cannot. Without the ability to read these subtle cues or experience the physical presence of another person, therapy becomes transactional, not transformative.

Rodriguez and Page tout the benefits of apps like SPARX, which gamify mental health treatment, as a breakthrough in making therapy more engaging and accessible. But these apps oversimplify the emotional work therapy truly requires. Instead of confronting deep-seated issues or navigating the complexities of our emotions, these platforms provide quick fixes—surface-level relief without lasting growth. Studies show that obsessively tracking our health through these apps can actually increase anxiety. What was meant to be self-care becomes just another task on an already overwhelming to-do list. Every reminder to meditate, track moods, or count steps feels like an urgent obligation, further intensifying the pressure to be perfect. These apps don’t heal—they merely mask the problem, often making it worse.

Social media compounds this sense of inadequacy. We’re constantly exposed to curated, idealized versions of life, and we’re led to believe that this is the standard we should measure ourselves against. But in reality, these platforms aren’t about connection—they’re about competition. The more we compare ourselves to others, the more we feel like we’re falling short. Social media use has been linked to higher rates of depression and anxiety, particularly among young people. The more we engage, the more we’re reminded that we’re never enough. We’re not just connecting with friends by looking at their posts on Instagram; we’re being subtly told to be more, do more, achieve more—and we’re left feeling like we’re always failing to measure up.

In the end, the technologies that promise to improve our mental health often do the opposite. They feed into a culture of perfectionism, amplifying our anxiety and reinforcing the belief that we are never enough. We’ve become slaves to an endless cycle of self-optimization, constantly chasing the next “better” version of ourselves under the guise of self-care. But in this relentless pursuit, we’ve lost sight of something essential: the simple truth that we are enough, just as we are. Technology may offer convenience, but it rarely provides the human connection, authenticity, or emotional depth we need to truly thrive. Instead of healing us, it feeds our insecurities, turning self-care into another metric to measure. As much as the authors of “Your Smartphone Could Be Good for Your Mental Health” want us to believe smartphones can be our saviors, the truth is they could be our friends, but they never truly are.