—Malte Mueller—Getty ImagesEvery so often, I taste something that reminds me of the cherry-flavored lollipops my local bank used to give to children who came in with their parents. I never liked the taste, but I ate the candy anyway. I was a kid, dragged along on my parents’ chores, and it was a treat in an otherwise boring stretch of adult obligations.I assumed this would one day be part of my life, too: regular trips to deposit checks, buy groceries, fill prescriptions, pay for photo prints, return rented videos, and occasionally compare screw sizes in the hardware store. But in my high-tech adulthood, I can do all of these chores from home. Banking happens in an app. Groceries and just about anything else can be delivered. Video stores and photo labs are practically extinct in the age of camera phones and streaming. On the whole, I’m glad to give up balancing a checkbook and waiting in several lines every week. But as my conveniences pile up and tasks turn into taps on a screen, I increasingly feel like I’m missing something other than a treacly lollipop. Errands were a burden, sure, but they were a reason to leave the house. Without the obligation to go places, it’s easy to spend all day alone, switching from paying bills on my phone to watching videos on my phone to passively scrolling on my phone, ignoring the outside world and the people in it. Even the indulgences running errands allowed—a gourmet coffee or a fast-food combo meal—can be ordered ahead or dropped off.Some of these high-tech offerings let us do our errands from anywhere, while others insist we stay home. Miss a grocery delivery, and you risk warm yogurt or potential theft. For nonperishable deliveries, a doorbell camera lets you avoid going to the door to greet a stranger. You can stare through a virtual peephole all day, monitoring when packages arrive and clandestinely recording any passersby who look at them. These replacements are sometimes easier, but not always better. Many meals don’t travel well, and even the most reliable personal shopper might not pick out the same fruit you would’ve chosen. For a delivery devotee, what was once a series of social interactions is now a chain of one-tap transactions, which can reshape how we see other people: not as human beings occupying a shared space, but as hirable servants in a world made just for us. “It gives us this false sense of control and individuality if we’re just staying in our little box and having things come to us,” says Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Sussex and the author of Once Upon a Stranger, a book on the value of small interactions. Sandstrom cites research showing that people who have a wider variety of encounters—a polite nod with a stranger, a short conversation with a clerk, or a deep chat with a friend—tend to be happier. Like everything else, many of these small social interactions have gone online, and again, replacement doesn’t mean improvement. I can see hundreds of strangers in a short scroll through TikTok or Instagram. But I see them on a curated feed that’s mine and mine alone. And unless I also make content, they don’t see me as anything more than a metric: a like or a view. Parasocial relationships with influencers or podcast hosts may have some value, but the socialization remains one-way.Outings also give us a chance to practice how we interact with the world. There’s a reason they’re called social “skills,” Sandstrom notes. “How are you going to make a new friend? How are you going to go to a job interview?” she asks. “It feels like a really horrible idea to not have all these little opportunities to practice.”The smartphone has undoubtedly made it easier than ever to stay in touch with our real-life friends. But here, too, the interaction has changed. Texting gives me a drip of connection throughout the day, which maintains a feeling of socialization without giving me the full experience of hearing someone’s voice or seeing their body language. Virtual hangouts are like the grocery delivery order that’s just-about right: good enough, yet still a little disappointing. Errands could be a time for deeper socializing: an opportunity to catch up with a friend who had to do the same chores or who was bored at home and might come along. The places where we did chores and the pit stops in between served as de facto “third places.” As patronage drops, these centers of casual social interaction can’t stay open. Big box megastores and, later, e-commerce have led to empty storefronts in many towns’ main streets. High urban rents and a more isolated population make the business model for third places increasingly precarious. The places that do remain are built more for people who aren’t in them. With the rise of delivery and online ordering, coffee shops and fast casual restaurants increasingly serve mobile customers. The result: workers are slammed even when there’s no physical line, takeout orders pile up, and a constant stream of people pass in and out. Now, the in-person customer is often secondary to the virtual one. Sometimes the in-person customer becomes a virtual one, as businesses push visitors to order from digital kiosks. Some commercial restaurant space has been taken over by ghost kitchens—restaurants that only serve customers who order online and get their food delivered.Yes, errands were boring. I’m sure I told my mom this about 100 times as we went from store to store, aisle to aisle. But I’m not less bored now, I’m just bored in a different way. I’m tempted to spend the time I save with digital errands watching TV or a movie. But as producers increasingly make “second-screen” content designed for people to watch while they also look at their phones, it can feel like there is no escape from a phone-centric life. The two-screen experience is just distracting enough to keep me from thinking about what else I could do with my time. There was more excitement and novelty out in the real world: an odd interaction with a stranger, an overheard conversation in an aisle, or any of the little dramas of daily life that play out in public. It’s a little dystopian to imagine using every replacement for errands at once—streaming and scrolling while waiting for groceries and a fast-food delivery; sitting alone and being waited on by gig workers and digital assistants. Not everything needs to be done in-person, but as technology advances, the analog alternatives become harder to find, and we’re pushed to predictable interactions on screens instead of the softly social and occasionally surprising world outside. The upside of digitization, perhaps, is that without the need to run as many physical errands, we could devote more time to activities that are more rewarding. That’s if we can find a place for them and if we can recognize what we need, instead of just getting whatever we want.