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title: Are We All Angela Bennett Now? The Net and the Weaponization of Loneliness
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š¶KEYWORDS: The Net,loneliness,AI,social isolation,technology,society,public space,Angela Bennett,social media,algorithms
In April,Mark Zuckerberg,ever the tech visionary,took to a podcast to address a growing concern: America’s loneliness epidemic. He framed the issue with chilling precision: “The average American has-I think it’s fewer than three friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s like 15 friends or somthing, right?”
His solution? AI friends. Ideally, AI friends generated by his company. The implications of quantifying human connection in such stark, economic terms are deeply unsettling.
“It’s like I’m not even me anymore.”
-Angela Bennett, The Net (1995)
Thirty years ago, Irwin Winkler’s proto-cyber thriller, The Net, arrived in theaters. It was 1995, a year Hollywood seemingly “discovered” the internet.Sandra Bullock starred as Angela Bennett, a reclusive computer expert who stumbles upon a dangerous conspiracy. Suddenly, her life unravels as shadowy figures systematically erase her existence. Her job, home, finances, and even her identity are wiped clean with a few keystrokes.
Bennett is, perhaps conveniently, perfectly positioned for this digital annihilation.Her mother, suffering from dementia, doesn’t recognize her.she works remotely,never meeting her clients face-to-face. Her social life is confined to online chat rooms. She orders from Pizza.net. Her neighbors barely know her. Her most constant companion is the screen. A far-fetched scenario back then, but one that feels eerily familiar today.
“Just think about it. Our whole world is sitting there on a computer. It’s in the computer, everything: your DMV records, your Social Security, your credit cards, your medical records. It’s all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It’s like this little electronic shadow on each and every one of us, just begging for someone to screw with, and you know what? They’ve done it to me, and you know what? they’re gonna do it to you.”
-Angela Bennett, The Net
While the villain in The Net is a shadowy cybersecurity firm, the film’s core fear is more profound: in a world where our data is digitized, what happens when those who control that details abuse it? What happens when it’s weaponized?
The “technophobic thriller” label frequently enough applied to this era of Hollywood is a misnomer. “Techno-skeptic” is more accurate. Thes films were generally optimistic about technology, frequently enough showcasing its potential to save the day. The real concern lay with the humans wielding these powerful tools, and the need for oversight and ethical boundaries.
But in 2025, the most unsettlingly prescient aspect of The Net is Angela Bennett’s profound digital isolation. The contrivances that made her identity theft believable in 1995 are now commonplace. We bank,shop,work,and socialize online,often without interacting with another human being in person. The COVID-19 lockdowns only amplified this isolation. For an entire generation, face-to-face interaction is no longer second nature. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a pressing global health threat, with alarming statistics about social isolation among older adults and adolescents. In the US, social isolation is now considered a major public health risk, rivaling obesity.
the net appeared when the internet was still a largely uncharted territoryā¦ It remains a fascinating snapshot of a time when the future felt limitless, and optimism reigned.
We are increasingly glued to our phones, bombarded by algorithms vying for our attention and ad revenue. As Angela Bennett warned, “Our whole lives are on the computer, and they knew that I could be vanished. They knew that nobody would care, that nobody would understand.” In this sense, in 2025, we are all Angela Bennett. Our digital alienation makes us vulnerable to those who don’t have our best interests at heart.
However, blaming technology alone for the rise in loneliness is a mistake. While technology undoubtedly plays a role, its prominence reflects deeper societal issues. In Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World (2024), journalist Dan Hancox argues that the demonization of crowds and the erosion of public space contribute substantially to our alienation: “Whether through government cuts or concessions to the expansive ambitions of private enterprise, a key reason we have all become a bit more crowd-shy in recent decades is the prolonged, top-down assault on public space and the wider public realm-what are sometimes called the urban commons. From properly funded libraries to pleasant, open parks and squares, free or affordable sports and leisure facilities, safe, accessible and cheap public transport, pleasant street furniture and free public toilets, and a vibrant, varied, uncommodified social and cultural life-all the best things about city life fall under the heading of the public realm, and all of them facilitate and support happy crowds rather than sad, alienated, stay-at-home loners.”
Margaret Thatcher’s famous declaration nearly half a century ago foreshadowed the neoliberal emphasis on individualism: “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.”
In line with this ideology, social connection has been outsourced to tech companies driven by the attention economy. “The Algo” has become our new, capricious god. If your livelihood depends on engagement, the temptation is to prioritize what satisfies the algorithm over genuine human connection.
How much would you trust an AI chatbot powered by Meta to be your friend? Answers will vary. But many are already forming close bonds with “AI companions” or even “falling in love” with ChatGPT. The rise of “cognitive offloading”-relying on AI for critical thinking-is well underway, with students increasingly dependent on the technology.
Beyond the obvious concerns that AI “friends” are unthinking algorithms that can never offer the challenges of real friendship, it’s crucial to remember who these systems ultimately serve. Elon Musk’s Grok recently generated controversy by casting doubt on the Holocaust and discussing “white genocide” in response to prompts-a stark reminder that these systems are never neutral, never apolitical, and always controlled by those who write the code.
I’m blessed to have a partner and a good circle of friends. But I work from home and often spend entire days without speaking to anyone. I’m not immune to the feelings of isolation, anxiety, and powerlessness that come with endless scrolling. I suspect many of us feel the same way. We are all Angela Bennett. The weaponization of this alienation, as depicted in The net, can lead to identity theft. But it can also be used for more insidious purposes: manipulating our loneliness to drive consumption, increase working hours, and turn us against each other. Uncritically embracing AI “friendships” will only amplify this vulnerability.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can reclaim our attention, adopt healthier screen habits, limit doomscrolling, reject energy-intensive AI, and delete our accounts. Crucially,we can also organize collectively in the real world: join a union or a local club,reach out to friends who need to talk. Those in power want us to feel hopeless. We must resist.
The Net emerged when the internet was still a nascent force. Before the dot-com boom and bust, before Web 2.0, before the walled gardens and the “dead internet” theory. It’s a fascinating time capsule, capturing a moment when the future felt open and possibilities seemed endless.
We see The Net‘s influence in modern screen-life films like Searching, Host, Unfriended, and The Den. But perhaps its most enduring legacy will be its invitation to step outside, connect with nature, talk to another human being, and organize.
“Find the others.”
-Douglas Rushkoff, Team Human (2019)
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