Why Everyone's Social Battery Is Dying Right Now

We all want connection. So why is it so hard?

Humans weren't built for this.

Constant pings, endless feeds, shrinking social spaces. No wonder so many of us say our social battery is dead.

This isn't weakness. This isn't about being introverted or extroverted either. I'm what my friends call "aggressively extroverted" and I still deal with this.

This is our biological need for connection colliding with a culture that's robbed us of the spaces and ways we're built to connect.

I've honestly lost count of how many times you all have asked me this:

"Why is it so draining to talk to people? Why is it so hard to reach out when the thing I want most is connection?"

So let’s talk about it:

What is a social battery.
How dead social batteries become such a problem.
What we can do about this.

"Social battery" isn't a term created by mental health professionals. It's a community term that arose from lived experience, just like ASMR or misophonia did.

I think of a social battery as the mental fuel you spend on people. Like any battery, it needs to recharge. A dead social battery is when you want connection but even replying to a text feels like climbing Mt. Everest.

Let me tell you about the time I absolutely had a dead social battery. When I was working at Columbia University Medical Center, the hospital kept asking us to see more and more patients (more on that story here). I was getting stretched thinner and thinner. I loved the work, helping people through difficult things was so meaningful to me. But I was beyond depleted.

When I took the subway home, small things would set me off completely. Someone bumping into me would make me so angry. And when I got home to my wife and two-year-old daughter, I had zero desire to interact with them. Zero capacity. I hated myself for that. I hated that I didn't want to talk to my wife after spending all day being socially present with other people.

That's when I knew something had to change. I quit that job so I could be a better husband and father.

Now we have a term for what I was experiencing every night – dead social battery.

How Socializing Can Drain You

Socializing is real work for the brain. In any conversation, you're juggling words, emotions, and self-image. That's cognitive load. Like a Wi-Fi router with too many devices connected, the bandwidth weakens when you're overloaded.

Neural resources get depleted. When we're mentally fatigued, the brain shows reduced activation in executive-function systems. Your "control center" powers down to recover. This is when low-stimulation downtime helps you reset.

This happened to all of us. Some of us, like me, have pretty big social batteries. Others may have a smaller capacity. But given enough mix of difficult situations, and all of our batteries will drain.

Information overload accelerates the drain. Studies link high information loads to social media fatigue. Constant notifications and decision points burn through energy. Social comparison adds an emotional tax on top of everything else.

This is different from social anxiety (fearing evaluation, rejection, embarrassment) or depression (not experience joy in a variety of situations and having low energy). With a dead battery, you want to connect, you just ran out of energy. Though these can overlap, anxiety and depression can make the battery drain faster.

How We Got Here

Phones, the pandemic, lost third spaces, and cultural instability formed a perfect storm, especially for Gen Z and younger millennials. With fewer practice grounds, every interaction feels higher-stakes.

The pandemic years disrupted social development for many people. So much social learning happens through osmosis. Apprenticeships, internships, hallway conversations at work. Remote life removed most of the places where we used to learn how to interact with other people. Meanwhile, third spaces (places outside home, work, or school where you can just be with others) have been declining for decades (well before smartphones and social media).

And here's what really pisses me off: older people telling younger folks to "just go make friends" like it's 1985. You can't just join a bowling league anymore. You can't just go out for happy hour with coworkers and become friends. The world doesn't work that way now. Friendships take a lot of intentional work, and we've been robbed of the opportunities to learn how to do that work.

Four Patterns I Keep Seeing

Based on the flood of responses I got from this community (seriously, more than any topic I've ever covered), here's what's hitting hardest:

1. Burnout

"I work 1.5 jobs… my social battery is usually at 2%."

When you're working long hours, juggling kids, or running on fumes, there's no bandwidth left for connection. I have a friend in sales who's dealing with angry customers all day, every day. His team keeps shrinking, so he's got more work. He's also a new dad. When we finally get him to hang out, he looks like a zombie. He's so done with everyone and everything.

The grind economy is robbing people of joy and connection, and I'm sick of it.

2. Masking & Neurodivergence

"Being with people is work…masking is draining."

For neurodivergent folks, "performing normal" is expensive. You're filtering yourself, tracking unwritten social rules, managing sensory inputs. The world is biased toward neurotypical people, and if you don't fit that mold, everything becomes harder work.

The same is true for people with chronic illnesses, disabilities, being immune compromised...

Emotional labor is invisible. People don't see how hard you're working just to be present in social situations.

3. Loneliness

"I want to befriend random people, but I'm worried I'll seem weird."

Here's something we don't talk about enough: when you've been chronically lonely (which many people have been since COVID), you become desperate for social interaction. When you finally get a chance to connect, you might dump everything on that person because you're starved.

It's like being really hungry and then going to a buffet. You stuff yourself, feel sick, and regret it. The same thing happens socially. We need feedback on how to pace ourselves, but we're not getting it.

4. Digital Overload

"There's too much in my head to speak out loud."

We think texting and scrolling are "rest," but they drain us in a thousand small ways. Social media activates all your social muscles: impression management, interpreting faces and emotions, dealing with constant comparison.

But social media gives you none of the nourishment that real life connection provides.

The drain is scaled up, the support is dialed down.

What Actually Helps

1) Identify drains and chargers

Find out what drains you and try to minimize the drain in your life. For example:

Masking
Doomscrolling
Shallow conversations
News overwhelm
Video calls when you're already fried.

Find out what charges you and pick those situations whenever possible:

One deep conversation with someone you trust
Parallel play (working/studying/gaming side by side)
Actual solitary time (not scrolling, real alone time doing art, reading, gardening, a photo walk)
Physical activities that don't require social performance

2) Budget energy like money

Don't spend it all in one place. Schedule downtime on purpose. Keep a reserve for what actually matters, not whatever pings loudest.

If you're going to have a big social day, plan recovery time before and after. And real recovery time, not scrolling TikTok, which is still social work for your brain.

3) Choose connections that replenish you

Most people think they want low-stakes texting, but what actually recharges them is deeper, more meaningful conversations with someone they trust. Use text as a bridge to voice or in-person time. Many of us feel better after a call or short hangout, and worse after impersonal texting or DMing.

For example, I hate video calls when I'm drained. Audio-only conversations while walking are the sweet spot for me.

4) Design for structured serendipity

Since we can't rely on natural social opportunities anymore, we have to engineer them. Join one recurring thing. A class, club, volunteer shift, parallel play activity. Same place, same faces, low stakes. Let repetition do half the work.

Find activities where the goal isn't socializing but doing something together. Playing games, working on projects, learning skills. Friendship will come in time.

5) Practice low-risk vulnerability

Small honesty cues ("I'm low-energy today but wanted to say hi") invite real connection without overexposing yourself. Most people appreciate when you drop the performance a little.

6) Build "parallel play" friendships

Some of the best social recharge comes from being together without performing. Study sessions, co-working, quiet gaming, watch-parties. Great for neurodivergent folks and anyone who's socially exhausted.

7) Give yourself an exit ramp

My rule: "I can leave after 30 minutes." This lowers the activation energy to show up. Often, once you're there, you stay because it feels good to be with people. But knowing you can bail makes it easier to try.

This especially helps me if I’m going somewhere where I don’t know anyone. If I bail after 30 minutes what’s the worst that can happen? If no one there knows me, no one will realize I bailed.

The Hard Truth About Making Adult Friends

Friendships are work now.

They don't just happen naturally like they did when we were in elementary school.

We have to be intentional about this stuff now.

We have to structure opportunities for connection.

It's exhausting that we have to do this extra work, but that's the world we're in.

What to Try This Week

One reach-out, one step more. Use text only to set up a quick call or 30-minute hangout
One parallel-play session. Invite someone to co-work, study, or read in the same space. No small talk required
One boundary that protects your reserve. Put actual downtime on your calendar or distance yourself from a situation that drains your battery.

Stop Apologizing for Your Limits

You're not broken. You're drained. And drained can be recharged.

You're running hard in a world designed to drain faster than it restores. The technology we use daily harvests our attention and sells us crap we don't want while giving us none of the social nourishment we actually need. Of course you're exhausted.

A phone at 1% can slowly charge back to full. So can you. But first you have to stop doing things that drain you while pretending they're charging you.

Don't stay always on in this world. Social media stopped being social a long time ago. It's an advertising game now. Real connection happens when you can drop the performance, be a little awkward, and trust that the other person is probably just as relieved as you are to have a real conversation.

Until next time, boldly go 🖖🏽

Dr. Ali

Dive Deeper 🤿

📺 YouTube: My 2 hour livestream on this topic.

📚 Books:

🔬 Research Behind This Lesson:

Defining Social Battery