Why We Need to Belong to Communities
Human beings have always lived in community. Long before social media, smartphones, or even landline phones, people knew that survival, wellbeing, and meaning came from belonging to one another.
In Ireland, this sense of community was woven into everyday life. People didn’t need invitations or calendars to connect. They went visiting. Neighbours and family dropped into one another’s houses, often unannounced. Some homes were known as great Céilí houses, places where conversation flowed, music might break out, and everyone was welcome.
News travelled from house to house. If someone was sick, struggling, or short of help, it didn’t stay private for long and that wasn’t a bad thing. Help was organised naturally. People looked out for one another because that’s what people did. No apps required.
Fast forward to today, and something feels deeply out of balance.
We have more ways to communicate than ever before, yet loneliness is at an all-time high among young people, older people, and everyone in between. The simple act of dropping into someone’s house has largely disappeared. Visits must now be arranged well in advance. In many cases, people don’t even make phone calls anymore.
Instead, we send texts.
“Are you ok?”
“Text me if you need anything.”
While these messages may be well-intentioned, they are not the same as sitting down with someone, hearing their voice, reading their expression, or sharing a friendly chat. Human connection has been reduced to efficiency. We are communicating but not truly connecting.
In many ways, we are beginning to act more like robots than human beings.
What makes this particularly concerning is that humans possess something extraordinary: higher faculties. These include perception, will, reason, imagination, memory, and intuition. These faculties allow us to create meaning, to empathise, to dream, and to shape our own reality.
Animals rely primarily on their five physical senses sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Humans can go far beyond this. But only if we actually use what we’ve been given.
If we stop exercising our higher faculties, then yes artificial intelligence can begin to take over in ways that diminish us. But that outcome is not inevitable.
The alternative is far more hopeful.
We can choose to develop our higher faculties and, just as importantly, teach our young people how to develop theirs. AI can be a powerful tool for filling knowledge gaps, increasing efficiency, and supporting learning. But using our imagination, intuition, reasoning, and perception is what makes us human. It’s what makes us interesting. It’s what makes us capable of deep relationships and thriving communities.
How we communicate has changed many times throughout history. Every generation has faced new tools, new technologies, and new challenges. What we are experiencing now is one of the biggest shifts yet but technology itself is not the enemy.
The real question is this: how do we use it for the good of our communities?
Belonging does not happen by accident. It must be created, nurtured, and protected. Whether that’s through local gatherings, shared interests, learning together, or simply making time for real conversation, community is still possible and still essential.
We are not meant to do life alone.
We never were.
That’s why the Virginia Pages Network exists.
It’s a modern way to recreate something we’ve always known matters, people looking out for one another, sharing ideas, stories, and support. It’s not about recreating the past, but shaping something that works for our community today.
This is a space to use our higher faculties, to listen, imagine, reason, and create together. And most importantly, to shape it into what the people of Virginia actually want and need.
Community doesn’t happen on its own.
It happens when people show up.