As Max got older, his explorations grew more solitary, which led me to a new worry: that his interests were pulling him away from his fellow humans rather than toward them. (To protect his future privacy, I’m calling him by his middle name in this article.) Max was always a shy kid, slow to warm up to new people and content to spend long stretches on his own. The pandemic, which hit when he was 10, didn’t help. Academically, remote school worked out fine for Max, but socially, it added to his isolation. When in-person classes began again, he kept to himself more than ever, quiet behind…
