Am I less alone now for having this exchange of posts on HN with you than I would be had I spent this time reading from a book, which is of course also a communication, if only in one direction?
My instinct tells me that neither of these states involve meaningful (which I'm defining here as personal) human interaction, but I'll freely admit that's more a gut feeling than a scientific truth.
I very rarely have that during the 9 hours I'm around people every day at work.
Just because we're not engaging in that way right now has nothing to do with the medium, but the participants and the forum/context in which they are engaging.
My 2$ is that the digital medium doesn't by design take anything away from how meaningful an interaction is. Emotion can be conveyed in a multitude of ways, most of which carry just fine over the internet.