Yea, IDK, social ques maybe? Are you really arguing that there is no difference talking to friends in person vs on the internet or phone?
The short version is, your digital friends, aren't real people. You can hang up on them, or not answer when you don't feel like. The second you put your controller or phone down, they disappear and wait to be pulled back into your existence. Real people you can't manage like that, so you have to use different methods of interaction.
I don’t have any friends that I don’t want to talk too to the point I would hang up on them. The friends I talk to in person - I can just as easily not hang out with them if I don’t feel like seeing them either.
I have a group of five friends that I use to work with and we’ve all gone our separate ways as far as jobs, we mostly talk on Slack but we do go out of our way to meet for lunch at least once s month. Honestly, at this point in my life, it takes an effort to keep friends because I know I should. I’d much rather spend my limited free time with my wife or working out in my home gym.
What benefit do you get from seeing people in person? When I see my friends in person we talk, play cards, and play video games. We may go out and eat/drink but everything else we can do online. I don’t need to physically see other men to keep a friendship with them.
I did specifically call out my male friends. I purposefully distanced myself from my (platanic) female friends after getting married except for the ones where I was friends with the couple because having friends of the opposite sex as a married man just brings in too many complications.