Attachment Theory and the Algorithmic Age
Attachment theory, first developed by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby, has long been a cornerstone of psychotherapeutic thinking. It helps us understand how early relational experiences shape the ways we seek connection, handle conflict, and navigate intimacy.
But in recent years, attachment language, including that of avoidant attachment, has gone mainstream.
A casual scroll through YouTube or TikTok brings up countless videos on “how to handle an avoidant attachment,” “no contact strategies,” and “rewiring your anxious-avoidant dance.” Some are presented by influencers and relationship coaches, others are AI-generated explainers. There’s no shortage of advice.
One of the more prominent voices in this space is Adam Lane Smith, a former licensed therapist turned coach. Smith speaks particularly to men, using evolutionary language and neurobiology to explain why they might avoid emotional closeness. According to Smith, up to 60% of the U.S. population now exhibits avoidant traits. That number is controversial, but it reflects a real cultural concern: emotional withdrawal seems to be more visible, and more pathologized, than ever before.
As a psychotherapist, I see attachment theory as a useful tool. It helps me map how a patient might respond to closeness or distance in relationships, including the therapeutic one. But outside the therapy room, I find myself asking: are people actually becoming more avoidant, or are we just getting better at naming, and sometimes misnaming, what we see?
Is There a Real Increase in Avoidant Attachment
While one large cross-sectional study found that attachment anxiety tends to decrease across the lifespan, and that avoidance peaks in middle adulthood, these patterns alone don’t explain the cultural prominence of avoidant traits today. From an evolutionary perspective, some researchers have argued that avoidant attachment may actually be an adaptive strategy in harsh or unpredictable environments. For example, Frankenhuis et al. (2010) suggest that avoidance, characterized by self-reliance and emotional distancing, may have evolved to help individuals act quickly under threat, suppress vulnerable attachment bids, and protect themselves in environments where relational safety cannot be assumed.
It’s worth considering, then, that we may be seeing a rise in avoidant behavior, without necessarily witnessing a rise in clinical attachment disturbance. The popularization of therapy-speak has expanded our vocabulary, but it can also lead to overdiagnosis.
Terms like “avoidant,” “narcissist,” or “toxic” are now commonly used in dating conversations, online forums, and even casual chats. But when does someone simply have emotional boundaries or uncertainty, and when are they truly avoidantly attached?
This distinction matters in modern relationships. Because labeling isn’t the same as understanding.
Gender Expectations and the Emotional Divide
One of the most common dynamics I see in couples therapy is a familiar gendered tension: the woman wants emotional availability; the man doesn’t know how to provide it.
Whether due to biology, socialization, or both, it remains true that many men are taught to suppress vulnerability, while women are more often encouraged to explore and express it. As traditional gender roles dissolve, women increasingly expect their partners to meet them in the emotional realm.
But what happens when the man doesn’t speak that language?
Rather than recognizing the difference in communication styles or developmental conditioning, many women see emotional unavailability as a personal failure. They may describe their partner as emotionally stunted, immature, or “avoidant.”
This risks reducing a real, complex tension to a diagnostic label. And it overlooks the cultural double-bind many men find themselves in: asked to be strong, stable providers and emotionally fluent, available partners.
It’s no wonder that some retreat.
Which brings us to another dimension here that is rarely explored: male shame.
In today’s cultural climate, men are expected to be emotionally literate, financially secure, physically fit, politically correct, and spiritually grounded. The pressure is enormous, and often unspoken. Men are supposed to embody both the old virtues of stoicism and provision, and the newer virtues of softness and vulnerability.
When men feel they are failing at either, shame arises.
Not guilt, which says I did something wrong, but shame, which says I am wrong. And for many men, that shame becomes unbearable. They withdraw not because they don’t care, but because they care so deeply that failure feels inevitable.
This is the hallmark of the avoidant. But it’s not always born of childhood wounds, arrogance or narcissism. Sometimes, it is born of quiet terror.
The current therapy culture, which is feminized, emotionally expressive, and often steeped in vulnerability, can feel alienating to men who were never taught to speak this language. And without trusted guides, they are left alone with their shame.
The Digital Dating Dilemma
Then there’s the modern dating scene, shaped by algorithms, saturated by choice, and largely detached from community-based accountability.
In my Berlin-based practice, I hear stories weekly from patients navigating dating apps. The pattern is predictable: you match, you chat, you open up. It feels promising. The messages grow longer, the intimacy deepens. A date is proposed. And then—nothing.
Unmatched. Ghosted. No explanation.
These stories are painful, even when there was no physical meeting. “Why am I so upset?” they ask. “It was just texting.” But it wasn’t just texting. It was attention, time, emotional investment, and hope. And when that is withdrawn suddenly, it mimics emotional abandonment, even trauma.
As Esther Perel notes, dating apps often offer “digital intimacy without responsibility”. You can feel deeply known by someone who, in truth, owes you nothing. In this paradoxical space, where connection is easy but commitment is elusive, avoidance becomes normalized.
Even securely attached individuals begin to adapt. They hesitate before opening up. They withhold. They protect themselves.
In short: they start to behave avoidantly.
Are We Mislabeling All Withdrawal as Avoidance?
It is important to recognize that not all avoidance is pathology. Sometimes, people pull back because the relationship doesn’t feel right. Sometimes they are going through stress, burnout, or grief. Sometimes they are simply not ready.
And yet, in a culture saturated by attachment language, even temporary distance is interpreted as dysfunction. We might ask: is it really avoidant to take space, to set limits, or to be uncertain?
Many of us have ghosted, delayed replies, or avoided conflict in relationships we didn’t want to fully enter. That doesn’t mean we have an avoidant attachment style. It means we’re human and sometimes we act poorly.
Conclusion: What Needs Protecting?
So, is avoidant attachment really on the rise?
Maybe. But maybe we’re also just living in a time where emotional safety is harder to come by, where community has eroded, where digital life promotes intimacy without accountability, where roles and expectations have shifted faster than our nervous systems can adapt.
Avoidance, in this view, isn’t simply a failure to attach. It might be a strategy of self-protection. A response to overstimulation. A symptom of societal fragmentation.
The work, then, is not only to help people become more emotionally available, but also to ask: what makes emotional closeness feel unsafe? What kind of cultural conditions, relational patterns, and internal beliefs make withdrawal seem like the safer path?
As therapists, partners, and friends, our job isn’t always to push people to “open up.” Sometimes it’s to honour what they’re protecting, and gently help them build a world where intimacy no longer feels like a risk they can’t afford.
This essay is part of an ongoing series on “Depth in Modern Therapy.”
In an age of comfort and immediacy, psychotherapy risks losing its capacity for real transformation. Across this series, I explore how emotional avoidance, comfort-first culture, and the revival of psychedelic-assisted therapy each reflect our struggle between seeking safety and desiring depth.
Next in the series: The Validation Trap: How Affirmation Therapy Threatens Depth
Sophie Frost is a psychodynamic psychotherapist and executive-function coach. She works with adults and couples in Berlin and online through The Primrose Practice.