32 ms·

Fighting Loneliness with Public Living Rooms

189 points by misnamed 10y ago

bemmu 10y ago
Pubs and temples can be a bit similar spaces, but this seems great in that it is not connected to a religion or alcohol consumption. I guess this is what cafes are could be like, but somehow they have turned out to be places where you are expected to keep to yourself.
- CalChris 10y ago
  That wasn't always the case. Before WIFI and laptops, cafes could be pretty crowded and social.
  - icantdrive55 10y ago
    I am getting flashbacks of those days. It was so nice to walk into a Starbucks, and not see the chorus of people staring into their devices. The smart phone is looking like The Adult Pacifier. I'm getting old, but I remember social anxiety. I might have been that person who pulled out the phone?
    - gkya 10y ago
      Oh glad I have showdead on, this comment was killed! Sadly now I see quite a bit dead comments that shouldn't be. Diversity of ideas shouldn't be left out in crossfire in a fight against spammers and trolls.
    - farnsworth 10y ago
      When was this magic time when people constantly made friends with strangers in public? I remember that picture comparing the line of people staring at their smart phones to a group of people in the 1920's separately staring at their newspapers in public. Same people, same impulses, different day. Talking to people older than me, they often seem to say that a timeless feature of living in cities is that you try to pretend that the masses around you aren't there.
      - parennoob 10y ago
        I would say it was about five-something years ago. You weren't expected to have a smartphone that coddled you like a baby, and people would be more willing to help you out. Example – I was in New York by myself, and without a smart phone. I had to find my way around with maps + asking people. I ended up talking to quite a few interesting people, and hanging out with a stranger as we both were going the same way to a popular landmark. Today the iPhone in my pocket completely replaces all of those interactions, since I can (and am supposed to be able to) map my way to absolutely anywhere in NYC.
  - swang 10y ago
    yes coffeehouses/cafes use to be where all the intellectuals gathered to discuss news and gossip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17th_and_18th_centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...
  - heleph 10y ago
    I met many of my local friends in a cafe here. We all have small kids, which give you a very easy opportunity to talk to people you don't know and make it difficult to spend time with a phone or laptop. After four years of living in our town with kids, I almost always bump into people I know when we are out and about. I've never been so connected to the local community where I live before and I really love it. :)
  - pmlnr 10y ago
    Especially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where even one of the public uprisings is originated from coffee houses.
- farnsworth 10y ago
  I was raised going to church but stopped in college, and I really miss the community. There's absolutely nothing like it that I've found in the secular world. It almost makes me want to 'fake it' and join a church again, just to be around such kind and welcoming people so often. And it's not just the social part of the community, or the moral lessons, although I liked both of those things - a church gives you an entire framework for your life. What's a secular wedding? A secular funeral? How do your kids get involved in the community outside of the public school system (Boy Scouts is hardly secular) and how do you celebrate their coming of age? What are your standing plans for Wednesday night and Sunday morning? We have to reinvent all these things from scratch when we're not involved with a church, and people do that, but I've never seen such an in-depth and positive out-of-the-box experience as what a church provides. They've been optimizing this stuff for literally millennia. And I think that society is ripe for a group that will provide all of this, while not also trying to tell us about spirits doing magic tricks. And if you think about it that way, then the "this is where the world comes from" part of religion is almost a sideshow to the "here's a community and framework for your life" part, and yet it's what people focus on and what turns people away.
  - ivv 10y ago
    This is what gyms have become for many. I remember seeing a graph showing the decline in church attendance coinciding with the rise in gym memberships.
    - farnsworth 10y ago
      I think that gyms can scratch a certain itch in that arena, but aren't nearly as comprehensive as what a church provides. Also I hoped for that when I started at a small yoga studio, but nobody really talked to anybody else there, as far as I saw, and I didn't make any lasting connections.
      - ldarcyftw 10y ago
        A small yoga/acro studio I attended had after-class snacks and Saturday/Sunday activities. It depends on the owner level of involvement I assume.
- apatters 10y ago
  I think to socialize with random other individuals most people need alcohol or a pretense - pubs provide the former, temples provide the latter. There are societies where this concept is pretty foreign. I live in Thailand and when I tell Thai friends that foreigners often sit down at a pub and talk to complete strangers, many are quite surprised.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    For me, it really helps if I have a pretense like you say, but for me that pretense is playing games. Pool, darts, trivia, role playing games, board games (the biggest one for me right now), scavenger hunts, murder mysteries, even karaoke I can treat kind of like a game. Playing or following sports (games) can serve as that pretense also, although I don't follow them very closely personally (although it's impossible to avoid Cubs mania in Chicago right now :) Games have helped me be around strangers and give me a reason to talk to people I would be too shy to talk to normally. Now a lot of those strangers are no longer strangers, but friends, and that's because we played a lot of games together. I also believe that you can learn more in much less time about the character and personality of a person by how they act in a game (especially games about devising your own strategies and negotiating with people) than you can with most traditional social outings. Surprisingly video games don't really do this for me anymore. I do still play a lot of them, but I mostly play single player games. If I play multiplayer, it's got to be something in the same room now, which is why I have a Wii U.
    - pimlottc 10y ago
      Board games are really great for this, as it immediately gives you something to focus on - both literally and figuratively. Rather than having to stare a stranger in the face, you've got an excuse to pore over the bits and pieces on the table while quietly listening as the game is explained. The rules give you something to concentrate on as well as another excuse for not talking all time. But! The mechanics of the game itself are inevitablely social. Pretty soon you're interacting with your fellow players in dozens of small ways. Maybe you're even striking bargains and forming alliances. By the time the game ends, these people you've been chatting around a table with for almost an hour don't seem like such strangers anymore, and you've got a shared experience to talk about, as you trade views on how the game went and what you'd do differently next game.
- icebraining 10y ago
  In my Southern European country, cafes are still places for discussion among friends; Starbucks is very much an exception. On the other hand, I don't think people expect you to talk to complete strangers; generally you need to be friends with someone in the group. If you want to meet completely new people, I think you're better off joining some activity.
- return0 10y ago
  > they have turned out to be places where you are expected to keep to yourself. It's funny how different this is. In my country i would barely ever go to a cafe alone, as it's supposed to be a social activity.
- return0 10y ago
  In countries that have mandatory military service, many men create lifelong friendships in there. A great thing about it is that you meet people from literally all walks of life, the lowlives, the poor, the politically connected etc, all in a neutral environment.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  That's what cafés where like! Go to a café in the 1700s or 1800s and you'd find yourself in the middle of hopeful intellectuals, writers, and poets. The café was a club that anyone could join.
snvzz 10y ago
Your average hacklab will do the job just fine.
- rosser 10y ago
  Because, as long as the problem is solved for nerds, who cares if anyone else suffers from it.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    It works if the makerspace is within a library, which are slowly turning into community centers. We've met all of our basic needs except connectedness and community.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    Because, as long as the problem isn't solved for everyone, we shouldn't try to solve it for anyone.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      No, but when you solve a problem for yourself, you still need to go and ask people who aren't like yourself whether they consider it solved before you say "it's solved for everyone".
      - qb45 10y ago
        Or you just don't have to be so totalitarian to attempt solving every problem of everyone.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        No, you don't have to solve the problem for everyone. But you also don't have to say that it's solved for everyone once you've solved it for yourself.
      - douche 10y ago
oftenwrong 10y ago
"A street is the living room of the community." http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php
- taurath 10y ago
  Nowhere is this more apparent than Amsterdam. Too much of America is built solely for cars. Thankfully millenials want walkable areas and streets first and foremost.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    Really, the nerve of us crazy Americans, wanting to be able to live and work in different places depending on what we felt was best for our families. What were we thinking?
    - paganel 10y ago
      Good for those Americans. But then they shouldn't complain about being stuck in traffic 2 or 3 hours per day.
      - notmything 10y ago
        Yes they should - high density housing and everyone having to commute to the same few square miles in the middle of a densely populated area is one of the biggest scams of our time.
        paganel 10y ago
        To each his/her own. I live in one of those "high density housing" places you mention and I have to say it's quite convenient to only be 3 tram stations away from work. It's actually faster to get to work using public transportation compared to taking the car (cause of difficulty finding parking). And half of the times I choose to walk to work anyway, it's a very effective way of relieving anxiety stress before the work day starts and of decompressing on the way home at the end of the day.
BorisMelnik 10y ago
Easy patch: keep a security guard watching over physical machines, which should be the case anyway. The same can be done with paper ballots. The trick with this article is that the perpetrator has full and unrestricted access to the building. If that were the case it wouldn't matter what the medium was, any of it can be hacked. They could throw cameras up in the booths, keyloggers, virii, etc.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I think you commented on the wrong submission..
  - Lxr 10y ago
    Then again, election day can be a great social experience in my country where voting is mandatory. Always meet random old friends in the queue etc.
    - farnsworth 10y ago
      Especially when you have to wait in line so long that your phone battery dies...
    - tomjen3 10y ago
      Aren't most people just listening to music? Especially if they are to stand for a long time in a government mandated queue?
      - Lxr 10y ago
        In my area there are enough polling places that if you go to your local one you usually see several people you know. And it's not uncommon to have a social gathering (BBQ etc) at someone's house on that day since everyone has to go to the same place at the same time.
jtcond13 10y ago
Hmm... almost like a "public house"... maybe they should serve beer?
empath75 10y ago
The best part of traveling along was talking to people in the common areas of hostels. I wish there were more social spaces like that where you can just randomly talk to strangers without seeming weird.
- meric 10y ago
  It's only weird if people think it's weird. If it's not weird to you then it's not weird. Who cares what the strangers think? You won't see them again anyway and if it happens enough then they'll stop thinking it's weird too. The best way to counter this "talking to strangers is weird" phenomenon is completely ignore the possibility the other person might think it's weird, and go talk to them. If you get good practice at it, they might think it's weird for half a second and then become completely comfortable talking to you.
- Guest98123 10y ago
  It works in hostels because like you said, most people are traveling. This means they're only in the city for a night or two, so they want to socialize, meet local people or other travelers as part of their adventure, go out together, etc. This doesn't work the same in other 'social' places. If you visit a coffee shop, 90% of people are meeting friends, doing work, or want to drink alone and browse the internet. I don't know how you'd start a place that only encourages visitors that want to meet new friends. What about a coffee shop that only has big round tables with 10 seats, so you need to share tables with a handful of strangers and face each other? You could try local CouchSurfing meetups. I've been to some alone, and depending on the city they might have 5 or 100 people. They're typically at pubs, and some are better than others, but they're usually a mix of locals and travelers from around the world. Quite a few others go alone, so it's relatively easy to make some friends.
  - saryant 10y ago
    Plus, in a hostel, you're never going to see those people again. I've stayed in tons of hostels and for me, that relieves a lot of social pressures that I otherwise find overwhelming at home.
  - 10y ago
WalterBright 10y ago
One of the best things about living in a dorm in college was they had common areas, including a dining room. Most of the other students in the dorm became your friends that way.
- farnsworth 10y ago
  After I left, they converted the dorm common areas into dorm rooms by pulling out the furniture and installing cheap wall dividers. I'm sad that students won't get that experience until they catch up on construction, but that's what happens when your university basically doubles in size in 8 years.
mattjaynes 10y ago
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. While I sometimes understand the bemoaning of top engineers spending time on trivial apps, sometimes those apps aren't as trivial as you would think when you consider how they positively impact loneliness. Of course, there's plenty of garbage out there, but I do love to see efforts to connect people in ways that can be serendipitous and have the possibility of leading to more meaningful connection. I can think of multiple long-time valuable real-life relationships I've had where our first connections were on some trivial platform. Sometimes it's hard to see past the glaring negatives that come with some of those platforms, but I'm hopeful that better options will evolve over time.
- unixhero 10y ago
  This is what universities, clubs and festivals are for.
  - vog 10y ago
    Moreover, there are many usergroups and meetups - at least for people who are open-minded and not totally technology-avoiding. For example, here in Berlin you can get out almost every evening in the week, and you'll find one public meetup with similar-interested people. Well, usually not just one, but multiple events happening at the same time, so you have to decide where to go. There are political groups such as FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe), DigitalCourage, DigiGes. There are general-topic technology groups such as CCCB (Chaos Computer Club Berlin) and the various LUGs (Linux User Groups). And there are lots of specialized groups for various programming languages, frameworks, technologies or editors: Haskell, C++, PHP, JavaScript, Bitcoin, Freifunk, Android, Drupal, Vim, Emacs, and so on. Even for children, there is a growing community that oranized various CoderDojo events. Alternatively, you could blindly visit one of the many hacker spaces (IN-Berlin, c-base, Fablab, E-LOK, AFRA, Raumzeitlabor, ...) and just step into whatever event is happening there this evening.
    - 10y ago
jasonjei 10y ago
New condo developments in SF are trying this idea out. Gentrification, etc, yadda aside, there are now big HOA club houses, sky decks, and other common areas designed to encourage mingling among neighbors. Now there will be undoubtedly those who will shut themselves in (just like in college), but I think it's bringing back a collegial atmosphere. Our HOA is organizing a bring your own bottle and cheese event once a month on our sky deck.
- dcposch 10y ago
  I just moved into a sort of a co-op. It's run by residents and owned and maintained by a startup that's trying to create a lot of these kinda of spaces. Beyond "bringing back a collegial atmosphere", it looks and feels like a straight up dorm. My rent is $1700/mo. My room is tiny. The common areas are fun. Location is v central, 1040 Folsom St. With the caveat that I've been here less than a week: so far it's great.
  - douche 10y ago
    Whew, $1700/month to live in a dorm room? My mortgage is $1800/month, for a 2400 sqft duplex and a two-car garage. I can rent out the downstairs unit for $1350/month. Location, location, location...
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golergka 10y ago
It's obviously have been noted elsewhere in the comments, but aren't those essentially cafes? Of course, in some countries, it became normal not to talk to strangers in cafes — but wouldn't the same in the end happen in the same public living rooms? After all, many cafes and restaurants now are using giant tables to bring people together, and we're still reluctant to talk to one another. May be the problem isn't with spaces, it's with us?
return0 10y ago
If the social media of the past decades teaches us something, is that when given the chance, people tend to form cliques and tend to stay in their bubble when they find one. This persists in large cities where people have adequate and constant exposure to alternate cultures. Maybe people have gotten tired of trying to be tolerant to everyone, maybe they don't see enough value in having to resort to lowest-common-denominator communication and cultural memes. Maybe in the future the physical layout of cities will come to represent its ideological /cultural layout. As loneliness is a physical thing, maybe bringing compatible people closer together enhances communication.
jaspervdmeer 10y ago
if you do this in The Netherlands we all just sit there with our phones out doing our utmost best not to talk to others.
Dowwie 10y ago
A recent post on the /r/campingandhiking subreddit [1] featured a photo of five young men, dressed in suits purchased at a thrift shop, at the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. The OP revealed that none of the men knew each other prior to the trip. Each just happened to start the trip at the same time, meeting the others during the first day on the trail. Together, they backpacked for 5 months over 2,650 miles. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_also_hiked_2650_miles_to_the_northern_terminus/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_...
riprowan 10y ago
This is an interesting concept because it's actually quite old. While traveling through the north of Holland playing shows we happened to play in a centuries-old historic public living room in a tiny township in the middle of nowhere. The place had been a home, but the occupants of the home historically (whomever they were) would open their living room most every day to travelers and neighbors, and serve small-fare food and drinks. The modern owners continue the tradition, and host house concerts occasionally. It makes sense: it's a sparsely populated location. You could have called it a "cafe" and converted it, and maybe made a little extra money, but so much of the social aspect would be gone. The place actually adds more value to the community as a community living room than it would as a diner. Edit: the place was also interesting in that it had the original "bedsteads" or box beds (example: [1]). These open (and latched!) from the outside: parents would basically lock their kids in these boxes overnight. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae87e76aa981ce1ceba4d6bd8.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae...
- smacktoward 10y ago
  Yup. The English word "pub" has its origins in similar establishments; it's short for "public house." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins)
jsemrau 10y ago
Isn't that why entrepreneurs have co-working spaces? Getting beaten down day after day surely drives you to loneliness.
gina650 10y ago
I just met a YC founder and I do think her startup fosters this type of community and builds deeper relationships beyond the typical "transactional" world. https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-ceo-11116-316-pm https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-ceo-11116-316-pm
amelius 10y ago
I guess these have a similar function as playgrounds in schools, but for the elderly.
Ayraa 10y ago
In a similar spirit, it could be cool if some coffeeshops and restaurants explicitly designated one of their communal table as a 'talk table'. Where if you sit at it, it means you are open to chatting with your neighbors. I know that many places already have communal tables but I find that unless there's some explicit display a place is meant for a certain purpose, many people who want to chat / meet new people won't initiate because they can't be sure their neighbours are open to it. If they purposefully decide to sit at a 'talk table', then you can be sure they are.
- maroonblazer 10y ago
  I like this idea but I can see the following challenges that would need to be overcome: 1) In the case of coffeeshops, many people go there to work. The noise of people gabbing could drive them away. This is a pet-peeve of mine; the local Starbucks seems to double as a daycare, making it really difficult to focus. 2) How likely is it that the people gathered share enough common interests that they want to talk to each other? E.g. in my case I'd want to be able to strike up a conversation about politics or philosophy or music-making or tech. If no one already-gathered shares any of those interests then I'm not staying very long. These aren't insurmountable and there's probably others that haven't occurred to me. Again, I like the idea.
  - random_rr 10y ago
    Neither of those are truly challenges. 1.) The coffeeshop isn't an office - people can talk. If it's too loud, that's on you (the person using it as an office) to find another place. 2.) You already have something in common - you want to talk! I've seen this idea of the "talk table" work in retirement homes, not sure how well it would fare with a younger crowd.
    - maroonblazer 10y ago
      1.) Fair point. 2.) Right, I do want to talk, but the number of subjects I can converse about is a tiny fraction of those on offer. If I show up and the topic is rebuilding engines or flower arranging - two topics I know nothing about - I'll have nothing to contribute.
javiramos 10y ago
I wonder if VR could play a part on this? My grandfather had a terrible brain tumor that didn't allow him to walk, although he was mentally fine. I could imagine virtual 'living rooms' where my grandfather could've interacted with other people etc.
hehheh 10y ago
This sounds nice and all but how long will it take for these to turn in to a bar or cafe or whatever, designed exclusively to extract money from participants?
tgarma1234 10y ago
I liked the article and the overall concept. The main issue in my opinion is that the sort of people who would be attracted to such a place would also have had already a great many opportunities to connect with others throughout their life and they likely failed in all of those attempts to form positive, valuable relationships. So the likelihood that they will succeed in this venue is very small. In other words, the reason they are there is that they could not do what this place is asking them to do in any other setting that normal people find plenty of social opportunity to successfully make friends and build a support network. Such spaces would likely be undermined in the United States by the fact that it would end up being a magnet for homeless mentally ill people. If you live in Chicago, as I do, and you want to talk to such people then you can just go to the library downtown, which has ended up being basically a day program for the marginalized, who sit there all day using the free computers and taking bird baths in the bathroom sinks. They don't talk to each other a whole heck of a lot though. But yeah the modern world is super alienating for most people. The loneliness problem is, in my opinion, sort of like the 21st century version of slums. In the past the existence of slums was a sign that economic progress was not working to include everyone. In our times the isolation and loneliness of vast swaths of our population signals that the system is not creating the opportunity to form effective personal relationships. I doubt there is much we can do about that. Nobody is a stakeholder in the success of the lonely other than the lonely person themselves, and they wouldn't be lonely if the knew how to build relationships. So it's a catch 22 that only gets worse over time.
ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago
Not to diminish whats being done but it does feel like a band aid solution. This is such an important issue. I currently live in London, UK and loneliness is a big problem here. My parents were from India and it doesn't seem as bad there but may be I'm only seeing through my own lens and it is actually a problem there as well. I think the problems stem from a combination of culture, modern life style and tech.

189 points by misnamed 10y ago

bemmu 10y ago

Pubs and temples can be a bit similar spaces, but this seems great in that it is not connected to a religion or alcohol consumption. I guess this is what cafes are could be like, but somehow they have turned out to be places where you are expected to keep to yourself.

CalChris 10y ago
That wasn't always the case. Before WIFI and laptops, cafes could be pretty crowded and social.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I am getting flashbacks of those days. It was so nice to walk into a Starbucks, and not see the chorus of people staring into their devices. The smart phone is looking like The Adult Pacifier. I'm getting old, but I remember social anxiety. I might have been that person who pulled out the phone?
  - gkya 10y ago
    Oh glad I have showdead on, this comment was killed! Sadly now I see quite a bit dead comments that shouldn't be. Diversity of ideas shouldn't be left out in crossfire in a fight against spammers and trolls.
  - farnsworth 10y ago
    When was this magic time when people constantly made friends with strangers in public? I remember that picture comparing the line of people staring at their smart phones to a group of people in the 1920's separately staring at their newspapers in public. Same people, same impulses, different day. Talking to people older than me, they often seem to say that a timeless feature of living in cities is that you try to pretend that the masses around you aren't there.
    - parennoob 10y ago
      I would say it was about five-something years ago. You weren't expected to have a smartphone that coddled you like a baby, and people would be more willing to help you out. Example – I was in New York by myself, and without a smart phone. I had to find my way around with maps + asking people. I ended up talking to quite a few interesting people, and hanging out with a stranger as we both were going the same way to a popular landmark. Today the iPhone in my pocket completely replaces all of those interactions, since I can (and am supposed to be able to) map my way to absolutely anywhere in NYC.
- swang 10y ago
  yes coffeehouses/cafes use to be where all the intellectuals gathered to discuss news and gossip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17th_and_18th_centuries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...
- heleph 10y ago
  I met many of my local friends in a cafe here. We all have small kids, which give you a very easy opportunity to talk to people you don't know and make it difficult to spend time with a phone or laptop. After four years of living in our town with kids, I almost always bump into people I know when we are out and about. I've never been so connected to the local community where I live before and I really love it. :)
- pmlnr 10y ago
  Especially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where even one of the public uprisings is originated from coffee houses.
farnsworth 10y ago
I was raised going to church but stopped in college, and I really miss the community. There's absolutely nothing like it that I've found in the secular world. It almost makes me want to 'fake it' and join a church again, just to be around such kind and welcoming people so often. And it's not just the social part of the community, or the moral lessons, although I liked both of those things - a church gives you an entire framework for your life. What's a secular wedding? A secular funeral? How do your kids get involved in the community outside of the public school system (Boy Scouts is hardly secular) and how do you celebrate their coming of age? What are your standing plans for Wednesday night and Sunday morning? We have to reinvent all these things from scratch when we're not involved with a church, and people do that, but I've never seen such an in-depth and positive out-of-the-box experience as what a church provides. They've been optimizing this stuff for literally millennia. And I think that society is ripe for a group that will provide all of this, while not also trying to tell us about spirits doing magic tricks. And if you think about it that way, then the "this is where the world comes from" part of religion is almost a sideshow to the "here's a community and framework for your life" part, and yet it's what people focus on and what turns people away.
- ivv 10y ago
  This is what gyms have become for many. I remember seeing a graph showing the decline in church attendance coinciding with the rise in gym memberships.
  - farnsworth 10y ago
    I think that gyms can scratch a certain itch in that arena, but aren't nearly as comprehensive as what a church provides. Also I hoped for that when I started at a small yoga studio, but nobody really talked to anybody else there, as far as I saw, and I didn't make any lasting connections.
    - ldarcyftw 10y ago
      A small yoga/acro studio I attended had after-class snacks and Saturday/Sunday activities. It depends on the owner level of involvement I assume.
apatters 10y ago
I think to socialize with random other individuals most people need alcohol or a pretense - pubs provide the former, temples provide the latter. There are societies where this concept is pretty foreign. I live in Thailand and when I tell Thai friends that foreigners often sit down at a pub and talk to complete strangers, many are quite surprised.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  For me, it really helps if I have a pretense like you say, but for me that pretense is playing games. Pool, darts, trivia, role playing games, board games (the biggest one for me right now), scavenger hunts, murder mysteries, even karaoke I can treat kind of like a game. Playing or following sports (games) can serve as that pretense also, although I don't follow them very closely personally (although it's impossible to avoid Cubs mania in Chicago right now :) Games have helped me be around strangers and give me a reason to talk to people I would be too shy to talk to normally. Now a lot of those strangers are no longer strangers, but friends, and that's because we played a lot of games together. I also believe that you can learn more in much less time about the character and personality of a person by how they act in a game (especially games about devising your own strategies and negotiating with people) than you can with most traditional social outings. Surprisingly video games don't really do this for me anymore. I do still play a lot of them, but I mostly play single player games. If I play multiplayer, it's got to be something in the same room now, which is why I have a Wii U.
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    Board games are really great for this, as it immediately gives you something to focus on - both literally and figuratively. Rather than having to stare a stranger in the face, you've got an excuse to pore over the bits and pieces on the table while quietly listening as the game is explained. The rules give you something to concentrate on as well as another excuse for not talking all time. But! The mechanics of the game itself are inevitablely social. Pretty soon you're interacting with your fellow players in dozens of small ways. Maybe you're even striking bargains and forming alliances. By the time the game ends, these people you've been chatting around a table with for almost an hour don't seem like such strangers anymore, and you've got a shared experience to talk about, as you trade views on how the game went and what you'd do differently next game.
icebraining 10y ago
In my Southern European country, cafes are still places for discussion among friends; Starbucks is very much an exception. On the other hand, I don't think people expect you to talk to complete strangers; generally you need to be friends with someone in the group. If you want to meet completely new people, I think you're better off joining some activity.
return0 10y ago
> they have turned out to be places where you are expected to keep to yourself. It's funny how different this is. In my country i would barely ever go to a cafe alone, as it's supposed to be a social activity.
return0 10y ago
In countries that have mandatory military service, many men create lifelong friendships in there. A great thing about it is that you meet people from literally all walks of life, the lowlives, the poor, the politically connected etc, all in a neutral environment.
sotojuan 10y ago
That's what cafés where like! Go to a café in the 1700s or 1800s and you'd find yourself in the middle of hopeful intellectuals, writers, and poets. The café was a club that anyone could join.

snvzz 10y ago

Your average hacklab will do the job just fine.

rosser 10y ago
Because, as long as the problem is solved for nerds, who cares if anyone else suffers from it.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  It works if the makerspace is within a library, which are slowly turning into community centers. We've met all of our basic needs except connectedness and community.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  Because, as long as the problem isn't solved for everyone, we shouldn't try to solve it for anyone.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    No, but when you solve a problem for yourself, you still need to go and ask people who aren't like yourself whether they consider it solved before you say "it's solved for everyone".
    - qb45 10y ago
      Or you just don't have to be so totalitarian to attempt solving every problem of everyone.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        No, you don't have to solve the problem for everyone. But you also don't have to say that it's solved for everyone once you've solved it for yourself.
    - douche 10y ago

oftenwrong 10y ago

"A street is the living room of the community." http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php

taurath 10y ago
Nowhere is this more apparent than Amsterdam. Too much of America is built solely for cars. Thankfully millenials want walkable areas and streets first and foremost.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  Really, the nerve of us crazy Americans, wanting to be able to live and work in different places depending on what we felt was best for our families. What were we thinking?
  - paganel 10y ago
    Good for those Americans. But then they shouldn't complain about being stuck in traffic 2 or 3 hours per day.
    - notmything 10y ago
      Yes they should - high density housing and everyone having to commute to the same few square miles in the middle of a densely populated area is one of the biggest scams of our time.
      - paganel 10y ago
        To each his/her own. I live in one of those "high density housing" places you mention and I have to say it's quite convenient to only be 3 tram stations away from work. It's actually faster to get to work using public transportation compared to taking the car (cause of difficulty finding parking). And half of the times I choose to walk to work anyway, it's a very effective way of relieving anxiety stress before the work day starts and of decompressing on the way home at the end of the day.

BorisMelnik 10y ago

Easy patch: keep a security guard watching over physical machines, which should be the case anyway. The same can be done with paper ballots. The trick with this article is that the perpetrator has full and unrestricted access to the building. If that were the case it wouldn't matter what the medium was, any of it can be hacked. They could throw cameras up in the booths, keyloggers, virii, etc.

enraged_camel 10y ago
I think you commented on the wrong submission..
- Lxr 10y ago
  Then again, election day can be a great social experience in my country where voting is mandatory. Always meet random old friends in the queue etc.
  - farnsworth 10y ago
    Especially when you have to wait in line so long that your phone battery dies...
  - tomjen3 10y ago
    Aren't most people just listening to music? Especially if they are to stand for a long time in a government mandated queue?
    - Lxr 10y ago
      In my area there are enough polling places that if you go to your local one you usually see several people you know. And it's not uncommon to have a social gathering (BBQ etc) at someone's house on that day since everyone has to go to the same place at the same time.

jtcond13 10y ago

Hmm... almost like a "public house"... maybe they should serve beer?

empath75 10y ago

The best part of traveling along was talking to people in the common areas of hostels. I wish there were more social spaces like that where you can just randomly talk to strangers without seeming weird.

meric 10y ago
It's only weird if people think it's weird. If it's not weird to you then it's not weird. Who cares what the strangers think? You won't see them again anyway and if it happens enough then they'll stop thinking it's weird too. The best way to counter this "talking to strangers is weird" phenomenon is completely ignore the possibility the other person might think it's weird, and go talk to them. If you get good practice at it, they might think it's weird for half a second and then become completely comfortable talking to you.
Guest98123 10y ago
It works in hostels because like you said, most people are traveling. This means they're only in the city for a night or two, so they want to socialize, meet local people or other travelers as part of their adventure, go out together, etc. This doesn't work the same in other 'social' places. If you visit a coffee shop, 90% of people are meeting friends, doing work, or want to drink alone and browse the internet. I don't know how you'd start a place that only encourages visitors that want to meet new friends. What about a coffee shop that only has big round tables with 10 seats, so you need to share tables with a handful of strangers and face each other? You could try local CouchSurfing meetups. I've been to some alone, and depending on the city they might have 5 or 100 people. They're typically at pubs, and some are better than others, but they're usually a mix of locals and travelers from around the world. Quite a few others go alone, so it's relatively easy to make some friends.
- saryant 10y ago
  Plus, in a hostel, you're never going to see those people again. I've stayed in tons of hostels and for me, that relieves a lot of social pressures that I otherwise find overwhelming at home.
- 10y ago

WalterBright 10y ago

One of the best things about living in a dorm in college was they had common areas, including a dining room. Most of the other students in the dorm became your friends that way.

farnsworth 10y ago
After I left, they converted the dorm common areas into dorm rooms by pulling out the furniture and installing cheap wall dividers. I'm sad that students won't get that experience until they catch up on construction, but that's what happens when your university basically doubles in size in 8 years.

mattjaynes 10y ago

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. While I sometimes understand the bemoaning of top engineers spending time on trivial apps, sometimes those apps aren't as trivial as you would think when you consider how they positively impact loneliness. Of course, there's plenty of garbage out there, but I do love to see efforts to connect people in ways that can be serendipitous and have the possibility of leading to more meaningful connection. I can think of multiple long-time valuable real-life relationships I've had where our first connections were on some trivial platform. Sometimes it's hard to see past the glaring negatives that come with some of those platforms, but I'm hopeful that better options will evolve over time.

unixhero 10y ago
This is what universities, clubs and festivals are for.
- vog 10y ago
  Moreover, there are many usergroups and meetups - at least for people who are open-minded and not totally technology-avoiding. For example, here in Berlin you can get out almost every evening in the week, and you'll find one public meetup with similar-interested people. Well, usually not just one, but multiple events happening at the same time, so you have to decide where to go. There are political groups such as FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe), DigitalCourage, DigiGes. There are general-topic technology groups such as CCCB (Chaos Computer Club Berlin) and the various LUGs (Linux User Groups). And there are lots of specialized groups for various programming languages, frameworks, technologies or editors: Haskell, C++, PHP, JavaScript, Bitcoin, Freifunk, Android, Drupal, Vim, Emacs, and so on. Even for children, there is a growing community that oranized various CoderDojo events. Alternatively, you could blindly visit one of the many hacker spaces (IN-Berlin, c-base, Fablab, E-LOK, AFRA, Raumzeitlabor, ...) and just step into whatever event is happening there this evening.
  - 10y ago

jasonjei 10y ago

New condo developments in SF are trying this idea out. Gentrification, etc, yadda aside, there are now big HOA club houses, sky decks, and other common areas designed to encourage mingling among neighbors. Now there will be undoubtedly those who will shut themselves in (just like in college), but I think it's bringing back a collegial atmosphere. Our HOA is organizing a bring your own bottle and cheese event once a month on our sky deck.

dcposch 10y ago
I just moved into a sort of a co-op. It's run by residents and owned and maintained by a startup that's trying to create a lot of these kinda of spaces. Beyond "bringing back a collegial atmosphere", it looks and feels like a straight up dorm. My rent is $1700/mo. My room is tiny. The common areas are fun. Location is v central, 1040 Folsom St. With the caveat that I've been here less than a week: so far it's great.
- douche 10y ago
  Whew, $1700/month to live in a dorm room? My mortgage is $1800/month, for a 2400 sqft duplex and a two-car garage. I can rent out the downstairs unit for $1350/month. Location, location, location...

deleted 10y ago

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golergka 10y ago

It's obviously have been noted elsewhere in the comments, but aren't those essentially cafes? Of course, in some countries, it became normal not to talk to strangers in cafes — but wouldn't the same in the end happen in the same public living rooms? After all, many cafes and restaurants now are using giant tables to bring people together, and we're still reluctant to talk to one another. May be the problem isn't with spaces, it's with us?

return0 10y ago

If the social media of the past decades teaches us something, is that when given the chance, people tend to form cliques and tend to stay in their bubble when they find one. This persists in large cities where people have adequate and constant exposure to alternate cultures. Maybe people have gotten tired of trying to be tolerant to everyone, maybe they don't see enough value in having to resort to lowest-common-denominator communication and cultural memes. Maybe in the future the physical layout of cities will come to represent its ideological /cultural layout. As loneliness is a physical thing, maybe bringing compatible people closer together enhances communication.

jaspervdmeer 10y ago

if you do this in The Netherlands we all just sit there with our phones out doing our utmost best not to talk to others.

Dowwie 10y ago

A recent post on the /r/campingandhiking subreddit [1] featured a photo of five young men, dressed in suits purchased at a thrift shop, at the northern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. The OP revealed that none of the men knew each other prior to the trip. Each just happened to start the trip at the same time, meeting the others during the first day on the trail. Together, they backpacked for 5 months over 2,650 miles. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_also_hiked_2650_miles_to_the_northern_terminus/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_...

riprowan 10y ago

This is an interesting concept because it's actually quite old. While traveling through the north of Holland playing shows we happened to play in a centuries-old historic public living room in a tiny township in the middle of nowhere. The place had been a home, but the occupants of the home historically (whomever they were) would open their living room most every day to travelers and neighbors, and serve small-fare food and drinks. The modern owners continue the tradition, and host house concerts occasionally. It makes sense: it's a sparsely populated location. You could have called it a "cafe" and converted it, and maybe made a little extra money, but so much of the social aspect would be gone. The place actually adds more value to the community as a community living room than it would as a diner. Edit: the place was also interesting in that it had the original "bedsteads" or box beds (example: [1]). These open (and latched!) from the outside: parents would basically lock their kids in these boxes overnight. [1] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae87e76aa981ce1ceba4d6bd8.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae...

smacktoward 10y ago
Yup. The English word "pub" has its origins in similar establishments; it's short for "public house." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins)

jsemrau 10y ago

Isn't that why entrepreneurs have co-working spaces? Getting beaten down day after day surely drives you to loneliness.

gina650 10y ago

I just met a YC founder and I do think her startup fosters this type of community and builds deeper relationships beyond the typical "transactional" world. https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-ceo-11116-316-pm https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-ceo-11116-316-pm

amelius 10y ago

I guess these have a similar function as playgrounds in schools, but for the elderly.

Ayraa 10y ago

In a similar spirit, it could be cool if some coffeeshops and restaurants explicitly designated one of their communal table as a 'talk table'. Where if you sit at it, it means you are open to chatting with your neighbors. I know that many places already have communal tables but I find that unless there's some explicit display a place is meant for a certain purpose, many people who want to chat / meet new people won't initiate because they can't be sure their neighbours are open to it. If they purposefully decide to sit at a 'talk table', then you can be sure they are.

maroonblazer 10y ago
I like this idea but I can see the following challenges that would need to be overcome: 1) In the case of coffeeshops, many people go there to work. The noise of people gabbing could drive them away. This is a pet-peeve of mine; the local Starbucks seems to double as a daycare, making it really difficult to focus. 2) How likely is it that the people gathered share enough common interests that they want to talk to each other? E.g. in my case I'd want to be able to strike up a conversation about politics or philosophy or music-making or tech. If no one already-gathered shares any of those interests then I'm not staying very long. These aren't insurmountable and there's probably others that haven't occurred to me. Again, I like the idea.
- random_rr 10y ago
  Neither of those are truly challenges. 1.) The coffeeshop isn't an office - people can talk. If it's too loud, that's on you (the person using it as an office) to find another place. 2.) You already have something in common - you want to talk! I've seen this idea of the "talk table" work in retirement homes, not sure how well it would fare with a younger crowd.
  - maroonblazer 10y ago
    1.) Fair point. 2.) Right, I do want to talk, but the number of subjects I can converse about is a tiny fraction of those on offer. If I show up and the topic is rebuilding engines or flower arranging - two topics I know nothing about - I'll have nothing to contribute.

javiramos 10y ago

I wonder if VR could play a part on this? My grandfather had a terrible brain tumor that didn't allow him to walk, although he was mentally fine. I could imagine virtual 'living rooms' where my grandfather could've interacted with other people etc.

hehheh 10y ago

This sounds nice and all but how long will it take for these to turn in to a bar or cafe or whatever, designed exclusively to extract money from participants?

tgarma1234 10y ago

I liked the article and the overall concept. The main issue in my opinion is that the sort of people who would be attracted to such a place would also have had already a great many opportunities to connect with others throughout their life and they likely failed in all of those attempts to form positive, valuable relationships. So the likelihood that they will succeed in this venue is very small. In other words, the reason they are there is that they could not do what this place is asking them to do in any other setting that normal people find plenty of social opportunity to successfully make friends and build a support network. Such spaces would likely be undermined in the United States by the fact that it would end up being a magnet for homeless mentally ill people. If you live in Chicago, as I do, and you want to talk to such people then you can just go to the library downtown, which has ended up being basically a day program for the marginalized, who sit there all day using the free computers and taking bird baths in the bathroom sinks. They don't talk to each other a whole heck of a lot though. But yeah the modern world is super alienating for most people. The loneliness problem is, in my opinion, sort of like the 21st century version of slums. In the past the existence of slums was a sign that economic progress was not working to include everyone. In our times the isolation and loneliness of vast swaths of our population signals that the system is not creating the opportunity to form effective personal relationships. I doubt there is much we can do about that. Nobody is a stakeholder in the success of the lonely other than the lonely person themselves, and they wouldn't be lonely if the knew how to build relationships. So it's a catch 22 that only gets worse over time.

ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago

Not to diminish whats being done but it does feel like a band aid solution. This is such an important issue. I currently live in London, UK and loneliness is a big problem here. My parents were from India and it doesn't seem as bad there but may be I'm only seeing through my own lens and it is actually a problem there as well. I think the problems stem from a combination of culture, modern life style and tech.