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Loneliness might be the logical conclusion to a society going more and more towards metrics. Likes, dislikes, upvotes, downvotes. Dissenters are punished, perfe

by tabeth 9y ago

Loneliness might be the logical conclusion to a society going more and more towards metrics. Likes, dislikes, upvotes, downvotes. Dissenters are punished, perfection is idolized. Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree, yet if people want perfection that implies invulnerability. If you accept these premises to be true, then it seems loneliness is inevitable. As an aside, I also think income inequality might lead to more loneliness.

majos 9y ago
As to your last point, I think metrics have heightened inequality in general. Friend/follower count, number of likes, retweets. It all lets you attach a number to popularity and likeability and makes for a quick and simple hierarchy. Loneliness is easy when you see socializing through the lens of who's good and who isn't (and just based on how popularity works, it's probable that a lot of your friends at least look more popular than you). Of course there have always been more or less popular or liked people, but I seem to recall it stinging less when it wasn't readily quantifiable.
cpsempek 9y ago
Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree I have to admit I don't quite understand this sentence, especially how research might define a "tight friendship" and "vulnerability". Can you provide some information about said research? This topic interests me.
- tabeth 9y ago
  Generally things like "self disclosure", "trust" and "commitment" are things that are highly correlated with strong friendship quality. I loosely put all of those under the umbrella of vulnerability as self disclosure and trust in particular generally mean you allow someone to use the information given for bad reasons potentially. Here's a good starting point. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146144804044331 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146144804044331
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I neither agree nor disagree with the statement that the research is conclusive, but Brené Brown[1] seems to have become the public face of research on vulnerability. Her research seems to be mostly qualitative rather than quantitative. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability
- wccrawford 9y ago
  I don't think you can have a really, really tight bond with someone if you never give them a chance to hurt you. If you don't share information about yourself that they could use to hurt you, then you haven't actually trusted them, and the bond you feel isn't as strong as it could be.
  - cpsempek 9y ago
    Yes, this makes sense as a hypothesis, it certainly feels right, but the parent comment was referring to research establishing a relationship between tight friendship and vulnerability. How are these things defined in such research, measured, etc.? That is what I am unable to understand.
agumonkey 9y ago
I wonder if metrics are not a conclusion to us. We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it. We have more flexibility to move, now more flexibility to speak to people without having much ties with them. We don't have to care much or suffer them if we don't want to. Maybe we're crossing a line of diminishing returns (if not the case for a while already).
- hasbroslasher 9y ago
  > We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it I think that about sums up the "loneliness epidemic". Loneliness and social disconnection are exactly the results of seeking to loosen our need for society. Our society (regardless of where you live, the global monoculture is still there), is sick and we see it largely in Western post-industrial nations like the U.K. and U.S.A. As more an more people realize the problems inherent to a postmodern, secular, capitalistic worldview, the more they intentionally disconnect to seek shelter from the onslaught of mixed messages, targeted advertising, disinformation campaigns, etc. , the more they realize that cutting themselves off is the only way out. I don't say this to explicitly bash capitalism or postmodernism - I see these statements as social facts that we're all stuck with for the time being. Despite U.S.'s place near the top of the list of social ills amongst industrialized nations (drug addiction, depression, obesity, bad Gini coeff, low life span, bad healthcare, etc.), it's worth saying that these and other problems still exist to some degree in other post-industrial nations. As we've steadily chipped away at traditional life, people have struggled to find replacements for family, religion, social outings, dating/marriage, work and play. While some people find success, other still are in limbo - raised in a world that no longer exists and unsure of how to bridge the gap into a world that offers fewer and fewer opportunities for an "analog" life. Since modern life is primarily digital, the only escape from it is by intentionally seeking an analog existence. We can all see that excessive social media use, excessive email-checking, and constant connectivity cause social and emotional problems: addiction, feelings of inferiority, feeling drained, overall dissatisfaction. But the alternative is to purposely cut yourself off and suffer the other loneliness, where no one ever messages you, your crush never likes your photos, you never beat that person in a political argument on FB, you never see that cute picture of your friend's children or dog. At the cost of these things, you may gain back fun interactions with strangers, better catch-up conversations when you run into old friends who haven't been able to stalk you on social media, a more romantic first date when you finally talk to that person you've been seeing at the grocery store... At the risk of injecting my own experiences into this rant, the loss of social media in my life has precipitated a person who is more social when it comes time to be social and more at peace when it's time to be alone. The solution to the broader problems though, of a society we feel we need to disconnect from, it would seem, is to start by fostering societies that we don't see as inherently problematic. Truly healthy societies don't breed drop outs, rebels, "lone wolves"... they breed people who want to get along and can at least stand each other enough to share some notion of the public good. How we do that is beyond me, though.
vtange 9y ago
>I also think income inequality might lead to more loneliness. I'd say poverty just amplifies the feeling of loneliness. Japan has the same problem of loneliness [0] and they have a pretty good Gini coefficient compared to the rest of the OECD.[1] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-deaths-the-end.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-d... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
- ohf 9y ago
  A thought: good standards of living and equality may result in loneliness through everyone's relative comfort and needlessness of help. Companionship is achieved through mutual struggle.
- adjunctme 9y ago
  I would say it is the opposite. Impoverished people have more need to interact with people in their immediate community in order to survive and for tribal knowledge. They also are more likely to stay within the same geographic location and less likely to be able to afford vacations away from their home (so they just chill at their neighborhood and welcome people over in their free time). Educated, upper middle class people pay others to take care of things, buys everything online and searches the internet for information. They are more likely to move to a new city (so local relationships have less value since they may move in the future) and have expensive vacations or hobbies outside of the local neighborhood.

by tabeth 9y ago

majos 9y ago

As to your last point, I think metrics have heightened inequality in general. Friend/follower count, number of likes, retweets. It all lets you attach a number to popularity and likeability and makes for a quick and simple hierarchy. Loneliness is easy when you see socializing through the lens of who's good and who isn't (and just based on how popularity works, it's probable that a lot of your friends at least look more popular than you). Of course there have always been more or less popular or liked people, but I seem to recall it stinging less when it wasn't readily quantifiable.

cpsempek 9y ago

Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree I have to admit I don't quite understand this sentence, especially how research might define a "tight friendship" and "vulnerability". Can you provide some information about said research? This topic interests me.

tabeth 9y ago
Generally things like "self disclosure", "trust" and "commitment" are things that are highly correlated with strong friendship quality. I loosely put all of those under the umbrella of vulnerability as self disclosure and trust in particular generally mean you allow someone to use the information given for bad reasons potentially. Here's a good starting point. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146144804044331 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146144804044331
kerkeslager 9y ago
I neither agree nor disagree with the statement that the research is conclusive, but Brené Brown[1] seems to have become the public face of research on vulnerability. Her research seems to be mostly qualitative rather than quantitative. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability
wccrawford 9y ago
I don't think you can have a really, really tight bond with someone if you never give them a chance to hurt you. If you don't share information about yourself that they could use to hurt you, then you haven't actually trusted them, and the bond you feel isn't as strong as it could be.
- cpsempek 9y ago
  Yes, this makes sense as a hypothesis, it certainly feels right, but the parent comment was referring to research establishing a relationship between tight friendship and vulnerability. How are these things defined in such research, measured, etc.? That is what I am unable to understand.

agumonkey 9y ago

I wonder if metrics are not a conclusion to us. We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it. We have more flexibility to move, now more flexibility to speak to people without having much ties with them. We don't have to care much or suffer them if we don't want to. Maybe we're crossing a line of diminishing returns (if not the case for a while already).

hasbroslasher 9y ago
> We often see society as a problem, so more and more we try to loosen our need for it I think that about sums up the "loneliness epidemic". Loneliness and social disconnection are exactly the results of seeking to loosen our need for society. Our society (regardless of where you live, the global monoculture is still there), is sick and we see it largely in Western post-industrial nations like the U.K. and U.S.A. As more an more people realize the problems inherent to a postmodern, secular, capitalistic worldview, the more they intentionally disconnect to seek shelter from the onslaught of mixed messages, targeted advertising, disinformation campaigns, etc. , the more they realize that cutting themselves off is the only way out. I don't say this to explicitly bash capitalism or postmodernism - I see these statements as social facts that we're all stuck with for the time being. Despite U.S.'s place near the top of the list of social ills amongst industrialized nations (drug addiction, depression, obesity, bad Gini coeff, low life span, bad healthcare, etc.), it's worth saying that these and other problems still exist to some degree in other post-industrial nations. As we've steadily chipped away at traditional life, people have struggled to find replacements for family, religion, social outings, dating/marriage, work and play. While some people find success, other still are in limbo - raised in a world that no longer exists and unsure of how to bridge the gap into a world that offers fewer and fewer opportunities for an "analog" life. Since modern life is primarily digital, the only escape from it is by intentionally seeking an analog existence. We can all see that excessive social media use, excessive email-checking, and constant connectivity cause social and emotional problems: addiction, feelings of inferiority, feeling drained, overall dissatisfaction. But the alternative is to purposely cut yourself off and suffer the other loneliness, where no one ever messages you, your crush never likes your photos, you never beat that person in a political argument on FB, you never see that cute picture of your friend's children or dog. At the cost of these things, you may gain back fun interactions with strangers, better catch-up conversations when you run into old friends who haven't been able to stalk you on social media, a more romantic first date when you finally talk to that person you've been seeing at the grocery store... At the risk of injecting my own experiences into this rant, the loss of social media in my life has precipitated a person who is more social when it comes time to be social and more at peace when it's time to be alone. The solution to the broader problems though, of a society we feel we need to disconnect from, it would seem, is to start by fostering societies that we don't see as inherently problematic. Truly healthy societies don't breed drop outs, rebels, "lone wolves"... they breed people who want to get along and can at least stand each other enough to share some notion of the public good. How we do that is beyond me, though.

vtange 9y ago

>I also think income inequality might lead to more loneliness. I'd say poverty just amplifies the feeling of loneliness. Japan has the same problem of loneliness [0] and they have a pretty good Gini coefficient compared to the rest of the OECD.[1] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-deaths-the-end.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-d... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

ohf 9y ago
A thought: good standards of living and equality may result in loneliness through everyone's relative comfort and needlessness of help. Companionship is achieved through mutual struggle.
adjunctme 9y ago
I would say it is the opposite. Impoverished people have more need to interact with people in their immediate community in order to survive and for tribal knowledge. They also are more likely to stay within the same geographic location and less likely to be able to afford vacations away from their home (so they just chill at their neighborhood and welcome people over in their free time). Educated, upper middle class people pay others to take care of things, buys everything online and searches the internet for information. They are more likely to move to a new city (so local relationships have less value since they may move in the future) and have expensive vacations or hobbies outside of the local neighborhood.