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Social isolation and loneliness in Canada
- microcolonel 7y agoThe part where it shows the responses with regard to social interaction with neighbours is a huge part of this. A lot of my friends have been neighbours or people I met out and about. If you do not have social interactions with complete strangers, and your family is disappearing from your life, you will probably be alone.
- pepsicokedew 7y agoThis seems like a micro-version of whats happening in Japan. Looks like most civilisations have a curve of social development. Japan is post-prosperity.
- devoply 7y agoThe idea is that all you need is money, business, and technology are not true... but don't tell people that because they have adopted these as virtues of some sort of new syncretic religion.
- aetherspawn 7y agoWell a few decades ago people used to go to church weekly and now people don’t, and hey, loneliness and lack of companions for people is cropping up all over the news lately (observation).
- p1mrx 7y agoThat leaves an opportunity for organizations who bring people together without propagating silly beliefs. Sunday Assembly is one example of this model.
- everdrive 7y agoI'm not sure how I feel about this line of argument, but food for thought: Is the authoritarianism and coercion a necessary part of church? Clearly left to their own devices, people aren't self-organizing into social groups very well. And perhaps the silly beliefs are an important marker or side effect of social coercion, and can't easily be abandoned. Even if they're not causal, they are a great indicator that you are truly allied with the group.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>Is the authoritarianism and coercion a necessary part of church Speaking about religion in genera: Authoritarianism, no. I don't see how that's related. You can have a cohesive group without being a dick to everyone who doesn't conform to the exact letter of every little thing. Coercion is required on some level but unless you really don't conform to any of the social norms of the group you should be fine. A religion can always structure itself to have a bare minimum amount of conformity and accept anyone above that. Being able to conform to group social norms or at leas minimize when you can't is part of being human.
- everdrive 7y ago> Authoritarianism, no. I don't see how that's related. You can have a cohesive group without being a dick to everyone who doesn't conform to the exact letter of every little thing. I might have used a poor word. I certainly didn't mean for authoritarianism to mean "being a dick to everyone." I suppose I meant hierarchical structure, pressure, and control. As a corollary, imagine the sort of social cohesion you see in the military. With regard to the values the military cares about, there's a high degree of coercion and authoritarianism. So, counterpoints about how you can be whatever religion, creed, political party etc aren't really valid in my mind. You can Muslim or Christian, but you can't ignore a salute, or a command, etc. The values the military wishes to coerce are nonnegotiable. There can be no doubt that the military is good at systematically building cohesion in troops. I'm just wondering how well social cohesion can work without any of these aspects. In other words, does strict individualism harm social cohesion.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoLove your neighbor
- sysbin 7y agoAs a child who was abused by religion I find this offensive. It may as well be technology, the effects of the economy, and or social change from stress with competition being higher than ever.
- aetherspawn 7y agoSorry to hear that. Unfourtunately the idea that this could happen wasn’t widely publicised and hence the correct cautions were never put in place (for example, now to serve as a minister you need to be on a register, hold an ID card and undergo regular police checks). Of course that doesn’t solve the issue in its entirety, but hopefully it helps you appreciate that people are thinking about the issue.
- sysbin 7y agoActually it doesn't help. I don't appreciate how the victims aren't compensated and what should only be considered a business is allowed to continue operating. Nobody goes to jail or anything. Wish I was born into a society that didn't have religion. Also the downvotes make me think I'm right to assume religious people are just narcissists that care so much about their views to ignore others that were severely wronged.
- paulryanrogers 7y agoAgree that they are very much a business based on how most act, despite some having good intentions.
- AllegedAlec 7y agoI'm sorry the truth is offensive to you, but, almost by design, going to church is a social experience.
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoYou're not wrong, but, there's so much things wrong with religious institution - think indoctrination, contradicting views (love thy neighbour unless they're gay, or had an abortion, or they vote Democrats, or they're black, but give extra love to young boys which is totally fine unlike extramarital relationships and condoms)
- unchurched 7y agoWe also used leaded gas a few decades ago. What’s your point? Just because people go to church less doesn’t mean that’s why people are lonely, it just means that people are lonely and they’ve also stopped going to church as much. There’s no causal link there. Plus, it’s 100% possible to have community without church. Edit: cool, downvotes for disagreement.
- eloff 7y agoClearly church was a common source of community for people, and the OP makes the point that maybe we haven't found a good replacement for it yet. I wouldn't just dismiss that out of hand, it's a reasonable hypothesis on the surface.
- unchurched 7y agoBut how do you get from that to “we’re lonely because we’re not going to church”?
- nine_k 7y agoChurch services require people to be in the same place at the same time, for the same purpose. Few other activities gather the same people regularly. I can immediately think of narrow social networks (like obscure subreddits), and online games, though.
- pharke 7y agoAlthough those activities lack the factor of physical presence. For a lot of people in modern society the only time they are around others is at work or in public places neither of which have a primary focus on community and fellowship like a church congregation. We desperately need to add more community gatherings that don't exclude people based on skill or ability.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>require people to be in the same place at the same time, for the same purpose. Otherwise known as the most effective way to build friendships.
- thomasfl 7y agoSocial isolation is probably the result of too much wealth. Y Combinator should have it on their request for startup list. Snapchat is doing something in this space.
- aetherspawn 7y agoFriends as a service, ha :) Naturally money can pretty easily promote companionship but I’m guessing people might need a few hints how to perform the conversion. Edit: Thinking about this more, it seems like there could be room in the market for “like Tinder, but for arranging social events” (ie party, soccer, whatever) “John from 3 streets down would like you to play soccer this Saturday (26 people are going, you’ve met 5). Accept/Decline?”
- thinkingkong 7y agoWhat? How would wealth result in social isolation? Youre positing that a lack of survival need on others results in isolation?
- santiagogo 7y agoTo some extent wealth and the comfort you can buy with it does reduce dependence on others and can help someone become isolated, since you don’t need help or favors and don’t need to engage in reciprocal social activities, since you can just pay for things. It doesn’t necessarily cause isolation, but it definitely helps someone who intentionally or unintentionally want to become socially isolated.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago40 years since Thatcher, Reagan and the rest of the world started tearing down everything communal, and community, giving individual "choice" instead. You'll buy a service, seek a product, but you won't know your neighbour. Seems to be working as intended. With hindsight, we should have stopped after about 10 years of those reforms.
- slavik81 7y agoWhat specific reforms are you referring to as the cause of loneliness in Canada? Why do you name two foreign politicians and no Canadian politicians? I presume you're upset with Brian Mulroney, but it's still unclear exactly why.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoThe picture painted by the article seems very comparable to the picture painted in many other countries. It picks out church and community as a mitigating factor. The common factor has been the destruction, intentionally or otherwise, of other group resources that gave friendship and interaction. Those have been mostly replaced by individuals acting individually, without the community and interaction benefit. Isolation is a very unsurprising consequence, even if it was unintended. I name the two I did as they, famously, started the neoliberal revolution that the world has been trying the last few decades. That came a few years later to Canada as Trudeau was in power in the early 80s.
- epiphanitus 7y agoI'm no sociologist, but I suspect changes in the nature of work had a more sizable effect on loneliness. Nothing fuels teamwork like a shared experience of adversity, which makes sense considering how humans used to live in small bands where they had to toil together to solve life or death problems. But there isn't a whole lot of that anymore - unless Trump goes to war with China and starts WWIII :(
- badpun 7y agoAs a counterpoint, the communist countries were extremely communal, and they were terrible for everyone involved (except for people running things).
- jbarham 7y agoOne prosaic explanation for social isolation in Canada in particular would be its relatively harsh winters which make being outside uncomfortable and unpleasant (i.e., cold, wet, dark) for much of the year, especially if you're old. If you're cooped up inside your house you're much less likely to have chance encounters with your neighbours or strangers.
- devoply 7y agoAnother major issue is immigration. You have lots of people living together that don't share any sort of social cultural connection... and then you have work which occupies most people's existence most of the time therefore there is almost no time to build a new culture outside of work... and no one even knows what that would look like to strive towards something like that. Modern capitalist man is one dimensional isolated man whose sense of self is more or less based on providing for him or herself and the things that they care about whether that be people, pets, or the material things which own them such as their financial obligations to the banks for their housing and their employers. Before that in the Middle Ages, Westerners in the upper classes who had any sort of wealth were much more social living very much like people in the so-called third world live today where they would throw parties to show their wealth and took pride in showing off their children and their accomplishments. When that culture was bulldozed, people forgot that it even existed... and perhaps it never did in the frontier like Canada like it did in old Europe. The immigrants were always busy working to be productive and industrious and always not closely related to the people they lived near.
- zed88 7y agoMore than the immigrants or capitalism , I would boil it down to breaking up of the family as the fundamental building block of society. The 'very recent' social engineering has thrown western societies in a depressive state. Even in the age of plenty, we miss the family bond in our solitary lives.
- devoply 7y agoWell liberation came through technology and politics where women who were quite dependent on men became no longer dependent on men economically or in fear of being impregnated by them. You could not escape that reality before, and so single families proliferated alongside a legal system which encouraged that rather than the patriarchy which forced people to stay together for the kids even if they could no longer stand each other -- or one party was abusive towards the other.
- zed88 7y agoSame here in NZ and I blame the winters with short daylight.
- emptybits 7y agoThe elderly are particularly vulnerable. I'm a Canadian and I'd like to plug an international charitable movement called Cycling Without Age[1]. In helping found a local chapter, I've really started to see how common social isolation is, independent of health and wealth and even in urban density. But I've also seen how even a single short social connection can have enduring benefit. Unlike some afflictions of aging, loneliness is a relatively solvable problem. Take care of your older friends and family and neighbours, and maybe even offer to connect with a stranger once in a while. It's good for everyone! :-) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Ti4qUa-OU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Ti4qUa-OU
- DigitalTerminal 7y agoSocial time, no go back to your roommate filled apartment with an one & half hour commute one way to work to be downsized, underpaid, under trained, miss manged, and pension sold off to pay for your boss kids' toys. Why would anyone in Canada feel isolated or lonely?