8 ms·

America's “Friendscape” Crisis

76 points by samizdis 5y ago

paperwasp42 5y ago
Links to the Times articles mentioned in the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20210423122109/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/sunday-review/covid-friendship.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210423122109/https://www.nytim... https://web.archive.org/web/20210716143848/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/family/curate-friends.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210716143848/https://www.nytim...
0235005 5y ago
I think that people sometimes focus to much on career and are leaving a bit the idea on the side. It's kind of sad, but I really don't think it's going to be good in the log run. There's going to be a breaking point and it's not going to be fun
yepthatsreality 5y ago
Modern Americans suck at building and maintaining community. Everyone wants to play in the sandbox but no one wants to rake it.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I would counter that modern America sucks for supporting communities. Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that everyone doesn't need a single family home in a popular metro.
  - epicureanideal 5y ago
    The problem isn’t that people are wanting too much. It’s that getting on the property ladder at all, even a small condo in a metro where there are jobs, is becoming far, far more difficult than for previous generations. And of course, if people need to work longer and harder to achieve what would've been considered fairly modest goals by (recent) previous generations in terms of housing, then they have less time and energy to devote to friendship and community.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      My personal read is that a huge amount of that in the last decade or so has been a consequence of basement central bank rates. When vast sums of institutional money are freed and chasing yield, eventually some of it leaks into residential property. And when a market that was precariously balanced with only retail buyers (due to density opposition and building economics) now has equal or more investors pile in? Well, prices do what they've done.
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        If we lower them we have no homes, if we raise them we have no jobs. The fact of the matter is conventional central banking is a failure, as is widespread private homeownership in metropolitan areas.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Well, conventional central banking usually has the goals of "prevent another Great Depression" and "keep inflation under control." In that respect, they've been fairly successful. The side effects are... less good. But worse than a national depression? Eh.
        Ericson2314 5y ago
        https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-jacobin-the-fed-doesnt-work-for-you/ https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-jacobin-the-fed-doesnt-work... well start with those side effects: inflation is kept in check by beating back workers whenever they get to powerful. Then take into account how lousy growth has been since the 1970s when they started doing that. If we could have had depressions but more amortized growth, and not "jobless recoveries" and anemic amortized growth, would that have been worse or better?
        imtringued 5y ago
        That's why they changed the inflation target. If your goal is 2% then you have to raise rates before you even hit 2% nipping full employment in the bud. If you target an average rate of 2% then having a year with 5% and four with less than 2% lets you balance things out. Edit: I read the article and it basically boils down to rich people benefiting from low inflation because it doesn't erode their deposits and makes stocks/housing go up without increasing wages. It's pretty much true but it is also so obvious to be boring. Money from the past is power from the past. Maintaining the value of money earned 60 years ago is the same as maintaining power obtained 60 years ago. Holding onto money doesn't help workers be more productive so if they spent their 60 year old money it would get eroded by inflation. You therefore need to add some slack in the labor supply that is not used up by anyone, meaning nobody is going to miss that labor if it is paid by 60 year old dollars that would otherwise result in inflation if there were full employment.
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    As unpopular as this might be to say, and as environmentally unfriendly as it is, I've known my neighbors in every house I lived in; even when my friends and I rented a house in college, and after I was done with college, and I've rented houses with friends. They weren't always thrilled to see renters move in, but when we mowed the grass or were grilling, etc. you're forced to look over the fence and say "hey". Apartments offer a sense of odd anonymity, where very few know each other unless they already do, for some reason, especially in more urban areas. I was never more anonymous than when I lived in a city proper, living in an apartment building. The only people who knew my name were my coworkers. EDIT... atrocious grammar
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      One thing I've been confused about, from the time I've visited friends and (briefly) lived in big box condo / apartment buildings... why aren't there more community spaces? And no, I don't mean "the pool" or "the weight room." I mean actual lounge areas. Social areas. Hell, even Marriott's Residence Inns do a better job than your average building.
      - jbay808 5y ago
        Agreed. I'd love to see more apartment buildings have bakeries, cafes, or other public spaces on the ground floor. Then you can get to know not only your neighbours in your own apartment building, but in shared spaces for the surrounding areas too.
        ben_w 5y ago
        My apartment (in Germany, not USA) has that. I hope it reopens after the pandemic.
        pantalaimon 5y ago
        That's unfortunately only true for old (100+ years) buildings, most newer developments don't have commercial space in the ground floor.
  - kiba 5y ago
    Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. I doubt that they are most efficient at generating tax revenue, especially when considering density and infrastructure maintenance.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      Yes that is true. They are worse on all counts in the medium-long term but we do it anyways.
    - addicted 5y ago
      They are definitely significantly worse at generating tax revenue. Mixed housing along with ground level commercial spaces even in the poorest of downtown districts generate more tax revenue. The problem is when crime and other forms of blight lead to people not living or working in those places anymore.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        It's a tricky argument to say they're better at generating tax revenue, if only people changed their habits and preferences... ;)
  - imtringued 5y ago
    >Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, You mean tax revenue because there are subsidies for new developments? Car based suburban sprawl is a money pit for tax revenue. You need a lot of road per house.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Robert Putnam has studied this extensively but his findings weren't politically correct so he hid them for quite some time. Once he finally did release them, he discovered his fears were well founded, as he was villainized for his research. So we will continue to roam around searching for the cause while ignoring what's already in front of us because we simply don't want it to be true or are too fearful of what recognizing it would mean.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
imbnwa 5y ago
Personally I realized during the Pandemic that a lot of the relationships I'd fostered over the course of my adult life were lead by a desperate desire for belonging rather than on sober considerations such as: do these people respect me at all?; do these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have any ambition at all? - these were just drinking buddies at best. I'd always had teachers in grammar and high school telling me directly or indirectly I was wasting my potential trying to be like the other kids but I only recently understand what they meant and what, more importantly, they saw that I didn't, but that's what a childhood of deep ostracizing both within and without one's family will do. Much of this thought process has only been possible because I enrolled in therapy a few years before the pandemic. Prior to this I meandered around life with a desperate, pathetic cheerfulness that masked how alone I already was. Alone, not just on the basis of deep, meaningful companionship but that I hadn't at all cultivated being a friend and ally to myself, such that I allowed myself to take on friendships that were not good for my growth as person at all, rather caused me to regress to the same old childhood tropes and tactics time and time again, unable to address the real interpersonal complexity that requires a defined and resolved character to decide and navigate; I tried to be these other apparently successful types to have some social life rather saying NO to what I knew wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go and the kind of people I'd probably enjoy beyond inebriation and frat-level jokes. What sucks though is that you spend so much time in these relationships you develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome where the sense of "love" and "affinity" are really just "this is all I've ever known". Rebuilding at a late age like myself is going to be tough, social media can be particular booby trap here I realize, but it seems necessary.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  >do these people respect me at all?; do these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have any ambition at all? That's a nice list of traits for a friend to have, but since a person will literally go insane if they don't have any human contact, I would advise finding better friends first before dumping the bad ones.
mschuster91 5y ago
I see a lot of "it's the computers/smartphone!" and "it's corona" takes in these kind of articles. However, there is one in the article who has the real reason and not a scapegoat: > "We realize the importance of friendship, and we're just not investing the time," he said, adding that it's another way the nation is "vulnerable." Too many people don't have the resources to invest in friendships. Mostly it's time - working two or more jobs to survive or putting in 60+ hour workweeks plus insane 2 hour commutes doesn't leave much time for anything else than sleep - but also, money in general. There are not many places outside of a home for people to gather that are affordable and accessible to anyone, thanks to gentrification. Shoddy run-down bars that were a place for regular people have been replaced by hipster outfits that charge ten euros for a coffee.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I've mentioned this in another comment about a month ago but it is smartphones. You go to a bar as a regular once or twice a week, even people you know on a first name basis whip out their phones to talk to friends who aren't even there. Um...hello? I'm right next to you, present and willing to communicate, taking the initiative and effort to come out. Why are you ignoring me for the other person who isn't even there? Phones have made personal relationships much harder because now people can talk to other people not even present far more conveniently. It is a double edge sword in it's entirety. It makes communication convenient and effortless, but also makes personal relationships just as difficult to maintain since you can just text instead of meeting up to get to know how someone's life has been going. >Too many people don't have the resources to invest in friendships. I don't believe that for a second. The simple fact that social media is alive and well wasting billions of hours of free time is more than enough to refute that point altogether. People in the past had time for friends and now suddenly they don't? I'd argue it's because people are spending more time on their phones texting or using social media than they are actually physically talking. As I've personally witnessed in many bars. I've had great chats with random strangers who were in the Gen-X or higher age group more than I have in the millennial and younger. Do you know why? They weren't staring at their phones the moment the conversation kinda died. Do you know what they did? They also tried to talk and bring something up during the conversation!
Footkerchief 5y ago
Personally, I'm convinced that parasocial relationships are outcompeting social relationships. You can risk your ego putting yourself out there in real life, or you can let a recommendation algorithm serve you content that gives you the feeling of being seen and understood without requiring any reciprocal vulnerability on your part.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Do people on both sides of parasocial relationships feel seen and understood? I thought the definition there was people that gave attention to someone that doesn't return it?
  - detaro 5y ago
    Doesn't really return it, but it feels that way for the viewer. A TV/Youtube/... personality feels familiar because parts of the brain don't care that the familiar tone, repeated in-jokes, ..., all the things that build familiarity, are not for the individual viewer specifically.
  - Footkerchief 5y ago
    My perception is that people on the 'consumer' side of parasocial relationships do feel understood, and that that feeling is their main motivation for taking part in the relationship. The feeling is no less real for being the product of automated market research and micro-targeting, instead of personal intimacy.
    - analognoise 5y ago
      "The feeling is no less real for being the product of automated market research and micro-targeting, instead of personal intimacy." The most dystopian thing I've read all week.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      It's often a "marketing" distinction for some of the parasocial relationships how well those "providers" are seen at "responding to their community" and the "outlets for community engagement". It's also how many of those providers make large amounts of their revenue with "paid engagement activities" such as "shout-outs" or an illusion of affecting behavior ("I'll play the game you want me to play if you pay enough" or "On drunk nights enough micro-currency forces me to take a shot or do something embarrassing" or a wide creative range of other ideas).
chamsom 5y ago
It's harder to make friends in America than any other country I've lived in. Anecdotally, I can't even seem to notice a difference in between an immigrant vs someone who grew up here.
the_only_law 5y ago
> And the friendship drought could get worse with more people working remotely or hybrid-ly. It may be just a consequence of my circumstances, but work for me has never been the place to “make friends” and actually remote work enables my social life more, even by just a minuscule amount. In regards to making friends in general. I always find myself the odd one out in every environment. At work particularly, I’m typically substantially younger than my colleagues some of which are old enough to be my parents or grandparents. Not that you cannot develop friendships with an age gap like that, but I don’t think it’s advisable. Majority of these people have there own life, are in the process of settling down or have their own families already. We are simply at different stages of life and it’s unlikely to result in any true friendships. I don’t really have a social life either, which feels pretty faking at my age, but I do try to go out at least once or twice in the weekends. Over the years, I’ve had a number of acquaintances I’ve met, but no friends really. In most of the groups I hang out in, I find the same issue as work, though on a smaller scale. Still generally to young to develop any sort of bond with the people I’m with, but the gap tends to be smaller so that there’s still some things we can relate on. If I’m not the youngest in the room, it seems in the oldest, which is honestly an even more uneasy feeling as I have a hard time relating to most of my own generation, despite certainly exhibiting some characteristics of it. Some people in this thread have additionally mentioned the resource of time as an inhibitor to developing friendships. I can understand this. I generally enjoy the occasions I get to go out or sometimes stay home and enjoy myself, but there’s always an uneasy feeling about how afterwards it’ll be another week of mindless wageslaving before I get a chance to to relax again. Ultimately, I haven’t really made any friends since I was maybe 15 or so. This makes sense though, as since adulthood, I’ve basically been divorced from any sort of environment where young people find themselves. Having never gone to school I was mostly isolated from my peers from 18-24, and while there are many people at that age who do not tend to go to school and do well socially, I believe that at least a small majority of those people tend to choose paths that put them in communities with similar people, whereas I’ve always been out of place, demographically speaking, whether that be in impoverished dumps or next to moderately wealthy professionals/retirees. Though I am now coming around to the age where many of my peers will leave school and enter the “real world” I don’t think much will come of it as I have a bad history of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time (doubly so career wise, ha)
ben_w 5y ago
By curious juxtaposition, at the time I saw this, it was right next to "Americans’ life ratings reach record high". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949658
bississippi 5y ago
The title no longer matches the article or the article is missing ? Mods
nine_zeros 5y ago
Upper middle class in America is unique. They have EVERYTHING that humanity can provide. They have access and ability to do anything. Yet, they are all stuck in the never ending rat race. The excessive focus on the rat race leads to less energy and time left for friendships. The little time that is left is left only for superficial acquaintances. You know, the kind where people talk to each other like a sitcom. Every time I go to Asian countries, I am stunned by how much time people (even those with high powered careers) give to family and friends. You know, things like casual hanging out in friends apartments on weekends, street food time in the evenings, experiencing a new restaurant or exploring a new village on a short road trip together. Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money. The entire cottage industry of self-help is all about spending every living moment improving yourself to more material wealth.
- ramphastidae 5y ago
  > Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that our society’s design discourages this. For the most part, if you don’t have a GOOD job in the US, you don’t get healthcare or retirement. And even the employers at those good jobs can and do fire employees at any time, for any reason. Given the cost of healthcare without insurance and lack of social safety net, l I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that for most Americans, even upper middle class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > … "for most Americans, even upper middle class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death." Can 100% confirm. I've gone from earning $50 an hour (back when that was a lot of money) to a successful career owning/operating my own businesses to living in constant pain and misery that I can't even afford to visit a doctor for, and thanks to the societal gray area I fall into (not being a homeless drug addict) I don't qualify for free medical help to get healthy enough to go back to being "productive". For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT get sick in the USA! Your value as a human here depends entirely on the value that can be extracted from your wallet.
russellbeattie 5y ago
The reality is that this type of thing takes decades to change, so no advice in this thread is going to have much of an effect. If you're really interested in making new friends before you die, move to another country, or get lucky and marry someone who's social or has a big family. If you don't drink alcohol though, give it up, as that will basically destroy any chances of anyone befriending you as an adult.
cryptica 5y ago
There are no real friends in crony-capitalism. Every relationship is parasitic. One is either a host or a parasite.
Ajay-p 5y ago
Social media has given us the illusion of unlimited choice and availability in our social lives. It's like a drug that makes you think the world is at your doorstep, when in reality it's the complete opposite. The single greatest thing a person can do to improve their social life is to delete their social media accounts.
- acwan93 5y ago
  I can't find the video or link, but Aziz Ansari talked about this in either his book "Master of None" or one of his sketches. He basically boils it down to we're becoming more non-committal because we think something better is going to come, whether its the better brunch, the better gathering, the better toothbrush (he specifically cites this example) so we can all post it on social media. It results in all of us being miserable and unable to foster undivided attention. The best thing you can do really is to not opt-in.
warglebargle 5y ago
I haven’t had a friend other than my wife for 10 years and now that I have young kids I sometimes feel like I never will. This is largely because we don’t have a lot of money and therefore very little time for hobbies. I also don’t use social media. Maybe when I retire I’ll figure it out? (will I be able to retire?)
lkrubner 5y ago
If anyone in tech lives in New York City and is looking to meet more people, reach out to me. I recently re-started these parties: http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-and-youre-awesome http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-... I held them once-a-month for 3 years before the pandemic, and I just restarted this month. These parties happen at my rooftop terrace at my place on the Upper West Side: 254 W 98th St New York NY 10025 It's mostly a tech crowd, but also some folks from the theater world, and the publishing world. Text me if you want to be on the invite list: 434 825 7694
cowboysauce 5y ago
The article cites research that shows that the percentage of Americans with 10+ close friends have dropped from 33 to 13 percent since 1990. I wonder how much of that can be attributed to a change is what is considered a close friend? Just keeping in touch with other people used to be much more difficult and I wonder if the proliferation of cell phones and then smartphones has raised the bar. I wonder if friendship changed from just needing to keep in touch to having to directly support each other's emotional needs. Personally, I can't imagine having that many close friends (and how many more non-close friends do you have?). To me it seems like it would require an almost obsessive level of effort to maintain, like to the extent that it's basically the only thing you do outside of work. Which I suppose would have been easier without the internet to distract you, but still.
- Marcus9 5y ago
  My guess would be that the super-mobility of people is the difference. When I was in high school, I had over 30 friends who I was close with- we had classes together during the day, sports practices together in the evening, and spent our weekends together at the same social gathers. Then we all scattered for college, and social networks broke down as each of us individually were now nodes on separate, non-connected groups. We had our "college friends" and our "high school friends" who mostly didn't know one another or interact. Then we all scattered again for jobs after college and our friendships became increasingly strained, difficult and disconnected. Our high school best friend was a thousand miles away and living a very different life now. Our college friends only got together as a group at weddings and bachelor parties. Our new 20-something friend groups were constantly in flux as people got into serious relationships, focused on careers or moved around. If I'd grown up in the 1950s and stayed in my hometown after high school along with all my friends, I'd have a rich, deep history with 30+ friends. Instead, I have 100 people who I was close to for a few years at a time but who I'm only presently close with a few.
cuddlybacon 5y ago
I think the places where the friendships are the hardest all tend to be guess cultures[0]. That isn't exactly surprising to me. Guess culture should make creating friendships much harder. If you may only ask if someone wants to hangout until you are very sure they'll say yes, then you'll very rarely ask for that. You'd need circumstances with long periods of being 'stuck' together to make a friend. Thus you'd expect people to disproportionately from work or school. As someone who believes in the Moral Foundations Theory, I don't think it's an accident that the places that are known for low friendships tend to be culturally liberal places. Since most probably don't know what Moral Foundations Theory is, a quick and dirty version is that all moral judgement can be reduced to the following core values (or moral foundations) which I copied from Wikipedia: * Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm * Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating * Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal * Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion * Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation I'm also a fan of the tentatively accepted liberty vs oppression foundation. I really think it should be renamed to something like agency vs domination. Anyways, it would value being able to make decision on choices deemed important and rejecting those who coerce others. Anyways, culturally liberal places pick care vs harm as their primary value and in some cases have made it the default choice for answering moral issues. I think this naturally leads to guess culture. You get told as a child, frequently, that saying "no" can hurt the askers feelings. You learn to feel bad for saying "no", since it violates care vs harm. You realize that the person you are about to ask a question to is going to feel bad if they say "no". Making them feel bad would be harm, so asking would be harm... unless you can figure out if they'd say yes. That's how I think a guess culture would develop. The reason I bring up moral foundations at all is I believe the solution is in the last 3 foundations: loyalty, authority, and purity. Those 3 are characterized as the group-ish ones. They are what separate acquaintances from friends, neighbourhoods from communities, and coworkers from a team. [0] - https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-vs-guessers/340891/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-...
joelbondurant 5y ago
USA brand tax cattle state property objects owe their life to the Government, not each other.
xyzzy21 5y ago
> "...loneliness wasn’t necessarily from being alone. In fact, it was often a feeling of alienation while in the presence of other people." So true. With the political polarization so common now, you can become isolated and then alienated quite easily. I'd add that being a man, especially if married, as you age your social circle radically declines. Getting divorced radically improved that for me. And I'm not even talking about the opposite sex - I have more guy friends now that 10, 20 years ago. There's a space that NO wife or GF can ever fill...

76 points by samizdis 5y ago

Links to the Times articles mentioned in the article: https://web.archive.org/web/20210423122109/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/sunday-review/covid-friendship.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210423122109/https://www.nytim... https://web.archive.org/web/20210716143848/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/well/family/curate-friends.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210716143848/https://www.nytim...

0235005 5y ago

I think that people sometimes focus to much on career and are leaving a bit the idea on the side. It's kind of sad, but I really don't think it's going to be good in the log run. There's going to be a breaking point and it's not going to be fun

yepthatsreality 5y ago

Modern Americans suck at building and maintaining community. Everyone wants to play in the sandbox but no one wants to rake it.

ethbr0 5y ago
I would counter that modern America sucks for supporting communities. Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that everyone doesn't need a single family home in a popular metro.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  The problem isn’t that people are wanting too much. It’s that getting on the property ladder at all, even a small condo in a metro where there are jobs, is becoming far, far more difficult than for previous generations. And of course, if people need to work longer and harder to achieve what would've been considered fairly modest goals by (recent) previous generations in terms of housing, then they have less time and energy to devote to friendship and community.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    My personal read is that a huge amount of that in the last decade or so has been a consequence of basement central bank rates. When vast sums of institutional money are freed and chasing yield, eventually some of it leaks into residential property. And when a market that was precariously balanced with only retail buyers (due to density opposition and building economics) now has equal or more investors pile in? Well, prices do what they've done.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      If we lower them we have no homes, if we raise them we have no jobs. The fact of the matter is conventional central banking is a failure, as is widespread private homeownership in metropolitan areas.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Well, conventional central banking usually has the goals of "prevent another Great Depression" and "keep inflation under control." In that respect, they've been fairly successful. The side effects are... less good. But worse than a national depression? Eh.
        Ericson2314 5y ago
        https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-jacobin-the-fed-doesnt-work-for-you/ https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-jacobin-the-fed-doesnt-work... well start with those side effects: inflation is kept in check by beating back workers whenever they get to powerful. Then take into account how lousy growth has been since the 1970s when they started doing that. If we could have had depressions but more amortized growth, and not "jobless recoveries" and anemic amortized growth, would that have been worse or better?
        imtringued 5y ago
        That's why they changed the inflation target. If your goal is 2% then you have to raise rates before you even hit 2% nipping full employment in the bud. If you target an average rate of 2% then having a year with 5% and four with less than 2% lets you balance things out. Edit: I read the article and it basically boils down to rich people benefiting from low inflation because it doesn't erode their deposits and makes stocks/housing go up without increasing wages. It's pretty much true but it is also so obvious to be boring. Money from the past is power from the past. Maintaining the value of money earned 60 years ago is the same as maintaining power obtained 60 years ago. Holding onto money doesn't help workers be more productive so if they spent their 60 year old money it would get eroded by inflation. You therefore need to add some slack in the labor supply that is not used up by anyone, meaning nobody is going to miss that labor if it is paid by 60 year old dollars that would otherwise result in inflation if there were full employment.
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  As unpopular as this might be to say, and as environmentally unfriendly as it is, I've known my neighbors in every house I lived in; even when my friends and I rented a house in college, and after I was done with college, and I've rented houses with friends. They weren't always thrilled to see renters move in, but when we mowed the grass or were grilling, etc. you're forced to look over the fence and say "hey". Apartments offer a sense of odd anonymity, where very few know each other unless they already do, for some reason, especially in more urban areas. I was never more anonymous than when I lived in a city proper, living in an apartment building. The only people who knew my name were my coworkers. EDIT... atrocious grammar
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    One thing I've been confused about, from the time I've visited friends and (briefly) lived in big box condo / apartment buildings... why aren't there more community spaces? And no, I don't mean "the pool" or "the weight room." I mean actual lounge areas. Social areas. Hell, even Marriott's Residence Inns do a better job than your average building.
    - jbay808 5y ago
      Agreed. I'd love to see more apartment buildings have bakeries, cafes, or other public spaces on the ground floor. Then you can get to know not only your neighbours in your own apartment building, but in shared spaces for the surrounding areas too.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        My apartment (in Germany, not USA) has that. I hope it reopens after the pandemic.
        pantalaimon 5y ago
        That's unfortunately only true for old (100+ years) buildings, most newer developments don't have commercial space in the ground floor.
- kiba 5y ago
  Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income segregated areas. I doubt that they are most efficient at generating tax revenue, especially when considering density and infrastructure maintenance.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Yes that is true. They are worse on all counts in the medium-long term but we do it anyways.
  - addicted 5y ago
    They are definitely significantly worse at generating tax revenue. Mixed housing along with ground level commercial spaces even in the poorest of downtown districts generate more tax revenue. The problem is when crime and other forms of blight lead to people not living or working in those places anymore.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      It's a tricky argument to say they're better at generating tax revenue, if only people changed their habits and preferences... ;)
- imtringued 5y ago
  >Because these things most efficiently create tax revenue, You mean tax revenue because there are subsidies for new developments? Car based suburban sprawl is a money pit for tax revenue. You need a lot of road per house.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Robert Putnam has studied this extensively but his findings weren't politically correct so he hid them for quite some time. Once he finally did release them, he discovered his fears were well founded, as he was villainized for his research. So we will continue to roam around searching for the cause while ignoring what's already in front of us because we simply don't want it to be true or are too fearful of what recognizing it would mean.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

imbnwa 5y ago

Personally I realized during the Pandemic that a lot of the relationships I'd fostered over the course of my adult life were lead by a desperate desire for belonging rather than on sober considerations such as: do these people respect me at all?; do these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have any ambition at all? - these were just drinking buddies at best. I'd always had teachers in grammar and high school telling me directly or indirectly I was wasting my potential trying to be like the other kids but I only recently understand what they meant and what, more importantly, they saw that I didn't, but that's what a childhood of deep ostracizing both within and without one's family will do. Much of this thought process has only been possible because I enrolled in therapy a few years before the pandemic. Prior to this I meandered around life with a desperate, pathetic cheerfulness that masked how alone I already was. Alone, not just on the basis of deep, meaningful companionship but that I hadn't at all cultivated being a friend and ally to myself, such that I allowed myself to take on friendships that were not good for my growth as person at all, rather caused me to regress to the same old childhood tropes and tactics time and time again, unable to address the real interpersonal complexity that requires a defined and resolved character to decide and navigate; I tried to be these other apparently successful types to have some social life rather saying NO to what I knew wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go and the kind of people I'd probably enjoy beyond inebriation and frat-level jokes. What sucks though is that you spend so much time in these relationships you develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome where the sense of "love" and "affinity" are really just "this is all I've ever known". Rebuilding at a late age like myself is going to be tough, social media can be particular booby trap here I realize, but it seems necessary.

whatshisface 5y ago
>do these people respect me at all?; do these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have any ambition at all? That's a nice list of traits for a friend to have, but since a person will literally go insane if they don't have any human contact, I would advise finding better friends first before dumping the bad ones.

mschuster91 5y ago

I see a lot of "it's the computers/smartphone!" and "it's corona" takes in these kind of articles. However, there is one in the article who has the real reason and not a scapegoat: > "We realize the importance of friendship, and we're just not investing the time," he said, adding that it's another way the nation is "vulnerable." Too many people don't have the resources to invest in friendships. Mostly it's time - working two or more jobs to survive or putting in 60+ hour workweeks plus insane 2 hour commutes doesn't leave much time for anything else than sleep - but also, money in general. There are not many places outside of a home for people to gather that are affordable and accessible to anyone, thanks to gentrification. Shoddy run-down bars that were a place for regular people have been replaced by hipster outfits that charge ten euros for a coffee.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I've mentioned this in another comment about a month ago but it is smartphones. You go to a bar as a regular once or twice a week, even people you know on a first name basis whip out their phones to talk to friends who aren't even there. Um...hello? I'm right next to you, present and willing to communicate, taking the initiative and effort to come out. Why are you ignoring me for the other person who isn't even there? Phones have made personal relationships much harder because now people can talk to other people not even present far more conveniently. It is a double edge sword in it's entirety. It makes communication convenient and effortless, but also makes personal relationships just as difficult to maintain since you can just text instead of meeting up to get to know how someone's life has been going. >Too many people don't have the resources to invest in friendships. I don't believe that for a second. The simple fact that social media is alive and well wasting billions of hours of free time is more than enough to refute that point altogether. People in the past had time for friends and now suddenly they don't? I'd argue it's because people are spending more time on their phones texting or using social media than they are actually physically talking. As I've personally witnessed in many bars. I've had great chats with random strangers who were in the Gen-X or higher age group more than I have in the millennial and younger. Do you know why? They weren't staring at their phones the moment the conversation kinda died. Do you know what they did? They also tried to talk and bring something up during the conversation!

Footkerchief 5y ago

Personally, I'm convinced that parasocial relationships are outcompeting social relationships. You can risk your ego putting yourself out there in real life, or you can let a recommendation algorithm serve you content that gives you the feeling of being seen and understood without requiring any reciprocal vulnerability on your part.

maxerickson 5y ago
Do people on both sides of parasocial relationships feel seen and understood? I thought the definition there was people that gave attention to someone that doesn't return it?
- detaro 5y ago
  Doesn't really return it, but it feels that way for the viewer. A TV/Youtube/... personality feels familiar because parts of the brain don't care that the familiar tone, repeated in-jokes, ..., all the things that build familiarity, are not for the individual viewer specifically.
- Footkerchief 5y ago
  My perception is that people on the 'consumer' side of parasocial relationships do feel understood, and that that feeling is their main motivation for taking part in the relationship. The feeling is no less real for being the product of automated market research and micro-targeting, instead of personal intimacy.
  - analognoise 5y ago
    "The feeling is no less real for being the product of automated market research and micro-targeting, instead of personal intimacy." The most dystopian thing I've read all week.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    It's often a "marketing" distinction for some of the parasocial relationships how well those "providers" are seen at "responding to their community" and the "outlets for community engagement". It's also how many of those providers make large amounts of their revenue with "paid engagement activities" such as "shout-outs" or an illusion of affecting behavior ("I'll play the game you want me to play if you pay enough" or "On drunk nights enough micro-currency forces me to take a shot or do something embarrassing" or a wide creative range of other ideas).

chamsom 5y ago

It's harder to make friends in America than any other country I've lived in. Anecdotally, I can't even seem to notice a difference in between an immigrant vs someone who grew up here.

the_only_law 5y ago

> And the friendship drought could get worse with more people working remotely or hybrid-ly. It may be just a consequence of my circumstances, but work for me has never been the place to “make friends” and actually remote work enables my social life more, even by just a minuscule amount. In regards to making friends in general. I always find myself the odd one out in every environment. At work particularly, I’m typically substantially younger than my colleagues some of which are old enough to be my parents or grandparents. Not that you cannot develop friendships with an age gap like that, but I don’t think it’s advisable. Majority of these people have there own life, are in the process of settling down or have their own families already. We are simply at different stages of life and it’s unlikely to result in any true friendships. I don’t really have a social life either, which feels pretty faking at my age, but I do try to go out at least once or twice in the weekends. Over the years, I’ve had a number of acquaintances I’ve met, but no friends really. In most of the groups I hang out in, I find the same issue as work, though on a smaller scale. Still generally to young to develop any sort of bond with the people I’m with, but the gap tends to be smaller so that there’s still some things we can relate on. If I’m not the youngest in the room, it seems in the oldest, which is honestly an even more uneasy feeling as I have a hard time relating to most of my own generation, despite certainly exhibiting some characteristics of it. Some people in this thread have additionally mentioned the resource of time as an inhibitor to developing friendships. I can understand this. I generally enjoy the occasions I get to go out or sometimes stay home and enjoy myself, but there’s always an uneasy feeling about how afterwards it’ll be another week of mindless wageslaving before I get a chance to to relax again. Ultimately, I haven’t really made any friends since I was maybe 15 or so. This makes sense though, as since adulthood, I’ve basically been divorced from any sort of environment where young people find themselves. Having never gone to school I was mostly isolated from my peers from 18-24, and while there are many people at that age who do not tend to go to school and do well socially, I believe that at least a small majority of those people tend to choose paths that put them in communities with similar people, whereas I’ve always been out of place, demographically speaking, whether that be in impoverished dumps or next to moderately wealthy professionals/retirees. Though I am now coming around to the age where many of my peers will leave school and enter the “real world” I don’t think much will come of it as I have a bad history of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time (doubly so career wise, ha)

ben_w 5y ago

By curious juxtaposition, at the time I saw this, it was right next to "Americans’ life ratings reach record high". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949658

bississippi 5y ago

The title no longer matches the article or the article is missing ? Mods

nine_zeros 5y ago

Upper middle class in America is unique. They have EVERYTHING that humanity can provide. They have access and ability to do anything. Yet, they are all stuck in the never ending rat race. The excessive focus on the rat race leads to less energy and time left for friendships. The little time that is left is left only for superficial acquaintances. You know, the kind where people talk to each other like a sitcom. Every time I go to Asian countries, I am stunned by how much time people (even those with high powered careers) give to family and friends. You know, things like casual hanging out in friends apartments on weekends, street food time in the evenings, experiencing a new restaurant or exploring a new village on a short road trip together. Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money. The entire cottage industry of self-help is all about spending every living moment improving yourself to more material wealth.

ramphastidae 5y ago
> Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that our society’s design discourages this. For the most part, if you don’t have a GOOD job in the US, you don’t get healthcare or retirement. And even the employers at those good jobs can and do fire employees at any time, for any reason. Given the cost of healthcare without insurance and lack of social safety net, l I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that for most Americans, even upper middle class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death.
- blooalien 5y ago
  > … "for most Americans, even upper middle class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death." Can 100% confirm. I've gone from earning $50 an hour (back when that was a lot of money) to a successful career owning/operating my own businesses to living in constant pain and misery that I can't even afford to visit a doctor for, and thanks to the societal gray area I fall into (not being a homeless drug addict) I don't qualify for free medical help to get healthy enough to go back to being "productive". For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT get sick in the USA! Your value as a human here depends entirely on the value that can be extracted from your wallet.

russellbeattie 5y ago

The reality is that this type of thing takes decades to change, so no advice in this thread is going to have much of an effect. If you're really interested in making new friends before you die, move to another country, or get lucky and marry someone who's social or has a big family. If you don't drink alcohol though, give it up, as that will basically destroy any chances of anyone befriending you as an adult.

cryptica 5y ago

There are no real friends in crony-capitalism. Every relationship is parasitic. One is either a host or a parasite.

Ajay-p 5y ago

Social media has given us the illusion of unlimited choice and availability in our social lives. It's like a drug that makes you think the world is at your doorstep, when in reality it's the complete opposite. The single greatest thing a person can do to improve their social life is to delete their social media accounts.

acwan93 5y ago
I can't find the video or link, but Aziz Ansari talked about this in either his book "Master of None" or one of his sketches. He basically boils it down to we're becoming more non-committal because we think something better is going to come, whether its the better brunch, the better gathering, the better toothbrush (he specifically cites this example) so we can all post it on social media. It results in all of us being miserable and unable to foster undivided attention. The best thing you can do really is to not opt-in.

warglebargle 5y ago

I haven’t had a friend other than my wife for 10 years and now that I have young kids I sometimes feel like I never will. This is largely because we don’t have a lot of money and therefore very little time for hobbies. I also don’t use social media. Maybe when I retire I’ll figure it out? (will I be able to retire?)

lkrubner 5y ago

If anyone in tech lives in New York City and is looking to meet more people, reach out to me. I recently re-started these parties: http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-and-youre-awesome http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-... I held them once-a-month for 3 years before the pandemic, and I just restarted this month. These parties happen at my rooftop terrace at my place on the Upper West Side: 254 W 98th St New York NY 10025 It's mostly a tech crowd, but also some folks from the theater world, and the publishing world. Text me if you want to be on the invite list: 434 825 7694

cowboysauce 5y ago

The article cites research that shows that the percentage of Americans with 10+ close friends have dropped from 33 to 13 percent since 1990. I wonder how much of that can be attributed to a change is what is considered a close friend? Just keeping in touch with other people used to be much more difficult and I wonder if the proliferation of cell phones and then smartphones has raised the bar. I wonder if friendship changed from just needing to keep in touch to having to directly support each other's emotional needs. Personally, I can't imagine having that many close friends (and how many more non-close friends do you have?). To me it seems like it would require an almost obsessive level of effort to maintain, like to the extent that it's basically the only thing you do outside of work. Which I suppose would have been easier without the internet to distract you, but still.

Marcus9 5y ago
My guess would be that the super-mobility of people is the difference. When I was in high school, I had over 30 friends who I was close with- we had classes together during the day, sports practices together in the evening, and spent our weekends together at the same social gathers. Then we all scattered for college, and social networks broke down as each of us individually were now nodes on separate, non-connected groups. We had our "college friends" and our "high school friends" who mostly didn't know one another or interact. Then we all scattered again for jobs after college and our friendships became increasingly strained, difficult and disconnected. Our high school best friend was a thousand miles away and living a very different life now. Our college friends only got together as a group at weddings and bachelor parties. Our new 20-something friend groups were constantly in flux as people got into serious relationships, focused on careers or moved around. If I'd grown up in the 1950s and stayed in my hometown after high school along with all my friends, I'd have a rich, deep history with 30+ friends. Instead, I have 100 people who I was close to for a few years at a time but who I'm only presently close with a few.

cuddlybacon 5y ago

I think the places where the friendships are the hardest all tend to be guess cultures[0]. That isn't exactly surprising to me. Guess culture should make creating friendships much harder. If you may only ask if someone wants to hangout until you are very sure they'll say yes, then you'll very rarely ask for that. You'd need circumstances with long periods of being 'stuck' together to make a friend. Thus you'd expect people to disproportionately from work or school. As someone who believes in the Moral Foundations Theory, I don't think it's an accident that the places that are known for low friendships tend to be culturally liberal places. Since most probably don't know what Moral Foundations Theory is, a quick and dirty version is that all moral judgement can be reduced to the following core values (or moral foundations) which I copied from Wikipedia: * Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm * Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating * Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal * Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion * Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation I'm also a fan of the tentatively accepted liberty vs oppression foundation. I really think it should be renamed to something like agency vs domination. Anyways, it would value being able to make decision on choices deemed important and rejecting those who coerce others. Anyways, culturally liberal places pick care vs harm as their primary value and in some cases have made it the default choice for answering moral issues. I think this naturally leads to guess culture. You get told as a child, frequently, that saying "no" can hurt the askers feelings. You learn to feel bad for saying "no", since it violates care vs harm. You realize that the person you are about to ask a question to is going to feel bad if they say "no". Making them feel bad would be harm, so asking would be harm... unless you can figure out if they'd say yes. That's how I think a guess culture would develop. The reason I bring up moral foundations at all is I believe the solution is in the last 3 foundations: loyalty, authority, and purity. Those 3 are characterized as the group-ish ones. They are what separate acquaintances from friends, neighbourhoods from communities, and coworkers from a team. [0] - https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-vs-guessers/340891/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-...

joelbondurant 5y ago

USA brand tax cattle state property objects owe their life to the Government, not each other.

xyzzy21 5y ago

> "...loneliness wasn’t necessarily from being alone. In fact, it was often a feeling of alienation while in the presence of other people." So true. With the political polarization so common now, you can become isolated and then alienated quite easily. I'd add that being a man, especially if married, as you age your social circle radically declines. Getting divorced radically improved that for me. And I'm not even talking about the opposite sex - I have more guy friends now that 10, 20 years ago. There's a space that NO wife or GF can ever fill...