4 ms·

A lot of tech savvy younger folks are perfectly capable of making relationships entirely online. I'm not even young, and I've done it myself. 25 years ago, I ma

A lot of tech savvy younger folks are perfectly capable of making relationships entirely online. I'm not even young, and I've done it myself. 25 years ago, I made several friends on Yahoo Chat! who I have never seen in real life but speak with regularly. Many more over the years via builtin boards. These days discord exists and it's a primary social source for a number of kids. These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.

dleslie 4y ago
This is spot-on. Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends. That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Could be. I know a lot of the older people in my not-game-development field won't join work functions organized in online chats. You have to call them, or send them an email. Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
  - dleslie 4y ago
    Game development is full of exploitative companies looking to squeeze whatever effort they can from passionate young people. When you're young and inexperienced it's best to avoid those companies as best you can; the experience you'll gain will be less desirable than at a company that treats you well and presents you with opportunities for long term growth. That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that. Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition. All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself. * Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Sounds great to me, honestly. Strong pitch.
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
My story is the same as yours, but I don't think online communications (especially "structured", formal, work ones, like a daily standup over Zoom) capture everything that spontaneous "hallway" conversations do, including with people not on even on your team who you'd never talk to otherwise. I wish it were same, but, even as someone who grew up with more online relationships than meatspace ones, I'd be lying if I said it is. Maybe VR in some 15-minutes-after-tomorrow future can bridge the gap. I experienced how "not the same" it is with in-person and then remote interactions with other young people in college classes and then with older people in work, and, in both cases, I felt things were lost once we went remote.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  The hallway conversation thing befuddles me. Have you ever opened a chat window with someone at work to speak to them on the side? That's a hallway conversation. You can tell them any secret you want there. Have you ever seen two people interact in a group chat and learn something you didn't know before? That's the same as overhearing a hallway conversation. Grabbed a few friends in a group chat to chat about the weekend? Water cooler. The only difference is no one is going to tell you to be quiet and get back to work. No one is going to send an email about how there are too many people wasting time around the water cooler! I just don't see the advantage.
  - jimbokun 4y ago
    > You can tell them any secret you want there. Well, secret in the sense of fully accessible to everyone in management at your company.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Can't argue with that! Used to just be nosy people, backstabbers and snitches in the office. Now Microsoft will do all that for free through Windows/Teams.
EricE 4y ago
It's not just about making friends. It's about serendipity. It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely. Not one of them. You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too. Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Your life anecdotes are nice, but they are not a universal experience, and certainly don't apply to everyone (especially, if what I've seen is true, the younger generations). I'm middle aged now, but the most serendipitous things that have happened to me have been online. For example, my first roommate and then life long friend came to me via an online builtin board related to a project I created. My first job came to me through a reference from someone I knew on IRC. Heck, I met my wife through online dating! It's just different now. After covid, even more so.
BigHatLogan 4y ago
Any advice for how to do this? E.g. do people join Discords that they're interested in and then start chatting (Where do they even find them?)? I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Yes! Just make a discord username, and you can 'explore' for communities. Find one you like - for example, Big Hat Logan, there are quite large communities for Dark Souls and Elden Ring respectively. Then just start dropping hot takes! It's just like this place! I'm kidding. You should probably lurk for a while until you understand the community vibe. That's going to be a lively place though. You might wanna try searching for smaller communities for more niche things. That's for discord, anyways. My wife uses Facebook for her things (much to my chagrin).
  - BigHatLogan 4y ago
    Thanks for the response! Haha, love that you got the naming reference. That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private. Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.

dleslie 4y ago

This is spot-on. Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends. That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.

fartcannon 4y ago
Could be. I know a lot of the older people in my not-game-development field won't join work functions organized in online chats. You have to call them, or send them an email. Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
- dleslie 4y ago
  Game development is full of exploitative companies looking to squeeze whatever effort they can from passionate young people. When you're young and inexperienced it's best to avoid those companies as best you can; the experience you'll gain will be less desirable than at a company that treats you well and presents you with opportunities for long term growth. That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that. Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition. All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself. * Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Sounds great to me, honestly. Strong pitch.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

My story is the same as yours, but I don't think online communications (especially "structured", formal, work ones, like a daily standup over Zoom) capture everything that spontaneous "hallway" conversations do, including with people not on even on your team who you'd never talk to otherwise. I wish it were same, but, even as someone who grew up with more online relationships than meatspace ones, I'd be lying if I said it is. Maybe VR in some 15-minutes-after-tomorrow future can bridge the gap. I experienced how "not the same" it is with in-person and then remote interactions with other young people in college classes and then with older people in work, and, in both cases, I felt things were lost once we went remote.

fartcannon 4y ago
The hallway conversation thing befuddles me. Have you ever opened a chat window with someone at work to speak to them on the side? That's a hallway conversation. You can tell them any secret you want there. Have you ever seen two people interact in a group chat and learn something you didn't know before? That's the same as overhearing a hallway conversation. Grabbed a few friends in a group chat to chat about the weekend? Water cooler. The only difference is no one is going to tell you to be quiet and get back to work. No one is going to send an email about how there are too many people wasting time around the water cooler! I just don't see the advantage.
- jimbokun 4y ago
  > You can tell them any secret you want there. Well, secret in the sense of fully accessible to everyone in management at your company.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Can't argue with that! Used to just be nosy people, backstabbers and snitches in the office. Now Microsoft will do all that for free through Windows/Teams.

EricE 4y ago

It's not just about making friends. It's about serendipity. It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely. Not one of them. You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too. Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.

fartcannon 4y ago
Your life anecdotes are nice, but they are not a universal experience, and certainly don't apply to everyone (especially, if what I've seen is true, the younger generations). I'm middle aged now, but the most serendipitous things that have happened to me have been online. For example, my first roommate and then life long friend came to me via an online builtin board related to a project I created. My first job came to me through a reference from someone I knew on IRC. Heck, I met my wife through online dating! It's just different now. After covid, even more so.

BigHatLogan 4y ago

Any advice for how to do this? E.g. do people join Discords that they're interested in and then start chatting (Where do they even find them?)? I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.

fartcannon 4y ago
Yes! Just make a discord username, and you can 'explore' for communities. Find one you like - for example, Big Hat Logan, there are quite large communities for Dark Souls and Elden Ring respectively. Then just start dropping hot takes! It's just like this place! I'm kidding. You should probably lurk for a while until you understand the community vibe. That's going to be a lively place though. You might wanna try searching for smaller communities for more niche things. That's for discord, anyways. My wife uses Facebook for her things (much to my chagrin).
- BigHatLogan 4y ago
  Thanks for the response! Haha, love that you got the naming reference. That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private. Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.