27 ms·
Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)
- karol 4y agoYou, not the average graph of all people's choices, are in control of your life major turns.
- renewiltord 4y agoThe real wisdom of this graph is that for people who aren't friends with their coworkers, they are spending 4x as much time with not friends as friends. For people who are friends with their coworkers they're just cheating on that play, boosting their friend time.
- threatripper 4y agoI think it depends on your role and the relations between the coworkers. Most people can't really be boss and friend at the same time. In some companies backstabbers are plenty and you need to be careful with whom you share your thoughts and weaknesses. So it's wise to clearly separate the "shallow&fake friends" from your real friends with whom you can let your guard down. On the other hand we can use it as a criterion on selecting a good workplace. If you do not feel comfortable with your coworkers then maybe you should not work there.
- nly 4y agoI've always thought not being friends with your coworkers is a defense mechanism. Most of us have to work to survive, so getting emotionally involved and ending up with an uncomfortable or toxic environment (one with conflict and favoritism) is a big risk. I've observed that the more highly paid and "professional" your work environment, the harder it is to make friends through work.
- MediumFalse 4y agoI used to work with a few coworkers in the same team and had a very 'defensive' approach as mentioned. Once we actually moved into completely separate departments we actually became pretty good friends. I think that removes the 'competitiveness' factor somewhat.
- woweoe 4y agoThis is one of those points of controversy that foreigners in Japan bring up. But for me the idea of making friends at work seemed unusual and I felt that the Japanese way of doing things was correct, and it come to me that the Japanese expat community is highly US-centric. In Japan it is however common for people from university to graduate together enter their workplace together at the same job, and then get promoted together and change department together etc..
- bbarn 4y agoI've never lasted long at any position I didn't rapidly make friends. It certainly doesn't apply to everyone's personality but if I can't enjoy the company of people I spend a massive part of my day with it's a no go. I don't find fulfillment in my work. I hate the question "What do you do for a living?" I am there because I need to be until I have enough not to be, and so while I'm there I can't afford to be miserable too.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoSomething I told the younger engineers in my last so-many years before I retired: "It's not the project you're working on, it's your co-workers. If you find a team where you're happy, where the manager is cool, stay there."
- ricardobeat 4y agoI’ve seen this graph before and it always makes me very sad - friends and family fade after 40, and everyone ends up spending the vast majority of time alone past 60.
- philosopher1234 4y agoI would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.
- Barrin92 4y agothat you implicitly reduced family to "partner" says a lot. Not seeing your adult kids or them not seeing you or their grandparents, not maintaining a multi-generational and extended family, as used to be the case until very recently is a sad state of affairs in my opinion.
- raarts 4y agoI agree. I think we have taken a wrong turn when we 'decided' to ditch the extended family. As I get older I increasingly feel the deep wish to live with the ones I love in a group. Including my children and their children. This by the way would solve a lot of societal problems we have, including health care, mental health, financial problems, parental care to name a few.
- shriphani 4y agoOne of the greats - Kurt Vonnegut - on this topic: "A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys." https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300997-ok-now-let-s-have-some-fun-let-s-talk-about-sex https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300997-ok-now-let-s-have-so...
- creakingstairs 4y agoI absolutely agree that maintaining a multi generation, extended family is a goal worth having. But the chance of the endeavour succeeding seems to be, anecdotally, around 50%. Some families are just miserable when they are together.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoHacker News and navel gazing about your own mortality - name a better combo
- soulofmischief 4y agoBrowsing reddit out of content drought on HN and still feeling smug about how my HM routine is better
- majou 4y agoUsernames that begin with capitals and worthless comments :3c
- MrBlueIncognito 4y agoCount me in!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- silisili 4y agoAs a parent to a seemingly quickly aging child that I wish I could freeze in time forever, the green line makes me rather sad :(.
- bhaak 4y agoTo some degree I agree. But then it's average minutes per day. And for that about 1 hour is still a lot of time. Sometimes these days I would like it to be only 1 hour. :-)
- hackernewds 4y agoOne option is to raise your kids in Asia
- JKCalhoun 4y agoIt is sad. I watched all three of my little girls grow up and head out into the world. "In Metal" by Low plays is playing in my head now....
- lampshades 4y agoMe too man, me too.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoWhenever I have a family vacation, I can’t help but think how unnatural our present lives are. For thousands of years, we essentially just lived with and around family. Yet now I get to see my entire family for a few days every year. Some cousins I haven’t met in years. The people I spend the most time with everyday are also the people I care the least for - colleagues and acquaintances. I don’t have a solution. But I just know innately that this isn’t how things are supposed be.
- nly 4y agoEven a couple of generations ago things were very different. Maybe Americans don't see this so much because it's a country of migrants, but it was common over here in the UK, just a century ago, for people to spend their entire lives within a 10 mile radius of where they were born.
- beardyw 4y agoYou have hit on an issue which always seems to be overlooked. It is easy to talk about "extended family" as of it was one thing. It isn't and can't be. When a child marries, as a couple they belong to two families. When their children marry they belong to two families. And so it goes. [1] An older individual may see all descendents as "their family", but in reality they are all shared. Somebody here mentioned the Kennedys, but despite a powerful image, the same applies to them. The only way for a real extended family to survive is by all living in close proximity to everyone else so those structures interleave. Like, I assume, the Navajo. The bicycle was first to blame, then the car, then the plane. [1] "marry" used in a loose context here, any relationship in reality.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoMaybe its a cultural thing, but I've always been taught that even extended family is family, regardless of how often I see them, and if they come to me for help, I'm obligated to help them.
- 4y ago
- raydiatian 4y agoLove it when “data” people take the time to get the hard numbers for the things that the rest of us wouldn’t question once.
- inglor 4y agoThis graph is why I don't like in the USA. When my parents got their green-cards after my dad finished his post-doc in California he spoke to all his researcher friends and noticed that in the US it's common for family to move away to other states so they returned back to our country. Since I live in a small country - I see my parents (and my in-laws) almost every week and they help (considerably) with child-care and see their grand-kid a lot more. I wouldn't hold a grudge if they helped less but seeing the joy they have when they're with him probably makes it worth giving up living in the US for them. Family members do live for a year or two abroad at times (for work) but always return.
- watwut 4y agoMost Americans actually stay in or near city where they grew up - 75%. However, PhDs and post docs essentially have to move for career reasons. So, the researchers are more biased toward moving around.
- unixhero 4y agoI don't like these kinds of analyses. They make me depressed.
- wink 4y agoNot sure if I missed it but this only count in-person interactions as spending time? It's not that I feel 100% like I'm spending time alone if I'm on voice chat with friends, or even chatting or playing games. Maybe it's an edge case of the people who grew up on IRC but... sure I am home alone but I'm still interacting with people for most of my awake time after work (Interestingly I never counted texts as that, maybe because it was too shortened, and not supported with other media like posting links, images, videos, articles). Why would I not count that? (I am not saying this is or isn't a complete replacement for meeting people, I'm just not sure if it would not highly skew my answers for this graph, but I'm not American anyway :P)
- andkenneth 4y agoI had a flatmate who I played games with before moving in with him. After we moved in, sure I saw him here and there around meals, but in some cases if we were on slightly different schedules we could literally go a few days without seeing eachother, while still talking over a game of Valorant or Overwatch every night, just like before
- hackernewds 4y agoThe illusion of being together when being virtual probably is the single largest reason for isolation. not to mention, when your friends/partners/siblings are texting other people while next to you - you're not even getting their 100%, as they could have.
- wink 4y agoYou can call it illusion, I call it talking to the same friends I'm sadly not seeing every week and then continuing our online discussions in person, or vice versa. I've actually tried to hint that I'm not trying to convey this as a complete replacement, it works fine for me. I personally don't feel alone when I can talk to certain people over the internet, but I do when I am not conversing.
- soco 4y agoWhat would explain the dip in alone time for 75yo, while for the 60yo and 89yo it increased steadily over the last decades?
- jacooper 4y agoMaybe their close co-workers also retired and are getting close again?
- kaushikc 4y agoWe have essentially replaced being with each other in many different ways. People used to play music to us, now we listen to it digitally, we used to laugh, cry, get scared by the stories people told us, now we watch tv shows & social media. Not saying that's bad but we have replaced the need for each other. We have become more atomised and alienated to each other. Much of chemicals in our body (perhaps that helped us bond)are fired for content consumed from digital devices.
- ChriLa 4y agoTrue. But also means being alone doesn't feel as it did "back in the day"™. Guess radio's been the first media to give us that.
- sylens 4y agoOne thing I have noticed now, and I'm not sure if its a function of myself and my family being older, is that we feel much less compelled to get together for holidays and other events even though the travel time has remained mostly the same. When I was younger, my family would make it a habit of getting together at least on Christmas and Easter and usually also the 4th of July for a big party. Not everybody lived super close but most were within a 45-60 minute drive. Now, not only is that drive seen as a barrier, but nobody actually wants to host these events and deal with the preparation, the hosting duties, and the cleanup that comes afterwards. I realize that as people get older they don't have the time/energy for these types of activities as much, but I also feel like people were more amenable to these types of gatherings back before social media and smartphones in every pocket happened. There was just less going on and less demand of your time, so a big family party was something that could knock out a big chunk of the day and you would look forward to it.
- e3bc54b2 4y agoI've come to see this as symptom of increased prosperity. When money was tight, people were what provided comfort. Everyone got together to prepare and celebrate. Now that families can afford to pay someone else to do it, we are basically left with a lunch/dinner and some time talking, which doesn't feel far off from old school aristocratic galas. There is little emotional investment beyond 'maintaining the network' and the same 1 hr drives start looking like barriers. I always preferred small (3-8) groups for company so the phenomenon has hit me slightly less severely, as it is easier to get small group together and emotionally involved, but bigger family gatherings are definitively getting rarer.
- sylens 4y agoThis is an interesting view on it that I hadn't previously considered. But you're right - whereas before a lot of members of the family would prepare food separately and bring it, now there is a lot of use of catering/prepared food for one-off entrees
- topkai22 4y agoACOUP’s series on subsistence farming had a great exploration of why for most of human history investing in social relationships was an import survival strategy: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... It’s not just that when times were tight people provided comfort, it could quite literally mean the difference between survival or not to have built the bonds of social capital across households, including within the extended family/tribe.
- 67E7E93EE55A 4y agoPersonally I'm terrified of having to spend a portion of my life alone. I've spent my adult life (25 years) with a romantic/domestic partner, doing everything together. I don't spend time with friends in the absence of my romantic/domestic partner. Once, during those 25 years, that relationship ended and I lived alone for a while. You should feel free to laugh at me and say this paragraph is hysterical or lacks perspective, seeing I was perfectly free, but it felt like prison. I completely failed to handle it. It is very hard to contemplate the idea of my partner's death in the future, and attempting to live beyond it.
- formvoltron 4y agoI wonder if this is similar in other countries.
- elefantastisch 4y agoI think something not measured here but potentially important is the amount of acquaintance contact people have. If you imagine living in a time before high-speed travel and big cities, the people you interacted with day-to-day were basically the same throughout your life. Maybe you weren't "friends" with these people, but just in order to live your life, you would inevitably be bumping into people that you had known in some capacity for years. Nowadays when we go shopping or for a haircut or whatever, we are mostly interacting with basically anonymous people that we are unlikely to remember even if we do ever see them again. The level of loneliness we can manage to achieve now seems quite a bit higher than when no matter what you do, just to get food to eat, you're going to have to go see someone who've you known for a decade and make small talk. Probably not saying this well, but when I imagine day-to-day life in a small village, this seems like one of the most significant differences. It seems like it would be hard to ever go a day not interacting with other people that you knew in some capacity. Now it's so easy you might not even notice when you do it.
- protonbob 4y agoI think even in a larger town this is viable to see plenty of people that you know. Part of the problem is the car centered infrastructure in America that makes it impossible to walk places and makes it seem normal to have to travel 20 miles to get groceries or a haircut.
- woweoe 4y agoHe is right in terms of major cities in Europe. I grew up in a small-mid sized town and I still get surprised when I meet someone I know, let alone cities the size of Atlanta.
- jacooper 4y agoBut the trend also largely applies to Europe, which has a more walkable infrastructure. So I don't think its the only reason.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago> Nowadays when we go shopping or for a haircut or whatever, we are mostly interacting with basically anonymous people that we are unlikely to remember even if we do ever see them again. That's your choice. I shop at the same small businesses food market every time and see the same faces year after year exchanging life anecdotes. I see the shopkeeps there more often than I see my actual friends.
- lampshades 4y agoShit man, who are these people getting so much alone time? I struggle to find 5 minutes to myself these days (34 years old).
- daenz 4y agoSay more about your situation. I have a lot of alone time, even though I live with my partner. I don't have coworkers, kids, family, or friends, so if I'm not with my partner, I'm alone.
- lampshades 4y agoI have a wife and two young children. I work remote so I am around them all the time.
- birdmanjeremy 4y agoIt would be interesting to see how Covid impacted this.
- karmaup 4y agoPeople’s desire to hangout or seek relationship is dropping in countries like China and Japan. First cause is the high cost of living/dating or raising a child. Also they can get low cost entertainment from apps like TikTok or mobile games. A lot of things can be done online that they would rather be alone after a day of hard work
- hammock 4y agoI don't understand this data. How is the average 15 year old spending 23 minutes a day with their children?
- py1 4y agoaverage 15 year old =/= a typical 15 year old
- r00fus 4y agoIt doesn't say "their children" it says "children". Perhaps siblings count? I was basically responsible form younger sibling when I was growing up like 1-2h a day (we were latchkey kids).
- hammock 4y agoI'm assuming siblings would be "family"
- thenerdhead 4y agoDang I just turned 30 and according to this graph, I will be looking to spend even more time alone each year although I have two kids and a partner. I think this could also be related to our culture shaping around modern technology such as the internet and social media. We're more connected than ever, but even more alone. This isn't to say we're "lonely" in terms of community, but rather we experience our respective communities "alone". I think our culture needs more people who point out that their love can be misplaced. When you're desperately in love with someone, it's almost impossible to see their failings. When you get enough distance however, you can see how problematic something can be. I think that applies to family, friends, coworkers, and even the technology we use every day. It's a sad realization, but a realization nonetheless.
- r00fus 4y agoLooking at my parents who are further along on the X axis it seems part of that "alone" may be due to assisted living or deceased spouses (ie, not by choice).