23 ms·

Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that

• Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Robert Putnam already explained why this is happening but since it's not an acceptable answer, we march on and pretend to be mystified.
  • Forge36 4y ago
    Can you elaborate on what they said?
    • joenot443 4y ago
      I assume he's referring to the book Bowling Alone, an excellent read even if its thesis is a bit dated.
    • germinalphrase 4y ago
      “He then asked: "Why is US social capital eroding?" and discussed several possible causes.[1] He believed that the "movement of women into the workforce"[1] and other demographic changes had an impact on the number of individuals engaging in civic associations. He also discussed the "re-potting hypothesis", that people become less engaged when they frequently move towns, but found that Americans actually moved towns less frequently than in previous decades.[1][3] He did suggest that suburbanization, economics and time pressures had some effect, though he noted that average working hours had shortened. He concluded the main cause was technology "individualizing" people's leisure time via television and the Internet, suspecting that "virtual reality helmets" would carry this further in the future.[1]” Via Wikipedia
  • Taikonerd 4y ago
    Could you spell out more what you mean?
    • torstenvl 4y ago
      Presumably https://www.tesd.net/cms/lib/PA01001259/Centricity/Domain/1114/BowlingAlone.pdf https://www.tesd.net/cms/lib/PA01001259/Centricity/Domain/11...
      • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        Ironic given it’s from 1995. I assume the WaPo article imagines that was a golden age
        • rossdavidh 4y ago
          Well Putnam's book suggested that it was a longstanding trend that just kept getting worse, so each decade would be a golden age compared to what came later.
          • lumb63 4y ago
            I’ve been reading Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society lately (1960s), and it was absolutely an issue back then, according to him.
      • tarboreus 4y ago
        Would still like to hear the precis.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
      • FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
        Bowling Alone was very well received when it came out, but there has been another thread of articles that have been more controversial. I believe a relevant title is: E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The punchline has been that, if you are not careful, increasing diversity can lead to decreased trust in society, and with it, decreased social capital. The idea is that nobody feels really safe (in a social sense), and so you see a pattern of withdrawal. I think this is a challenge that he wants liberal societies to successfully address. It's a warning when he says it, not a call for homogeneity.
  • majormajor 4y ago
    So what actions do you propose to reverse it?
  • tsol 4y ago
    People don't need each other any more. Turns out need was half of what brought us together. What is there to do, really?
  • happytoexplain 4y ago
    >it's not an acceptable answer, we march on and pretend to be mystified. On many social topics, your opinion, expressed with this attitude, is almost always not true to the implied extent. Usually it's an exaggeration born of bitterness/frustration. In this case, the significant issue is not that people "pretend" anything or are just idiots who won't accept The Truth. It's that they either disagree with a hypothesized reason for the problem, or, frequently, agree with the hypothesis but disagree with the implied or stated solution, which is much more reasonable than the person in the picture you're painting.
• notch656a 4y ago
  Kind of shocked this trend applied to parents during the pandemic. With daycares and schools shut-down I have no idea how parents not only got alone time but the trend went upward.
  • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    I had coworkers who were desperate for an excuse to go to the office during the pandemic to get away from the chaos at home.
• naikrovek 4y ago
  the article doesn't seem attribute the desire to be alone to anything, other than saying that it got a lot more common during the pandemic, but I can say why I prefer to be alone: no judgement, no one makes fun of me, no one takes advantage of me, and no one steals from me. the one and only bad thing for me is that being lonely sucks. I am not lonely, but I probably will be in a decade's time. being alone adds up over time. there is no such thing as a "friend." there are only people who will pretend to be a partner or friend in order to make it easier for them to steal from you unnoticed. people are a toxin and a terrible species of creature.
  • mym1990 4y ago
    Why do you anticipate you will be lonely in a decade's time(but not currently)? And do you think you are a toxin based on your observation of the general species?
    • naikrovek 4y ago
      unfortunately, humans are a social species and the toll of being alone adds up over time. I try to avoid people so that I don't darken their day and they don't darken mine. I consider staying away from others a very small gift to them. people are mean, selfish assholes and are by default competitive and adversarial, by nature. we are a doomed species, and are unworthy of existence, in my opinion.
      • tarboreus 4y ago
        Sounds like you're in a dark place. I hope things improve.
      • mym1990 4y ago
        Thanks for sharing, human history is indeed littered with brutal events and these things build further hate for future generations, if they choose not to let go of the past. Despite that, the world and the universe has almost unlimited beauty, but it is ultimately up to an individual person to find and see it.
      • 4y ago
• mym1990 4y ago
  There is absolutely no problem with spending time alone, I believe more people should move towards a place where being alone isn't anxiety inducing(easier said than done). Taking a walk alone(no headphones, just your thoughts), spending a couple hours reading a book, going to a restaurant and having a meal by yourself, working on a passion project...these things can be really liberating! Instead our collective alone time is spent with faces stuck in phones and short form media content, as we constantly compare our lives to whatever the latest celebrity is doing, slowly numbing ourself to our own potential and uniqueness.
  • fdhfdjkfhdkj 4y ago
  • daemoens 4y ago
    The issue is that people are not willingly alone, not that they aren't comfortable being alone.
    • mym1990 4y ago
      You would be surprised how many people can't stand to be in their own thoughts.
      • psychomugs 4y ago
        Most people that I know beyond a certain friendship threshold have told me similar. And with how noisy every space is, from the public gas stations with screens to the private smartphone apps brimming with ads, we're getting more and more out of practice with being with ourselves.
• ilaksh 4y ago
  A few thoughts: 1. The internet means we have many forms of entertainment available without needing to go anywhere. 2. Many of those are social activities, even though we are physically alone. This is completely different from being totally isolated (as implied by the article). 3. The declining economic situation affects the ability of people to pursue leisure activities that would involve actually going somewhere that we might meet up with others. I believe that within a few years, comfortable AR and VR goggles and glasses will come out, and they will pick up mass adoption. This will lead to a huge increase in social activities, and they will be almost equivalent to truly being in person, especially once eye-tracking becomes popular. Virtual environments and AR teleportation using things like neural radiance fields will be quite realistic.
  • fdhfdjkfhdkj 4y ago
  • nullish_signal 4y ago
    "The bad economy means you can't meet people in real life. But soon, everyone will buy VR goggles and hang out on rented servers!" Am I mis-understanding something here? Just go on a hike, walking is free.
    • nibbleshifter 4y ago
      > Just go on a hike, walking is free. If the webshits on here could work out a way to monetize hiking, they will.
      • asdff 4y ago
        It won't be long until some drone based sky billboard company emerges from the ether, strongarms/bribes local government into allowing its exclusive use, and then you are tracked as you walk your hiking trail by a herd of advertising drones that cost just a dime less than the hypothetical number they generate from your annoyed, halfway focused attention. It's coming. I hope some good people here on HN are working on an open source 3d printed EMP cannon.
• theknocker 4y ago
• thefz 4y ago
  If being alone works for you and it is time you feel you need, do it. There is nothing wrong with being an Introvert.
  • unpopularopp 4y ago
    You are mixing together 3 things which are wildly different - loneliness - solitude - introverts
    • yenwodyah 4y ago
      As is the article, and almost everyone talking about the topic.
• altacc 4y ago
  There's been a lot of talk recently about effects of loneliness and the "loneliness epidemic". What a lot of this lacks, including this article, is a good and correct definition of loneliness. They seem to use the lazy & inaccurate definition of "spending significant time alone", which is very different to being lonely. There's a lot of people who are now able to spend more time alone than before and are happy with that. Some of the academics I've heard discussing this define loneliness as when a person's social interactions are significantly less than their desired amount of social interactions. It's an individual's perception, not measured time. That seems like a much better measurement as it takes into account human variability.
  • jcal93 4y ago
    I agree. There's a big difference in being lonely and being alone. There's also a big difference between isolation and loneliness. You can be isolated but not lonely, and likewise you can be lonely and surrounded by folks. The other facet here is that it's easier to choose loneliness than isolation, though it's less likely to be chosen directly. I feel like it's chosen indirectly by choosing avoidance of vulnerability. Vulnerability is the price you pay and risk you take to ameliorate loneliness. Hardly anyone can fully become isolated. You have to work to live, and so by default you are forcefully un-isolated. Loneliness however can come about by avoiding being vulnerable with others. Men seem to be particularly susceptible to this avenue to loneliness.
    • jimkleiber 4y ago
      For me a lot of loneliness is emotional distancing from others and especially from ourselves.
    • TylerE 4y ago
      One thing I have really appreciated in the last few years - even though the naive interpretation, as you said, gets it backwards - is being able to avoid lots of non-enjoyable / productive “interactions”… things like being able to wait in my car to be called back for appointment, rather than sitting in a waiting area. I’m still masking with a N95. I’m not super high risk, but I am at elevated risk AND I’ve managed to dodge catching it so far. As an autistic person, it’s a bit of a leveler (less so now that most proble have stopped) since a lot of those non-verbal cues are, well, masked. Similarly, I really appreciate that now many more places allow for text/email customer service… again, helpful since I’m not under time pressuew to communicate
• mkl95 4y ago
  My area's birth rate is approaching Japan's. Although this was always a bit of a lonely place, being alone is now almost unavoidable. Choosing to be alone and being used to being alone look and feel like the same thing, but their root cause is different.
• cokeandpepsi 4y ago
• Zababa 4y ago
  > You can help reverse these trends today without waiting for the researchers and policymakers to figure it all out. It’s the holidays: Don’t skip Thanksgiving with your family. Go to that holiday party (or throw one yourself). Go hang out with friends for coffee, or a hike, or in a museum, or a concert — whatever. You will feel better, create memories, boost your health, stumble across valuable information — and so will your companions. So it's not "we should reverse that" but "you should reverse that". I'm always suspicious of text filled with "we", "us" , "our" where the group is never well defined. This is an opinion piece, written by an economist, that finds it "safe to assume" things. It is also notable that the author never really justifies that Americans chose to be alone, they just did. All in all, I think it's too light to be taken seriously. For example, is this the first time in history that people are spending more time alone? If not, can we find some events or context that caused this? What were the consequences? Did things change? How? What breaks my heart is that there's a good chance someone, somewhere has spent a lot of time and energy studying this topic and sharing the results for everyone to benefit, but instead here's a piece trying to make people feel guilty about actions they may not have control over.
• Archipelagia 4y ago
  I the last few years I had to move contries a few times and basically rebuild my entire social circle each time – and it made me aware how much of finding friends is just a matter of logistics. I think that much of the loneliness problem comes down to people just not having a process that helps them meet new friends. In most places, there's a surprising amount of events where you can meet new people. For me it was open boardgame nights – the difficult part was actually beating the inertia and going there, but once I did, I think I made about an average of one new friend per two outings, as long as I remembered to message them afterwards.
  • kibwen 4y ago
    There really is a massive gulf between small-town friend-making strategies and big-city friend-making strategies. In a small town you can form a friend group by osmosis, because there's exactly two churches, exactly two bars, exactly one grocery store, so you see everyone regularly and, furthermore, you have no choice who to socialize with, and you know everyone else also has no choice who to socialize with, so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. You'll be cordial with everyone, but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. In a big city, it's the opposite. You can be desperately lonely despite being surrounded by throngs of people at all times. To make friends, you have to really try and put yourself out there. It's hard. But once you do, you may find it more fulfilling, because instead of settling for people who were merely there, you've filtered the city to people who share your interests and found people who you actually want to be around, and you know the people who want to be around you aren't just doing it out of a dearth of options. Higher risk, higher reward.
    • donw 4y ago
      > ... so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. Learning to get along with other people, not just the people you like, and not just the people in your "in-group", is a massively important social skill. American urbanites tend stick out here in Japan precisely for this reason. They only associate with each other and complain constantly about how Japan is "so backwards" compared to back home. There's no olive bar at the supermarket, there's no vegan meat, etc. Folks from non-Anglosphere countries -- urban or rural -- usually integrate far better, at least as much as one can in Japan. > ... but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. This happens all the time in cities. San Francisco was full of the most empty-smiling, gossip-spreading, stab-you-in-the-back people I've encountered in my life.
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  People can’t compete with the infinite entertainment quality of the phone. These trends aren’t surprising.
  • RGamma 4y ago
    The day there's a large enough internet outage will feel like awaking from the Matrix.
    • shrimp_emoji 4y ago
      Not for /r/DataHoarder/s. All entertainment cached locally bb. B)
  • trophycase 4y ago
    This and internet addiction are definitely more responsible than people are letting on. Also the unwillingness a lot of people have to commit and/or start families. And especially the negative marketing done towards women with respect to having children.
    • standardUser 4y ago
      What exactly is the "negative marketing" that you think is manipulating women into having fewer children?
      • trophycase 4y ago
        How it's expensive, how it will ruin your career, how it will destroy your body, etc. Talk to gen-Z women, many of them are inundated with this kind of thinking.
        • standardUser 4y ago
          It is expensive and it is true that building most careers becomes more difficult if you take extended time off. And some women do experience extreme changes to their body. That "kind of thinking" sounds entirely fact-based, not "negative".
• haunter 4y ago
  Not just the US but Europe too. I’m not religious but more and more I think that church (as an institution) had an actual positive effect on local communities. At least as a "force" to keep people together, have a community space etc. A space where you can meet and talk with others. My parents are Anglicans and I always liked the little tea and biscuits after each service. These things matter.
  • phpisthebest 4y ago
    It is not just churches, at least in the US there used to be all kinds of community groups around different things, these all seem to be disappearing. Things like Mens/Womens Fraternal Organizations, Miltary / VA organizations, or even something like Bowling leagues etc. While none of these have disappeared completely it does seem their membership numbers are decreasing in a similar way to churches
    • x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
      A lot of those fraternal organizations require having some religious belief or "belief in a higher power." I'd considered joining a couple, but was dissuaded when I read that in their rules.
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    As a counterpoint, we still have school (the effect including parents), our job, local markets, local bars, local events (library talks, festivals, “neighborhood day”, national holidays celebrations etc). Occasions to meet people abound for most people interested to, and we make a conscious choice to not go, or at least not bound in these events to keep people out of our private spheres.
  • kibwen 4y ago
    Yes, churches do have positive effects on the cohesion of a community. The problem is that the corruption of the churches has countered their positive effects with negative effects and soured people on the church as an institution. In theory, there's no reason we can't have communities with strong senses of cohesion without deferring to a church, but you have to actually build such a thing and not merely rely one to spring up out of nothing. If you're lucky, perhaps you have a church in your community that hasn't been irrevocably co-opted by authoritarians.
• guicho271828 4y ago
  What I (non-US) observed: non-U.S. people when talking about their own medical issues: I have this medical issue, I wonder if I should see a doctor, the cause may be this. U.S. people when talking about their own medical issues: I had this medical issue, I saw a doctor, and the cause was this. non-U.S. people when talking about their own divorce: I am thinking about divorcing my wife/husband. U.S. people when talking about their own divorce: We divorced last week.
  • dxuh 4y ago
    Could you please state your point more explicitly?
    • BigRedDog1669 4y ago
      Maybe that people outside the us involve others more in decision making and rely on them for support. And in the US people decide things on their own and their conversations are just storytelling. Not sure if that is what the commenter was going for, just a guess
  • nemothekid 4y ago
    >U.S. people when talking about their own medical issues: I had this medical issue, I saw a doctor, and the cause was this. I would put more US people in the former camp; especially when you consider that a trip to the doctor can become a surprise bill of the thousands for many.
  • standardUser 4y ago
    Did you have equally intimate relationships with your US and non-US friends? Telling someone a fact that happened in your life is not especially intimate. Like if I had a surgery or got married/divorced, I would tell basically anyone who asked. It's a vastly more intimate experience to consult with a friend - for me it would be a very close friend - about an ongoing crisis in my life. I don't usually ask casual friends for their input on my relationship problems or scary medical issues. Though if I do, that's usually part of building a closer friendship.
• black_13 4y ago
• DueDilligence 4y ago
  .. advocate of the solitary human here. we do not need to change anything. period.
  • Felger 4y ago
    Yorokobe shonen, no one really cares and public health policies won't establish next week (or year or decade) some sort of mandatory social club activity with cops ringing at your door to make you go. You can stay alone in peace.
  • dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
    also advocate of the solitary human, we need to make life not so ridiculously expensive and have meaningful social safety nets that aren't just really good friends/family walking on a tightrope without a net, or a very weak net, is awful
• jzb 4y ago
  This spends a lot of time on stats about how much time alone but just seems to rely on the assumption that alone time is bad. Where’s the backing for why we “should” reverse this?
• EE84M3i 4y ago
  I live in a big city, but I'm terribly lonely. - I live alone. - I work hybrid, but when I go into the office, it's more or less empty and I spend all my time on zoom calls. - My family lives far away. - I'm single. Most weeks, my only social interaction is at the local bar, where I'm a regular, or various dates from apps. Excesses of both of these is unhealthy in different ways. I've been pushing myself to go to meetups and hobby groups, but my hobbies are mostly solo ones (probably a bi-product of spending time alone), and I have terrible decision paralysis. It ends up being a lot of work, and not at all something I'm excited about or that seems _fun_. I don't really have a solution here, but something tells me I'm not alone in being in this situation.
  • rubicon33 4y ago
    Sorry to hear about that difficult situation you are in. Sounds like it's more and more common these days. If I could offer a suggestion... try a sport? Join a tennis club for example, and go to all the meetups. If you don't like tennis, try something else!
  • standardUser 4y ago
    If you go to the same bar all the time and haven't made friends there, try a different bar. And maybe consider those dates as opportunities to make friends in addition to romantic pursuits. A lot of my social group connected originally via dating apps.
    • EE84M3i 4y ago
      I have some friends at the bar, and I'm definitely considered welcome as a regular, and always have a good time, etc. But they're mostly drinking buddies, and not much more outside of that, however I'd like to try harder to change that.
      • iosono88 4y ago
        You should stop drinking so much
• neonate 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/Mxlj4 https://archive.ph/Mxlj4
• wyldfire 4y ago
  Governments should subsidize in-person interactions -- especially for adults. Darts, trivia, volleyball, book club, escape rooms, group therapy. These kind of things would help bring more people together and could help reverse trends of isolated experiences like doomscrolling, social media envy, etc.
  • jacooper 4y ago
    why would they? What short time votes would they get from this? Is it more than whatever is raging in the cultural war?
• m000 4y ago
  I would put this down to a growing part of the population feels financially insecure. As you grow older, spending quality time with people also requires spending $. If you are barely making some savings, you probably won't feel comfortable in scaling up your social life. It is surprising that the author recognizes the time period/age group... > These new habits are startling — and a striking departure from the past. Just a decade ago, the average American spent roughly the same amount of time with friends as Americans in the 1960s or 1970s. ...but cannot (does not dare to?) make the correlation that financial insecurity has exploded.
  • dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
    This, and time poverty
  • dumpsterlid 4y ago
    I made this exact point in this thread elsewhere. It is gross negligence to not even consider peoples finances and stress from lack of said finances as effecting how much we socialize. Who the hell has the energy to socialize these days? I get paid less and less, my boss acts like I am selfish for wanting a raise while simultaneously expecting me to do 3 peoples job, and its crushingly depressing thinking about how I will likely never have enough to retire or live a comfortable life in old age. Who the hell is surprised that people are just sitting at home? US society is being torn apart by the rich, and almost every social issue we have in this country is directly connected to that. Look at the recent rail strike, some of those workers only get something like 40 days off a year, that is INCLUDING their "weekends". It is absolutely out of control how badly the average american is being crushed by a society with so much wealth and knowledge.
  • bonniemuffin 4y ago
    My friend group is pretty economically diverse and also cost-conscious, and most of our social activities are free or nearly-free. We hang out in public parks, get together in each other's homes, and go hiking, camping, or to beaches. Optionally, you can put out some cheese and crackers and a cheap bottle of wine, and now you're all having a nice time together for $20. I'm well-off these days, but I still enjoy doing free/cheap stuff, because I'm there to hang out with my friends, and they're the same friends whether we're sitting on a blanket in a park, or eating three michelin stars. I highly recommend suggesting free activities to your friends, if they're currently in the habit of going out to bars and restaurants and other $$$ activities. Just try it! Maybe you'll all like it.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• seydor 4y ago
  This isn't much, and i posted about it last week, but if you feel lonely working at home , join our chat to work with friends using the pomodoro technique. Can be 20 minutes or 45 minutes session and it somehow feels good to be focused with company. And it's no longer called pomochat but remoteyo: https://remoteyo.com https://remoteyo.com
• upsidesinclude 4y ago
  >Spending less time with friends is not a best practice by most standards, and it might contribute to other troubling social trends — isolation, worsening mental health (particularly among adolescents), rising aggressive behavior and violent crime. In typical, low-effort WP fashion, these are just unsubstantiated claims. Why not take the few minutes to do some actual journalism... ah, because WP. I'm not sold on the truth of these claims, though I am interested and willing to be influenced as to whether this is something truly concerning. Articles like this do nothing to further convince me.
  • seydor 4y ago
    YEah the whole tone of the article is that there is something wrong with lonely people . That's not really helping them
    • bergenty 4y ago
      There is a problem with lonely people by definition. Now being alone/by yourself/solitude is completely acceptable.
• 71a54xd 4y ago
  Fortunately as a socially coy software engineer with limited social skills, I've somehow managed to find a partner with similar interests who gets me. However, after dating in New York for a few years, even with more candor my conversion rate to a third date from Hinge was 5%. This is based on around 40 dates in 2021. For some reason, dating is more palatable for skinny weird guys on the east coast? Women have insane standards these days, for men who make less than $100k or don't already have a very strong social circle the options are dismal. I had women ghost me or leave the table when they realized I didn't work in finance, made less than $400k or wasn't willing to spend $250 on the first date. Fortunately, only in one instance did someone "bring a friend". I'm almost 30, and to be honest, outside of friends I see every few weeks and my partner most forms of socializing seem incredibly trite and like a waste of time. I also stopped drinking because of my health and it just no longer being appealing. Meetups seem fake, and usually end up being people who pretend to be friends. After college I joined a really cool small social "club" for young entrepreneurs (unfortunately it's no longer) and it was great. Consistent friends I'd see 3-4 nights a week etc etc. However, once it folded basically nobody stayed in touch - ended up being kind of fake friends :( . Good luck out there friends :)
  • bradlys 4y ago
    You’re a very physically attractive man if you managed to get 40 dates in one year. Your experience will be nothing like that of an average looking man.
    • dinosaurdynasty 4y ago
      That doesn't seem like it makes it better
      • bradlys 4y ago
        It’s definitely grim out there for most young men these days. I’m 32 and make the money those girls are looking for but I can’t get a date to save my life cause I don’t have the looks. (Average in almost all aspects) I’ve made offers to my friends that I’d pay them anywhere from $10k-$1m if they found me someone I ended up marrying. No one has taken it up - they know how bad the dating market is and that there’s zero shot.
• UweSchmidt 4y ago
  The fundamental force behind this is individualism. Every single technological innovation has made it easier for the individual to function better alone. Every societal change has emphasized the individual right over the (real or perceived) benefit of the collective. This trend seems to accelerate and absolutely nothing that is happening in western society even remotely suggests a possible turnaround. You can take action, like get a new hobby that is just an okay activity but the people are great. Work on becoming a kick-ass friend yourself and cook for people and all that good stuff. But you'll do all that against massive societal forces. A few decades back you'd join one of the few organizations or clubs that happened in your area, and instantly be in a reliable community (if you adapt a little - let's ignore all the downsides for a moment). Friends would hook you up with a partner who's as nerdy as you. When I was young random strangers had regularly great conversations on trains. A city street was a village, you knew everyone. That is not coming back anytime soon.
  • NaOH 4y ago
    >The fundamental force behind this is individualism. Every single technological innovation has made it easier for the individual to function better alone. Every societal change has emphasized the individual right over the (real or perceived) benefit of the collective. This trend seems to accelerate and absolutely nothing that is happening in western society even remotely suggests a possible turnaround. I've long captured this by saying that a society based around the individual is a contradiction.
    • seydor 4y ago
      I m somewhat surprised that big cities still exist and people aren't killing each other or run away
      • dangus 4y ago
        Believe it or not, big cities have pretty good quality of life and people who live there do actually have friends and social lives. I grew up in the suburbs, and I've lived in big cities, urban areas in medium sized cities, and exurbs as well. The cities aren't as different as non-urban people think. But also, they're better in a lot of the ways that most people would expect: more things to do, better food, better shopping. The only real downsides in my mind are less affordable real estate and higher local particle pollution. By far my least favorite lifestyle of those choices was in the exurbs/rural areas. Incredibly boring, isolated, and it's not as quiet and tranquil as one might expect (you're probably near a highway where jake brakes are allowed or a 55 MPH country road). Believe it or not, city areas seem to have better quality park space (because what most people who aren't into hardcore nature consider to be "a nice park" is usually quite heavily designed and built). And, oh yeah, cities are where the jobs are.
• michaelrkn 4y ago
  My girlfriend and I moved into a small apartment building and got 4 other families with kids to move into the other units. We’re trying to create a more supportive and social environment for us and our daughter: chicagofamilyhousing.org
• unavida 4y ago
  Winston Wu has written many articles about the fact that Americans are socially disconnected from each other on his site HappierAbroad.com
• papa-whisky 4y ago
  Tangentially related, the urban planning focused YouTube channel "Not Just Bikes" recently did a video on the decline of the "third place" (i.e., places other than home and work) in American cities: https://youtu.be/VvdQ381K5xg https://youtu.be/VvdQ381K5xg
• Konohamaru 4y ago
  Nobody is choosing to be alone. People have become more evil and good people are isolating themselves to keep themselves safe.
  • standardUser 4y ago
    What kind of danger do you believe these "good people" face?
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• 2devnull 4y ago
  Americans are mean to each other. We didn’t used to be. Various explanations exist. Isolation like many behaviors can be thought of as a defense mechanism, a reaction. Solutions are obvious. What made us different in the past?
  • ryandrake 4y ago
    A political identity based on belligerence, narcissism, and toxic individualism, has taken root and replaced religion for a great many people. Not that religion was all that great, but the current "everyone for themselves and fuck anyone who is not like me" movement is a hell of a lot worse. For these people, isolation is not a defense mechanism, it's a core value. They're against anything that diminishes the Individual, like collective action and cooperating for the good of society.
  • krapp 4y ago
    >What made us different in the past? Social conformity enforced through rigid Christian indoctrination, centralized media propaganda and racial segregation. It's easy to be nice to each other when everyone around you looks like you do, thinks like you do and agrees with your politics. The breakdown of American social cohesion can be traced to at least three related factors - the deconstruction of white supremacy due to the increase in political and cultural power of people outside the white, heteronormative Christian conservative complex, the internet decentralizing mainstream, corporate controlled media as a means of propagandizing and reinforcing the consensus narrative of American exceptionalism, and late capitalism destroying a lot of consumer social interaction like going to the movies, dance halls, etc - because many people no longer have the time or money to engage in physical interaction with other people outside of the workplace, whereas the internet offers forms of interaction that are relatively free.
• fleddr 4y ago
  Not being lonely used to be automatic as society forced you to interact and meet with lots of people just to function. Religion might force you to church where you meet most of the community regularly. It goes far beyond just the purpose of religion. You'll know about every life event of every member, learn about businesses in the community, might meet new friends or even a spouse. The only social institute that comes close is school but school is not forever. To stay in touch with friends, you were forced to actually go to them. To look up information, you were forced to go to a library. To discover music, forced to go to a record shop. To eat whilst not cooking, forced to go to a restaurant. Top enjoy photography or whichever other hobby, forced to go to a hobby club. So without religion and post-school, as you maximally use all technology and conveniences available, you're now not meeting anybody. Unless you purposefully organize it. The defaults changed.
  • fstarship 4y ago
    Church in this context is a third place, the place outside of work and home. Church is one option https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
    • bergenty 4y ago
      There aren’t a lot of good examples that can replace church. Church was literally a forced outing for everyone once a week. A barbershop or pub is not even close to being the same thing.
      • fstarship 4y ago
        I agree none of the other examples are as ubiquitous, I also don't like the examples where there is an expectation you pay at some point. Just GP described the concept without naming it.
  • 0F5 4y ago
    Wrong. My college chemistry textbook had a small aside about an important organic chemist in the 1920s who was responsible for many foundational organic chemistry techniques and theories. I forget his name. The blurb ended with his death — he committed suicide after lamenting that his friends always had female partners on the weekends while he, on the other hand, was always alone. The man died of loneliness in the 1920s. Later editions of the textbook removed the blurb entirely… how stupid and foolish. If you have an amazing personality then you will want to hang out all the time and have lots of sex and everyone will oblige you because you’re fun to be around. It doesn’t matter what the context is. Yeah, if you’re one member of a 25 person Inuit tribe, you won’t be lonely ever. But just because a bunch of people in the USA are narcissistic idiots who are intolerable to be around doesn’t mean anything about the way the world is going.
• 0F5 4y ago
  There’s nothing wrong with being alone. Being alone creates stress and stress brings mental and physical illness. Once they find a way to block stress, it won’t matter. ISR. Etc. If you want to be around people just get a job. If you want more intimate contact, get a job that brings that. Work at a daycare center and you’ll start to crave loneliness. Loneliness is a liberal thing. Move to the Midwest. People just blurt out whatever they think. They get married at 18 almost as a rule and stay together. They involve themselves in the business of others without asking permission. The idea that loneliness is the new way of the world is just what people in the liberal bubble are seeing.
  • dalyons 4y ago
    Please don’t try to make literally everything about politics and political teams. Applying politics everywhere is getting us into a hell of a mess.
    • 0F5 4y ago
      I say what I see. I don’t make anything to be anything. Liberal thinking vs conservative thinking is very old and has much deeper roots than “people making it about teams.” It’s a way of thinking. I personally believe that it’s largely genetic. Is been like this since the Neolithic. Modern American politics aren’t fundamentally different than roundheads vs cavaliers. And yes, loneliness is definitely a problem that is a liberal problem. After living in both worlds that’s my observation.
      • dalyons 4y ago
        Well I’m glad there are so few conservatives worldwide and throughout history who are lonely! A lot less people to worry about then.
  • anon7725 4y ago
    > Loneliness is a liberal thing. tell that to the decidedly-unliberal areas of the country that are tearing themselves apart with meth and pills
  • 4y ago
• 1659447091 4y ago
  When post like these come around, it's always someone saying how they resonate and feel isolated or lonely and then someone suggesting how they can get out more, or do dinner parties or host gatherings/play-dates or whatever. Usually, if they're not doing it already, they're probably not the type to know how or feel comfortable (like myself) but would probably attend if the opportunity came around. There seems to be a mix of extroverts here who seem able to pull this off and other types who would do things once someone else took the initiative to make it happen, especially if it was relevant. I'm guessing a lot of people on this site have things in common. What I'm getting at, is it reminded me of the flyertalk[0] forums. Some Frequent Flyers host these things called DOs/meet-ups[1][2][3] at the hubs they fly into or their base cities. Maybe Hacker News could use something like that. A lot of people seem to like travel, or have disposable income, or could just set it up in their region so it's close to drive. Just seems like a lot of people here already have things in-common, including a lack of being able to meet new friends. Personally, I'm not the type that knows anything about how to host gatherings. But, from the sounds of things, there might be some here who excel at it. [0] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trending.php https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trending.php [1] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/communitybuzz/1015875-consolidated-do-list-thread.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/communitybuzz/1015875-consol... [2] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/communitybuzz/2006931-sea-meetup-do.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/communitybuzz/2006931-sea-me... [3] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-canada-aeroplan/2013877-virtual-ac-do-every-saturday-until-after-covid.html https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-canada-aeroplan/2013877-...
• motohagiography 4y ago
  Maybe familiarity has bred contempt? We have more insights - accurate or not - into each other. The internet has placed us all closer together and more visible to one another where previously we could stay in our social bubbles and communities. Part of why it was easier to get along with people even less than a decade ago was there was a social distance, where that we were different made us more open to one another, and now that we are all in the same single power struggle, our circles have reduced their radii. The whole ideological thing has made us repulsive to one another by saying we are in a zero sum power struggle for equality, somehow against one another. Our differences are no longer complementary, they are intersectional and oppositional, and from what I can tell, almost irreconcilable. If you want to reverse this trend, just ask yourself if you have judged someone, and then look at what reversing that will take.
  • kuramitropolis 4y ago
    Guilty as charged! Turning 30 soon, just shed the last remnants of my prior organically grown social circle, having judged so many people for their emotional callousness, sloppy thinking, and lazy ethics. Most of these days I don't even have anyone to talk to, which is why I've taken once again to that most inadvisable endeavour of writing my thoughts on the Internet! I literally know one or two people who treat others with essential kindness and strive to make their lives meaningful. I wish I had more ways of giving back, because if it wasn't for being able to talk with them once in a while, I'd seriously be doubting my sanity right now. At the same time, it's just not right to lean too much on them - there's only so much anyone can do for your existential problems. So once in a while we share a moment of "yeah bro, I see it too, things are going downhill in a profound and horrifying way, but it's OK, we know we won't let it get to us and we'll figure it out eventually". And that's about as much relating to people that I do these days. Could I choose to "unjudge" the people who I've held to what apparently these days is an unrealistically high standard? Easy, I've had many opportunities to try it! People can be quite forgiving of past misunderstandings, the problem is that they don't seem to learn from their mistakes a whole lot. I'm like, "okay, this person might not really be so great, but they're not a horrible person either, so let's give myself a chance to share some sort of meaningful experience with them!". It goes alright for a while, then I end up having to unilaterally struggle to maintain a basic mutual comfort zone while trying to dissuade poor attempts at gaslighting. (Apparently, it's considered "toxic" to tell others when their behavior is causing harm or distress?) Somehow it's becoming very difficult these days to be a decent person - as defined by the bare minimum of not engaging in violence or manipulative behavior because you treat others like human beings - and be social at the same time. I remember when the Internet used to provide opportunities for just that. Right now it's doing the opposite; who would've thought that a marriage of mass media and the Cold War military-industrial complex would naturally act to set people apart. People are bombarded with so much emotionally charged but otherwise completely nonsensical information which has nothing to do with real life, that if you somehow fall through the cracks of that whole shared hallucination, you're effectively a pariah.
• carrolldunham 4y ago
  >it seems safe to assume that the decline of our social lives is a worrisome development. Gee ok, could we get any basis for that at all? >Because people said they like things with their friends When did they say that? Presumably before we all changed our preference, resulting in changed behaviour.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I’m wondering if “time alone” includes time spent virtually, with friends. I know it’s not the same as actually being in the same physical place, as others, but, for instance, gamers spend a ton of time together. Probably more than they would IRL.
• chrisbrandow 4y ago
  Is there a better way to get a lot of comments on this site than posting any article that says “…people… should do…”?
• Animats 4y ago
  As long as you have your phone, you are never alone. We have conquered boredom, or, as some countries say, "timepass".
• nixpulvis 4y ago
  YES! I could enumerate the enumerable reasons that have been dancing around and torturing my mind for the last years, but frankly I'm exhausted of trying to explain myself. This stuff should be obvious to people.
• anonreeeeplor 4y ago
  I need to answer this because I solved this problem as a super introvert. This reply will get buried. Quite honestly, I realized I was boring and my life was boring. I had a boring job with no travel that didn’t involve meeting anyone interesting. I quit my boring career and deliberately filtered for: - has a technical element but not software development - travel, or interact with a lot of people as a result of the job - has some interesting exciting, creative element If your life sucks. It sucks. I used to be hyper depressed and tried all these superficial mental self motivation techniques, dating apps, meetups, social groups. It felt totally forced and fake. A lot of people on here said it already: if you are going to a meet up or other event to try to make friends as an introvert. It feels desperate, unnatural, forced and wrong. It doesn’t work because you are doing it out of desperation and bring desperate, negative feelings into it and it doesn’t leave you relaxed and able to connect properly with a bunch of strangers who you are trying to force yourself to talk to. At one point I finally had enough. I said fuck this I am not living like this. It lead me to be way more selective about jobs; I filtered the shit out of every boring ass job. If it was some job sitting inside typing computer codes I didn’t want it. There are unlimited supply. If you want to meet women, work on things related to climate, sustainability and impact. Seriously. You guys are a bunch of boring fucks programming database software. Women don’t want to hear it. Women care about impact and social causes. If I had to do it over again as a developer, I’d pick a job with an impact, climate, sustainability or democracy or emerging markets element. Unlimited interesting and educated women in those fields to talk to. Further more, your job is no longer fucking boring. Sorry - you can transition programming skills into fields with a real world impact and your social circle will automatically explode and suddenly you will be hyper interesting and meet a ton of women and people who are passionate and care. It might hurt to hear - but undifferentiated introverted nerd number 40 million is like krypontite to females. You have nothing going on inside your soul that is creative. Women are emotions. If you are programming rust on embedded systems, that is not sexy. Your friends will be boring. Your life will be boring: you will be boring. So I solved it by moving into an externally facing role That mixed programming with customer and other interactions. Life doesn’t happen behind a desk. I looked in the mirror and I made the call: My life sucks. I need to fix it. Once you realize your life sucks and you are boring, take six months to find a better job which bakes in the above. Can’t help you otherwise. Another great piece of advice is to find immigrants. Americans are not friendly. People in middle America are also more friendly. I met my wife through a secretary who was a super extroverted person. You know what I did? I asked her for help. If you can find female friends, ask them for help. If you can’t make friends with a single woman, an extroverted one, without it being about how she looks that’s another problem. Learn to make friends with women without trying to have sec with them. Women will get you other women.
• throwaway892238 4y ago
  What a fantastically low-effort op-ed. Not only is there complete hand-waiving of the negative effects of being alone - literally, there is no evidence given whatsoever of how being alone might be harmful to us - but the article just abruptly ends a couple paragraphs after this. There is literally no "Here's why" to follow up on the title ("Here’s why we should reverse that."). It's like both the writer and the editor just... forgot to include the second half of the article. Did the guy have a stroke and die at the keyboard and they decided to print what he'd gotten through? Meanwhile, the comments section is chock full of people debating the merits of something with no evidence. This is why journalism is supposed to be held to a higher standards. The human chickens will cluck-cluck-cluck about anything you put in front of them that seems mildly controversial. Maybe that's the point of this kind of shoddy writing. Generates comments/engagement without saying anything of value.
• lajamerr 4y ago
  What is loneliness people speak of? I am alone and I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. I am happy and content. I have fun. I am fine just entertaining myself or going out to do things. I'd say I am by myself 95% of the time of every day. Is loneliness related to depression?
• amir734jj 4y ago
  It's a good thing people are choosing to be alone instead of in unmerited relationships and dates that don't get anywhere. I have already spent too much time on dating websites and awkward social events trying to get to know people and none of them worked out. Society has changed and old norms don't apply anymore. People are more career-focused and would rather spend time with themselves than with someone with who they don't have anything in common. The ratio of women compared to men on dating websites says a lot. Hence, women are choosing to be picky and men have no option but to be accepting of everything. This didn't work out in the long run and we are seeing its effects. Welcome to reality.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  If they spend time on Facebook or in an online game talking to friends, is it considered alone? Maybe just definition of "alone" changed, as people replaced physical proximity communication with electronic one?
• 4qz 4y ago
  The Unabomber was right.
  • abhaynayar 4y ago
    "The Unabomber Manifesto will shape the 21st century the way the Communist Manifesto shaped the 20th. I don’t agree with the conclusions in either, but they state the problem well." -- George Hotz
• eric4smith 4y ago
  Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and Forever Peace series of novels chronicle this with pretty decent speculation. He goes from war, to loneliness, to very low birth rates in society to rising same sex unions, to interesting alternative unions -- all designed by the governments of the time to support the martial future society. A fascinating pair of books to read that speculate on the future. (Please don't downvote me for talking about the damn books)
• hellfish 4y ago
  I don't want to disagree with this kind of article because it's talking about a real issue, but it pretty much takes a couple concrete numbers and tries asserting that they are just "facts of life". For example: > The percentage decline is also similar for the young and old; however, given how much time young people spend with friends, the absolute decline among Americans age 15 to 19 is staggering. This "given how much time young people spend with friends" just sounds off to me, like it's supposed to be some sort of constant value, and that human nature, social dynamics, etc are fixed to historical quantities. On the one hand, should young people spend more time with friends? Probably. But on the other hand, this sort of "facts of life" type of assertion comes off as manipulative
  • Dalewyn 4y ago
    >manipulative It's an opinion piece, and worse from the Washington Compost. It's going to be as manipulative as water is wet.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• osigurdson 4y ago
  The problem is, climate change makes everyone feel guilty for even being alive. It is like there isn't enough space and everyone wants everyone else to exit the space.
• lechacker 4y ago
  Why should we reverse it? I'm much more comfortable being alone than having to fit in with what society accepts as proper nowadays. Not to mention how untrustworthy most communities are nowadays.
• adverbly 4y ago
  Working remote has the potential to reverse this, but it will take time. When I had the opportunity to choose where to live around 10 years ago, I chose a city with many of my friends in it. Now if only house prices would drop a bit to make it easier to increase mobility/liquidity...
• throwawayp12asa 4y ago
  Having a dog I have meet a lot of people in my neighborhood, so dogs are a cure of loneliness.
• FrontierPsych 4y ago
  This is because more and more people are moving to cities. When you are in a city, you have everything at your fingertips. You don't like your current friends? No problem, 1 million people live here, I can find more. When you are in a rural area, you live in a town of 1,000 people, you know everyone and everyone knows you. You can't be alone. You can't go out and find new friends. You can't find a new plumber or electrician - there's only one of each in town. Rural areas have much more connectiveness, but not urban areas. There are so many people, I really don't care about the people who live 2 doors down. In a rural community, you do. Of course, not all people in rural or urban areas are like this, but generally yeah. I remember one time, after living only in a large city for 2 years and never leaving it, I went to a rural area and went for a walk along this street. Some dude was walking the other way. He smiled at me and said "Hello." My immediate reaction was, "What do you want? I don't have any money to give you." That was my automatic thought. I knew he wasn't a panhandler, that is a city thing, and the rural area I went to was upper middle class rural area. But that was my first thought. "Why are you talking to me, what do you want, I have no money to give you."