8 ms·

> Side note: Interestingly, teen loneliness briefly went way down from about 1996 to about 2006. That’s consistent with the idea that the old computer-based int

by bnralt 4y ago

> Side note: Interestingly, teen loneliness briefly went way down from about 1996 to about 2006. That’s consistent with the idea that the old computer-based internet was a complement to in-person interaction That’s been my experience too. In the early year, I remember having long conversations with different friends every night on AIM. Even some casual acquaintances ended up being good friends because of the conversation we had. I kept up with people all over the world with personal e-mail, sometimes for years. It does seems that between 2010-14 or so, people disappeared en masse from AIM. People stopped writing back to personal e-mail. Everyone migrated to social media, even though social media wasn’t a replacement. Every thing was public, good friend and strangers being in the same bucket. Long form conversations between two people disappeared. Someone would through out something to everyone they were connected to, and you could comment or ignore it. Communication just became very public, impersonal, and shallow.

foobarbecue 4y ago
Absolutely. My workplace is in the throes of a "back to the office" vs "pro-telework" battle, and it seems to me that those of us who grew up during those wonderful instant messaging / email years are the core of the pro-telework camp. We know the power of asynchronous communication. We know it can transmit deep thought. We know it can create and sustain friendships, and it can be fun! We also know that the technology is all messed up now and needs a lot of work if we're going to regain what corporations destroyed in the last decade.
vehemenz 4y ago
This is my experience too, but I think it possibly corresponds to the transition to mid 20s and adulthood, where a lot this contact drops off anyway (not that it should). I'd be interested to know what it was like for older adults, but my guess is that a lot of them weren't using AIM that way in the first place.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I'm an older adult, and my experience of that period of time echoes this. The dropoff wasn't related to age, it was an effect of that moment in time.
khornschemeier 4y ago
This is a good point and a similar experience for me (I was in high school 1996-2000). I'll add that, in my experience, those private, deep conversations through AIM and email enhanced my in-person relationships. While phones and social media have interfered with them.
toastal 4y ago
With rose-tinted glasses, we can and probably should go back to this. I fondly remember YIM from high school and eventually getting Pidgin/Adium to wrangle ICQ, MSN, AIM, and the mass of options Jabber-based options via libpurple. I'd chat with folks about what they were doing on the weekend and where to meet up--to get away from the computer. XMPP is still around and being worked on with decentralization and with OMEMO we can have the encrypted chats we didn't at the time. I've even seen some clients picking up "stickers" that some folks love. I also agree with the public persona of social media eroding the intimacy of conversation as well--just like in real life 1-on-1 conversation is always more intimate than going with a group (or hanging in the MUC). When you'd head to a MUC, it wasn't uncommon to add someone you thought was interesting to your roster and check in with a DM every once in a while.
doublepg23 4y ago
I think you’re just using the wrong platforms for that experience. I’ve been on Telegram for ages and talk daily to people who live on the other side of the world. I’ve never met them in person but we’ve had rich, personal, discussions and I consider them my friends. On the meatspace side I video call daily with my childhood friends even though we’re hours away. I’m not sure how I could have kept up my friendship if I didn’t have modern technology to video call, game, instant message etc. We always end up grounding it with visits every two months or so but it’s essential to my relationship to stay in the loop.
- pixl97 4y ago
  It's not they are using the wrong platform exactly... FB for example started with the idea that people should talk to each other. But then it's worth a lot more money if they stop talking and start buying https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other...
  - doublepg23 4y ago
    I’m hopeful for protocols like Matrix and ActivityPub continue taking off where monetization is an issue but they place communication as paramount. More “modern retro-tech” like Gemini is also promising. I made a great friend there which I feel is related to self-selection - as in, maybe most of the people on Twitter and Facebook aren’t a good fit for a HN netizen.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Yup. Actual conversations were replaced by liking or commenting something short. Those micro interactions are almost useless.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  I upvoted this... And then literally smacked my head.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    In a forum like this, though, it's appropriate. Does anyone really want to wade through a bunch of replies to a comment that just say "I agree" without adding anything? That said, I'm guilty of the occasional "I agree" reply like that, and it typically gets downvoted -- as it should.
    - layer8 4y ago
      Honestly, this was/is rarely a problem in forums that have no upvote/downvote feature. The important part is that they don’t have the UI of a chat and have affordances that make them convenient for asynchronous use.
- reidjs 4y ago
  I disagree, those micro interactions complement async conversations - an easy way to acknowledge something, equivalent of saying 'lol' or 'ok'.
  - AlwaysRock 4y ago
    Right. My point is though that many people will just like someones wedding photos or whatever life event instead of having a conversation with them and discovering that information. Acknowledging something is fine if you then talk to that person but most people replaced the conversation with the like.
    - 4y ago
treis 4y ago
This seems like just another iteration of old people decrying technology they don't like: Communication these days is so impersonal. Why can't they have a chat instead of public posts Why can't they call and actually talk to each other instead of chat Why can't they write each other e-mails instead of these superficial chats Why can't they send letters instead of these impersonal e-mails Why can't they meet up in person like we used to Communication changes and life goes on. Don't really see much difference with phones. It's just the same "kids these days" and the same obliviousness as always that they've become the "old man yelling at cloud".
- GeoAtreides 4y ago
  > Don't really see much difference with phones except, you know, the topic we're discussing. Teenage unhappiness. With actual hard data, for example, the number of suicides. So it might just be this time is different. And, last but not least: past performance is not indicative of future results.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Objectively speaking - I think we've never had as many companies vying for our attention as we do today. Worse - we've never had the ability to give those companies real time feedback on whether their strategies are working like we do today. So while I somewhat agree with: > Communication changes and life goes on. Don't really see much difference with phones. It's just the same "kids these days" and the same obliviousness as always that they've become the "old man yelling at cloud". It's pretty hard to argue with the plain fact that teen suicide rates are WAY up compared to the last 40 years. So if you're going to take the opinion "this is just old people being curmudgeons" I don't really see you making a compelling argument that they're wrong. If anything - maybe they're right...?
  - treis 4y ago
    >It's pretty hard to argue with the plain fact that teen suicide rates are WAY up compared to the last 40 years. This isn't true: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8gKudTKiGtcT11FPjKsB27qh86Q=/0x0:1080x1080/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1080x1080):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/18303766/US_teen_suicide.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8gKudTKiGtcT11FPjKsB27qh86Q=... Rates went way down in the 90s & early 2000s before rising back to where they were before. >I don't really see you making a compelling argument that they're wrong. If anything - maybe they're right...? When someone cries wolf in the same way that adults have for basically all of human history you don't need a compelling argument to dismiss them. If I had to look at what is different for kids today than when I grew up I'd point to: (1) Their economic future is uncertain and general economic stress level is higher (2) Related to (1) the pressure around college is dramatically up. Schoolwork is up, resume building activities are up, and parental pressure is up. (3) Opioid crisis (4) Much more likely to get shot at school (5) Kids are more inactive and way fatter.
pavon 4y ago
> It does seems that between 2010-14 or so, people disappeared en masse from AIM. People stopped writing back to personal e-mail. Everyone migrated to social media, even though social media wasn’t a replacement. In my experience, it was texting (and similar 1-on-1 phone apps) that displaced IM, not social media.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  IME it was before 2010. I was in college 2000-2004, and people used AIM then to keep in touch. But by the time I was in law school from 2004-2007, AIM was sparsely used by my peers. I wasn't texting at the time either, nor was I on FB. I guess we just emailed.
  - warner25 4y ago
    Interesting. College for me was 2004-2008, and AIM was still the primary means of chatting where I was. I remember people giving their AOL screen names as contact information on semi-official documents. What did start to change was expressing ourselves on our Facebook pages instead of using our AIM "away" messages. I kept my AIM client logged in and running on my laptop throughout 2009 after moving away for my first job, but that's when I remember things shifting quickly to SMS text messaging. I resisted hard, kept using a dumb phone without a keyboard, and probably missed out on a lot of social connections in the first few years after college because of it. This reminds me of another recent thread in which I talked about Facebook turning to crap soon after I graduated college. Someone replied that they started college in 2010 and thought Facebook was fun until about 2015.
- ravagat 4y ago
  I wouldn't say it displaced but rather emphasized the instantaneous part of IM (Instant Messaging). The portability and convenience with the innovation in social media combined pros of the AIM, personal e-mail, etc.
cma 4y ago
I would be shocked if there wasn't a monotonic increase in group chat/private chat during all those years to now. AIM just never made the transition to phones successfully.
thequadehunter 4y ago
One of the few places I was able to recapture the early internet magic was on Discord from 2015-2018. Unfortunately, that is very difficult nowdays with the popularity it's found. When I was using the internet in the late 90's/early 2000's it felt like a safe haven for a geek like me to be myself without being punished for it. A lot of that magic wears off when the people who used to kick my ass for being a nerd became chronically online.
ccanassa 4y ago
In my country, the internet was frustratingly slow and expensive. To enjoy online gaming with my friends, we resorted to hosting LAN parties at someone's house. These gatherings were incredibly enjoyable, far surpassing the experience of playing alone online. Moreover, our LAN parties had an unexpected benefit: we all became TCP/IP network experts. Each of us knew how to construct our cables.
ravagat 4y ago
I think another part to this drop was home-computers vs. portable computers like laptops rise in popularity. I remember an emphasis of seperation with a home-computer that didn't move with me vs. a portable computer that was always there. I still practice this and advocate others to do the same. Hell a lot of people just end up using their laptops as home-computers anyway with a monitor and dock setup. Funny how that is

by bnralt 4y ago

foobarbecue 4y ago

Absolutely. My workplace is in the throes of a "back to the office" vs "pro-telework" battle, and it seems to me that those of us who grew up during those wonderful instant messaging / email years are the core of the pro-telework camp. We know the power of asynchronous communication. We know it can transmit deep thought. We know it can create and sustain friendships, and it can be fun! We also know that the technology is all messed up now and needs a lot of work if we're going to regain what corporations destroyed in the last decade.

vehemenz 4y ago

This is my experience too, but I think it possibly corresponds to the transition to mid 20s and adulthood, where a lot this contact drops off anyway (not that it should). I'd be interested to know what it was like for older adults, but my guess is that a lot of them weren't using AIM that way in the first place.

JohnFen 4y ago
I'm an older adult, and my experience of that period of time echoes this. The dropoff wasn't related to age, it was an effect of that moment in time.

khornschemeier 4y ago

This is a good point and a similar experience for me (I was in high school 1996-2000). I'll add that, in my experience, those private, deep conversations through AIM and email enhanced my in-person relationships. While phones and social media have interfered with them.

toastal 4y ago

With rose-tinted glasses, we can and probably should go back to this. I fondly remember YIM from high school and eventually getting Pidgin/Adium to wrangle ICQ, MSN, AIM, and the mass of options Jabber-based options via libpurple. I'd chat with folks about what they were doing on the weekend and where to meet up--to get away from the computer. XMPP is still around and being worked on with decentralization and with OMEMO we can have the encrypted chats we didn't at the time. I've even seen some clients picking up "stickers" that some folks love. I also agree with the public persona of social media eroding the intimacy of conversation as well--just like in real life 1-on-1 conversation is always more intimate than going with a group (or hanging in the MUC). When you'd head to a MUC, it wasn't uncommon to add someone you thought was interesting to your roster and check in with a DM every once in a while.

doublepg23 4y ago

I think you’re just using the wrong platforms for that experience. I’ve been on Telegram for ages and talk daily to people who live on the other side of the world. I’ve never met them in person but we’ve had rich, personal, discussions and I consider them my friends. On the meatspace side I video call daily with my childhood friends even though we’re hours away. I’m not sure how I could have kept up my friendship if I didn’t have modern technology to video call, game, instant message etc. We always end up grounding it with visits every two months or so but it’s essential to my relationship to stay in the loop.

pixl97 4y ago
It's not they are using the wrong platform exactly... FB for example started with the idea that people should talk to each other. But then it's worth a lot more money if they stop talking and start buying https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other...
- doublepg23 4y ago
  I’m hopeful for protocols like Matrix and ActivityPub continue taking off where monetization is an issue but they place communication as paramount. More “modern retro-tech” like Gemini is also promising. I made a great friend there which I feel is related to self-selection - as in, maybe most of the people on Twitter and Facebook aren’t a good fit for a HN netizen.

AlwaysRock 4y ago

Yup. Actual conversations were replaced by liking or commenting something short. Those micro interactions are almost useless.

foobarbecue 4y ago
I upvoted this... And then literally smacked my head.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  In a forum like this, though, it's appropriate. Does anyone really want to wade through a bunch of replies to a comment that just say "I agree" without adding anything? That said, I'm guilty of the occasional "I agree" reply like that, and it typically gets downvoted -- as it should.
  - layer8 4y ago
    Honestly, this was/is rarely a problem in forums that have no upvote/downvote feature. The important part is that they don’t have the UI of a chat and have affordances that make them convenient for asynchronous use.
reidjs 4y ago
I disagree, those micro interactions complement async conversations - an easy way to acknowledge something, equivalent of saying 'lol' or 'ok'.
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Right. My point is though that many people will just like someones wedding photos or whatever life event instead of having a conversation with them and discovering that information. Acknowledging something is fine if you then talk to that person but most people replaced the conversation with the like.
  - 4y ago

treis 4y ago

This seems like just another iteration of old people decrying technology they don't like: Communication these days is so impersonal. Why can't they have a chat instead of public posts Why can't they call and actually talk to each other instead of chat Why can't they write each other e-mails instead of these superficial chats Why can't they send letters instead of these impersonal e-mails Why can't they meet up in person like we used to Communication changes and life goes on. Don't really see much difference with phones. It's just the same "kids these days" and the same obliviousness as always that they've become the "old man yelling at cloud".

GeoAtreides 4y ago
> Don't really see much difference with phones except, you know, the topic we're discussing. Teenage unhappiness. With actual hard data, for example, the number of suicides. So it might just be this time is different. And, last but not least: past performance is not indicative of future results.
horsawlarway 4y ago
Objectively speaking - I think we've never had as many companies vying for our attention as we do today. Worse - we've never had the ability to give those companies real time feedback on whether their strategies are working like we do today. So while I somewhat agree with: > Communication changes and life goes on. Don't really see much difference with phones. It's just the same "kids these days" and the same obliviousness as always that they've become the "old man yelling at cloud". It's pretty hard to argue with the plain fact that teen suicide rates are WAY up compared to the last 40 years. So if you're going to take the opinion "this is just old people being curmudgeons" I don't really see you making a compelling argument that they're wrong. If anything - maybe they're right...?
- treis 4y ago
  >It's pretty hard to argue with the plain fact that teen suicide rates are WAY up compared to the last 40 years. This isn't true: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8gKudTKiGtcT11FPjKsB27qh86Q=/0x0:1080x1080/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1080x1080):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/18303766/US_teen_suicide.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8gKudTKiGtcT11FPjKsB27qh86Q=... Rates went way down in the 90s & early 2000s before rising back to where they were before. >I don't really see you making a compelling argument that they're wrong. If anything - maybe they're right...? When someone cries wolf in the same way that adults have for basically all of human history you don't need a compelling argument to dismiss them. If I had to look at what is different for kids today than when I grew up I'd point to: (1) Their economic future is uncertain and general economic stress level is higher (2) Related to (1) the pressure around college is dramatically up. Schoolwork is up, resume building activities are up, and parental pressure is up. (3) Opioid crisis (4) Much more likely to get shot at school (5) Kids are more inactive and way fatter.

pavon 4y ago

> It does seems that between 2010-14 or so, people disappeared en masse from AIM. People stopped writing back to personal e-mail. Everyone migrated to social media, even though social media wasn’t a replacement. In my experience, it was texting (and similar 1-on-1 phone apps) that displaced IM, not social media.

gnicholas 4y ago
IME it was before 2010. I was in college 2000-2004, and people used AIM then to keep in touch. But by the time I was in law school from 2004-2007, AIM was sparsely used by my peers. I wasn't texting at the time either, nor was I on FB. I guess we just emailed.
- warner25 4y ago
  Interesting. College for me was 2004-2008, and AIM was still the primary means of chatting where I was. I remember people giving their AOL screen names as contact information on semi-official documents. What did start to change was expressing ourselves on our Facebook pages instead of using our AIM "away" messages. I kept my AIM client logged in and running on my laptop throughout 2009 after moving away for my first job, but that's when I remember things shifting quickly to SMS text messaging. I resisted hard, kept using a dumb phone without a keyboard, and probably missed out on a lot of social connections in the first few years after college because of it. This reminds me of another recent thread in which I talked about Facebook turning to crap soon after I graduated college. Someone replied that they started college in 2010 and thought Facebook was fun until about 2015.
ravagat 4y ago
I wouldn't say it displaced but rather emphasized the instantaneous part of IM (Instant Messaging). The portability and convenience with the innovation in social media combined pros of the AIM, personal e-mail, etc.

cma 4y ago

I would be shocked if there wasn't a monotonic increase in group chat/private chat during all those years to now. AIM just never made the transition to phones successfully.

thequadehunter 4y ago

One of the few places I was able to recapture the early internet magic was on Discord from 2015-2018. Unfortunately, that is very difficult nowdays with the popularity it's found. When I was using the internet in the late 90's/early 2000's it felt like a safe haven for a geek like me to be myself without being punished for it. A lot of that magic wears off when the people who used to kick my ass for being a nerd became chronically online.

ccanassa 4y ago

In my country, the internet was frustratingly slow and expensive. To enjoy online gaming with my friends, we resorted to hosting LAN parties at someone's house. These gatherings were incredibly enjoyable, far surpassing the experience of playing alone online. Moreover, our LAN parties had an unexpected benefit: we all became TCP/IP network experts. Each of us knew how to construct our cables.

ravagat 4y ago

I think another part to this drop was home-computers vs. portable computers like laptops rise in popularity. I remember an emphasis of seperation with a home-computer that didn't move with me vs. a portable computer that was always there. I still practice this and advocate others to do the same. Hell a lot of people just end up using their laptops as home-computers anyway with a monitor and dock setup. Funny how that is