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World events and economy aside, there are also clear trends with teenagers (and people as a whole) having fewer close friends than ever - loneliness is more com

World events and economy aside, there are also clear trends with teenagers (and people as a whole) having fewer close friends than ever - loneliness is more common than ever. Our culture and society as a whole is declining in its ability to foster community and friendship, which really is deadly in its own way.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
Imagine that: a culture that promotes individualism and the pursuit of profit over all else leads to a generation of people with few close friends and lots of loneliness and stress.
- orangecat 4y ago
  Yes, switching to capitalism in 2012 was clearly a mistake.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    The increasing lonliness trend has been going on much longer than that, things are just coming to a head as it becomes more and more obvious that kids were sold a future that isn't going to happen. Real wages continue to fall while corporations make record profits and get bailed out when they fuck up, a college education just saddles you with debt and a job as a barista, housing prices are completely insane, and the consistent messaging is that this is all your fault for not working hard enough somehow.
Syonyk 4y ago
> ... loneliness is more common than ever. But it's also very profitable if you're the advertising delivery system, or somewhere sucking money off that pipeline, because you can convince lonely people to spend money to buy things that might help with that! The whole "isolated, atomic person, only interfacing with the world through a screen, with every interaction intermediated by for-profit tech companies providing a service for a fee" model is very profitable. It's just horrid for everyone who's nothing more than a wallet and set of eyeballs to be tapped for as much as they're worth, then given loans to keep consuming. I utterly hate the characterization of people as "consumers" these days - I'm trying to be more deliberate about using "citizen" or something along those lines. There's more to life than consuming as many "consumer goods" as possible. Unfortunately, the wealthy end of the tech industry makes their money from this sort of social destruction, and so I don't expect many changes while people are still willing to pay for the chains of their cell phone. Fortunately, I think that's changing.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

Imagine that: a culture that promotes individualism and the pursuit of profit over all else leads to a generation of people with few close friends and lots of loneliness and stress.

orangecat 4y ago
Yes, switching to capitalism in 2012 was clearly a mistake.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  The increasing lonliness trend has been going on much longer than that, things are just coming to a head as it becomes more and more obvious that kids were sold a future that isn't going to happen. Real wages continue to fall while corporations make record profits and get bailed out when they fuck up, a college education just saddles you with debt and a job as a barista, housing prices are completely insane, and the consistent messaging is that this is all your fault for not working hard enough somehow.

Syonyk 4y ago

> ... loneliness is more common than ever. But it's also very profitable if you're the advertising delivery system, or somewhere sucking money off that pipeline, because you can convince lonely people to spend money to buy things that might help with that! The whole "isolated, atomic person, only interfacing with the world through a screen, with every interaction intermediated by for-profit tech companies providing a service for a fee" model is very profitable. It's just horrid for everyone who's nothing more than a wallet and set of eyeballs to be tapped for as much as they're worth, then given loans to keep consuming. I utterly hate the characterization of people as "consumers" these days - I'm trying to be more deliberate about using "citizen" or something along those lines. There's more to life than consuming as many "consumer goods" as possible. Unfortunately, the wealthy end of the tech industry makes their money from this sort of social destruction, and so I don't expect many changes while people are still willing to pay for the chains of their cell phone. Fortunately, I think that's changing.