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Young men now spend more of their free time alone than any other group
- jimbob45 2y agoEdit: I stand corrected
- llm_trw 2y ago>Far from being a US-specific trend, this is sweeping the western world. The share of young people on either side of the Atlantic who regularly meet up socially with friends, family or colleagues has dropped sharply. In Europe, the share who don’t even socialise once a week has risen from one in ten to one in four.
- jppope 2y agoSeems totally healthy and I'm sure no bad will come of this.
- OutOfHere 2y agoI am not convinced that it's unhealthy. Young people, especially males, can easily emulate a ton of bad behavior while offline, much of which is now avoided. At this time of the year, the viruses can be unforgiving too.
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- johnnyanmac 2y agoI think we have enough "personalities" online to easily dispel the idea that young people can't emulate bad behaviors online. Politics aside, a decade ago they were literally eating bleach en masses.
- akimbostrawman 2y agoDon't worry if it gets too bad people in power will just start the meat grinder
- llm_trw 2y agoIs this alone or 'alone'? I remember in 2000-2006 spending a ton of my time with friends at a lanshop, because our computers were terrible. It would have counted as in person time, but once we got better computers and internet we just started hanging out online with webcams and voice chat instead. Nothing much changed apart from spending a lot less money and going to bed at a more reasonable time - the 24 hour discount was probably not the best for our sleep schedules.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoThe fact that both young men and young women are now spending so much time alone (that huge spike starting around 2010) is more worrisome to me. I'm concerned about the long-term effects on our society.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoI mean, remote work gets pulled because old dudes in power say so. The four day work week gets laughed at because of America’s unhealthy focus on work ethic and worship. The Surgeon General prescribes community. We know what the problems are, but as a collective action problem, we’re going to fail the test. There is no incentive for those who can make change to make change. Social volatility will rise, fertility rates will fall faster, everyone will be less happy. Brighten the lives of those around you until your light goes out, that’s all you can do.
- echelon 2y ago> We know what the problems are Smartphones, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Fortnite, Roblox, Hacker News.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoSocial media as digital dopamine is certainly a component (and hard to argue against sometimes, “Hell is Other People” and all that), but not the only component. If people are happy in this scenario, who am I to tell them they’re not. Are they happy? If not, what is the reality expectations gap?
- consp 2y agoYou assume people are happy, you should not by default assume anything. Looking at the trend it is shifting age groups over time which is usually an economic indicator but might very well be a complex correlation of factors.
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- ternnoburn 2y ago[flagged]
- worthless-trash 2y agoI am not convinced that the opening line is a significant factor in the report. It will be very surprising if "wellbeing for all" will be achievable in my lifetime or even my non existent great grandchildrens lifetime. It is human, not patriarchal which forces one group against another, you need only research with an open mind to see this happening in even the most liberal minded of groups.
- wiseowise 2y agoYou see mixed votes, because it is insane to connect this to sexuality and “worry of being called gay”.
- BroFrFrNoCap 2y ago[flagged]
- echelon 2y agoI won't interpret this as a battle of the sexes. Instead, I'll argue that we simply have it "too good" and now eschew other effortful forms of entertainment, companionship, and adventure. Phones provide all the dopamine we need, perfectly fit for our attention and interests. Always on, never-ending streams of it. Everything else in life just doesn't provide the same immediate hit. It takes too much effort to hang out with friends, go to the community theater, or go out on a date. The internet and its algorithms are turning us into zombies.
- bowsamic 2y agoI agree, and it isn't just phones It's movies, books, hobbies, plays, etc. Yes, even the good ones, even your David Lynch or your copy of Critique of Pure Reason It isn't, as some people imagine, pure dopamine machines shovelling out easy to consume content, but even also access to (made possible by both far increased literacy and far increase education) works that entertain us that are imagined as higher. We simply can't get bored
- johnnyanmac 2y agoI never interpreted it as such. Simply that cultural and biological factors will affect the sexes differently. This impacts men more because they simply don't tend to have as many deep friendships, nor do they talk as frequently. But yes I agree. We are victims of convinience. a soft form of the classic VR immersion dystopia. All the joy in our fingertips, so who needs friends?
- zabzonk 2y agoAnecdotal, but speaking as a nearly 72 year old, I spend almost all of my time alone, except for my (fairly crap) carers, and my (very nice) cleaning lady/cook, and her little doggie. But I do feel a bit lonely, but I think I always have.
- JALTU 2y agoI'm a bit behind you in years, but/and am very comfortable doing things by myself or in small groups; I would say I even prefer being alone most of the time. As a manager in tech, there's plenty of human interaction at work! I have been looking ahead and wondering about this however. Thx for sharing.
- daniel_j 2y agoAt least for some of us, this isn't by choice. I have no interest in clubs, bars or drinking - in a new city. How am I to meet people? I keep getting told go to clubs and meetups. I found one boardgame club and went to it, it wasn't for me. Now what? I can't find a club of programmers or Linux users that meet more than once in a blue moon. If you're in Melbourne and are actually into Linux/programming I'd love to hear from you. I'm tired of being 'nerdy' meaning playing DnD or video games, I want to mix with people interested in something beyond surface level. If you can sense a hint of frustration in my typing you'd be correct
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y agoYou stopped at one meetup? What are your interests beyond Linux and programming?
- daniel_j 2y agoI stopped at one because I can't find anything else I'm remotely interested in. I don't particularly have interests beyond Linux and programming. I know that's limiting, but it is what it is
- defrost 2y agoDo you have any notion of what it is you'd like to do with Linux and programming? Deep dark buried backend stacks in cloud infrastructure, or perhaps control a drone that monitors engineering or construction progress, etc.
- lemagedurage 2y agoI wonder if this is simply a transition to online platforms. For example, this source reports 245 million monthly active Discord users in the US: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/discord-users-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/discord-u...
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoOnline platforms are not a substitute for real, in-person friendships. I forget the researcher who coined the term AI for "artificial intimacy": when you've got 1000 "friends" on social media but nobody to feed your cat when you go on vacation.
- irjustin 2y agowell it's not to say you can't have intimate online relationships. Plenty of WoW groups from back in the day.
- wiseowise 2y agoHow many of those translated into long lasting, healthy real life relationships?
- wink 2y agoCan only speak for myself but I have several groups of people I've met online 10 or 20+ years ago, chat with online ranging from daily to weekly, and about half of them I meet in person once to several times per year. No clue if it's objectively a healthy relationship, but I'd say so. Obviously I'm not young anymore, and it should not matter I'm not in the US - but I don't see a meaningful difference here, because whether you can form these types of relationships today is a different question.
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- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated recent stories on this topic: Surgeon General says loneliness is driving US into anxiety and pessimism https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42330341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42330341 Loneliness in Midlife: A Growing Gap Between US and Europe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39752487 The myth of the loneliness epidemic https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42238160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42238160
- PhilipRoman 2y agoI really hate this style of headline (which is not from the original article apparently). It should go in the garbage bin along with "fastest growing" and others. By itself it doesn't tell you any meaningful information. Maybe "young men" are spending just a few percent more of their time alone than the next group. Maybe that other group started spending less time alone. The actual "problem" is that time spent alone has drastically increased, not that they surpassed some other group, and that's what the headline should say.
- FearNotDaniel 2y agoI don’t know if the HN Title has been altered since you posted this, but the verbatim wording “Young men now spend more of their free time alone than any other group” is in the screenshot of the chart taken directly from the original FT article, so that part stands despite your own hatred of such a choice of words. Whether that claim is (a) true and (b) significant, that’s a different question. However it seems that you and I are living in different bubbles because when your gut reaction is to feel the headline claim is false and/or meaningless, my immediate reaction is that it corresponds with ideas I’ve frequently encountered recently, that young men are finding it increasingly hard to form meaningful friendships and that some of the outcomes from that are an increased rate of depression, suicidal tendencies, violence towards each other and towards women, and a greater likelihood of being radicalised by extremist political groups of any flavour. I don’t know whether my worldview or yours is more correct, the truth is perhaps somewhere in the middle, all I know is that if there is a possibility that any of this is both true and significant then it takes calm and nuanced discussion backed up by well researched facts and a willingness to try potential interventions as a society - unless of course research and not just gut instinct tells us: no, this really isn’t a problem, we do live in a fair and just society and nobody is suffering.
- lelanthran 2y ago> young men are finding it increasingly hard to form meaningful friendships and that some of the outcomes from that are an increased rate of depression, suicidal tendencies, violence towards each other and towards women, Isn't violence towards women by the target demographic (Young American Men) the lowest it has ever been in human history?
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- Ferret7446 2y agoWhen society abandons you, you abandon society. It's not rocket science. The worst part isn't even the demonization of the "patriarchy" and "masculine energy", but the gaslighting.
- CMay 2y agoA journalist recently wrote an article in The Atlantic covering the epidemic of people spending more time alone and did an interview to talk about it. PBS - “The Anti-Social Century:” Inside America’s Epidemic of Solitude | Amanpour and Company https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz8KrZFhaxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz8KrZFhaxU People have been talking about this issue for a long time now. We know it's an important problem and it's not the first time community has sort of collapsed, but it takes time for society to adjust back to a balance. Whether we force a fix or not, after the older generations pass away there will be more opportunity and sense of purpose/meaning in reaching out. When stability and satisfaction is relatively achievable without others, the required motivational threshold for putting in the effort to make connections gets higher. This compounds when some businesses, events and organizations that rely on strong socializing tendencies to succeed start to decline. Then those have to be rebuilt once people realize the problem. The worry is that the internet and online socializing could keep us in a groove that limits the effectiveness of any corrective measures, reducing the ROI on initiatives to solve it.
- euroderf 2y ago> When stability and satisfaction is relatively achievable without others, the required motivational threshold for putting in the effort to make connections gets higher. Maybe it's something simple, like: the mind craves words - and expressions made thereof - and social media gives just enough of a fix that the restless mind is not driven to seek out conversations & encounters in the flesh. Shyness becomes self-reinforcing. Awkward wins.
- CMay 2y agoI don't necessarily think it's simple from that angle. It's more like convenience and efficiency often come with encapsulation and reduced friction, which puts us in bubbles that cause us to slip right past eachother. That alone causes so many things to snap into place in the direction of training us to enjoy self-time until it reaches unhealthy saturation.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>once people realize the problem. That may be the unique issue. Maybe a good portion of people never realize the problem and sustain on artificial intimacy. The internet is really good at giving people the facade of such interactions.
- bravetraveler 2y agoAlone is the closest to fulfilling I get, when the day is spent chasing the whims of others
- bradlys 2y agoAs someone who is entering the age where I should be spending as little time as possible in my life alone (presumably because I’d be married with kids) I’m looking at a very lonely life in the traditional sense. I’m single with no indicator of that changing. I have a decent amount of friends and see people regularly at my gym since I workout everyday. So, there’s always some minor socialization on any given day. My big woe though is that there’s no easy way for me to meet women. All the things I do normally are just not popular with women and most men are terrible for introducing you to women. After all, any guy who knows a woman who is eligible and attractive will burn the bridge himself unless he’s not single but even then - usually is not encouraged to know such women due to his partner. Even when I try to branch out and do things that are more popular with women, it’s a very challenging environment to get anywhere socially. Yoga and Pilates classes aren’t known for their social atmosphere and if you join in on a cardio dance class - your sexuality and masculinity will inherently be questioned. Seems most people 25+ rely on dating apps to meet opposite sex now and I’m sure that contributed a lot to the loneliness figures. A lot of us have little reason to go out if we don’t think there’s at least a chance at romance - and the amount of good spaces to meet partners has dwindled.
- techjamie 2y agoWhat about hobbies that are more unisex? A lot of women hike, maybe find a hiking or bike riding group. Something with art, books, whatever. Branch out into other things, find something you can genuinely enjoy. Don't go into it with the mindset you're gonna date, just have fun and get to know people. If something is going to happen, let it naturally happen. > Yoga and Pilates classes aren’t known for their social atmosphere and if you join in on a cardio dance class - your sexuality and masculinity will inherently be questioned. If you're really interested in joining those, just do it. Who cares what people think? If someone thinks less of you because your hobby isn't manly, that's their problem.
- bradlys 2y agoStatistics matter in these. If there is even a slight gender imbalance in the singles - it creates a very challenging environment. I’ve investigated groups for hiking and cycling - here in nyc I can say they don’t exist in good numbers (especially in winter) and don’t attract eligible women. If you go out and do things without the mindset to date as a man - you won’t get dates. Men have to initiate conversation, men have to ask for contact details, men have to organize and plan dates, etc. Women don’t do any of the initial courting. Just going out and being in a space is not going to get you laid as an average man. This is why people use dating apps so much now. To get a date in real life is exceptionally challenging. You have to first figure out where single women are evening going out (they don’t - single men dominate almost every social activity) and then you gotta court a bunch of random women who you know nothing about in hopes they’ll be a fit. 9/10 times you’ll find out you have completely different life goals within the first 30 minutes. I think this is why dating apps are so popular. I wish they worked for me but I’m ugly - so I have to stick with real life and hope I meet women with vision problems.
- DoctorMckay101 2y agoI mean, yes and no? 27M speaking. I see most of my friends irl about once every two weeks or so. We either make all day/weekend long plans or we don't meet up. However we spend at least 2-3h on call daily in Discord and exchange about 200 messages a day in our Telegram groups. Being conservative with both of those metrics that is.
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- matrix87 2y ago24M, don't want kids. not going to marry (if no kids, why fuck yourself?). sex is fun but not fun enough to make me consider any of the previous things A bunch of our social activities center around families or dating (and dating culture is just a precursor for marriage for most people) I'm genuinely convinced (as a young man) that the reason why people are "upset" about us being alone is because they'd rather screw us into arrangements that benefit them. It's just manipulation disguised as concern