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The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

• MattGaiser 1y ago
  > The government slowed down its investment in and construction of third spaces—such as community centers, parks, and coffee shops—which has left fewer places for organic social interactions. My anecdotal impression is that people don't really use those that are available very much and the drop in investment is because of that. I have organized a few events in community halls over the past few years and I have been struck by just how available the event spaces we looked at were. No conflicts, no competing priorities, nobody using any of the other rooms at the same time, etc. Some communities are no longer bothering to have community halls at all, as nobody really uses them. Where I live, the local community centres are not heavily used. Community social events have dwindled due to being poorly attended. The coffee shops, bars, and pubs have cut seating and replaced it with dedicated pickup areas for those who send in orders or are buying it through a delivery app. Schools have cut all manner of parent activities as the parents don't participate. Same thing for anything that isn't a flagship park or flagship sports facility. Sure, the top city parks are crowded, but most are pretty empty even on sunny days. So I have to ask, is there actually much demand for more social interaction? As it seems that the drop is mostly in demand, not supply.
  • redczar 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • barry-cotter 1y ago
      This reminds me of a tweet I saw in 2023, during the height of the Floyd Riots, that has since unfortunately been deleted, that said approximately that suburbanisation was a long term bet on the inability of the US State to keep order in urban areas. Basically, once a generation (last one before the Floyd riots were the Rodney King riots) the US has massive riots, everyone learns of remembers that if you don’t live in walking distance of an urban centre you’re safe from having your house burned down by a mob and after that there’s a durable uptick in desire for suburban rather than urban property.
      • redczar 1y ago
        [flagged]
    • em-bee 1y ago
      you got cause and effect wrong. desegregation is not the cause. racism is. it takes a lot more than laws to root out racism.
      • redczar 1y ago
        I think it’s clear that the reason desegration was the starting point is racism.
        • em-bee 1y ago
          yes, but your wording made it sound like as we should simply have kept segregation and also women out of social life. you can see where not ending segregation would have lead to in south africa. i am sure in the US it would have lead to another civil war. so if we want to fix community life, we need to fix racism.
  • haswell 1y ago
    I think this is less about demand, and more about habits. I’ve personally become aware of the fact that I need more social contact. I want to attend events, but never really built the habit of organizing. My ex was always the social instigator, and I didn’t realize how much I relied on that (we were together for most of my adult life). The more people I talk to about this, the more I hear them lamenting the lack of in-person gatherings. I think social media has kind of filled the need poorly, and this has changed habits. It’s not what people want, but it has them hooked, and IRL gatherings have suffered as a result. It reminds me of some of the comments from the younger crowd about TikTok. “I hate it, but I can’t stop using it, because everyone else is on it”. I really think people want real social interaction but have gotten caught in this social media habit that just barely meets the need. Junk food vs. a nutritious meal. I suppose at the end of the day you could still say this means demand is down, but I think there are more layers than that.
    • intended 1y ago
      Junk food is the example I use for much of social media.
  • enaaem 1y ago
    Third places have to be convenient for people to go there. It needs to be a walking distance away from your home. It's an extension of your living room. Rent also needs to be low so that beverages are cheap enough for people to drink daily. I have recently been to Vietnam and every neighbourhood is flooded coffee shops and tea carts.
• andrewstuart 1y ago
  If you don’t see your friends in person, you’ll lose the thread, and it’s hard to pick up again. Of course that’s an over generalization but for the most part it’s true. Make an effort, make the calls, maintain the relationship by giving it your time, in person. Or the friendship will wither and die.
  • navigate8310 1y ago
    For most part it is the fear of rejection that prevents someone from making that effort or call to organize.
    • em-bee 1y ago
      yes, this and the hope that i'll find a better opportunity to reconnect, like a better reason to call, so that the risk of rejection is reduced. i recently reconnected to a bunch of people that i haven't spoken to in 20 years. i figured i am not going to find a better opportunity, and if i don't reconnect soon i'll probably never do it.
  • poincaredisk 1y ago
    Again, it depends. I have friendships that I made over the internet, that lasted 8 years before I even learned their real name. Now we work together and live in the same city. Maybe the times were different though.
• sltr 1y ago
  > online friendships require a different set of social behaviors than in-person ones Yeah. In real life there's no karma value next to your name and no string of reactions next to every statement you utter. Imagine a VR-based dystopia which displayed such information to everyone you encounter.
  • poincaredisk 1y ago
    Change the way you connect - I have some friends I made over the last two years over... IRC. There's something personal about on-line pure text based communication (with bots/bouncers not being allowed). Like really being in a room with everyone else. For a more modern alternative, discord in a relatively small server should work well. Especially if you connect over a shared interest.
  • immibis 1y ago
    The Orville had an episode about that.
  • creata 1y ago
    > no string of reactions next to every statement you utter. I always assumed reactions were meant to be analogous to people making facial expressions as you spoke.
    • sltr 1y ago
      Yes, but IRL those expressions are not persisted to Redis
      • creata 1y ago
        Thanks, that's an important point. Potentially never being able to move on from what you said or how it was perceived is a big difference.
• bilsbie 1y ago
  It’s crazy out there for a 40yo. One thing I’m considering is that maybe it’s ok if friends don’t reciprocate. I think some people just have to be the inviters or relationships fall apart.
  • dm03514 1y ago
    Yes here too, and I’m guilty of the focus on family over friends, but also my peers are too and it creates a bunch of people that used to be close that never really see each other because they prioritize their immediate family
    • lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      Guilty? Your family is your priority. Your duties toward them come first.
      • Anamon 1y ago
        This strict separation seems to be a major source of the problem, though. Raising a family used to be a communal effort. Having kids didn't mean having to sacrifice being one's own person, and having an atrophied social life. The nuclear family model is a relatively modern concept and, by all accounts, seems to be an utter failure.
  • phalangion 1y ago
    > I think some people just have to be the inviters or relationships fall apart. As annoying as it is, this is definitely true. I've only recently become an inviter, and it's made all the difference. It helps to recognize that not everybody is an inviter/organizer.
    • bilsbie 1y ago
      Any tips?
      • coffeebeqn 1y ago
• FollowingTheDao 1y ago
  "Taken together, these trends suggest that Americans are increasingly retreating inward instead of engaging in communal activities. " I have seen, over the ,last ten years, a great depression, as in mood. People are getting more depressed, and that leads them inward, and it is driven by anxiety. Most people are "flight" when they are faced with anxiety. And the capitalism and online world has made isolation much easier and way more "enjoyable". Movies, porn, food, all of it acquired without a single human contact. Now people are clamoring they want to work from home as well, making loneliness even more available. This is the outcome of hypercapitalism[1]. Extracting labor from the humans while feeding it all its' needs through the tubes of the internet. I am writing this in a Starbucks right now. Ten years ago I would find couches and comfy chairs in every store. Now? stiff Uncomfortable chairs in a cold industrial setting, the store and counter set up for rushed to go orders. This is not about something being wrong with people, it is a system that is tearing us apart. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470670590.wbeog278 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/978047067059...
• tycho-newman 1y ago
  It's not lost, just no longer necessary for survival. Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Until recently, individuals needed to be part of some sort of kinship group to get their needs met and to survive. To communicate with anyone in near real time you had to be close by. We have managed to engineer a society where individuals can survive "on their own" - basically outside their kinship groups. This is possible thanks to globe-spanning networks of communication and trade. Kinship groups are great, but many of them have painful costs. Some 60 percent of Americans, for example, suffered an adverse childhood experience in kinship groups. Some of these could not be avoided - like a loved one's untimely death. Most of these negative experiences were intent or neglect by kinship group members. If your early experiences of kinship groups are negative, you are less likely to seek out other human connection. You have learned that your kinship group is not reliable. If people genetically close to you cannot be relied on, then why should it be different for strangers? The connections you do find tend to be focused on your interests, and those people don't need to be nearby for you to have a strong connection. But you still have your prior experiences keeping you skeptical of human reliability. Personally, I sympathize with everyone who is sad about communities becoming fragmented. I think, though, that if these communities were as supportive, inclusive, or beneficial as they imagine themselves to be this would not be a problem. Bad communities should be allowed to fail. That is probably what is happening here.
  • BruceEel 1y ago
    > Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. And, what would be some sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale.
    • sameasiteverwas 1y ago
      > sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale War and revolution. 'Burn it down and start from scratch' is an extreme path to fix a failing country. Historically, the people that rebuild are rarely the same people that burned it down.
• socalgal2 1y ago
  > that those who engaged in face-to-face interactions at least once a week experienced better physical and mental well-being, whereas communication through calls or texts did not have the same effect. Neuroscience helps us make sense of these findings. Research shows that hearing a familiar voice reduces cortisol and boosts oxytocin—hormones tied to stress relief and bonding—while text-based communication and video calls fail to trigger the same response . The HN majority "work from home" advocates disagree with this
  • MattGaiser 1y ago
    You can have face-to-face interaction with people other than your colleagues.
  • hollerith 1y ago
    Not necessarily: they might just prefer to to try to keep their social lives separate from work so that their employer doesn't have the power to suddenly cut off their main source of human connection.
    • bravetraveler 1y ago
      Supply considerations aside, things get confused without clear boundaries. Your friend gets more favor than your manager. Soft power and so on. I've found wisdom in the phrase "Don't shit where you eat". Most consistent way I've found to regret a role: introduce friends/family
  • intended 1y ago
    Also From the article: > It’s often said that if you ask an American what they do, they’ll tell you about their job, whereas a European might talk about their hobbies or passions. Data backs this up; > But the role of work in shaping identity and social life in the United States has perhaps never been stronger. For example, 77% of Americans work more than 40 hours per week, and few take their full paid leave. I guess people aren’t making friends at work the way they thought they were?
    • 1y ago
• yukiAkita 1y ago
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• dm03514 1y ago
  For the us, I feel like it’s late stage individualism. This is what happens I think when people prioritize themselves over their communities, I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before. We can order grocery pickup and not even have to be physically around people for basic life tasks. We order next day delivery on Amazon and don’t even have to go out in the world and be in the physical presence of others :( The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships I’m grappling with this myself, it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships. I keep seeing my neighbors out at the playground, I reach out and say hey and hi and ask them how they are doing but stop short of investing the time necessary to form real friendships with them and I know deep down that it’s perpetuating late stage individualism
  • sltr 1y ago
    > it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships My experience corroborates this. Reminded me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618
  • redczar 1y ago
    The less dependence on community started with desegregation. There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free. These things and more all ended with desegregation. Now we live in a society in which people don’t walk and don’t have places in their neighborhood where others congregate. Kids rarely play in the street anymore. The notion of it taking a village gets laughed at and as you say get individualistic. We live in a deeply unhealthy society from a social standpoint of view.
    • paulryanrogers 1y ago
      Having talked to folks from the segregation era, you may be thinking of red-lining and white flight. As folks realized cities and schools were desegregating many moved out of urban environments to suburbs and rural areas, then excluded POC through zoning. Even if we accept that as the primary cause (which I don't) that would mean cowardice and racism are the root cause. An irrational fear of people who don't look and talk like us.
• sltr 1y ago
  What are plausible antidotes to this trend? I was reminded of the Stoop Coffee blog post about two months ago. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618
• rorylaitila 1y ago
  I'm way out on the edge of the bell curve in terms of desire for 1 on 1 quality time with friends. Almost everyone enjoys time when it is given to them, but almost no one is proactive. I hear "Thanks so much for reaching out I am so bad at it" from practically everyone. I've concluded that most people simply don't have the executive function to manage and overcome such a disconnected social environment.
  • agnishom 1y ago
    > I hear "Thanks so much for reaching out I am so bad at it" from practically everyone. I feel the same way. you are our hero! Honestly, I feel that a lot of people do not appreciate this kind of behavior as much as they should
    • rorylaitila 1y ago
      Thanks, I appreciate that!
  • Anamon 1y ago
    My experience is similar. I used to never find the "right time" to ask people to meet up. It got worse over time, because now it had been so long, I felt bad for not reaching out and maybe they didn't really want to keep in touch anymore anyway. Then I started more often consciously deciding to reach out anyway because the mythical right time isn't going to be next week either. Everybody has the reaction you described. They all seeemed to be unhappily stuck in the same mindset I was, and nobody went ahead and tested the hypothesis. It just takes one. I live in a building with 25 apartments. Nobody really knew their neighbours. After I had been living there for almost five years, one tenant decided that everybody should meet for a barbecue in the yard and get to know each other. Now, we all know the people living next to us, we meet regularly for dinners or barbecues and chat. We have a WhatsApp group where we exchange news and favours. I'm almost sure that without this one person's initiative, most of us would still be strangers. Apparently, everybody thought it was a pity that we don't know each other better, but nobody else kicked things off until that one guy did and showed us that we all felt the same way.
• lucidguppy 1y ago
  1. People have lower tolerance for jerks. 2. A few bad apples can spoil a group. 3. Maintaining a group is a thankless job. 4. Third places are money making establishments now rather than community focused. So people save up to go to the ones that they'll remember. So there's competing money for these attractions, and the experience undergoes enshitification. Solutions? - lower the cost of community space so more people can enjoy them. - social etiquette needs be enforced through culture. Conformity has its benefits. We don't need planes to land because Johnny had too much to drink.
  • em-bee 1y ago
    that's why i enjoy going to hackerspaces. they are not free of drama, but generally welcoming and give the freedom to do a lot of things, including sitting in a corner in front of your computer ignoring everyone, giving you the freedom to join in whenever you feel comfortable.
• intended 1y ago
  > Neuroscience helps us make sense of these findings. Research shows that hearing a familiar voice reduces cortisol and boosts oxytocin—hormones tied to stress relief and bonding—while text-based communication and video calls fail to trigger the same response . this… feels a bit off. I would have to look at that article to see what they are saying.
• mindwok 1y ago
  Almost across the board in western countries, people have less friends, weaker friendships, and there’s less dating, sex, and marriage happening. IMO this is the biggest challenge ahead of us. What’s the point of all this amazing life enhancing technology if we’re lonely, sad, and severed from our tribes.
• dazzawazza 1y ago
  I love heavy metal. So I go to metal pubs. I meet people, we talk and listen to each other. I've been talking to the same people for 30+ years but I meet new people EVERY time I venture out. I may see them again, I may not. Who cares? We lend PHYSICAL copies of albums, video games and books to one another. This increases trust, knowledge and love for one another. We share stories about all sorts of things. We create stories by doing things together. This is how friendships are formed and maintained. This is humanity. This is who we are and how we behave. Poverty is the digital world. See you out there!
  • lawgimenez 1y ago
    I’m more of a hardcore guy but stopped going to shows when I got out of college and got a job. I’m in my 40s now, well my point is it’s amazing how you are still going to shows.
    • queenkjuul 1y ago
      Idk how you're not still going to shows, and my 40-something show-going friends would probably think the same. Just not a concept i can wrap my head around lol
      • lawgimenez 1y ago
        Yeah, taking care of my autistic kid just takes all my remaining time.
        • queenkjuul 1y ago
          Oh, you made it sound like you stopped when you got a job, not when you had a kid
  • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
    I never heard of such a thing as a metal pub. Not in small town USA anyway :(
• jmyeet 1y ago
  What happened? Capitalism. In American culture, hyper-individualism has become a virtue somehow but this too is just a symptom of capitalism. Why? Because people who act collectively are a threat to capitalist power structures. The whole "gig economy" is nothing more than needing a 2nd and 3rd job just to survive as real wages continue to stagnate or decline and costs keeping going up. That's less free time. The Internet is a negative here too. Physical proximity has historically had huge power in creating freindships. But capitalism rears its ugly head here too in the destruction of so-called "third places". High housing prices hurt everybody. It destroys community spaces. Hobbies that were once cheap escapes become way too expensive. Housing costs are an input into everything. Take spiraling childcare costs. You need physical space. That's now way more expensive. Lastly, there is a natural trend for people who marry and have children to replace friends with family. There is an issue of shared life experiences. 50+ years ago pretty much everyone is in the same boat. Now? By choice or necessity, people are opting out of this "traditional" life and this naturally creates a divide.
  • redczar 1y ago
    What happened? Capitalism. It was desegregation. Read about the decline of public pools, municipal trash service and free ambulances.
    • bendigedig 1y ago
      But there is a world outside of the USA and some of the same problems are happening there too.
      • redczar 1y ago
        Don’t know about other countries. The point you made is relevant and interesting.
        • bendigedig 1y ago
          Thank you kindly, good sir.
• prhn 1y ago
  I'm not sure what caused this, but I think the expectations of modern friendship have become unrealistic. Maybe it's movies and TV, where a "close friend" is more or less a non judgemental therapist that will throw down in a fight for you. What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends. In my experience, most friends come and go. That's OK. People change. Circumstances change. One person is always putting in more effort than the other. Some friends will always be aloof. Some friends will pretend they are independent and don't need friendship "like everyone else does," but they're generally full of it. Some friends will seem clingy. Just roll with it. The other challenge is finding people, especially as you get older. I've posted this before, but as you get older you really need to seek out established communities. Sports, trivia nights, things of that nature. Something where you can hop in and immediately meet 5+ people. Then you need to show up, over and over. That's how friendships form. At that point, it's on you. People are out there and in my experience they are excited to meet new folks. We can write a huge dissertation on why we think The Friendship Recession has happened, but it's quite simple. Inertia is human nature. It takes effort to learn something new and join a community where people are practicing that thing. It takes vulnerability and effort. It's kinda scary. It's a lot harder than turning on YouTube or flipping through TikTok. And most people understandably don't want to do hard things, especially after the stresses of work and life.
  • dartharva 1y ago
    Have I been watching the wrong movies? Because from my perspective Hollywood's depiction of friends is a rather sorry benchmark - most depictions are of exemplarily bad friends.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • barry-cotter 1y ago
    > If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends. I’m probably bottom quintile for social skills and I have done some extremely unwise things for one of my friends who was there for me when I needed a hand. The Hollywood idea of “close friend” is a great deal nearer to my own life experience than its representation of many other important relationships.
• assanineass 1y ago
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• sylens 1y ago
  I wonder how much the polarization of politics contributes to this. I have friends on opposite sides of the political spectrum than me, but were able to basically segment off that area of discussion to enjoy each others company in other areas. It may be because we go back 20+ years with many shared experiences. I would guess many friendships do not have that level of bedrock to ground them, so developments like the recent political climate can easily uproot them
  • scarface_74 1y ago
    It’s one thing when being on different sides of the political spectrum meant disagreeing about supply side economics. It’s another when it means they are racist, homophobic, etc. I have a friend who on one hand believes all of the anti-vax, evil illegal immigrate stuff and might even believe that Trump’s tariffs are okay. But on the other hand, I have never heard him say anything negative about other people, cultures, sexualities etc. I consider him a good friend. On the other hand, there was this other guy I was friends with for awhile. He became full MAGA. It got to the point where I just couldn’t deal with him anymore. I guess the people I won’t deal with or Trump conservatives (ie populists). I’m good with traditional conservatives we can usually even have polite intellectual conversations about politics.
    • NemoNobody 1y ago
      I think if you push your friend, specifically on the trans argument, you might learn something about him. I'm not sure how anyone could believe immigrants are intrinsically bad without racism tbh.
      • scarface_74 1y ago
        Illegal immigration is what he is opposed to. It’s relatively easy for someone to understand just by taking a slight step back out of their world view why a man may be attracted to another man or a woman may be a attracted to another woman or someone may be attracted to both sexes. But trans goes against everything they know about science. And even for those who are very much “let you do you” thinks it’s a bridge too far to have biological men in women’s sports. This is a bridge too far for even me (yes I know it’s an unpopular opinion) and I’m a “f*! the police”,BLM, universal healthcare, free college education, religious skeptical, increase the safety net and lean liberal
• zkmon 1y ago
  Back in the day, more children meant more wealth and prosperity for the family. More friends meant more support, bigger communities were stronger against others. It was need based, as they have a need to support and survive by themselves. The nation concept now drains out the need and viability of communities, families and friendships. It's like a whale swallowing animals. Animals can no longer keep their own structure and identity once they are inside the whale. They will be disintegrated into individual molecules and become citizens of the whale. Nations do the same. The existence and strength of a nation requires disintegration of internal structures and autonomous bodies. Communities, families and friendships all go against the individualistic nation concept. The best citizens are individual workers with no connections and no opinions and maybe no gender.
  • daseiner1 1y ago
    Capital is a destructive force just as much as it is a productive one.
    • __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
      "just as much" is letting capital off easy
      • daseiner1 1y ago
        I agree. I equivocated to avoid the potential tedious series of replies about “innovation”, given the leanings of much of this site.
• oddthink 1y ago
  I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk. On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat dinner, policing screen time and homework. Then bedtimes and such, following up on the zillion school emails, PTA newsletters, scheduling. If I have 45 min of downtime, typically in the 10-11pm range, if I'm lucky. On weekends, there's all the deferred housework, like cleaning and laundry. Kids have swim and sports. Visits to grandparents, from grandparents. Every now and then we have someone over for a games afternoon, or someone is visiting from out of town, but I really doubt that adds up to 4 hr / wk.
  • Ozzie_osman 1y ago
    I do think 6.5 hours is much easier if only one spouse works. My wife and I both work demanding jobs, but during times when one of us has been in-between jobs or off work, things look very different.
  • nikhizzle 1y ago
    I have a rough idea of my friend’s schedules, and I call them when I’m driving the kids around, or we text. Staying in constant contact with a few very close friends about my mental health has floated me through my mid-40s. A tip I got from a friend in his 60s was that even when you lose friends, life is great because you constantly have the opportunity to find new ones. I am in a new close friends renaissance in my 40s, just be vulnerable and don’t take rejection personally.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y ago
      I'd definitely be better off if I didn't take rejection personally But it's hard for me to draw the line between being vulnerable and say, oversharing or dumping
• mensetmanusman 1y ago
  I have two groups I meet with every week around 6 am for an hour for about 10 years. Been a huge blessing!
• netfortius 1y ago
  While I can attest to the accuracy, concerning the US, at least a few European countries where I live(d) do not appear to suffer of the same issue.
• bradlys 1y ago
  I’ll add in a hot take. I think the entitlement of the more recent generations has a strong cause for this as well. I’m not one to say that millennials or whomever are more entitled than previous ones but when it comes to romantic connection - I definitely believe some are. We see the rise of online dating apps being the number one way (by a large margin) for urban educated singles to meet their future partners. If you’re in a place like SF or NYC, you can completely forget about meeting your future spouse at some hobby, the gym, or even in a friend group. I think a lot of this has to do with entitlement - a strong belief that a person deserves a match that is unwaveringly perfect/better-than-themselves. This Disney-ification of romance is very strong among certain crowds. In my view, this has a strong effect on social circles. People won’t introduce anyone anymore. You might have a party and people might end up together but the idea of specifically inviting people or introducing friends to each other for romantic purposes is, practically speaking for yuppie circles, gone. The main reason I’ve seen is that certain people have gotten increasingly hostile to anyone even suggesting a person to them that is less than perfect/godly. To the point where many people are afraid of suggesting anything and therefore will not risk their own reputation and friendship because they really feel they’ll lose their friend if they even suggest a potential romantic connection. So, anyway, my belief is romance within social circles is quickly dying due to entitlement and this has a strong pusher for people to not put as much effort into them. Once that is established, it carries over into the rest of your life because you didn’t ever prioritize it. Therefore, even if you’re partnered, you have learned to live without. It’s shocking how few relationships I’ve seen are from social circles. If anyone ever studies how people 25-35, educated, and living in major cities dates… being single will be more common than any non-app method.
• BlueTemplar 1y ago
  The foundations are shaky when they don't compare to other countries : there are probably many mistakes they missed, that would have been obvious when looking at it from another perspective.
• NalNezumi 1y ago
  The article already mention physical changes (car dependent suburbs, lack of 3rd places) and cultural shift (work as identity and nuclear family) but I think the two last things can be expanded to: we now have higher expectations of friends/people we meet. I recently moved back from Asia to Northern Europe, famous for being a place hard to make friends. I made a new friend, when I one day went to the local swimming pool and just started to talk with an old, pensioner guy. He reached out to me later, we set up a coffe chat and now it's a biweekly routine. It was a fun story so I told it to friend & partner/families. All of my women friends first reaction was caution. "what does he want? Be careful with your drink!". My guy friends were more perplexed on why I'd even bother befriending someone almost 50+ year older than me. What's there to be gained. I realized a few years back that meeting people with absolute zero expectations is the most fun way. It even worked good on online dating. As long as I enjoy taking to the person (a low bar) it's not time wasted. Time is not to be wasted. Everything needs a goal/reason. Most people cultivate this mindset and the added expectations on new connections, to me seems like a cultural shift that happened as a result of what the article describes. One can remove that sentiment even with the work/nuclear family stuff. (not sure about the physical constraints)
  • ryandrake 1y ago
    > It was a fun story so I told it to friend & partner/families. All of my women friends first reaction was caution. "what does he want? Be careful with your drink!". My guy friends were more perplexed on why I'd even bother befriending someone almost 50+ year older than me. What's there to be gained. It's pretty sad and telling that people's first reaction to something as wholesome and positive as making a new friend is suspicion and selfish apathy. Illustrative of the widespread anti-social mental illness that we somehow have managed to normalize.
    • esperent 1y ago
      Go into the Reddit threads of anyone doing something interesting like showcasing their skill. All the top threads will comments like "he's lucky he still has fingers", "hope he washed his hands afterwards", "damn that's ugly", and on and on, on a video where I will see a skillful guy doing something that would be dangerous for me, but is clearly within normal safe boundaries for his skill level. It's just a feedback loop of negativity unless the person is both extremely beautiful and skilled in which case all the comments are about how hot they are. The threshold of quality is ridiculous, the only people who can meet it are genetic lottery winners who also have a makeup and camera team. This is what we are judging potential friends against. They have to be both perfect and beautiful to get even close to matching what we see everyday on the internet. In the same way porn can make your real sexual partners feel lacking, these perfect people on reddit/Instagram/TikTok will make any potential real friends seem lacking and worthless. Not worth the effort. Meanwhile the fact that we are also less than perfect is kept bottled up, we avoid looking at ourselves in the mirror too closely, all of that gets shunted into the subconscious and bubbles back up as depression, lack of self worth, workaholism, addiction, and other mental health issues.
• subpixel 1y ago
  I agree with all the points made in the article, and chuckle to see some comments here (let bad communities fail!) that are manifestations of the lack of vulnerability brought about by living in online, single-player mode. But in my experience, friendship quality is much more important than quantity. I’m only truly friends with people I admire and am interested in, and grow to care about. Some of these friendships happen fast and others are slow burners - they aren’t all alike. But they are definitely hard to come across, particularly in middle age. I believe those friendships give me the kind of benefits that experts suggests we lose in isolation. These are the kinds of friendships you carry with you wherever you are - often wondering what those friends would or do think about the things you are experiencing. On the other hand, I have many acquaintances, some quite longstanding, where the friendship switch never got flipped. Perhaps I am viewed as a bit stand-offish. I am never not gracious but I just don’t have the small talk gene.
  • edg5000 1y ago
    Quality is very important. For example, when people have serious issues such as drugs, it often turns out to be strongly related to the poeple they surround themselves with. So socializing purely for the sake of it, is not ideal. Some standards are needed. But being too picky and judgemental won't work. So a balanced approach is needed.
• wangii 1y ago
  Maybe it's b/c vast majority not doing well financially?!
• globnomulous 1y ago
  > has fallen by nearly threefold What on earth does this word salad mean? Fallen by 300%? 200%? 75%? 2/3? All are reasonable interpretations of this incoherent math. > to tolerate the messy work of forming friendships If it's true that people are becoming worse at maintaining friendships and losing some skill or tendency they require, then people are ipso facto also worse at being friends. (And even if there's no ipso facto corollary, the following seems just as valid an explanation for the decline in friendship as the author's expnarion: not that anybody is worse at maintaining friendships but rather that there are fewer friendships worth maintaining, fewer people worth the effort.) I have no idea whether this is actually happening. I'm just stunned by the article's poor, predictable reasoning and odious, sanctimonious, middle-brow, TED-talk moralism: the author takes it as a given that we "manifest" our social lives, that somehow (magically?) our intention and dedication create the desired reality. The author doesn't consider an alternative hypothesis. But if I tell you that someone is a bad, tedious, or insufferable friend, you won't expect, let alone (I hope) encourage, me to "tolerate the messy work," demonstrate the "courage" this author has decided is missing, or "show up" and be "vulnerable." You'll encourage me, rather, to save my energy for those who deserve it. If social skills have withered in some portion of a person's pool of available, possible friends, then that person not only cannot be blamed for ending friendships; doing so is actually the best outcome, short of "manifesting" more tolerable people. Edit: > embedded myself in existing social structures and prioritized in-person social activities —ecstatic dance gatherings at the Harvard Divinity School, morning prayers at Memorial Church Uh huh. If you're the kind of person who decides, I don't know, to seek friendship through daemonic possession, speaking in tongues, or, I don't know, shaman-guided spirit journeys, you're not someone whose advice I particularly want.
  • zeroonetwothree 1y ago
    I think it's pretty normal" threefold = three times = 3x fallen by 3x means now it is 3x lower, so if the old value was x now the value is x/3
    • globnomulous 1y ago
      You're right that it's normal(ish), but it's sloppy. The new value isn't 3x lower than the original. The old value is 3x the new, and the new is 2/3 lower than the old.
• nayuki 1y ago
  The content was alright but the fade-in animation of every single paragraph was annoying. This is a text article, not a startup company's marketing page! It was especially bad when I was hitting Page Down quickly to try to skim the content; the animation forced me to wait until the text showed up.
• zingababba 1y ago
  My personal hot take is it's because the majority of people are consuming caffeine and that drug harries you to no end.
  • simianwords 1y ago
    interested -- can you tell more?
  • edg5000 1y ago
    It may be. Generally stimulants (legal, soft ones such as cafeiine and nicotine, as well as stronger ones) stimulate parts of the brain that facilitate productivity and focus, but at the cost of "warm" things such as empathy, romance, comradry. Whereas depressants, such as THC and opioids, lower productivity but facilitate these "warm" behaviours. Due to coffee being relatively light, the effect may not be as obvious as the behaviour you see when people take large amounts of stimulants. This may also tie in to work, as more mentally taxing office work I believe is much easier to do while on a mild stimulant such as caffeine. I could let go of cafeeine, but I think I'd struggle to make money. It is indeed a hot take, an argument you don't hear often.
• markus_zhang 1y ago
  I agree with solitude as a preference. I do have a couple of good friends, but an occasional weekday lunch or a much more occasional holiday dinner is good enough to connect. Other than that, every minute I don't have to spend with my family is precious. And every such a minute with enough energy to do something productive is even more precious. So yeah, for me solitude is absolutely a preference.
• peakskill 1y ago
  People saying it’s impossible with a family have really never frequented third spaces in Europe. Kids go everywhere with their parents and are allowed to roam as long as they remain within sight. The adults make friends and so do the kids. Most importantly, even if hypothetically nuclear families with young children couldn’t do it, younger and older people alike would be able to, which is still a major improvement to the current status quo. Second order effects from the existence of third spaces are simply a more open, pleasant, higher trust society with more independent, resilient adults. Say what you want about GDP, but fact is, I was much happier in Europe than the US and I live in a relatively walkable town close to NYC. Oh, and you can absolutely have friends AND children. I have both.
• simianwords 1y ago
  > Higher cost of living and stagnating wages for low-and middle-income earners means that everyday Americans must work harder to keep up where are wages stagnating and for whom?
• ivanjermakov 1y ago
  > while the percentage of those with ten or more close friends has fallen by nearly threefold I genuinely think it's not possible to maintain close friendship with this many people, especially if they're not in the same group. Or perhaps my definition of a "close friend" differs from an average american, both now and back then.
• yapyap 1y ago
  Let’s call it what it is, a frecession
  • bravetraveler 1y ago
    Friends without benefits
• codr7 1y ago
  Yeah, we "optimized" connection using tech, like everything else these days.
• 0n0n0m0uz 1y ago
  I am an introvert who prefers solitude to human interaction as my base mode. I find most interactions to be draining and unnecessary. They basically only increase or serve as a source of stress while offering nothing meaningful that somehow improves my mental state. I probably had this tendency but never had enough solitude to really recognize how much I preferred it. It is actually addicting and almost impossible to go back. I understand that in terms of social or financial success it’s not conducive or beneficial but in terms of spiritual growth it is. Even for me it’s certainly a useful skill to be able to connect with others and share experiences or material goods. I see many articles about a loneliness crisis so I guess for most people solitude is actually an unwanted state of affairs that causes them distress.
  • Noumenon72 1y ago
    Yeah, I'm totally equipped with the empathy and wit to make friends and I do it sort of naturally at work, but whenever I change jobs and look back at the friendships I'm like, why did I bother. Solitude is so much better now that we have computers to interact with costlessly.
  • edg5000 1y ago
    For the first 22 years of my life I was spending my hours in crowded school buildings. It turns out that most of my productivity happens in solitude. Learning through doing and self study. But now that I finally don't have that terrible rigid school structure anymore (for over a decade), the tables have turned. I am in complete isolation for entire days, most days. I found that I do want and need a bit of interaction, but not much is needed, and certainly not in the way that school provided that.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• jimnotgym 1y ago
  I was just telling my son that 90% of the time I visited my granddad one of his friends would be there. I have only met up with one of my friends this year! That is a spectacular change. I put it down to the amount of time he had to pursue his hobbies and interests (most of these friends were a part of that) vs me who is at work all the time.
• kazinator 1y ago
  Friends were the Internet of a now bygone era.
• baazaa 1y ago
  No-one ever suggests the simplest explanation... maybe socialising is just getting worse? Where I live there were long covid lockdowns and most people expressed relief about not having to go to parties and make painful small-talk with strangers. They were already forcing themselves to go to social engagements because they didn't want to be seen as a loser, but they weren't enjoying it. This is historically unusual, people didn't see socialising as a chore necessary to maintain one's mental health a century ago. Every article on the issue though takes as its starting point that socialising is obviously great and there must just be small obstacle which prevents people doing more of it. IMO there wouldn't be an epidemic of self-diagnosed social anxiety / high-functioning autism / 'introverts who get drained by social interactions' if people were actually enjoying their social engagements.
  • apwell23 1y ago
    yes i like internet better. most ppl are boring asf to talk to
  • agnishom 1y ago
    I agree with what you said in the other two paragraphs, but I think people _are_ suggesting what you said, and it is not really an "explanation": it is part of the observation itself
    • baazaa 1y ago
      The article is claiming that people need to put more effort into organising social events with tips on how to do it. And the tips around escalating discloure etc. are very much like workplace ice-breakers... utterly awful experiences that everyone hates. Unless you first diagnose why people dislike socialising nowadays you're unlikely to fix the problem. Enjoining people to 'invest' in relationships is entirely missing the point, people used to hang out with their friends because they enjoyed it not because they thought it was an investment.
      • Anamon 1y ago
        I feel you. I'm a rather social person and generally enjoy social interactions, but reading this article reminded me more of the dreaded "career networking" (I refuse to believe in the existence of people who actually enjoy networking). If those were how my social interactions and gatherings went, I think I'd avoid them, too. It reads very Ivory Tower, an overly scientific and analytic essay on something that simply doesn't work unless it happens naturally. I appreciate where the author is coming from, and their intentions, but I think it ironically ends up arguing against its own premises. It mentions that people are forgetting how to form natural connections and deal with the messiness of personal interactions, before going on to suggest approaches that feel mostly like following a recipe or checklist.
• alganet 1y ago
  > when people feel isolated, they become more sensitive to social threats and more likely to misinterpret interactions negatively, through the lens of rejection "I think they are saying that they want lasagna." C'mon, don't be assholes. There is plenty of evidence that teenagers were encouraged to ostracize certain personas (other teenagers!), and that behavior spread out of control to more age groups and unforseen interactions. The hubris of trying to generate little soldiers destroyed our cultural inheritance. "The lens of rejection", great. I heard pagliaci is in town, you should go see him, he can cheer you up. I mean, I heard psychology is in vogue, maybe you should all see one. Please, stop this shit. Let the internet die in peace instead of juicing the last drops of it to try and make yourselves look good.
• uptownfunk 1y ago
  It’s not what it used to be. I find people are more self-centered than ever. What to speak of friends even family will not spare a moment for you. Many couples do not have kids for this reason. Who wants to make that sacrifice. Covid accelerated this. People got burned out, then realized they needed to take care of themselves better since no one else will (especially after layoffs). I don’t think the pendulum has swung back yet. Obviously I’m generalizing here and this is biased by my own experiences.
• owenversteeg 1y ago
  I have thought a lot about this, and I think one large cause is low- and zero- effort interactions. Anything that requires constant effort eventually dies out. If someone has to initiate, pick up the phone and text you and invite you out, one of you is going to eventually stop doing that. We used to have lots of low- and zero- effort interactions. You saw people at church, at family events, you run into them around town, at the bar, etc. As the article says: in the past people participated more in clubs and organizations, sports leagues and volunteered more. Young people have replaced alcohol and bars with weed and abstinence. Now even when people do see each other, the friction is far higher. It's hard to strike up a conversation with someone on a phone, or with earbuds in. Polarization has made it so that every issue is life or death (because many things truly are [1]) and so now it is only acceptable to talk to the correct portion of society. The worst things in the world are constantly livestreamed to our faces in 4K, from the news to social media to the Citizen app, so now you know that the public is insane and you'd be insane to talk to them. In 2005 the news might feature the 95th percentile bad shit because that's the best they could find, but now we all have 4K cameras on us all the time, so on social media you can find the 99.999th percentile bad shit. In a world of eight billion unique humans, that microscopic sliver of the bell curve is a horrifying place. I come to HN for insightful comments, and of course there is one in the 335 posted here: that socializing is no longer necessary for survival. In 2025 your crises are for your therapist and your financial issues are for a fintech and you move house with Dolly and your career is for LinkedIn and your Ikea assembly is for Angi. In 2001 nearly everyone would use their friends or family for those things; in 2025 you don't need them. And so we are left with a world where you don't strike up a conversation anymore; it's too hard and too dangerous and too risky. You don't go to church (too problematic) or the bar (bad for you.) You don't hit on people (there's Tinder.) You don't go to the store (Amazon) and if you do go to a restaurant you don't talk to anyone (pickup.) You don't see your friends and family; you don't need them to move (use an app) or put together a sofa (use an app) or talk about your feelings (go to therapy.) As it turns out, you can replace love and touch and hugs and hate and bus conversations and bank tellers and racist neighbors and unprotected sex and and and and all of the things in all of the people with one little screen just a few inches square. Technology is destroying our society and our lives. - - - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43357719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43357719
• jokoon 1y ago
  I tend to believe that individualist societies tend to fracture families, and make people live with their own kitchen and living room. That's not good, it's like a social prison. I can understand that people want to have 100% privacy and not exist near people they don't get along with, but not sharing a kitchen and living room seems a bit too far. Also I am sad that apps like the defunct foursquare or social network are not actively trying to make neighbors connect with each others. I fail to understand why. I suspect that in the 70s, sexual liberation, despite its advantages, caused an epidemic maternal deprivation, where people are now unable to feel comfortable near others.
• brokegrammer 1y ago
  Having friends is great but not "having" to have them is also great, which is what individualism allows us to do. Many people get in trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. Many people also become wealthy by hanging out with the right people. But being able to live your life alone without dying is a privilege that we should be thankful for.
  • tokioyoyo 1y ago
    You chose very interesting two different outcomes. Super vast majority of people just hang out with decent people, have drinks, talk about stupid stuff and call it a day. I’d like to think that people don’t strive to have friends for “networking” or are scared to have friends because “wrong crowds”. It just feels wrong. My friends have been there at my low lows, and knowing that I can theoretically call them at any point of my day just makes me feel good about myself. Conversely, I’d like to think that my friends can call me at any point of the day for no reason at all. Stupid stuff like having a small joke group chat of “rags to riches” where we just share stupid ideas is just liberating. Meeting them in person and doing stuff together, even if some of them (or me) hates it, is still objectively a nice feeling.
    • brokegrammer 1y ago
      You have great friends but not everyone will be as lucky to find the right crowd to hang out with. If you grow up in a neighborhood with lots of criminals and people with lower socio-economic status, I would bet that you'd live a better life alone, reading books, or doing other solo activities. If I lived in Afghanistan for example, I would rather stay at home playing video games instead of interacting with my neighbors. In the past, this would be impossible because video games didn't exist. That's why I'm saying that we live in amazing times where people can "choose" to not have friends instead of being forced into communities.
• TimByte 1y ago
  Can we say that friendship has shifted from being an assumed part of life to something you have to consciously work at. It made me realize how rare certain friendships have become - like with my two best friends, we can go a long time without talking, but when we meet up, it feels like no time has passed at all. We don't message constantly, but when one of us is going through something, we're always there for each other. It feels like that kind of bond is getting harder to find these days.
• gitroom 1y ago
  Been chewing on all this - yeah, making new friends these days feels way harder than it used to. I catch myself thinking its just easier not to try at all. Idk if Ill ever really get that energy back but seeing people push through is kinda inspiring tbh.
• red_admiral 1y ago
  o/t but who made that web design? Text blocks loading one by one as you scroll down, but not at all with JS off. However you can hold [PageDown] to force-load them all and then scroll normally both up and down. WHY?
• quantadev 1y ago
  I bet Social Media (and even Texting) is almost entirely to blame for the "loners" phenomenon (i.e. lack of close friends). Almost everyone has a desire for social interactions, but Social Media is where they can get that, with the least effort, and money. Smaller contributing factors are 1) Slow economy, where people don't have the money for social activities or even dating like the boomer generation did for example, and 2) Rise of Autism rates, which makes people disinterested in social activities and even fearful of them.
• xlinux 1y ago
  I have zero friends. I tried to treat few as friends and helped alot but they were always busy when I was in need so decided to not treat anyone as a friend
• _1tem 1y ago
  One curiosity I've noticed about close friendships through religious communities compared to other modern circles of "friendship": it is largely independent of age, socioeconomic status, and stage of life. In every other friendship circle I've been a part of, the basis has either been age (school/college), economics (work), extended family, or skill (sports and hobbies like motorbikes). Some friendships seem to be made through some shared interest (somebody here mentioned heavy metal, i consider you guys my friends on HN) but those tend to be heavily segmented by age/skill/socioeconomic status too. Religious communities are the only friendship circle I've ever been in where you easily connect with both young and old, regardless of skill/ability or stage of life. The unifying factor is "belief" and adherence to tradition. To this day, they remain the strongest and most stable relationships over time and space, even as we moved cities, changed jobs, and entered new stages of life.
  • watwut 1y ago
    They happen to coincide and support the most destructive with conservative tendencies and goals. The friendship there exiat on basis of common ennemy. Common ennemy put people together, but overall they are harming us all.
• ddr123 1y ago
  What would happen if your friend relationships had a lot more similarities to romantic relationships? Scheduled outings, regular discussions about what is pissing you off, regular apologies, mundane/unscheduled time together, discussions about hopes and dreams, declarations of affection. Probably less physical touch... Anyway, I feel like people think they can let friendships develop by osmosis. I don't think ANY deeply fulfilling relationship can just happen without real relationship work.
  • stroz 1y ago
    This is exactly why we built Soonly (https://soonly.com https://soonly.com)! It's about scheduled time to connect with friends rather than relying on osmosis like you mentioned.
    • ddr123 1y ago
      Cool idea! My hot take is that people can be reminded to reach out to friends, but it's the actual relationship skill-building that is the hurdle. Are you addressing that as well somehow?