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You're basically saying that people who aren't social mistakenly view the rest of the world as not social because of their specific experience, but doesn't that

by abeppu 1y ago

You're basically saying that people who aren't social mistakenly view the rest of the world as not social because of their specific experience, but doesn't that effect also cut the other way? You're seeing people being social because you're going to those situations. But there are time use surveys etc which provide a quantitative view of a lot of people. Because they're voluntary, they can't be a perfect representative sample of the overall population. But I think the broad, systematic view is still the best view we have of the overall trend. Also note that the scale and pace of the trend is slow enough that any individual _can't_ really provide an anecdotal view of it, because their own life is in a different place. E.g. one source [1]: > Atalay reports that, between 2003 and 2019, people spent an increasing amount of time alone. Over this 16-year period, the portion of free time people spent alone increased, on average, from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. Any given individual's time-use would probably change over 16 years regardless of what the population-level trends were just because that duration might also be the difference between e.g. being in school vs being married with young children or from being a busy professional to being a retiree. [1] https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/macroeconomics/how-time-spent-alone-in-the-us-has-changed-over-the-past-two-decades-and-implications-for-well-being https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/macroeconomics/h...

Aurornis 1y ago
> You're seeing people being social because you're going to those situations. No, I’m saying the same social activities are more popular now than they were 10-20 years ago. I’ve been doing some of the same activities and going on some of the same hikes, bikes, runs, trails, and parks on and off for two decades. The popularity of these activities has exploded. Even previously hidden trails and hikes are now very busy on Saturdays and Sundays because so many people are discovering them via social media. If you’re just staying home and consuming doomerism news you’d think everyone else was doing the same. > Over this 16-year period, the portion of free time people spent alone increased, on average, from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. That’s hardly equivalent to the claim above of a collapse of socialization.
- zhivota 1y ago
  What you're missing is that the activities you're doing were not the activities people were largely doing 10-20 years ago to be social. Going to bars was probably at least 100x more popular than hiking, so even if you see a 10x growth in hiking, if going to bars goes down even 10%, it dwarfs hiking's contribution to overall social activity of the population.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    We have more bars than ever before. Existing bars have expanded a lot. Bars are crowded and some even have lines now.
    - esseph 1y ago
      This is very unique to the locale you are at, and the economic conditions of that area. I am in a "top 20" US city and all of these things are in extreme decline.
      - Aurornis 1y ago
        I don’t which city you’re in where everything is in “extreme decline” but that’s not my experience traveling for work or to visit friends either. I think it’s more likely that your experience is the unique one. Or you’re not experiencing the activities you’re not attending.
        esseph 1y ago
        MidWest metro. More than half of the office buildings downtown are empty, and the ones that do have something only have a business in a handful of offices on a handful of floors. Because of that, people started moving away because of lack of nearby jobs. As people moved away, rents increased in both commercial and residential spaces to cover losses. Library attendance and checkouts are way down. Public transportation use is down. Tax revenue in the city is down, which means less support for public services. It's fucking awful.
0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
>from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. Honestly not that big of a change. Insofar as people online talk about a big shift towards loneliness, I suspect that Aurornis is correct that self-selection has a lot to do with it. I wonder if that small change in the average is masking a larger change in the variance. Perhaps we have more hypersocial people and more hyposocial people.
- abeppu 1y ago
  I do also think that any such summary statistic can only show a small part of the picture. Of the time _not_ spent alone, how much is with a single other person as you look at different screens? Of time spent not alone and outside of the home, how many people are we with at any one time? How many different people do we have social interactions with per month? I.e. is the quality of our social interaction getting worse, are we with smaller groups, do we have sparser social graphs? I could believe that you're right that the variance has increased, but is that driven by a growing share of shutins who only interact online and who are shifting to LLM friends?

by abeppu 1y ago

Aurornis 1y ago

> You're seeing people being social because you're going to those situations. No, I’m saying the same social activities are more popular now than they were 10-20 years ago. I’ve been doing some of the same activities and going on some of the same hikes, bikes, runs, trails, and parks on and off for two decades. The popularity of these activities has exploded. Even previously hidden trails and hikes are now very busy on Saturdays and Sundays because so many people are discovering them via social media. If you’re just staying home and consuming doomerism news you’d think everyone else was doing the same. > Over this 16-year period, the portion of free time people spent alone increased, on average, from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. That’s hardly equivalent to the claim above of a collapse of socialization.

zhivota 1y ago
What you're missing is that the activities you're doing were not the activities people were largely doing 10-20 years ago to be social. Going to bars was probably at least 100x more popular than hiking, so even if you see a 10x growth in hiking, if going to bars goes down even 10%, it dwarfs hiking's contribution to overall social activity of the population.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  We have more bars than ever before. Existing bars have expanded a lot. Bars are crowded and some even have lines now.
  - esseph 1y ago
    This is very unique to the locale you are at, and the economic conditions of that area. I am in a "top 20" US city and all of these things are in extreme decline.
    - Aurornis 1y ago
      I don’t which city you’re in where everything is in “extreme decline” but that’s not my experience traveling for work or to visit friends either. I think it’s more likely that your experience is the unique one. Or you’re not experiencing the activities you’re not attending.
      - esseph 1y ago
        MidWest metro. More than half of the office buildings downtown are empty, and the ones that do have something only have a business in a handful of offices on a handful of floors. Because of that, people started moving away because of lack of nearby jobs. As people moved away, rents increased in both commercial and residential spaces to cover losses. Library attendance and checkouts are way down. Public transportation use is down. Tax revenue in the city is down, which means less support for public services. It's fucking awful.

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago

>from 43.5 percent to 48.7 percent, representing an increase of over 5 percentage points. Honestly not that big of a change. Insofar as people online talk about a big shift towards loneliness, I suspect that Aurornis is correct that self-selection has a lot to do with it. I wonder if that small change in the average is masking a larger change in the variance. Perhaps we have more hypersocial people and more hyposocial people.

abeppu 1y ago
I do also think that any such summary statistic can only show a small part of the picture. Of the time _not_ spent alone, how much is with a single other person as you look at different screens? Of time spent not alone and outside of the home, how many people are we with at any one time? How many different people do we have social interactions with per month? I.e. is the quality of our social interaction getting worse, are we with smaller groups, do we have sparser social graphs? I could believe that you're right that the variance has increased, but is that driven by a growing share of shutins who only interact online and who are shifting to LLM friends?