14 ms·

Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

164 points by uladzislau 13y ago

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level, and impairs sleep. As he writes in his book Loneliness, "these changes in physiology are compounded in ways that may be hastening millions of people to an early grave." Can anyone link to any research supporting these claims?
- ginko 13y ago
  It's generally weird to me that newspapers articles seem to be exempt from the expectation to cite their sources.
  - bowlofpetunias 13y ago
    They also consider themselves exempt from the common practice that text in quotes contains sentences the people quoted have actually said or written. I.e., the author may as well have pulled it out of her ass, and you would be none the wiser. That's old school quality journalism for you.
    - EdwigePelagia 13y ago
      Yeah this is pretty absurd. I've been "quoted" a few times in newspapers and they got my statements completely wrong. Just flat out changed the wording (and therefore meaning) of what I said. The Globe and Mail is as authoritative and reputable as they get, but this isn't saying much. The media is just a shit show in general. Having said that, even more pathetic is people who get their information from internet forums asking journalists to cite sources. The authority hierarchy goes like this: Academic writing > Books by credentialed people > YouTube videos by credentialed people > Websites by credentialed people > Newspapers > Yahoo! Answers > Hacker News comments > Wikipedia.
      - 001sky 13y ago
        Crowd-sourcing citations, conventional wisdom, and syllabi seems rather distinct from "the authority hierarchy", and the ROI is far more massive the further up that food chain you are, right? probably worth keeping in mind...
  - gngeal 13y ago
    They got it from an anonymous source, obviously. ;-)
- danielharan 13y ago
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cacioppo+loneliness http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cacioppo+loneliness
- mikecane 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness#Effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness#Effects A start.
  - goblin89 13y ago
    > Chronic loneliness can be a serious, life-threatening health condition. At least one study has empirically correlated it with an increased risk of cancer, especially for those who hide their loneliness from the outside world,[34] and it is also associated with increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.[35] I really don't follow the argument: living in major city also increases cancer risk, in order to justify calling loneliness “life-threatening health condition” one should really provide more relevant information.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  The starting point is to google: cacioppo loneliness <smoking> These searches turn up a bunch of widely-cited papers.
jsnk 13y ago
“Economics basically says you should be concerned about your own short-term interests. There’s more division in society, more segmentation; there’s less identity with a national or global persona, but rather on the family or the individual. People aren’t as loyal to their employers, and employers are certainly not as loyal to their workers.” I thought that mainstream economics has been moving towards the other direction. More socialized policies, more emphasis on the collective that individual property right and rights in general, ever expanding role of goverent in the name of greater good for the society at the cost of individuals etc.
- dnautics 13y ago
  I don't buy this mechanistic explanation. Society has gone through progressive levels of specialization and this has never been a problem before, so either there's a really drastic "nonlinear" effect, or there's something different about this society. My personal suspicion is that it has more to do with people broadly thinking that "others" are not good enough for them.
  - jsnk 13y ago
    It's ok that you don't buy what I say. What bothers me though is academics like the one I quoted making asinine statements as if it holds any water. It's just a pure speculation.
  - Yhippa 13y ago
    Could you elaborate on your suspicion?
    - dnautics 13y ago
      Yes, it's a bit of an extrapolation. For my social time, I go social dancing. I still get a little bit lonely from time to time but I don't think it's all that bad. But in any case, what I see happening is that when people get rather good (or even if they don't; if they THINK they are rather good) they stop dancing with people who are not as good as them. Since it's an activity where being social is also coupled to having a skill; that's an easy habit to get into, as you're encouraged to "dance up". In any case, invariable the people who don't "dance down" isolate themselves and wind up alienated from the community. Increasingly we're becoming a credentialed society; while social strata are not necessarily inherited, there is definitely class-based stratification that people tend to not breach. It's totally rediculous; there's a guy who empties the trash bins at the end of the day at the lab I work in. He's a smart guy and super resourceful (he owns his own business, so he would have been eaten alive otherwise). And most of the PhDs are just... not friendly towards him. Why not? Is it below their station in life to interact with him?
zigzig 13y ago
While I've made plenty of bad decisions myself, I think a large part of why I've always been extremely lonely and isolated is that I was raised with very little sense of family or community. Growing up an only child, my parents apparently never thought it was worth me meeting the 80% of my cousins that lived in the same country, but somewhat far away. My parents themselves had scant friends or associates (at least during my memory) and hardly ever anyone over to visit the house. That's why if I'm ever somehow in the position to have a child of my own, I won't be able to. I wouldn't trust my ability to raise anything but an ice cold stranger.
- polymatter 13y ago
  for what its worth, I think that since you know how bad it is, you know the true value in keeping in contact and thus will work for it more and be a better parent because of it. I have to spend conscious effort to maintain my network of friends and its hard for me because its not automatic and not something I was brought up to do. I inevitably drop the ball sometimes and forget someone and have to get back into contact and reestablish our friendship. Because I know what lonliness does to me and I don't want to ever be that way again. So if I am ever lucky enough to have my own child, I am certain I will do all I can to make sure they never feel the same. I will fight so no child of mine will ever have to bare the scars that I bare, and that resolve will make me a better parent.
  - kghose 13y ago
    This. Relationships take effort. Often, one will think "Why should I make the effort? Why should I make the move? The other person has not contacted me?" But it is better to make the move and contact other people. Because a friend has not contacted you for a while does not mean they don't want to keep contact. They may be feeling lonely and down or overwhelmed.
    - scotty79 13y ago
      I'm mostly just feeling that other people have plans no matter how trivial and I don't want to interrupt them or force them to interact with me out of politness.
everyone 13y ago
I actually live a quite isolated existence. I dont really like most people and am very happy this way (I can read, program, play games, make music etc. in peace and not deal with the tediousness of having to interact with people I find boring) However, I do occasionally meet other people (maybe a bit like me in some ways) and we get on incredibly well. Every week or two when we feel sociable I will meet one of them for intense session of something. Also the people I really get on with could be any age/sex, one is a 50 yo man, another is a 20 yo girl.
- muhuk 13y ago
  How did you come to meet them? (if you don't mind me asking)
  - everyone 13y ago
    Np. College, work, house-sharing, school (one who I met over 20 years ago) Though I have gone to college twice and worked in many many jobs. The most recent intense-friend I made was at a college halloween party the year before last. I'm am generally not into wasting time with people but when I do socialise I like to go to house parties and whatnot. I reckon for me to find one of these special people who I click with is just a statistical probability, I might find one every few 1000 people I meet, so it makes sense to go to events and meet as many people as possible. I was actually going to suggest any big event where you and everyone else are likely to be drunk is a great way to meet lots of people. Also its handy if one of my good friends is also really generally sociable, then I will meet people/find out about parties and stuff through them. They do suffer a slight attrition rate as, for example, a few have moved to different countries for work. The cool thing is if one had been gone for years when we do meet up again it is like no time has passed. I have 2 in the city I live in atm. Which is fine. Only need 1 imo, but if I had 0 I think I would start feeling lonely.
    - psbp 13y ago
      I think you're right on with the probability of personalities clicking. I'm a pretty outgoing person, but I've only met a handful of people in my lifetime who I genuinely enjoy being around. I think I'm pretty lucky that I happened to meet them, or maybe we just gravitated towards each other.
evanmoran 13y ago
When I was in college a classmate of mine would come by every day or so to my dorm. He would just hang out, talking about class or whatever. I couldn't understand why he kept coming over, but I was too polite to mention anything. Turns out, he came by because we were friends. In fact, we had been friends the whole time, but I didn't know it! What I missed is that the stages between meeting people and friendship look a lot like hanging out. It seems quite arbitrary -- why this activity, this person? But the hanging out stage _is_ necessary. Unless you text them, knock on their door, set up a gaming night, or go on a road trip, it is hard to grow closer. So the next time you meet someone remember they are probably like you: a bit nerdy, a bit lonely. Just reach out and spend time with them for no reason, and then maybe, someday, you'll discover that you too are friends.
- thirdtruck 13y ago
  I've known this for a long time (years). However, the recognition tends to keep getting pushed aside by new insights or concerns about my latest project work and to the detriment of making lasting connections. Thank you for putting it in such a succinct form that I must take lasting notice of it.
  - thirdtruck 13y ago
    And sweet Sagan, that came out sounding a lot more clinical than I would like. At least that's probably just a product of exhaustion from several hours of karaoke with complete strangers. :)
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Were you drunk? Drunk karaoke is best karaoke.
      - thirdtruck 13y ago
        There wasn't any drinking, but that might have helped a little. :)
- 13y ago
madcap 13y ago
The article mentions Portland as an example of city planning which encourages interaction and social cohesion. Are there any other examples that spring to mind for U.S. cities? I'm looking to relocate and this is high on the list for me.
- thirdtruck 13y ago
  Makes me wonder if we can trace the origins of Portland as a "blogger mecca" to this kind of planning.
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  Austin Texas is pretty friendly, also many community events. So is the Philippines for that matter
- ams6110 13y ago
  Portland has a high suicide rate.
  - mingmecca 13y ago
    Grey skies for 7 months will do that.
- roel_v 13y ago
  As much as we like to think cities are 'planned' for this type of things, they're not, and humans can find patterns in anything. Cities form the way they do through many drivers, and 'planning for social cohesion' is a minute one - if it even exists.
Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
I always feel that many in the U.S., by far my largest cultural exposure, consider a false stoicism as mature and wise. I find it closed and boring. Many may be doing this due to being rewarded for keeping your mouth shut and punished for sticking out. It also seems that too large of a percentage who don't do this are predators, in one way or another. This makes it worse. The best place that I have found people to open up and be themselves within a day, is at a bar. Even if they just got there and have not had a bit to drink. I find almost everyone interesting if they open up. I am an introvert by nature, so it doesn't bother me much. If I was more extrovert, I would probably be going mad.
- bitwize 13y ago
  I always feel that many in the U.S., by far my largest cultural exposure, consider a false stoicism as mature and wise. That's a trait we inherited from our cultural progenitors the British. And in general we don't take it to the extremes they do. On the broad spectrum of human cultures, Americans are fairly "chummy" and open, or at least seeming openness is encouraged. The problem is, we expect others to be open, but we also expect them to be like ourselves. So we punish people who open up and turn out to be different. So they clam up. The best place that I have found people to open up and be themselves within a day, is at a bar. Even if they just got there and have not had a bit to drink. You think American bars are good? Try Japanese bars. American bars, to me, are usually noisy, crowded affairs where it is difficult to even say a few words to someone let alone have a conversation. This is particularly true where I live (Boston area), where the bars are often packed for the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics/Bruins games. But the bars I went to in Japan were tiny and intimate. Only five or six people could be in there drinking at once and it is far easier to strike up a conversation. Particularly if you are a Westerner. Japanese society is about as serious and as punishing of individuality as it gets in the developed world. The Japanese bar scene is thus correspondingly lively and full of sincerity, even in tiny bars where there's barely any room to move your elbows.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Mind, even though Americans are usually considered pretty loud and open, there are even those of us who are too loud and open for America. Though I did have an easier time in California and New York than in Massachusetts. Hmm...
sown 13y ago
this applies to me. I'm very alone pretty much most of the time. Not really had friends and not great at making them. For the last 11 months I've tried going out and being the most positive person I can, to be a friend to as many people as I can but I don't know if it's working or not. Just talking to people, listening to them, smiling at everyone. It feels like I'm just a grinning idiot, that no one takes me seriously, that I have to completely change everything about me and who I am so before long I'm not the same person in the slightest; I have to pretend to be someone else. I know I'm not the best person I can be but how much harder and longer do I have to fight to make it? I hate the weekends and look forward to Mondays because I can go out and meet co-workers. Friday afternoons I fill with a heavy dread. It sounds ridiculous to talk about it out loud because it makes me sound so...high-school. I feel like a loser talking about it, now, just like how I felt like a loser in elementary through high school, and grad school. It feels dumb now. I'm an older man, now. I think most days people won't notice I'm gone until the bugs don't get fixed and a few years later they find me in my condo after I hung myself in the closet.
- benmathes 13y ago
  I hope all the upvotes you're receiving is evidence that we _do_ care. Perhaps get into some multiplayer online games? They really helped me when I was feeling lonely -- especially if you start to play with a regular crowd and start to use voicecomm. It's fun, social, but not too social.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Try doing volunteer work on the weekends for some cause you care about. One it will get you out of the house and two you will meet people who may be like-minded but are different enough from your co-workers as to be more interesting. I'd recommend also trying church. Not trying to push religion, but it's a way to get involved with a group of people who often organize social or community activities.
  - sejje 13y ago
    Serious question: do you (or anyone else) think it's immoral to go to church as an atheist just to meet people? I get along really well with church people, but I simultaneously hate talking about religion.
Pxtl 13y ago
Part of the problem is that loneliness has a terrible feedback loop. Isolation makes you bitter and desperate and then nobody wants to be around you. Do it too long and your culture starts diverging from the main and connecting with new people is like crossing a river.
- Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
  Then that culture is broken. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
  - pickyourking 13y ago
    Very much so. Most people would be on the right track if they were to hide from most of what the modern world has to offer.
  - eruditely 13y ago
    How convenient for you, chomsky, godel, bertrand russell, dirac, von neumann, montaigne, francis bacon, stoics, and almost all classical great humans to modern great humans had friends and were at least somewhat social give me a break. I know it must be comfortable for you, they're all sick and I'm not so now I don't have to be uncomfortable and try a little.
    - Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
      I am quite sure that if someone told them that they had to drop their work or being in order to be friends, they would have found a different friend. The point is that it is OK to have a different culture, OK to be you, OK to be a light unto yourself. You will find friends, probably more. You do not have to adopt the culture forced upon you if it is not yours.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    I can be in the game and interacting with my neighbours, co-workers, students to try to change things. I can combine with like minded people and try to amplify my influence. I can use the rather tinny megaphone the Internet gives me to spread critical thinking beyond my local environment (through the thin broth of text and argument as opposed to the rich stew of shared action and problem solving). In the process, I may have to compromise some of my thinking but not, I find, the core values. Or I can sit out the game and polish my wellness. I think the former is better for me.
pmarca 13y ago
Gee whiz, if only there were some kind of worldwide computer network where everyone could meet people who share common interests -- for free!
- pmarca 13y ago
  Someone get on that, please.
- psbp 13y ago
  I've been on the internet for a while and that's worked for me maybe once, and it was by mere coincidence.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  You ever tried making friends on the internet? It's the single most surefire way to be bombarded with comments about your sexual orientation.
auctiontheory 13y ago
In poor countries, like India, you have no privacy at all. The overreaction, in rich countries like the US, is to buy privacy the richer you get. But Americans take it to extremes, buying huge houses that allow them to go days without interacting with another person. In fact, not having to deal with other people is considered a desirable luxury. Sit at home and eat and watch TV and shop. I know people who drive (down their very, very long driveway) just to get to the front gate and mailbox. The Indian situation is probably closer to our evolutionary roots.
- nilkn 13y ago
  As a recent college graduate in the US, this is exactly how I feel. In college, there was very little privacy. I shared a room with a roommate, and that room was one of two in a shared suite, with two other people in the other room and a common bathroom shared by all four people. I now share a 2br apartment with a roommate. I have a private bedroom, but a shared living room and kitchen. My apartment happens to be in the shadow of a very rich neighborhood, and the grandest homes here are secluded far off the road, often completely invisible to passersby, hidden behind dense foliage. They signal their existence to you through their formidable and ostentatious gates, but beyond that you have no glimpse of the private estate of the totally unknown and unseen owner. The owner has spent a vast sum of money--enough for most people to retire on, if not doubly or even triply so--just to build a completely private oasis in the heart of the city. For a lot of people here, that is the end-game: make millions, then spend most of it hiding yourself from the rest of the world.
  - venus 13y ago
    If you're interested in this phenomenon, you might like Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/status.htm http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/status.htm
    - deleted 13y ago
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    - 13y ago
mrcactu5 13y ago
My 7 year old nephew can't tell the difference yet between the carefully scripted dialogues we hear on TV and the impromptu ones we hear face to face. Social media has enriched our online-interactions at the expensive of face-to-face. We can find exactly the person we want to talk to - virtually, and maybe in person - why deal with anyone else?
thenomad 13y ago
So what can we do to fix this? I mean, we're hackers, right? We build things that solve problems. What can we build to solve this problem? Some initial thoughts: 1) Personally, I've observed that video chat comes a lot closer to genuine human contact than anything else digital. Better video chat technology would be useful. Also, ChatRoulette but not terrible? 2) Infoproducts - perhaps it's time for an update of "How To Win Friends And Influence People" with more emphasis on the "Win Friends" part? There's a surprising lack of solid information on how to actually make contact with human beings. 3) There are loads of dating sites out there, but no friend-making sites. It's gotta be a solvable problem at least to the (terrible but usable) extent that dating sites have solved the finding-a-partner problem. 4) Nootropics? Cranial stimulation? Brain-training for chronically lonely people? Something even crazier?
- jokoon 13y ago
  Creating an ad system where you post what you can offer to do and what you want, like an offer and demand system, and allow to search by location. Orient this on activities and jobs, and allow people to post their interests so that people can find people that have the same interests in the area. You'd only need to ask users what they want to share, and disallow for people to search beyond their area.
  - thenomad 13y ago
    I think this has been tried, although I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. It'd be really interesting to find out why it didn't work well.
    - jokoon 13y ago
      I think it's a niche market because it would deal with businesses, and also with people who are lonely which is the subject of the article. I don't think it would really be a success at first, but the fact facebook never tried something like that always frustrated me. I guess they did not implement it because they don't want to put complex features like this, and that's understandable. But sometimes an economy can work much better when detailed information is available about what's around your home, which is not the case today. Companies do use advertisement, but single individuals don't and companies don't wait for people to search for their product, and I'm sure there are ways to advertise yourself if you skip the dating stuff, and let everyone post their interests so it can searched and found by people around you. Advertisement only gives voice to people who can afford it because there are too few room for it. The real problem here is the number of participants (you need a big sample if you want users to find matches) and how it cannot be datamined. I think it would work if it was anonymised and if it would encourage private talks. I don't understand why google did not try that, they know how to effectively sort data by topic and category.
ExpiredLink 13y ago
> In the West, we live faster, higher in the air, farther from our workplaces, and more singly than at any time in the past. Nothing in life is free. 'We' have to pay for our new lifestyle.
happen_io 13y ago
This is a big reason why we created http://happen.io http://happen.io. Facebook mimics real-world connections and puts them in cyberspace, but studies show it makes people feel more isolated. We wanted to create something for people to improve their real-world connections, not just their digital connections. Happen.io makes it so that individuals can add their own events (like parties, celebrations, nights-out, family get togethers, club meetings, block parties, etc) and post them for others to find and save in their own list. Events can be public or private, for a group or not. It's mobile optimized so that people can use it on the go, not cooped up in their apartment. It doesn't take much to feel a sense of connection. I think it really just takes a few good friends and a few groups to feel a part of. But a lot of people are missing that, and sites like Facebook and others sometimes turn into a place to show off how great their life is, not a way to meet new people or find real activities to do with others. Why can't there be a place that just shows you things going on near you that others are invited to? With all this tech to connect people, how come people 100 yards away from each other never meet or get to know each other? How come it's so hard to find something to do or people to be with outside a list of your facebook friends? Why isn't there a place for an regular person to post their activities and events so that other regular people can find them and make new friends? That's what we are trying to make happen at happen.io. It's sort of a long-tail event platform. There's already eventbrite for ticketed events, but this is for any event, including small get-togethers. And there's facebook and other event sites that use facebook's social graph, but that makes it so you only see events of your friends, not just whatever may interest you regardless of who set up the event. It really is a disappointment in this digital world we become more connected to devices but less connected to each other. We need to turn that around.
amerika_blog 13y ago
The reason for this: as a modern Western society, we no longer have much in common, we no longer have communal rituals, and we share very little in values. Thus people drift apart and worse, "friendship" has come to be an act of convenience.
- FrojoS 13y ago
  Exactly. I'm surprised, this comment is not further up. If you are all about self-actualization, keep pushing your limits and experience new things, it is hard to maintain deep friendships if your friends don't move in the same direction and at similar speed. Same problem with romantic relationships. We're so much about individuality that we become incompatible with the majority of people. For many its not about being shy, or a lack social skills but that we like to do our own thing and easily end up lonely because of that.
roma1n 13y ago
In my late twenties, a combination of things helped me somewhat (I am still lonely, but not nearly as much) * Psychotherapy (it takes time to find a therapist that clicks, though) * Antidepressants * Not trying to hide it from my colleagues / family (the period when I did that was a miserable one) * A few well-intentioned friends from work * Family support * This guide : http://www.succeedsocially.com/ http://www.succeedsocially.com/ * Meetup et al.
- tachyonbeam 13y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, which antidepressant, and what effect does it have on you? Considering getting on them myself.
chiurox 13y ago
Maybe there could be a new kind of social network, one where in order to maintain your online friendship connections, you have to occasionally/physically get together with your friends and if it doesn't happen it means that the connection doesn't really mean anything so you gradually lose it. This would automatically accomplish what some people with hundreds of fb friends try to do by cleaning up their friend list by asking those who want to remain friends to reply.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

164 points by uladzislau 13y ago

Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level, and impairs sleep. As he writes in his book Loneliness, "these changes in physiology are compounded in ways that may be hastening millions of people to an early grave." Can anyone link to any research supporting these claims?

ginko 13y ago
It's generally weird to me that newspapers articles seem to be exempt from the expectation to cite their sources.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  They also consider themselves exempt from the common practice that text in quotes contains sentences the people quoted have actually said or written. I.e., the author may as well have pulled it out of her ass, and you would be none the wiser. That's old school quality journalism for you.
  - EdwigePelagia 13y ago
    Yeah this is pretty absurd. I've been "quoted" a few times in newspapers and they got my statements completely wrong. Just flat out changed the wording (and therefore meaning) of what I said. The Globe and Mail is as authoritative and reputable as they get, but this isn't saying much. The media is just a shit show in general. Having said that, even more pathetic is people who get their information from internet forums asking journalists to cite sources. The authority hierarchy goes like this: Academic writing > Books by credentialed people > YouTube videos by credentialed people > Websites by credentialed people > Newspapers > Yahoo! Answers > Hacker News comments > Wikipedia.
    - 001sky 13y ago
      Crowd-sourcing citations, conventional wisdom, and syllabi seems rather distinct from "the authority hierarchy", and the ROI is far more massive the further up that food chain you are, right? probably worth keeping in mind...
- gngeal 13y ago
  They got it from an anonymous source, obviously. ;-)
danielharan 13y ago
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cacioppo+loneliness http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cacioppo+loneliness
mikecane 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness#Effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness#Effects A start.
- goblin89 13y ago
  > Chronic loneliness can be a serious, life-threatening health condition. At least one study has empirically correlated it with an increased risk of cancer, especially for those who hide their loneliness from the outside world,[34] and it is also associated with increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.[35] I really don't follow the argument: living in major city also increases cancer risk, in order to justify calling loneliness “life-threatening health condition” one should really provide more relevant information.
auctiontheory 13y ago
The starting point is to google: cacioppo loneliness <smoking> These searches turn up a bunch of widely-cited papers.

jsnk 13y ago

“Economics basically says you should be concerned about your own short-term interests. There’s more division in society, more segmentation; there’s less identity with a national or global persona, but rather on the family or the individual. People aren’t as loyal to their employers, and employers are certainly not as loyal to their workers.” I thought that mainstream economics has been moving towards the other direction. More socialized policies, more emphasis on the collective that individual property right and rights in general, ever expanding role of goverent in the name of greater good for the society at the cost of individuals etc.

dnautics 13y ago
I don't buy this mechanistic explanation. Society has gone through progressive levels of specialization and this has never been a problem before, so either there's a really drastic "nonlinear" effect, or there's something different about this society. My personal suspicion is that it has more to do with people broadly thinking that "others" are not good enough for them.
- jsnk 13y ago
  It's ok that you don't buy what I say. What bothers me though is academics like the one I quoted making asinine statements as if it holds any water. It's just a pure speculation.
- Yhippa 13y ago
  Could you elaborate on your suspicion?
  - dnautics 13y ago
    Yes, it's a bit of an extrapolation. For my social time, I go social dancing. I still get a little bit lonely from time to time but I don't think it's all that bad. But in any case, what I see happening is that when people get rather good (or even if they don't; if they THINK they are rather good) they stop dancing with people who are not as good as them. Since it's an activity where being social is also coupled to having a skill; that's an easy habit to get into, as you're encouraged to "dance up". In any case, invariable the people who don't "dance down" isolate themselves and wind up alienated from the community. Increasingly we're becoming a credentialed society; while social strata are not necessarily inherited, there is definitely class-based stratification that people tend to not breach. It's totally rediculous; there's a guy who empties the trash bins at the end of the day at the lab I work in. He's a smart guy and super resourceful (he owns his own business, so he would have been eaten alive otherwise). And most of the PhDs are just... not friendly towards him. Why not? Is it below their station in life to interact with him?

zigzig 13y ago

While I've made plenty of bad decisions myself, I think a large part of why I've always been extremely lonely and isolated is that I was raised with very little sense of family or community. Growing up an only child, my parents apparently never thought it was worth me meeting the 80% of my cousins that lived in the same country, but somewhat far away. My parents themselves had scant friends or associates (at least during my memory) and hardly ever anyone over to visit the house. That's why if I'm ever somehow in the position to have a child of my own, I won't be able to. I wouldn't trust my ability to raise anything but an ice cold stranger.

polymatter 13y ago
for what its worth, I think that since you know how bad it is, you know the true value in keeping in contact and thus will work for it more and be a better parent because of it. I have to spend conscious effort to maintain my network of friends and its hard for me because its not automatic and not something I was brought up to do. I inevitably drop the ball sometimes and forget someone and have to get back into contact and reestablish our friendship. Because I know what lonliness does to me and I don't want to ever be that way again. So if I am ever lucky enough to have my own child, I am certain I will do all I can to make sure they never feel the same. I will fight so no child of mine will ever have to bare the scars that I bare, and that resolve will make me a better parent.
- kghose 13y ago
  This. Relationships take effort. Often, one will think "Why should I make the effort? Why should I make the move? The other person has not contacted me?" But it is better to make the move and contact other people. Because a friend has not contacted you for a while does not mean they don't want to keep contact. They may be feeling lonely and down or overwhelmed.
  - scotty79 13y ago
    I'm mostly just feeling that other people have plans no matter how trivial and I don't want to interrupt them or force them to interact with me out of politness.

everyone 13y ago

I actually live a quite isolated existence. I dont really like most people and am very happy this way (I can read, program, play games, make music etc. in peace and not deal with the tediousness of having to interact with people I find boring) However, I do occasionally meet other people (maybe a bit like me in some ways) and we get on incredibly well. Every week or two when we feel sociable I will meet one of them for intense session of something. Also the people I really get on with could be any age/sex, one is a 50 yo man, another is a 20 yo girl.

muhuk 13y ago
How did you come to meet them? (if you don't mind me asking)
- everyone 13y ago
  Np. College, work, house-sharing, school (one who I met over 20 years ago) Though I have gone to college twice and worked in many many jobs. The most recent intense-friend I made was at a college halloween party the year before last. I'm am generally not into wasting time with people but when I do socialise I like to go to house parties and whatnot. I reckon for me to find one of these special people who I click with is just a statistical probability, I might find one every few 1000 people I meet, so it makes sense to go to events and meet as many people as possible. I was actually going to suggest any big event where you and everyone else are likely to be drunk is a great way to meet lots of people. Also its handy if one of my good friends is also really generally sociable, then I will meet people/find out about parties and stuff through them. They do suffer a slight attrition rate as, for example, a few have moved to different countries for work. The cool thing is if one had been gone for years when we do meet up again it is like no time has passed. I have 2 in the city I live in atm. Which is fine. Only need 1 imo, but if I had 0 I think I would start feeling lonely.
  - psbp 13y ago
    I think you're right on with the probability of personalities clicking. I'm a pretty outgoing person, but I've only met a handful of people in my lifetime who I genuinely enjoy being around. I think I'm pretty lucky that I happened to meet them, or maybe we just gravitated towards each other.

evanmoran 13y ago

When I was in college a classmate of mine would come by every day or so to my dorm. He would just hang out, talking about class or whatever. I couldn't understand why he kept coming over, but I was too polite to mention anything. Turns out, he came by because we were friends. In fact, we had been friends the whole time, but I didn't know it! What I missed is that the stages between meeting people and friendship look a lot like hanging out. It seems quite arbitrary -- why this activity, this person? But the hanging out stage _is_ necessary. Unless you text them, knock on their door, set up a gaming night, or go on a road trip, it is hard to grow closer. So the next time you meet someone remember they are probably like you: a bit nerdy, a bit lonely. Just reach out and spend time with them for no reason, and then maybe, someday, you'll discover that you too are friends.

thirdtruck 13y ago
I've known this for a long time (years). However, the recognition tends to keep getting pushed aside by new insights or concerns about my latest project work and to the detriment of making lasting connections. Thank you for putting it in such a succinct form that I must take lasting notice of it.
- thirdtruck 13y ago
  And sweet Sagan, that came out sounding a lot more clinical than I would like. At least that's probably just a product of exhaustion from several hours of karaoke with complete strangers. :)
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Were you drunk? Drunk karaoke is best karaoke.
    - thirdtruck 13y ago
      There wasn't any drinking, but that might have helped a little. :)
13y ago

madcap 13y ago

The article mentions Portland as an example of city planning which encourages interaction and social cohesion. Are there any other examples that spring to mind for U.S. cities? I'm looking to relocate and this is high on the list for me.

thirdtruck 13y ago
Makes me wonder if we can trace the origins of Portland as a "blogger mecca" to this kind of planning.
dobbsbob 13y ago
Austin Texas is pretty friendly, also many community events. So is the Philippines for that matter
ams6110 13y ago
Portland has a high suicide rate.
- mingmecca 13y ago
  Grey skies for 7 months will do that.
roel_v 13y ago
As much as we like to think cities are 'planned' for this type of things, they're not, and humans can find patterns in anything. Cities form the way they do through many drivers, and 'planning for social cohesion' is a minute one - if it even exists.

Lost_BiomedE 13y ago

I always feel that many in the U.S., by far my largest cultural exposure, consider a false stoicism as mature and wise. I find it closed and boring. Many may be doing this due to being rewarded for keeping your mouth shut and punished for sticking out. It also seems that too large of a percentage who don't do this are predators, in one way or another. This makes it worse. The best place that I have found people to open up and be themselves within a day, is at a bar. Even if they just got there and have not had a bit to drink. I find almost everyone interesting if they open up. I am an introvert by nature, so it doesn't bother me much. If I was more extrovert, I would probably be going mad.

bitwize 13y ago
I always feel that many in the U.S., by far my largest cultural exposure, consider a false stoicism as mature and wise. That's a trait we inherited from our cultural progenitors the British. And in general we don't take it to the extremes they do. On the broad spectrum of human cultures, Americans are fairly "chummy" and open, or at least seeming openness is encouraged. The problem is, we expect others to be open, but we also expect them to be like ourselves. So we punish people who open up and turn out to be different. So they clam up. The best place that I have found people to open up and be themselves within a day, is at a bar. Even if they just got there and have not had a bit to drink. You think American bars are good? Try Japanese bars. American bars, to me, are usually noisy, crowded affairs where it is difficult to even say a few words to someone let alone have a conversation. This is particularly true where I live (Boston area), where the bars are often packed for the Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics/Bruins games. But the bars I went to in Japan were tiny and intimate. Only five or six people could be in there drinking at once and it is far easier to strike up a conversation. Particularly if you are a Westerner. Japanese society is about as serious and as punishing of individuality as it gets in the developed world. The Japanese bar scene is thus correspondingly lively and full of sincerity, even in tiny bars where there's barely any room to move your elbows.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Mind, even though Americans are usually considered pretty loud and open, there are even those of us who are too loud and open for America. Though I did have an easier time in California and New York than in Massachusetts. Hmm...

sown 13y ago

this applies to me. I'm very alone pretty much most of the time. Not really had friends and not great at making them. For the last 11 months I've tried going out and being the most positive person I can, to be a friend to as many people as I can but I don't know if it's working or not. Just talking to people, listening to them, smiling at everyone. It feels like I'm just a grinning idiot, that no one takes me seriously, that I have to completely change everything about me and who I am so before long I'm not the same person in the slightest; I have to pretend to be someone else. I know I'm not the best person I can be but how much harder and longer do I have to fight to make it? I hate the weekends and look forward to Mondays because I can go out and meet co-workers. Friday afternoons I fill with a heavy dread. It sounds ridiculous to talk about it out loud because it makes me sound so...high-school. I feel like a loser talking about it, now, just like how I felt like a loser in elementary through high school, and grad school. It feels dumb now. I'm an older man, now. I think most days people won't notice I'm gone until the bugs don't get fixed and a few years later they find me in my condo after I hung myself in the closet.

benmathes 13y ago
I hope all the upvotes you're receiving is evidence that we _do_ care. Perhaps get into some multiplayer online games? They really helped me when I was feeling lonely -- especially if you start to play with a regular crowd and start to use voicecomm. It's fun, social, but not too social.
ams6110 13y ago
Try doing volunteer work on the weekends for some cause you care about. One it will get you out of the house and two you will meet people who may be like-minded but are different enough from your co-workers as to be more interesting. I'd recommend also trying church. Not trying to push religion, but it's a way to get involved with a group of people who often organize social or community activities.
- sejje 13y ago
  Serious question: do you (or anyone else) think it's immoral to go to church as an atheist just to meet people? I get along really well with church people, but I simultaneously hate talking about religion.

Pxtl 13y ago

Part of the problem is that loneliness has a terrible feedback loop. Isolation makes you bitter and desperate and then nobody wants to be around you. Do it too long and your culture starts diverging from the main and connecting with new people is like crossing a river.

Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
Then that culture is broken. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
- pickyourking 13y ago
  Very much so. Most people would be on the right track if they were to hide from most of what the modern world has to offer.
- eruditely 13y ago
  How convenient for you, chomsky, godel, bertrand russell, dirac, von neumann, montaigne, francis bacon, stoics, and almost all classical great humans to modern great humans had friends and were at least somewhat social give me a break. I know it must be comfortable for you, they're all sick and I'm not so now I don't have to be uncomfortable and try a little.
  - Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
    I am quite sure that if someone told them that they had to drop their work or being in order to be friends, they would have found a different friend. The point is that it is OK to have a different culture, OK to be you, OK to be a light unto yourself. You will find friends, probably more. You do not have to adopt the culture forced upon you if it is not yours.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  I can be in the game and interacting with my neighbours, co-workers, students to try to change things. I can combine with like minded people and try to amplify my influence. I can use the rather tinny megaphone the Internet gives me to spread critical thinking beyond my local environment (through the thin broth of text and argument as opposed to the rich stew of shared action and problem solving). In the process, I may have to compromise some of my thinking but not, I find, the core values. Or I can sit out the game and polish my wellness. I think the former is better for me.

pmarca 13y ago

Gee whiz, if only there were some kind of worldwide computer network where everyone could meet people who share common interests -- for free!

pmarca 13y ago
Someone get on that, please.
psbp 13y ago
I've been on the internet for a while and that's worked for me maybe once, and it was by mere coincidence.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
You ever tried making friends on the internet? It's the single most surefire way to be bombarded with comments about your sexual orientation.

auctiontheory 13y ago

In poor countries, like India, you have no privacy at all. The overreaction, in rich countries like the US, is to buy privacy the richer you get. But Americans take it to extremes, buying huge houses that allow them to go days without interacting with another person. In fact, not having to deal with other people is considered a desirable luxury. Sit at home and eat and watch TV and shop. I know people who drive (down their very, very long driveway) just to get to the front gate and mailbox. The Indian situation is probably closer to our evolutionary roots.

nilkn 13y ago
As a recent college graduate in the US, this is exactly how I feel. In college, there was very little privacy. I shared a room with a roommate, and that room was one of two in a shared suite, with two other people in the other room and a common bathroom shared by all four people. I now share a 2br apartment with a roommate. I have a private bedroom, but a shared living room and kitchen. My apartment happens to be in the shadow of a very rich neighborhood, and the grandest homes here are secluded far off the road, often completely invisible to passersby, hidden behind dense foliage. They signal their existence to you through their formidable and ostentatious gates, but beyond that you have no glimpse of the private estate of the totally unknown and unseen owner. The owner has spent a vast sum of money--enough for most people to retire on, if not doubly or even triply so--just to build a completely private oasis in the heart of the city. For a lot of people here, that is the end-game: make millions, then spend most of it hiding yourself from the rest of the world.
- venus 13y ago
  If you're interested in this phenomenon, you might like Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/status.htm http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/status.htm
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mrcactu5 13y ago

My 7 year old nephew can't tell the difference yet between the carefully scripted dialogues we hear on TV and the impromptu ones we hear face to face. Social media has enriched our online-interactions at the expensive of face-to-face. We can find exactly the person we want to talk to - virtually, and maybe in person - why deal with anyone else?

thenomad 13y ago

So what can we do to fix this? I mean, we're hackers, right? We build things that solve problems. What can we build to solve this problem? Some initial thoughts: 1) Personally, I've observed that video chat comes a lot closer to genuine human contact than anything else digital. Better video chat technology would be useful. Also, ChatRoulette but not terrible? 2) Infoproducts - perhaps it's time for an update of "How To Win Friends And Influence People" with more emphasis on the "Win Friends" part? There's a surprising lack of solid information on how to actually make contact with human beings. 3) There are loads of dating sites out there, but no friend-making sites. It's gotta be a solvable problem at least to the (terrible but usable) extent that dating sites have solved the finding-a-partner problem. 4) Nootropics? Cranial stimulation? Brain-training for chronically lonely people? Something even crazier?

jokoon 13y ago
Creating an ad system where you post what you can offer to do and what you want, like an offer and demand system, and allow to search by location. Orient this on activities and jobs, and allow people to post their interests so that people can find people that have the same interests in the area. You'd only need to ask users what they want to share, and disallow for people to search beyond their area.
- thenomad 13y ago
  I think this has been tried, although I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. It'd be really interesting to find out why it didn't work well.
  - jokoon 13y ago
    I think it's a niche market because it would deal with businesses, and also with people who are lonely which is the subject of the article. I don't think it would really be a success at first, but the fact facebook never tried something like that always frustrated me. I guess they did not implement it because they don't want to put complex features like this, and that's understandable. But sometimes an economy can work much better when detailed information is available about what's around your home, which is not the case today. Companies do use advertisement, but single individuals don't and companies don't wait for people to search for their product, and I'm sure there are ways to advertise yourself if you skip the dating stuff, and let everyone post their interests so it can searched and found by people around you. Advertisement only gives voice to people who can afford it because there are too few room for it. The real problem here is the number of participants (you need a big sample if you want users to find matches) and how it cannot be datamined. I think it would work if it was anonymised and if it would encourage private talks. I don't understand why google did not try that, they know how to effectively sort data by topic and category.

ExpiredLink 13y ago

> In the West, we live faster, higher in the air, farther from our workplaces, and more singly than at any time in the past. Nothing in life is free. 'We' have to pay for our new lifestyle.

happen_io 13y ago

This is a big reason why we created http://happen.io http://happen.io. Facebook mimics real-world connections and puts them in cyberspace, but studies show it makes people feel more isolated. We wanted to create something for people to improve their real-world connections, not just their digital connections. Happen.io makes it so that individuals can add their own events (like parties, celebrations, nights-out, family get togethers, club meetings, block parties, etc) and post them for others to find and save in their own list. Events can be public or private, for a group or not. It's mobile optimized so that people can use it on the go, not cooped up in their apartment. It doesn't take much to feel a sense of connection. I think it really just takes a few good friends and a few groups to feel a part of. But a lot of people are missing that, and sites like Facebook and others sometimes turn into a place to show off how great their life is, not a way to meet new people or find real activities to do with others. Why can't there be a place that just shows you things going on near you that others are invited to? With all this tech to connect people, how come people 100 yards away from each other never meet or get to know each other? How come it's so hard to find something to do or people to be with outside a list of your facebook friends? Why isn't there a place for an regular person to post their activities and events so that other regular people can find them and make new friends? That's what we are trying to make happen at happen.io. It's sort of a long-tail event platform. There's already eventbrite for ticketed events, but this is for any event, including small get-togethers. And there's facebook and other event sites that use facebook's social graph, but that makes it so you only see events of your friends, not just whatever may interest you regardless of who set up the event. It really is a disappointment in this digital world we become more connected to devices but less connected to each other. We need to turn that around.

amerika_blog 13y ago

The reason for this: as a modern Western society, we no longer have much in common, we no longer have communal rituals, and we share very little in values. Thus people drift apart and worse, "friendship" has come to be an act of convenience.

FrojoS 13y ago
Exactly. I'm surprised, this comment is not further up. If you are all about self-actualization, keep pushing your limits and experience new things, it is hard to maintain deep friendships if your friends don't move in the same direction and at similar speed. Same problem with romantic relationships. We're so much about individuality that we become incompatible with the majority of people. For many its not about being shy, or a lack social skills but that we like to do our own thing and easily end up lonely because of that.

roma1n 13y ago

In my late twenties, a combination of things helped me somewhat (I am still lonely, but not nearly as much) * Psychotherapy (it takes time to find a therapist that clicks, though) * Antidepressants * Not trying to hide it from my colleagues / family (the period when I did that was a miserable one) * A few well-intentioned friends from work * Family support * This guide : http://www.succeedsocially.com/ http://www.succeedsocially.com/ * Meetup et al.

tachyonbeam 13y ago
If you don't mind me asking, which antidepressant, and what effect does it have on you? Considering getting on them myself.

chiurox 13y ago

Maybe there could be a new kind of social network, one where in order to maintain your online friendship connections, you have to occasionally/physically get together with your friends and if it doesn't happen it means that the connection doesn't really mean anything so you gradually lose it. This would automatically accomplish what some people with hundreds of fb friends try to do by cleaning up their friend list by asking those who want to remain friends to reply.

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