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Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#951

Post by publicdebates »

arnejenssen wrote: post #731

Solitude is not the same as loneliness. A person can feel lonely surrounded by others. Like being the only non-drinker in a family Christmas celebration. Loneliness is when there is a gap between desire for companionship/connection and reality. I've done both extended periods of home office and a period of co-working in an open plan space. I didn't feel lonely in the home office. I guess because I did it by choice an…

From personal experience, I know that interacting with people on social media barely helps with loneliness, especially with an increase in bots.

What I know would help me is to have genuine relationships, friendships where we both care about each other, even if it's something as small as having coffee with them every day, learning about the other person, asking how their day was, and having these things be reciprocated voluntarily.

Even something so small would mean the world to someone like me, as long as it's coming from someone who I respect, who has something I admire about them. This part is important for a friendship. It can't just be any random person, it has to be someone with qualities I admire. I'm still trying to work out what that means and why it is.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#952

Post by yibg »

cushychicken wrote: post #821
yibg wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately a lot of these require either an existing network or high stakes interaction (sending invites, accepting invites etc). They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people. If we want to solve this at the society or community level, there needs to be more opportunities for low stakes interaction. Places that people can passively gather around a communal activity. I'm reminded of the ladies…

They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people. OP gave the thread a very good and valid suggestion. Treating this as a societal problem - for "society" to solve - is lazy thinking. If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.

I know in the US we value individualism responsibility. But the reality is many things are encouraged / discouraged, made easier / harder collectively.

Of course if you never go out of your house, you're not going to have many social interactions. But your environment and the culture you live in makes a difference too. You can quit smoking yourself clearly, but the collective push to discourage smoking has done a lot to reduce the overall use of cigarettes.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#953

Post by gleamglam »

Is it an epidemic or culture.

Is there such as thing as loneliness, theoretically, I mean.

Consider this, since when was the physical body or its constituents not lonely. Imagine nail on finger, it grows anyway, lonely :), amazing!

Ask about the abstract parts too, the heart or the mind. On its own it is always lonely. But the mind is imagining way beyond, because it can. That little twist in thought, creates such a dilemma. Mind can bring more to life, it can comprehend that loneliness is included in the experiential existence AND simply to move on "along" with life. The bonding is built in. Nothing magnificent, it just exists and evolves, amazing!

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#954

Post by alexpotato »

I was the head of the men's group for my town's Newcomers Club and when it comes to having a blueprint for organizing a small, quick gathering I cannot say enough about Nick Gray's [0] book The Two Hour Cocktail Party [1]

It has tons of small but useful tips:

- host it Monday or Tuesday from 7-9pm. People are usually free those nights and make sure it ends at 9pm for the folks who have to wake up early

- don't send an evite with "0 of 60 guest have responded". Start by having your core group accept and then send the invite directly to each new person

- have name tags. but make sure YOU fill out the name tags or you will have "Batman" and "Superman" at your party

- introduce people and have "get to know you games"

Now, I'm sure someone will say "this is so formulaic and doesn't feel natural!". That's kind of the point. You need to give folks some structure to be able to interact. The name tags for example remove the "oh, I met this person before but I can't remember their name so I just won't talk to them" etc.

0 - https://x.com/nickgraynews

1 - https://amzn.to/3ZhtSfi

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#955

Post by publicdebates »

alexpotato wrote: post #954

I was the head of the men's group for my town's Newcomers Club and when it comes to having a blueprint for organizing a small, quick gathering I cannot say enough about Nick Gray's [0] book The Two Hour Cocktail Party [1] It has tons of small but useful tips: - host it Monday or Tuesday from 7-9pm. People are usually free those nights and make sure it ends at 9pm for the folks who have to wake up early - don't send a…

In a general sense, I think two things about this suggestion are universally useful in solving the epidemic: structured activities with clear expectations, and people who take the initiative to design and execute them.

For those people who I'm personally trying to reach, those who sit at home alone all day, and you only see them on the way to the grocery store and back, who desperately want to interact with people but don't know how to begin, they need someone to initiate the interaction, and they need to know the rules of the interaction, since this is mainly the reason they don't feel comfortable with freeform interactions with strangers and so avoid them.

Thank you for helping me realize that.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#956

Post by alexpotato »

publicdebates wrote: post #955
alexpotato wrote: post #954

I was the head of the men's group for my town's Newcomers Club and when it comes to having a blueprint for organizing a small, quick gathering I cannot say enough about Nick Gray's [0] book The Two Hour Cocktail Party [1] It has tons of small but useful tips: - host it Monday or Tuesday from 7-9pm. People are usually free those nights and make sure it ends at 9pm for the folks who have to wake up early - don't send a…

In a general sense, I think two things about this suggestion are universally useful in solving the epidemic: structured activities with clear expectations, and people who take the initiative to design and execute them. For those people who I'm personally trying to reach, those who sit at home alone all day, and you only see them on the way to the grocery store and back, who desperately want to interact with people bu…

> they need someone to initiate the interaction, and they need to know the rules of the interaction, since this is mainly the reason they don't feel comfortable with freeform interactions with strangers and so avoid them.

You hit the nail on the head with the above.

It's why things like square dancing where so popular back in the day.

It gave men and women an easy to learn, simple to follow set of rules for interacting with the opposite sex with as little ambiguity as possible. e.g someone was literally calling out what to do next so you could enjoy the moment rather than thinking "oh no, I'm not sure what to do next!"

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#957

Post by freeplay »

gofreddygo wrote: post #941
ggfdh wrote: post #912

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inability of your friends to have non-political conversations can be a big part of isolation. I follow the “no politics, no religion” rule when I go out and it’s served me well. You can have political/religious conversations with people who disagree but often it feels like walking in a mine field.

> follow the “no politics, no religion” rule These two are a strict no go for me too. Another thing that worked well for me is to keep discussions very low and quick on topics like personal relationships, work, career and hot button topics like AI, weather, traffic, climate change, house prices, etc. Basically avoid anything that a newspaper would think is worthwhile for frontpage or editorial column. I go heavy on f…

Seems like everything is a hot button topic these days. Even things like movies get connected to a hot button in one way or another.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#958

Post by hasbot »

There is so much to this issue. One major problem is the lack of fourth places. If I want to be low-key social where do I go? Some people say the library but IMHO libraries are not social spots. The concept of man shed is cool except for the gender aspect but it's mostly private sheds. There is a maker space in the city but membership is limited and there is a wait list.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#959

Post by [deleted] »

ge96 wrote: post #46

Somewhat a tangent response I have a fear of crowds and bums. Not where I'm paralyzed/medicated but one thing I'm trying to do is go downtown and do street photography. I wonder how do I say no to a stranger asking me for money. Or fear of getting robbed. It's not like my camera gear is that expensive but yeah. This would push me to get out there more as I've lived in the same place for 10 yrs and I haven't really ex…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#960

Post by sebg »

publicdebates wrote: post #400
sebg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helping people like you are seems like an amazing start. Maybe try to get a pyramid structure going where you teach people to help other people and then they teach people and then it’s a movement? But at all times a low level of effort so there is no pressure other than just holding up a sign or a marker. I’ve found the hardest thing is breaking the ice and the sign / marker normalises a low stakes interaction where…

I've thought a lot about this since you wrote it. I do wonder if this could become a pyramid activity. One problem is that it has to be people who are relatively comfortable talking to strangers, which by definition excludes the main people I'm trying to reach. That said, I wonder if there's a middle ground. Maybe people like myself, who feel unfulfilled, but don't have too much difficulty talking to strangers, could…

Good points.

Maybe something like making two person teams of a non-talker and talker?

Non-talker is getting trained to be a talker while the talker is doing the recruiting?

Non-talker holds sign / hands out writing implement. Talker talks.

Everyone slowly moves up the chain?

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