Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young • Hacker News Board

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#41

Post by onion2k » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

0x4f3759df wrote: post #9

PeterStuer wrote: post #4

Another thing I wondered about is the impact of automation and volatility on, for lack of a better word 'involuntary' micro social interactions. Until fairly recently people had 'forced' social interactions when doing their finances, shopping etc. Even if involuntary they 'trained' people's social skills and withered away at their acquired/innate social anxiety. Furthermore, even in these situations the persons you i…

Someone once made the same point about fitness, you used to have to roll down your windows manually, but now its automatic. More and more muscle functions being eliminated by automation. Add them all up and it makes a difference.

More and more muscle functions being eliminated by automation.

Only trivially small ones that we'd do a few times a week. There's still lots of physical activity that we do (eg walking around, carrying things like shopping, sex, etc).

Plus, many people have replaced the small manual activities like opening car windows with going to the gym. Anyone who has a sedentary desk job but tries to live a relatively healthy lifestyle probably does far more activity than their parents would have done if they had desk jobs.

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#42

Post by dannyw » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #16

There's no indication in this short write up if they also surveyed how often people get out. I think it'd be a likely hypothesis that people today do hang out more with friends, simply because it is easier. Remember the 90s? You're waiting in a parking lot to go caving. "Where's Will?" "I don't know." "Call his house, there's a payphone over there." "His mom said he left 30 minutes ago." "Well I guess we'll just wait…

I think you’re spot on with online dating. It’s not a stretch that it only works for attractive people, when the whole screening test is attractiveness.

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#43

Post by claydavisss » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #30

ada1981 wrote: post #2

If anyone is looking for adventure and connection, I run a group called Founders Hike, which is what it sounds like. Founders get together to mastermind, hike and support each other about once a month. We have some really successful and amazing Founders. Nature is it’s own medicine, the community is great, and the wisdom runs deep. NYC / SF and chapters forming in other cities. Email me if you’d like to join, and I’l…

I can think of nothing more insufferable than being surrounded by wealthy people who are business-driven. Why does it have to be a “founders” hike? Why can’t people just fucking get together and hike?

Probably just a few wannabes. In any case yes, a great way to not have a good time

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#44

Post by minipci1321 » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #18

I recall in a freshman sociology course the text noting refrigeration increased isolation and loneliness as people spent more time indoors. As I have traveled, I have noticed a lot of further examples of technology doing the same. Especially in countries with less wealth, people go outside and share public spaces/activities/infrastructure with each other more, and that seems to have a lot of positive externalities.

LOL. For an anecdote -- I was working once on an TV-related product, and our product manager was persuaded it would fail in these countries you mention (well he was speaking about the country he was native of). He was saying: "no chance they spend time in front of TV, however good. They will all be out having fun as soon as weather is good enough".

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#45

Post by prolikewh0a » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

ada1981 wrote: post #2

If anyone is looking for adventure and connection, I run a group called Founders Hike, which is what it sounds like. Founders get together to mastermind, hike and support each other about once a month. We have some really successful and amazing Founders. Nature is it’s own medicine, the community is great, and the wisdom runs deep. NYC / SF and chapters forming in other cities. Email me if you’d like to join, and I’l…

Do you dance around a giant wooden owl wearing still warm severed sheep heads while 1998 Alex Jones records on VHS in the woods?

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#46

Post by m0rphy99 » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #28

PeterStuer wrote: post #4

Another thing I wondered about is the impact of automation and volatility on, for lack of a better word 'involuntary' micro social interactions. Until fairly recently people had 'forced' social interactions when doing their finances, shopping etc. Even if involuntary they 'trained' people's social skills and withered away at their acquired/innate social anxiety. Furthermore, even in these situations the persons you i…

I agree with you 100% but I have an interesting personal anecdote, pretty much the opposite. When I was young I was very shy, painfully shy even into my early 20s. All social outings were family reunions or church. But I liked computers. So in the early 1990s I bought a computer and tried this thing called the Internet. By chance I discovered IRC. It was a world of strangers who interacted in real time. I could conve…

IRC back in the days was literally another world. It was something special. You could bond with other online users like family members even though the only thing you knew about them was their nickname. We have more advance technologies now but we would never be able to experience anything like IRC again. Slack and Discord servers today are not even close.

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#47

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

dnomad wrote: post #35

PeterStuer wrote: post #4

Another thing I wondered about is the impact of automation and volatility on, for lack of a better word 'involuntary' micro social interactions. Until fairly recently people had 'forced' social interactions when doing their finances, shopping etc. Even if involuntary they 'trained' people's social skills and withered away at their acquired/innate social anxiety. Furthermore, even in these situations the persons you i…

It doesn't make any sense to blame technology. Believe it or not there are plenty of other cultures that have access to the same technology but don't produce the extreme isolation that's common in the US. There's much more powerful forces at work here than online banking and ecommerce. The reality is that in the US and likely the UK traditional social networks and graces have disintegrated. It's a cultural issue whic…

[deleted]

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#48

Post by jcadam » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

It's a problem... for now. It's possible natural selection will just cause humans to become increasingly introverted until we're living in a world similar to Asimov's Solaria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#49

Post by 0xcde4c3db » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

I have a really hard time finding any kind of social connection that seems genuine and not a front for some kind of business/religious/political pursuit. It's like social connections are seen as merely a resource to exploit rather than being valuable for the actual human connection.

Re: Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

#50

Post by nickjj » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #38

nickjj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cool thing is, you can still do all of those things today. There's really nothing stopping you from walking into a grocery store and talking to people if you want. You could also go outside for a walk to get some exercise. You'll meet plenty of people along the way (unless you live in the middle of no where).

That doesn’t address the point - which is that as a whole, micro-interactions are reducing. Just because you have the option, doesn’t mean people are doing it as much.

> That doesn’t address the point - which is that as a whole, micro-interactions are reducing. Just because you have the option, doesn’t mean people are doing it as much.

It doesn't matter if people aren't doing it as much. It only matters what you're doing.

If you goto the grocery store, or the bank, or a shop or anything like that, there's always going to be tellers handling customers. Your opportunities haven't gone away or have even been diminished.