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Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

economist.com

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

#51

Post by furi »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #21

This problem seems like it would be perfectly solvable with an app, but one could argue that it's the increased usage of apps (rather than the in-person meeting) that got us here. Even apps like LivingSocial seemed to fizzle out relatively quickly, but mostly-messaging-and-narcissism apps like Instagram/Snapchat are the ones that came to stay. A part of me still wants to believe that some app that did nothing but mat…

I read a very insightful comment on a previous similar thread about this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682648

The short of it is that any platform you build to make friends (at least if you take the naive approach and just build a dating app for friends) turns into a dating platform. It certainly matches how I interested I am in new people I meet online despite having a partner already. My hypothesis is that you typically have friendships with people of the same sex in a group (I certainly hear about people hanging out with "the lads" or "the girls" more than I hear about them hanging out one-on-one with same sex friends) and that isn't something any dating-app-for-friends has provided thus far.

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

#52

Post by awucs »

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…

In general very few things are getting worse in society. What is happening is that things are getting more unequal. When you lack power any excess will be made to serve someone else. It isn't like driving an hour to a busy supermarket was the height of social interaction. And social interaction has always been about your status in society. In the end it is a choice of who is going to give up what.

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

#53

Post by bamboozled »

m0rphy99 wrote: post #46
dghughes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remmeber having the same deep interactions on ICQ!

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

#54

Post by kuschku »

onion2k wrote: post #41
0x4f3759df wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

> 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).

Not everywhere — one of the major reasons fitness (and BMI) is correlated with walkability of a city is that in many typical US cities, you barely have to walk anymore, while in the more walkable cities driving is less possible, and you’ll walk or cycle much more, and usually use transit more (which means walking to/from the stops).

All this adds up.

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

#55

Post by NeedMoreTea »

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…

I don't think that is the opposite though.

We've mostly burnt the bridge you used to get there.

In the 90s BBS's, IRC and even ICQ had sites to connect people where people would list interests etc, people had ICQ or other icons on their home page to connect and just randomly chat. BBS's and interest groups would have meet ups and yearly BBQs etc. There was an openness, perhaps a little naivety, to connecting with strangers who would eventually become close friends. There was a special sort of novelty being in a conversation with 3 people from all around the globe at the same time.

Now it seems to me much more about connecting up your existing networks. Friends on Facebook or whichever chat program, but not much for random new connections. Meetups are rarer too unless you've joined a local Facebook cycling group or similar. People aren't as open to connecting with the unknown as it's probably a scammer/spammer etc.

I can understand why my kid's generation might feel it's more difficult now. Especially if they don't have much in the way of existing networks.

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

#56

Post by refurb »

ada1981 wrote: post #20
compcoffee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Founders get together to mastermind, hike and support each other about once a month. Maybe the world "mastermind" is throwing me off, but how do you prevent something like this from devolving into "yet another networking activity"? There's value in stepping out of the always-on, startup culture and interacting with the other half.

A typical hike is that we hike, stop along the way to do some deeper intimacy and connection work (I coach some of the top tech company founders on empathy, spirituality and leadership), we share what we’ve learned recently and what we are working on, we offer support. We do some meditation. These are hand curated and I’ve been building communities for over 20 years across a variety of disciplines. We also have our o…

This reminds of the saying “During the gold rush, it wasn’t the prospectors who got wealthy, but rather the people selling shovels.”

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

#57

Post by matwood »

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?

You said it harsher than I would have, but I go hiking to be alone. 6-8 hours with nothing but some music and your thoughts is amazing to help clear the mind and get re-centered. Sadly, I no longer live near good mountain hiking, so I use surfing as that time to re-center.

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

#58

Post by matwood »

0x4f3759df wrote: post #11
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 keep thinking along these lines. Like Friday night run and beer. You do a 5k run and then you all get a beer and you can bond over the run.

This is basically what everyone is doing at these kickball/softball/whatever leagues.

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

#60

Post by jfk13 »

furi wrote: post #51
hardwaresofton wrote: post #21

This problem seems like it would be perfectly solvable with an app, but one could argue that it's the increased usage of apps (rather than the in-person meeting) that got us here. Even apps like LivingSocial seemed to fizzle out relatively quickly, but mostly-messaging-and-narcissism apps like Instagram/Snapchat are the ones that came to stay. A part of me still wants to believe that some app that did nothing but mat…

I read a very insightful comment on a previous similar thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682648 The short of it is that any platform you build to make friends (at least if you take the naive approach and just build a dating app for friends) turns into a dating platform. It certainly matches how I interested I am in new people I meet online despite having a partner already. My hypothesis is tha…

> The short of it is that any platform you build to make friends (at least if you take the naive approach and just build a dating app for friends) turns into a dating platform.

I think this is largely true.

And the followup is that any dating platform [that shows even a hint of success/growth] tends to turn into a platform for scammers and spammers.

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