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

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

#101

Post by JoshMnem » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

zeroxfe wrote: post #24

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.

Now that many new cars are coming with have high-def wide-angle rear view cameras, I don't really need my neck muscles anymore. At some point we'll "evolve" to rocks... rocks with wifi.

I picture something more like floating, life-extension vats where people spend their whole lives, getting entertainment, VR images, and drugs piped into their brains. Robots will do everything else.

Living involves the acts of experiencing the real world and doing things for yourself.

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

#102

Post by curlcntr » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:22 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…

Yeah, back then we would spend massive amount of time hanging around with friends, with few distractions. Cruising was popular, confined to one block, and lots of people, because if you strayed from those physical locations, there was little way to reconnect with the group.

I don't know how it is today.

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

#103

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

claydavisss wrote: post #89

ada1981 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be surprised how many of the billion dollar company founders I coach come in the door with deep loneliness.

You're right, we would be. Well, I don't doubt that some rich people are very lonely....I doubt you actually come into contact with them. Feel like you're just a wannabe Bill Campbell. I went to your site - you sell Ultimate T-shirts.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how right you are (or feel) about an underlying point. Please don't be a jerk on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#104

Post by dang » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:30 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?

Everyone knows almost all startups fail, and one group existing doesn't preclude others.

More importantly, please don't be rude on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#105

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

Smartphone use is the symptom, not the cause of loneliness. Young people today are forbidden the tools used by past generations to counter loneliness. Ask an urban highschooler how often they just hung out at a friend's house, or in a public place, for more than an hour or two. Teenagers today are busy. They have homework and courses to do after school. They are supervised, chaperoned, by adults far more than previous generations. The smartphone is the place they get to chat with friends out parental earshot.

Even when they have the time, many normal activities are now forbidden. Parents don't leave teenagers home alone on weekends anymore. House parties are unheard of. Teenager-friendly places like arcades, malls, even local movie theaters are disappearing. And the personal transport, cars, that once knitted teenage culture together are disappearing. Cars are expensive, risky, and put kids in more regular contact with police than is safe. So they stay home. All of these things are replaced by the new malls: whatsapp and snapchat.

Teenagers are not being drawn to smartphones, they are fleeing to them,

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

#106

Post by ronnier » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

My opinion is that likely mostly impacts men. I see men struggling to find women to date (and the opposite for women, too many men to pick from). The internet and apps have made the dating market very difficult for men in general. Women literally have 100's or 1000's of choices at any given time while men will struggle to have a single option.

There are just more men now than ever it seems, and it's really exaggerated in the Western US tech cities. When I go out, I sometimes count and I'll see 20 men to 1 woman at places.

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

#107

Post by kazagistar » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

mg794613 wrote: post #59

I am going to say something very unpopular just for discussion reasons: What if, IF, by having so much information at hand and telling each other how much live sucks, we've created a situation of mass induced depression based on hypochondria?

Kinda, but note it takes an somewhat willing receiver. These concepts are perversely attractive or addictive, but with a recognition of their negative effects you can cut them out of your life and heal.

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

#108

Post by sophistication » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:48 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…

Indeed. Studies are only finding moderate correlations of loneliness and technology use.

The variables with the largest regression coefficients predicting loneliness in this study [0], were poor neighborhood safety (.61), being single (.47, even with children .50). Being married most strongly protected against loneliness (−.42).

I'd bet modern day loneliness is mostly caused by an interplay globalization/automation, stagnating growth and gender equality. All of them diminish the need for all kinds of social interactions in a big way. With improving welfare and increasing economic independence, women less likely need to find a reliable partner. Careerism forces them to marry late (or not at all) and makes men less appealing to them. Simultaneously, globalization and automation are destroying local economic opportunities, thereby lowering the social value of men even more. Deteriorating economic prospects lead to more crime, decreased neighborhood safety…

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2394670/

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

#109

Post by androidgirl » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

This all hits home, and I agree with a lot of the points on social media.

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just quitting. When I stopped using Facebook at the start of this year, my loneliness got much higher.

There's less ways to meet people outside of the internet now. For awhile, I was visiting a hacker-space outside of $WORK, but everyone is already involved with everyone else and it's tough to break into a social circle.

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

#110

Post by baursak » Sat, Sep 01, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

Atomization and social alienation has long been a charge against capitalism as a system. It's interesting that this trend is similar in both the US and Japan, so can't really be explained by something like American car-centric infrastructure.

A tangentially related article that this brings to mind: http://julesboykoff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Boykoff_L...