Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 234 posts

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

#221

Post by JoshMnem »

hutzlibu wrote: post #213
JoshMnem wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AI tends to be a race to the bottom due to human nature. If one isn't paying attention (and most people aren't), all youtube video recommendations lead to things like mindless fail-videos.

Not really want to defend the algorithms here,(I also don't know what videos exactly show up as I am not so into it) but fail videos can be funny. Humor is a sign of intelligence. I would not declare it to be the bottom if it ... For it to work, your brain needs to recognize the activity and how it is supposed to work the proper way, so you can laugh about the wrong way done. And also learn about how to not do it lik…

Skillfully creating humor might be a sign of intelligence, but I don't think that mindless consumption of it is. Fail videos are fast-food humor, simple enough for a little kid to laugh at.

Fail videos were just one example. Other examples are listicle videos, gossip videos, and general clickbait. AI tends to drive people towards consumption of mental junk food rather than making them smarter, better people.

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

#222

Post by [deleted] »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #157
nickjj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes it does. Threads of society are being cut, which is not only causing loneliness, but also emotional distancing, political polarization, demonizing folks in other camps, etc. The post I replied to mentioned specifically small talk with various clerks and tellers. Those clerks and tellers are still there today, just like they were 20 years ago. If you walk into any of those stores listed, you'll find human beings…

> I think blaming technology is just a cop out. If you went to a concert or something, I'm sure you'd have an opportunity to talk to dozens of people, Agreed, if we're talking about individual people blaming technology for their non-participation. But it's not a cop-out to say that society as a whole is being nudged away from social interactions, and that there are real negative effects on everyone. Furthermore, ther…

[deleted]

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

#223

Post by sophistication »

sophistication wrote: post #217
sophistication wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Exploring datasets from http://next.nomics.world , I'm finding no link between gender equality and population density adjusted loneliness. But, removing outliers with excessive loneliness for their population densities (MT, CZ), I'm getting a moderate correlation (.4) between gender inequality index and male loneliness (male to female loneliness ratio among 24 to 34 year olds), so my model might explain male loneline…

Ok, I'm an idiot. It's likely women who are less likely lonely. N is small though.

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

#224

Post by thirdsun »

sandworm101 wrote: post #105

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 previou…

I think this is a major part of the problem. Kids need their freedom, out of parents' sight.

I was thinking about my youth the other day. Back then (around 2005) in Germany we had youth clubs ("Jugendclubs"). A shared space where the local youth would come together almost daily - in many places these youth clubs where supervised by a someone best described as a municipal social worker, who would open and close the place at specific times. However the youth in my town was lucky enough to have a youth club without supervision, apart from the occassional visit by a municipal offical. A safe space away from parental oversight, open to anyone, but in practice resulted in a large group of tightly knit boys and girls between 16 and early 20s.

We met daily, had discussions, parties, started DJ'ing, had to keep the place clean, TV, gaming, BBQs, drinking, you name it - where there problems from time to time? Sure. To much noise, the occassional drunk. However there was a lot of responsibility involved as we had to solve any issues with neighbors and municipal officials ourselves, we had to keep the place in shape, do chores around the house/garden, renovate from time to time, had to gather and prepare wood for the winter (the place was heated by an oven/chimney).

I understand that we were lucky with this rather generous, liberal arrangement, but I guess it would be unthinkable today, and I simply don't see the local youth meeting at alternative spots, like public areas.

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

#225

Post by sobani »

afarrell wrote: post #175

If I was to start a company at this point, it would probably be focused on this problem. I'm not sure what though, because I worry that anything which would be profitable wouldn't be really incrementally solving the problem. Maybe a MOOC which taught courses like: - How to arrange an outing with friends: logistics and communication - How to follow up after you've just met someone - How to loop a new person into a con…

In that case you might want to take a look at your competition first. Two that I know of:

https://theartofcharm.com/ - more personal connections

https://advancedhumandynamics.com/ - more business networking

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

#226

Post by dclowd9901 »

dang wrote: post #104
dclowd9901 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Who’s being rude? I’m asking a valid question. Being a founder doesn’t preclude someone from liking to hike and this seems exclusive for exclusives’ sake.

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

#227

Post by ada1981 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #226
dang wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Who’s being rude? I’m asking a valid question. Being a founder doesn’t preclude someone from liking to hike and this seems exclusive for exclusives’ sake.

Have you ever gone to an EO meeting? Or another event for folks who are in a similar industry or job?

It’s founders because it allows for entrepreneurs to connect around challenges specific to their lives.

I’m confused as to why this bothers you — no one is saying you can’t go on a hike or start your own group.

Nor does it mean non-founders can’t like to hike. I’m simply offering a group that I run that is already running as an option for folks here - many of which are founders.

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

#228

Post by kakarot »

lists wrote: post #194
kakarot wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of your anxiety boils down to just not feeling confident about the appropriate actions to take or words to say in social situations? That's something that can be remedied for anyone with a little focused education.

>How much of your anxiety boils down to just not feeling confident about the appropriate actions to take or words to say in social situations? You're enabling your own prescription by making the problem easier, viz. reducing the problem of anxiety to "not feeling confident about the appropriate actions to take", which, I might add, is also a redundant claim since its taking an effect of anxiety and elevating it to th…

I'm not reducing the problem. I'm defining it, so that it can be solved.

Anxiety, for most people, is not unsolvable but is just tedious because it often comes from multiple sources. I'm diagnosed bipolar, ADHD, OCD, you name it... I am no stranger to anxiety and the physical aspect of it which cannot be dealt with "logically".

But lack of confidence, in one's life, one's friends, one's job, one's ability, etc... this is a major source of anxiety in the modern world and is very treatable.

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

#229

Post by kakarot »

taurath wrote: post #216
kakarot wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of your anxiety boils down to just not feeling confident about the appropriate actions to take or words to say in social situations? That's something that can be remedied for anyone with a little focused education.

I can handle myself socially, and have been told I’m very gregarious and easy to be around and talk to. I just always think about the absolute worst case and long chains of events that might happen from my input. Combative or argumentative situations are the worst, especially in lower trust situations. In a way, it boils down to “not feeling confident about words I say”, but the problem is I seem to overvalue bad out…

Coming from childhood trauma, I empathize and agree that it can be frustratingly hard to control the feelings and anxiety caused by it even decades after the fact.

I also have had problems with being too trusting in the past and lately I've been having social anxiety I thought I'd solved return because I've been trying to make conscious changes to my social behavior and it leaves me feeling lost sometimes when I have to ignore my instinctual response and then can't think of anything else to say.

It may comfort you to know that you aren't alone in feeling you need to reevaluate how much you trust those around you.

Social research in the last 3 decades has revealed that, in America, and thus probably other modernized countries, as late as the 80's, people when asked if they could trust most other people generally said that they felt they could. This is not the case anymore. Now, the average person will proclaim that most people are not not trustworthy. People are reporting less friends than ever. I personally have a quite small group of friends, after I carved out most of them after having 4-6k stolen from me in the last couple years from various people I once would consider friends.

Isolation and mistrust have been bred into our society in the last quarter-century, and it has had disastrous implications on our ability to open up to others. We are starting to feel the effects of this as, on a global scale, the isolation people are experiencing causes them to lose empathy and adopt zealous and hyperjudgemental attitudes.

Why has this been happening? What's the motivation? Well that's the homework assignment. ;)

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

#230

Post by tcbawo »

djrogers wrote: post #81

I find a stark and surprising contradiction from some people these days - they simultaneously insist that social media, most specifically Facebook, helps them feels ‘connected’ to their friends and family and yet they feel increasingly lonely. Maybe if you live your life in Facebook you don’t have as much to talk about with your friends when you interact in person?

My theory is that people put a brave face out in public on social media, but have nobody nearby when they need emotional support.
Post reply on HN