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The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

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Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#11

I would argue that the decline of the family is directly linked to feminism, or better stated, the liberation of women from the home and from conservative sexual values. The two forces behind that are birth control and women entering the work force. These two are magnified by online dating and social media. I am not saying at all that these are bad things, just that we have yet to see the true effects of feminism on…

By the way, this might seem revolutionary, but there are plenty of societies ( in history) that didn't have rule by Men and an awakening of feminism.

The studies I'm familiar with didn't mention loneliness, but rather the social responsibility.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#12

I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…

I don't know what the music scene is like in your area, but there is a vast plethora of people who want to compose/improvise with others. You can turn your coding/art-fu into a social asset if you see how to use it.

libcinder, openframeworks, pure data, faust, three.js, tone.js, there are a multitude of things regular musicians could use but don't know about.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#14

I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…

Join something! A band, a chamber group, an orchestra? An artists' collective with shared studio space?

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#15
Whatever it is today, I fear the future will be much worse. The most devastating existential consequences of loneliness can take decades to manifest. You feel a little lonely in your day to day life now, but wake up twenty years from now and realize you're socially isolated with no meaningful relationships or community and it's "too late" to make up the lost time. Most dangerous of all may be that online social networks provide participants with the feeling of deep social and community engagement that turns out to be a surface-level mirage beneath which we were just each staring at ourselves in the mirror the entire time.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#16
I think is just another example where we got a short term benefit from breaking societal norms but may suffer long term. Strong family bonds can be very confining so it's often liberating to weaken them. But then you also lose that support system which has big cost long term.

I think the job market has similar trends. It used to be that jobs were more stable and you had a direct path to retirement. But this was also restricting for young people. Now we have the opposite. Young people are the stars of the job market, job hopping is the only way to get ahead and the people who aren't millionaires by age of 50 are looking into a very insecure future.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#17

I would argue that the decline of the family is directly linked to feminism, or better stated, the liberation of women from the home and from conservative sexual values. The two forces behind that are birth control and women entering the work force. These two are magnified by online dating and social media. I am not saying at all that these are bad things, just that we have yet to see the true effects of feminism on…

By the way, this might seem revolutionary, but there are plenty of societies ( in history) that didn't have rule by Men and an awakening of feminism. The studies I'm familiar with didn't mention loneliness, but rather the social responsibility.

please name a few - i am curious to read about these

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#18

I would argue that the decline of the family is directly linked to feminism, or better stated, the liberation of women from the home and from conservative sexual values. The two forces behind that are birth control and women entering the work force. These two are magnified by online dating and social media. I am not saying at all that these are bad things, just that we have yet to see the true effects of feminism on…

Notable mention for flat/declining wages since the average cost of raising kids probably doesn't get cheaper as time goes on.

Imaging paying your you and your spouse's student loans, then having two kids and paying their student loans or putting that debt on their shoulders. Much easier before tuition skyrocketed.

Healthcare prices are a consideration too.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#19
I look at so many of my single friends who are achingly lonely (late 30s to early 40s) and they all have a particular trait in common: they obsess about the possibilities the future may hold yet don’t acknowledge the hard work it would take to get there. There’s also a sort of collective delusion that if you wait around long enough, your dream partner will show up and that if a relationship takes any work at all that it should be scrapped because it interferes with “just being an individual”.

The longer people put off pairing up, the harder it seems to accomplish.

I think mainstream media has really warped a couple of generations of people’s priorities. Extended adolescence and chasing hedonism is now the norm.

My friends who eschewed that in favor of more traditional long term relationships, compromise and building family over Instagram followers are decidedly more content and less anxious.

I suspect as my generation ages these effect will amplify.

Re: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

#20

I felt loneliness acutely this week. I live alone, spend most evenings alone, and on top, work's coding and research has been slow for 2 weeks. Collaborators are at conferences and on vacation, so I had much less work and much less face-to-face contact than usual. Given that I code on my own, distribute analyses via email, and occasionally meet if people are around, I barely talked to people some days this week. Goin…

>Going home feels so meh... I can go work through more Sherlock Holmes videos or Netflix series or work on music or art, but there is no one to share with, no one to talk to throughout the day, no one to engage with on my passions. I just kinda laze about without more contact.

Invite someone over!

>If anyone in Providence, RI wants to hang, let me know!

I actually live in Cranston, lol. You like biking? Cryptocurrency? Music production?

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