The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by kilowatt » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #42

codingslave wrote: post #7

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…

At the risk of wading into deeply controversal territory, I'll add some personal observations. One of the harsh realities I have seen is that it's very difficult for women to "have it all" meaning a fulfilling personal, family, and professional life, especially in the most competitive fields. Yet for many years this idea has persisted in a mythical sense as broadly achievable. I am now in my late 30s. I've watched my…

> It makes me sad because while they have awesome professional accomplishments, they would have been awesome mothers and parents as well.

I just wanted to point out politely how strange this language reads to me. It's ultimately the decision of each person whether to have kids or not. This being "sad" for them is an overreach, morally, IMO--and part of the fight feminism led was to carve out a space for women in society not to be mothers, if that is their choice.

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

#72

Post by maire » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

codingslave wrote: post #7

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…

Social media and not feminism is the likely root cause of the decline in families. Families are declining world wide including in repressive societies. Social media itself is likely the root cause.

Before social media people had to meet face-to-face in order to date and they had to break up face-to-face in order to end a relationship. This forced people to develop social skills at a young age that are required to form a family.

Now people can date someone they never met and break up by ghosting. They can get to a preliminary relationship without acquiring social skills. There are also online equivalents of a mate that seem good enough if you don't understand the benefits of family.

I try to avoid social media and it makes my life much more sane. It forces me to go out and socialize with people.

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

#73

Post by RankingMember » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #62

realPubkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same situation. A non sustainable life. With her all changed. I go to the gym so she does not have a skinny boyfriend. When I find something good at netflix I wait until she is home and we can watch it together. When I find a nice place, I remmember it so I can show her the nice bench under that tree in my hometown. I always have flashback about the time I moved to another city without family bondings. Then…

Then when she develops more serious health or mental problems, and you have nobody to help look after your children, relationship therapy has burned through a couple therapists, and you're telling each other how lonely you each are but avoid real conversations because they inevitably lead to more loneliness, then you will again have a new perspective. Good luck.

Damn, isn't there enough negativity in the world? You gotta bring that in here?

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

#74

Post by robear » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

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…

There are some good ideas in this thread. I spent a lot of lonely time in my 20s living alone and working from home. One thing is to live in a shared house. That is a way to have people to live with. It worked for me to not be as lonely at times in my adulthood.

The other thing is to get involved with social physical activity, clubs, or volunteering. I played hockey and went to a group fitness gym. I made long term friends there. I am into ham radio and the club where I live is pretty good. I used to volunteer at a kids camp and that was great for making friends with the staff members and doing social things outside of camp.

To me, find where your interests align with social/community activity. Currently, I am trying to get the ham radio club to be more out in the community. We are doing radio communications for a running race this weekend. It is exciting.

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

#75

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

camelNotation wrote: post #43

codingslave wrote: post #7

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…

Feminism has brought about a lot of changes, but I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men. Most people are alone because they don't prioritize the families they already have (parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, etc). They graduate high school, attend college in another state, move to another city far away for…

I don't think we can lay this one at the feet of women trying to escape their compulsory reliance on unreliable, selfish, and inconsiderate men

That's begging the question. Of course, one cannot, "blame the victims of villains," to paraphrase. The vast majority of people are just imperfect, normal people trying to get by. It's the aggregate actions of everyday people we should be looking at, not such outliers.

Most people are alone because they don't prioritize the families they already have

It's like the "Thanksgiving arguments" are engineered precisely to create a rift between generations.

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

#76

Post by nvusuvu » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/conten...

Key take away:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #62

realPubkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same situation. A non sustainable life. With her all changed. I go to the gym so she does not have a skinny boyfriend. When I find something good at netflix I wait until she is home and we can watch it together. When I find a nice place, I remmember it so I can show her the nice bench under that tree in my hometown. I always have flashback about the time I moved to another city without family bondings. Then…

Then when she develops more serious health or mental problems, and you have nobody to help look after your children, relationship therapy has burned through a couple therapists, and you're telling each other how lonely you each are but avoid real conversations because they inevitably lead to more loneliness, then you will again have a new perspective. Good luck.

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by chiefalchemist » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

True. But it's great for the economy.

When a family splits, that means 2x everything (e.g., sofa, dishes, TV, etc.) Same goes for the social "norm" that adults above 25 y/o (?) should live alone (if they're not married).

The issue is, not only is this counter to long-established human (emotional) needs, but it is resource intensive as well. Put another way, we're bringing Mother Nature to her knees, and we're too depressed about ourselves to care about her.

What could go wrong?

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

#79

Post by nugget » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

decasia wrote: post #52

nugget wrote: post #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 netwo…

I agree with your first point — like other structural problems, loneliness adds up over time. But on the second point, I'm really not sure that online social networks are just a "surface-level mirage." I met my spouse online, and many of my closest friendships have developed online, by instant message, etc. I don't think the alternative to "online communication" is necessarily that we will all socialize in person. If…

Yes on the second point, I think there's likely a distribution - perhaps 20% of participants use it as a helpful tool and 80% use it as a harmful crutch. I don't know what the actual ratio would be, but anecdotally I know quite a few young people in the latter group for whom many casual relationships seem to have replaced fewer serious ones.

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

#80

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #38

parrellel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not feminism, the establishment of the discrete nuclear family as a social and labor unit divorced from kinship groups. When you've already pared down the web of fundamental relations to 2-5 person cells, your already only a step away from complete individual social collapse. That doesn't even touch on the breakdown of community organizations (churches, fraternal orders, what have you).

Arguably this all comes down to economics/capitalism. Unpaid favors to family aren't measured in GDP and can't be taxed. Breaking down extended family into individual workers is good for the economy. Having stay-at-home moms work while sending their kids to group childcare is also more economically efficient. What's good for the economy may not be good for individual humans though. We aren't homo economicus: https://…

Surprised you were downvoted. This is a very good point: unpaid labor still exists, it's just not counted, either for taxation or economic statistics purposes. That means that everyone who has an incentive to optimize these metrics (meaning most people within the for-pay, capitalistic economy) has an incentive to favor policies that replace unpaid labor with paid labor that makes the transfer of value explicit.

You see this trend in other areas as well: the gift economy of the early Internet became the advertising economy of today, the open-source economy of the early 90s now has Github etc. offering rewards for creators, the karma economy of early social media contributors is replaced by the Patreon model today, the idea of driving a drunk friend home is replaced by calling them an Uber, the practice of quietly giving a family in need money is replaced by GoFundMe, and so on.

There are pluses and minuses to this: it's certainly been good for the economy, and generates liquidity where previously there was none, but it's done a lot to destroy social relationships and trust.