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Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

pewresearch.org

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Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#131

Post by davidjnelson »

taborj wrote: post #86
technothrasher wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm around people after work I generally feel more positive and have less anxiety, but left alone for too long and my anxiety will start to take over. Interesting. I'm the exact opposite. When I have to do things like hang around with people from work for too long, my anxiety increases until I can get away and be alone. I'm not a social recluse, I have a wife and kid, and I enjoy spending time with them, I try to…

I believe this is an "introvert" vs "extrovert" situation. I'm introverted and I'm like you - spending time with folks after work is a chore. I prefer to hang around "known associates" as it were - my wife, my kid, my in-laws, my friends. Spending time with folks outside those circles is draining for me; I dread doing it, and I look forward to getting home again. However, I have a few folks in my close circles that a…

It’s far from perfect, but it can be helpful to take a common, well studied big 5 personality test to see how introverted / extraverted you are.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#132

Post by ryanmercer »

Loughla wrote: post #103
ryanmercer wrote: post #13

I'm 34 and once you add in the weekends I am and talking is extremely discouraged at work, in an open office, so even at work you're basically alone just siting there listening to music or podcasts all day. At Gym1 I talk to my lifting coach but most of the time I'm in my head focused on training, after that at Gym2 I'm just trying to do my accessory work and conditioning and don't talk to anyone other than "hey" bac…

>but all my friends are married with kids and have zero free time. Then put yourself where they are. As a married friend with kids, I have made it clear to my friends without kids that if you want to hang out, we're headed to the pool or to a park with the kids for the most part. Occasionally we'll have time for adult nights, but because of our geography, childcare is hard to find. Some were okay with that and we're…

>Then put yourself where they are. As a married friend with kids,

"Hey Michael, so, yeah, I'm just gonna show up to your kid's third grade graduation, what door do I enter the school in to look like a total creep?"

Er... a lot of that stuff is going to be like that, or going to the Children's museum, or a child's park, or family events with extended family, or family vacations/road trips. Kinda creepy to just show up at that stuff "oh hey, fancy that, how funny we ran into each other at Chuck-e-Cheese and I'm here without a kid and I think the police are now here to ask why I'm here as a single adult male with no child".

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#133

Post by mcdramamean »

If you look at the richest people in the world, particularly those that are American... they are all introverts. As much as we used to fetishize celebrity, we now love wealth more. And the wealthiest of us have been made that way due to sitting for hours alone behind a computer. You have to imagine, there have always been these kinds of people; the general culture just didn't give them the space in the narrative of the past ( I remember my great-grandfather would hike 20 miles in the snow both ways to completely alone to read or something... These are rare stories of the past).

This is less a binary question than a, can we provide outlets for both ways of thinking, kind of question. Of all the a-la-carte subscriptions many extroverts pay for (Netflix....), I bet they would be willing to pay for a "I don't want to be lonely" service (whatever that looks like).

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#134

Post by ryanmercer »

jfk13 wrote: post #93
ryanmercer wrote: post #13

I'm 34 and once you add in the weekends I am and talking is extremely discouraged at work, in an open office, so even at work you're basically alone just siting there listening to music or podcasts all day. At Gym1 I talk to my lifting coach but most of the time I'm in my head focused on training, after that at Gym2 I'm just trying to do my accessory work and conditioning and don't talk to anyone other than "hey" bac…

I'm not quite sure whether you're saying you wish you were less alone, or that you're fine with how things are. But what strikes me in your comment is that once you leave your ("basically alone") work situation, you're choosing to spend a lot of your discretionary time doing "alone" stuff in a gym. Might it be healthier overall (even if less focused on specific physical outcomes) to spend some of that time and energy…

>you're choosing to spend a lot of your discretionary time doing "alone" stuff in a gym. Might it be healthier overall (even if less focused on specific physical outcomes) to spend some of that time and energy engaging in a more social activity?

I'm not going to the gym for general health or to pump out bicep curls for the ladies, I'm a strength athlete. At gym1 if I'm not actively using a barbell, I'm sitting down trying to recover for the next set. At gym2 I'm trying to get my accessory work and conditioning done so I can get home 12 hours after walking out the door for work so I can have 3 hours before bed to eat/shower/read/watch tv.

The weekends are my free time, a childless couple that lives a half hour late rand I will go get food but that's pretty much down to quarterly because the weekend for them is also their downtime when they have to do everything, including see their families that both live an hour or so away.

The rest of my friends all have kids and the weekends is when their kids have the bulk of their events from birthday parties to sleep overs to sports/dance.

And as far as making new friends, I can't just walk up to strangers in public "Hello fellow biotic doing their groceries, I see you're buying beans, I too eat beans, let us be friends and go do something after we take our groceries home".

Add in the fact I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, where it's extremely abnormal to not be married with kids in your early 20s, and even there I'm the odd man out. Everyone there is busy with family stuff too constantly and the bulk of the social events are youth-centered.

Basically I walk around life getting excited when I think someone is waving to me only to be gut-punched with an operating chainsaw when they were waving to there stranger behind me. Or God help me, when someone does actually say hi or ask me how it's going my brain just starts flashing "error, does not compute" because I've been so long without regular social interaction I forget how to respond.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#136

Post by AstralStorm »

BurningFrog wrote: post #80
ixtli wrote: post #17

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that…

> Part of this is culture (Americans fetishize a sort of "rugged individualism"... I seriously doubt it. I think all modern rich cultures have this. Sweden certainly does. As everyone gets rich enough to get your own house, you end up lonely, as you're no longer naturally interacting with others, since you don't need to.

It's not just this. It's more that you cannot get a home nearby your family nowadays. Everything's taken.

It can be even problematic to stay in the same city, especially if it's a small city with few opportunities. People tend to migrate for education... And stay where they left.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#137

Post by AstralStorm »

hrktb wrote: post #66
jacobmoe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems right to me. I would point out that you don't have to live a 20 minute drive from anything to be alone. Loneliness is as much a problem in cities as anywhere else. Also, isn't loneliness also a major issue in other cultures, like Scandinavian or Japanese cultures?

I think Japan has issues of isolation more than loneliness (basically the inverse issue: people shutting down social interactions as flight mechanism)

On top of that you have academic and work achievement put on pedestal. And not, say, being a decent social human being.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#138

Post by AstralStorm »

merpnderp wrote: post #95
ixtli wrote: post #17

As an anecdote, I've lived the majority of my life in America (born and raised middle class on the east coast in a wealthy area) and if I was tasked with writing an account of my time here it would be focused around one thing: alienation. American life is atomized and consistently getting more so. For anyone who sits around and thinks about why people are the way they are here I highly encourage you to consider that…

Just get to know your neighbors and make an effort to spend time with them, even if it's just a 15 minute chat after work. I've made the effort and am now on weekly hanging out terms with nearly 20 people in my neighborhood. And that's literally just the people within a short bike ride of my place.

All the neighbors are working and few are open to socializing. People are way too busy nowadays.

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#139

Post by AstralStorm »

ixtli wrote: post #32
toomuchtodo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree entirely with this. I can only speak for myself and my wife (mid 30s), but we are making active efforts to combat this in our family and social circle. Our house is large enough to take in parents (parents still have hangups about how "they should be able to take care of themselves and live by themselves"; we'll be waiting if and when they change their mind), extended family, and friends, we host family dinne…

There might not even be anything you can do if its systemic! Honestly as I get older (im 32) i find how fucking lucky i was to have been brought up in a really really strong family (half is italian, half is european jewish.) Its amazing the degree to which this has helped me be a normal person with good coping mechanisms.

Similar. I got to meet most of extended family at least once, some relatively often. We're spread out but in clusters. This helps if anyone wants to move and it helps keep in touch.

(Some went to another country, we haven't heard much of them - distance can still be a barrier and culture in Western Europe is different.)

Re: Older Americans are alone half their waking hours, on average

#140

Post by commandlinefan »

stirfrykitty wrote: post #37

I may be in the minority, but the older I get the more I want to be alone. I love my wife and kids, but there is almost too much pressure anymore to do this, do that. There are too many hands on my time. I recharge only when alone. I cannot do it with the TV on, kids in the background, etc. It's one of the reasons I like hunting. Just me and the great outdoors. I really like getting up at 0430 and being in the deer b…

> the older I get the more I want to be alone

That was my first thought, as well - I have a wife and two teenaged kids, and they drain absolutely all of my free time. I keep reminding myself that I should be taking advantage and enjoying this time that I have to spend with them because in a few years, they’ll be away and I won’t see them very often, but I do feel like I would like just an hour here and there to pick what channel to watch and not have to debate about it. I wonder if I’ll feel differently when I finally get to that point, though - I am sure that I’m going to miss my kids when they move away, because I already miss having little kids running around the house (even though they sort of drove me crazy at the time then, too).

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