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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

#181

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #124
MiroF wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guys, you need to move the frick out of the suburbs. They're soul-killing. Cities are also atomized, but not to this extent. They're vibrant, booming, the schools are fine/good, and in my opinion, far worth the cut to house size.

I love cities, structurally. But I find the people soul-killing. I just have very little in common with young, childless people anymore. Even when we're experiencing the same things, we're not really experiencing the same things. If I go to MOMA, it's because I want to show my daughter Starry Night. I'm scoping out tickets to take her to Hamilton, because I feel guilty for going without her. My kids are super well-be…

You're in the wrong city. I was at Longman and Eagle last week and the back bar was lousy with kids.

This probably sounds like a throwaway comment, but it's not; there are big cities that are more friendly and less friendly to kids. An advantage of places like Chicago is that the trendy areas are shared between people with families and single people, where in New York the family-friendly neighborhoods are specialized, like Park Slope.

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

#182

Post by your-nanny »

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…

I just want to pipe in here and mention that there is lots of evidence that Americans are moving around far less than they used to, and this has economist worried because of its implications for economic mobility. See: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541675186/fewer-americans-are...

Andrew Yang has even made that part of his policy platform.

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

#183

Post by dade_ »

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…

Toronto is easily the worst city in Canada for this, but also has transit so I don't think that is the cause. Something broken in western culture, but I think it is a combination of factors.

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

#184

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #181
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love cities, structurally. But I find the people soul-killing. I just have very little in common with young, childless people anymore. Even when we're experiencing the same things, we're not really experiencing the same things. If I go to MOMA, it's because I want to show my daughter Starry Night. I'm scoping out tickets to take her to Hamilton, because I feel guilty for going without her. My kids are super well-be…

You're in the wrong city. I was at Longman and Eagle last week and the back bar was lousy with kids. This probably sounds like a throwaway comment, but it's not; there are big cities that are more friendly and less friendly to kids. An advantage of places like Chicago is that the trendy areas are shared between people with families and single people, where in New York the family-friendly neighborhoods are specialized…

I mean there is an element of that. Several of my friends have converged on the same neighborhood in Lakeview. My experience is colored by living in DC the last couple of years, which is mostly devoid of kids. (Of course, not in primarily minority area, where there are still kids, but those families are being pushed out by gentrification.)

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

#187

Post by diogenescynic »

ryanmercer wrote: post #134
jfk13 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Join a club or get a hobby that is social outside from religion, or play a sport instead of lifting weights all the time. It’s definitely harder to make friends as you get older but shared interests and repeated interactions are the key, IMO.

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

#188

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

snarf21 wrote: post #14
nickthegreek wrote: post #3

My father passed away around 11 years back and it wasn't til several years later that it really hit me that my mom was basically all alone for large portions of her day out on the a country property. I now call her and chat for about 20 minutes a day on my commute home. I know that it has made a huge difference in her life and I feel more connected to her than ever before. I highly recommend that others take some tim…

This is also why a lot of spouses pass soon after the other. They lose hope and the reason to get out of bed each morning. I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people. It also can more than pay for itself by keeping people on their medication regimens and preventing costly hospital visits.

> I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people.

You are much more optimistic than I am. On the contrary, I see the shift towards much more automation and "task outsourcing" as a huge factor when it comes to increasing social isolation. We no longer have to lean on our friends, neighbors and even random social acquaintances for help and support, and with all of the various delivery services it's much easier to be a shut-in than in the past.

I'd actually be curious to hear from folks younger than 25 or so: When I was a young adult, helping friends move was a common occurrence. Nobody really liked the task of moving, but it really did build a camaraderie and bonding between friends. These days, though, with the ubiquity of things like Task Rabbit and Thumbtack, it's a lot easier to just pay someone a small amount to help out. I'm curious if young adults these days have a lot fewer "help friends move" experiences because of this.

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

#189

Post by opo »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #34
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 have found that truly open office plans act as significant discouragers of social contact at the office. Everyone except for the truly oblivious are hyper-aware of how any pleasant extraneous conversations they have are being heard by every single other person in the room. With a small team maybe that's not so bad if everyone has good chemistry, but not so with a large team. When everyone has their own office or cu…

>...Yet we are supposed to believe that open plans lead to increased collaboration and sharing of ideas.

Yea the research shows that open offices lower collaboration:

>...Contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction. In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over email and IM.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

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

#190

Post by DoreenMichele »

snarf21 wrote: post #14
nickthegreek wrote: post #3

My father passed away around 11 years back and it wasn't til several years later that it really hit me that my mom was basically all alone for large portions of her day out on the a country property. I now call her and chat for about 20 minutes a day on my commute home. I know that it has made a huge difference in her life and I feel more connected to her than ever before. I highly recommend that others take some tim…

This is also why a lot of spouses pass soon after the other. They lose hope and the reason to get out of bed each morning. I keep assuming that as jobs are automated away that we are going to have more people who can do work like visiting elderly people. It also can more than pay for itself by keeping people on their medication regimens and preventing costly hospital visits.

Men are at greater risk than women of dying soon after their spouse. My opinion: This is partly because women do most of "the women's work" of buying groceries, cooking and cleaning.

In many older couples, the wife is the one who keeps track of everyone's dietary restrictions. Older men often don't really know how to feed themselves properly. It's not their responsibility to keep track of the myriad types of info involved in that.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/the-widowho...

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