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The Loneliness Epidemic

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Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#61

Post by heavyirondba »

bilbo0s wrote: post #57
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

It's also interesting that nowadays when people lose their jobs, it triggers an almost existential crisis in them. It's kind of sad to watch. I wish people could understand that they are more than their job. It's so ingrained in us though. One of the first things people asks each other is, "What do you do?" It encourages a definition of self that is centered on one's job. If it weren't real life, I'd think I was watc…

I'm pretty certain that existential crisis isn't because of who they'd be without their job, except in status obsessed high-income brackets.

For most folks that existential crisis is driven 100% by the realization that they have little in the way of a safety-net, and all it takes is several turns of bad luck to end up in a poverty trap that isn't easy to climb out of. Remember, most Americans make what, 65k or so as a household? And are in massive debt to all of the things they needed to even be able to make that money (college education, car, house, etc).

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#62

Post by qwsxyh »

koboll wrote: post #50
radcon wrote: post #17

At the risk of sounding like a crazy hippy, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that some kind of subsistence-based neighborhoods would be a great option for dealing with this problem. Not only would it provide some relief from the feeling of being shackled to bullshit jobs for life if you don't want to starve to death, it would also help foster much stronger communities.

Or maybe something that's just a little more like a college dorm than an apartment building or a suburb -- neighbors in close proximity that you're forced to attend social events with and get to know. I feel like we consistently choose the short-term risk aversion of walling ourselves off from neighbors, blind to the long-term damage it does to our society.

I would legitimately rather kill myself than ever live in a dorm.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#63

Post by Fauntleroy »

xamuel wrote: post #38
Fauntleroy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got to be honest here, it's infuriating to see the extremely basic moral/social principles from the Bible held up on some kind of pedestal like they're a unique or difficult to come by idea. As an atheist I try to be a good person because it is something I innately want to do, not because it was a revelation I had in Bible study. The Bible did not invent "being nice to other people"

Your idea of what's a good person is based on what the world tells you is a good person. I, too, am tempted to think of myself as being inherently good, but if I were born hundreds of years ago, would I really have been so inherently good as to realize how wrong it is to (say) suppress women, when the culture all around me normalized doing so? My temptation is to think "I'm better than that, I wouldn't suppress women…

"Not suppressing women" is a really odd issue to bring into the conversation when Christianity is involved.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#64

Post by arcadeparade »

mox1 wrote: post #54
arvinsim wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Job has completely taken over as a driving force in evaluating choices. Not to mention most of our time. People nowadays spend far more time at work than ever.

You think that today in 2019, we spend more time at "work" than at any other time in history? That's just false. Over the 20th century here, work hours have slashed in half. Henry Ford introduced the 5 day work week in 1926, prior to that it was 6. You think the average farmer in the late 1800's worked 40-50 hours? What about the average coal miner, or factory worker?

You're not thinking on a long enough timescale. Hunter gatherers only worked 10 hours a week :)

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#65

Post by germinalphrase »

xamuel wrote: post #38
Fauntleroy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got to be honest here, it's infuriating to see the extremely basic moral/social principles from the Bible held up on some kind of pedestal like they're a unique or difficult to come by idea. As an atheist I try to be a good person because it is something I innately want to do, not because it was a revelation I had in Bible study. The Bible did not invent "being nice to other people"

Your idea of what's a good person is based on what the world tells you is a good person. I, too, am tempted to think of myself as being inherently good, but if I were born hundreds of years ago, would I really have been so inherently good as to realize how wrong it is to (say) suppress women, when the culture all around me normalized doing so? My temptation is to think "I'm better than that, I wouldn't suppress women…

I was raised Catholic though I have intentionally distanced myself from the church as an adult. There are active aspects to the church’s teachings that our larger society would likely see as negative, if not outright wrong. Your suggestion of female suppression is a good example.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#66

Post by dahfizz »

arvinsim wrote: post #47
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

> The Job has completely taken over as a driving force in evaluating choices. Not to mention most of our time. People nowadays spend far more time at work than ever.

> People nowadays spend far more time at work than ever.

Do you have anything supporting this claim? The facts say otherwise: https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

It's easy and fun to be pessimistic, but to claim that people today work more than ever is ludicrous.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#67

Post by lm28469 »

arvinsim wrote: post #47
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

> The Job has completely taken over as a driving force in evaluating choices. Not to mention most of our time. People nowadays spend far more time at work than ever.

> People nowadays spend far more time at work than ever.

A few generations ago kids worked at 10, there were no weekly limit, no weekends, no vacations, no security, no form of compensation if you get injured/die while working, no pension, no sick leave &c.

In first world countries we never worked so little for so much comfort.

> By the act of 1892 one day in the week, not necessarily Sunday, had to be given for entire absence from work, in addition to eight recognized annual holidays

> Children may not be employed in industrial work before 12 years, and then only 8 hours a day at work

> The first attempt to secure legislation regulating factory employment related to the hours of labour, which were very long - from twelve to thirteen hours a day.

> Boys of 13 may be employed in certain work underground, but under 16 may not be employed more than 8 hours in the 24 from bank to bank. A law of 1905 provided for miners a 9 hours' day and in 1907 an 8 hours' day from the foot of the entrance gallery back to the same point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_labour_law

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#68

Post by higginsc »

gxx wrote: post #52

Could it be that Facebook and social media in general are the cause? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-face... "Likes" and reading narcissistic postings probably are not a good substitute for real human contact, and the more people become addicted to social media the less real human contact they are likely to seek. Of course companies like Facebook and Google (YouTube) purposely design their off…

No. Did you read the OP's article? I'll excerpt a relevant section for you:

Although the current focus on isolation is often described in the media as “the loneliness epidemic,” Robin Hewings, Director of Campaigns, Policy and Research for the U.K.’s Campaign to End Loneliness, warns that for a subjective, self-reported experience like loneliness, “it’s not very easy to make comparisons across time, and it’s not obvious that it’s getting worse.”

While he acknowledges that aging populations mean that there are likely to be a greater number of elderly people around who are suffering from isolation than in previous decades, he also points out that when you look at the percentages of those affected, the trends are harder to discern. “There was some work done in the late 1940s, which would seem to suggest a not dissimilar level to today. This is right at the speculative end,”

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#69

Post by orcdork »

bilbo0s wrote: post #57
dexwiz wrote: post #34

The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives. Loneliness is just a primary symptom. The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a…

It's also interesting that nowadays when people lose their jobs, it triggers an almost existential crisis in them. It's kind of sad to watch. I wish people could understand that they are more than their job. It's so ingrained in us though. One of the first things people asks each other is, "What do you do?" It encourages a definition of self that is centered on one's job. If it weren't real life, I'd think I was watc…

"it triggers an almost existential crisis in them. It's kind of sad to watch."

Said the person (probably) working in an industry that's blooming, without a hint of irony.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#70

Post by rfugger »

We evolved living in relatively small groups where everyone knew each other and exclusion from the group meant likely death. Now we are part of a global social web where at any time, any of our people may be occupied by other parts of their network that do not involve us. This risk of being abandoned instinctively feels like an existential threat, so we live with a constant underlying anxiety that we do not truly belong and are not really safe. It will be interesting to see whether this reality selects for individuals better equipped to cope with it, or whether we develop better systems to allow everyone to cope better... I'd guess a bit of both.
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