The Loneliness Epidemic • Hacker News Board

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#271

Post by dysoco » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

piercebot wrote: post #91

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 Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all social interactions. I think social (cooperative) gaming might be an exception to this. I'm not about to argue that it's _better_ than real-life social interaction, but hanging out and communicating with the same individuals every evening while working on shared goals as your avatars inhabit the screen can combat loneliness for many individua…

I moved to a city where I'm pretty much alone so I could go to college. My favorite time of the day is when I play Counter-Strike with my old buddies at night. Not so much because of the game but just because I get to voice chat and have a good laugh for a while.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#272

Post by filoleg » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #269

filoleg wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is relative in the context, so your global stats aren't especially helpful. 34k USD a year can lend you either an extremely comfy king-like life in Thailand or poverty level existence in San Francisco. Saying to someone from the latter situation that they are in ~0.88% richest people on the planet is neither helpful nor relevant.

That "comfy existence" in Thailand is also relative, you get to live in a house with air conditioning and indoor plumbing, just like in the west. Wages are lower so you can hire people to do things for you but an iPhone costs the same. People seem to actually believe that 5 thousand a year gives you a middle class lifestyle in the third world. The cost of eating only rice and beans and living in a tin shack with dirt…

I am not saying $5k, I am saying $35k. With that amount of money, you can certainly afford to live a super comfy life in Thailand not in a shack AND afford an iPhone.

I agree with your premise in general though, because given a similar lifestyle and similar percentage of savings (let's say 10%) from your salary you get in a high COL place vs. low COL place, high COL place would be more preferable, as that 10% will be higher in absolute dollar value, and a lot of goods are priced the same everywhere.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#273

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #196

squish78 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to make friends when you assume you're superior to everyone

im In the same position a lot of the time when meeting new people. It’s not because I feel superior, I just lack interest and any knowledge of sports and cars and most topics that a lot of other people use for small talk. Now, if they want to talk about that time their fighter gutted an orc with an awesome double crit, I’m all ears, but Cowboys losing to some other team in sportsball, not so much.

Exactly this. Superiority has nothing to do with it.

Some people have uncommon interests or opinions, and may be reticent about sharing them in the absence of some enabling signal, as one can be punished socially just for having them.

It doesn't help that my employer has a mainstream dress code. If I saw an exact copy of myself before or after work, I wouldn't want to talk to it, unless we were in a nerd haven.

I've had too many conversations that bring in early "so what church y'all go to?" or "what's your football team?". The wrong answers can get you a "bless your heart," which seems to be Southern for "fuck off, asshole". Wearing a Chicago Cubs tee-shirt sometimes invites conversation, but my spouse is the fan that live-streams every MLB broadcast that isn't regionally blacked out, and for me it's really more a signal for "I'm from the Midwest." The Chicago skyline on my usual payment card has sometimes unintentionally served the same purpose from restaurant servers and cashiers who are also ex-Chicago-residents.

It's why I'm considering a nerd tattoo, like "e^pi*i=-1" or the Fano plane mnemonic for octonion multiplication, or a space-filling model of my favorite molecule, benzaldehyde.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#274

Post by thaumaturgy » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #263

thaumaturgy wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you trying to counterargue a growing recognition of widespread loneliness by citing figures about people moving? Do you think loneliness doesn't happen if people live close to mom, or that people who never leave their home town or their home state aren't lonely? I'd expect those to be the loneliest of people. At least people who travel often learn how to meet and make new friends and rarely find themselves st…

I would suspect that, on average people who live near extended family and childhood friends will be less lonely than people who don’t have families and move around a lot. My mom grew up in a family of 11 siblings in Bangladesh, most of whom lived with their families in the same city when I was a kid. It’s hard to express rich and full life was back there.

This may be a cultural difference, or it may just be a difference of personal experiences, but I wouldn't make the leap to inferring much of any correlation between loneliness and living near extended family or childhood friends.

For one, as the article pointed out, there are differences between social interaction and loneliness. For another, there are many broken families out there today, especially with the rise of opioid and other brutal addictions.

Anecdotally, I've seen hispanic families tend to be closer-knit, while a lot of other families tend to have some pretty serious problems. As one data point, my parents now live only a few miles away from me but I see them only very occasionally. Likewise, former close-knit groups of friends who all never left their home town -- and in at least one case, ended up buying homes only a couple blocks away from each other -- ended up squabbling and fighting and stopped talking to each other at all.

So whereas your experiences have led you to suppose that being close to childhood friends and family makes someone less lonely, my own -- and those of the various other nomads I've gotten to know over the years -- lead me to suppose that getting away from childhood friends and family helps to stave off the loneliness.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#275

Post by throwaway3627 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

- Decline of organized religion

- Rise of hyper-mobility

- Rise of the portable screen

- Rise of inequality necessitating more workaholism

- Increase of monopolized corporate media

- Heightened nationalism, xenophobia and politically-polarized, separate realities

are factors which atomize people from each other.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#276

Post by throwaway3627 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

kashyapc wrote: post #86

I will quote a previous comment on a similar thread[1] I made verbatim here. It is from Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now , where he reviews data on loneliness in the US students (among two dozen other graphs in the first twenty chapters). Pinker implies social critics abuse the words "epidemic" and "crisis" (both words used in the article of this thread). After reviewing the downwards-sloping graph (plotted from 197…

"Crisis" may not be the correct word, whereas the sex ratio imbalance in China is definitely a crisis, the loneliness issue is at least a valid social ill because of the additional stress, anxiety, missing joy/opportunities and shortening of lives it creates.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#277

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #243

oposa wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition you wouldn't know many lonely people. The chronically lonely ones are going to be the people who didn't end up getting married when they "should" have, couldn't make it into a proper career or fell out of one at some point. Most upper middle class people won't be lonely since if you can afford a career you can afford a social life or you might even be forced into one. But of course uncertainty and insec…

> Most upper middle class people won't be lonely since if you can afford a career you can afford a social life or you might even be forced into one. Social life is not about having money (well unless you're really poor) - it's about having time and people to spend it with. You can be in top 5-10% of income and a total loner - plenty such people in tech.

[deleted]

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#278

Post by throwaway3627 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

mcdramamean wrote: post #244

Why do we need to "run away" from loneliness? Maybe we all need to spend more time alone AND off the phone to discover what really "makes us tick"? Find yourself, find a mission, find a purpose. Go do something. There is SOOOO much to be done... I mean it.. Like RIGHT NOW. If you don't have a mission.. Bruh... Go get one. Loneliness is simply childish. Children sit around and wish someone would talk to them. Adults g…

The mind atrophies without enough actual social contact, and also a proven link to more stress and shorter lifespans.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#279

Post by throwaway3627 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

major505 wrote: post #73

Really. I think the big problem here is social networks. Nobody interact face to face.I used to go to bars , look for a pretty girl and pay her a drink to start a conversation. Nowdays this is considered creep. They expect that I download an app, wait for a match ans just goeet for a quick chat and maybe some action. Just turn of your computers and go to a bar. Interact to people. Start conversations with stranger pe…

Brave New World with such people in it.

Re: The Loneliness Epidemic

#280

Post by barberousse » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #240

barberousse wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer who comes from the lower class (the West side ghetto of Chicago, in fact), let me tell you right now that lower class people socializing with their neighbors doesn't mean those interactions are at all inclusive of different approaches to life. Yeah, you get more socializing and connections, but those interactions tend to be constrained by forces like homophobia, racism, etc. Just because they'r…

1. nobody said the do or that they should "be inclusive" 2. miasma is a negative word (means repulsive) I agree however, it is actually one of the reasons that more well-off people tend to socialize less: other people are not always "wonderful"

1 - Of course not, but its a requisite to strong social bonds isn't it? The point is that that the discussion around fulfilling bonds is fairly underspecified to the point that it isn't practically useful from my perspective.

2 - Apologies, I was misusing the word