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Who Americans spend their time with, by age

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71–80 of 432 posts

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#71
The underlying data here is, of course, a distribution (each with its own distinct shape). In this case, I suspect that the "average" statistic is not the best representative of that distribution.

For instance, "children" is definitely a bimodal distribution. There are many people in life who never have children, and therefore drag down the average for all those who do have children.

I suspect that, in reality, there are many modes for each of these dimensions, at each point in time. I think seeing the modes would be more interesting than the averages.

If you believe in free will, you can probably choose which mode you'll end up closest to. You certainly aren't doomed to be in some statistically-unlikely valley in-between. There's hope you won't die alone, in spite of what the picture painted by the average might say.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#72
I’m most surprised by the time with friends. I expected it to peak later and be higher. I wonder whether it counts roommates.

I know that spending less time with friends has been a particularly difficult aspect of aging for me, and I expect similar for many people.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#73
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

I agree and disagree. I'm certainly not arguing that industrialization isn't miraculous. Even from a parenting perspective, I think most would rather raise their kids in a stressful nuclear family than watch half of them die from preventable diseases. If you read about the anthropology of childrearing it's filled with endless heartbreaking accounts of parents having to make choices about letting one kid die to focus their resources on more viable children.

But the point I do want to make is that our physiology and psychology is largely fine tuned by evolution for a certain operating environment. When we step outside that environment, it often introduces dysfunction in unpredictable ways.

An extreme example: as land animals we wouldn't survive very long at the bottom of the sea. More prosaic example: it's undeniable an environment with many more and tastier calories creates chronic health problems. Metabolic disease is virtually unknown in hunter-gatherers.

A rough heuristic is that removing purely adversarial elements from the evolutionary environment produces an improvements. Pathogens, predators, physical injuries, birth-related traumas, and famine. Removing or mitigating those elements are the main reason life expectancies have improved relative to hunter-gathers. But once you step outside the totally hostile elements, most environmental changes tend to be neutral at best and harmful at worst. Physiology and psychology rely on delicately tuned equilibria, which are easy to disrupt. The consequences aren't terrible, but do tend to subtly accumulate over time. Hunter-gathers die fast because they get a concussion and bleed out. Westerners die slow from the accumulation of plaque in their arteries.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#74

I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty nest' and mid-life crisis.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

The western nuclear family is exactly what you get in agrarian societies of the past. It wasn't just some random thing the people of the 1950s made up on the spot.

When 4/6 of your sons grow to adulthood you can't live in the same household as all of them. You live with one of them (probably the most or least functional one). 2 of the others have their own farms (one probably gets yours, maybe you split your farm between them if it's big enough) so you probably pick one of them. The 4th you never see because he runs a business making cart wheels or something in the next village over. The 5th left town to get a job in the port by the sea when he was 15 and you haven't seen him since. And of your daughters that survived childhood will all move in with their husbands. If you run the numbers for them it's the same thing.

Multi generational households don't work at scale simply because of the numbers involved. Anyone pretending that that's how most people lived prior to the industrial revolution doesn't understand how many kids people had back then. At best you might get 10-25% of households having a grandparent around depending on the infant mortality rate at any given time. The birth rates and life expectancy just don't support more. 10-25% certainly isn't abnormal, but implying it is the default is Olympic level mental gymnastics.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#75

The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our built environment. If you live in a village with multiple generations of a family around, it’s much easier for grandparents to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the village, especially keeping an eye on t…

My grandma sold her house and we used some of the money to convert our garage into an apartment for her so that she could live with our family. Certainly not everyone can do this but living with your parents/grandparents as they get older does seem like a reasonable “fix” to me.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#76
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is a poor substitute for real physical connection with other people.

Is it that poor? During the pandemic my son has stayed in touch with his friends on the phone in these big group chats and smaller chats as well. I’m amazed at how natural it has become for them. They talk, gossip, play games (Roblox, Fortnite, nba 2k), and even watch YouTube and TikTok together. I think the model they created will persist into post Covid, with the addition of physical connection.

It is a poor substitution. Online groups nowadays are inherently exclusive and degenerative: they very rarely grow to include new individuals who were not in from the start and often will shrink over time as people feel slighted by something or another and disengage. There is no opportunity for growth. Social groups get crystallized and social growth stunted.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#77
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a question of good or bad, but of pragmatism in not fighting against the way that our bodies and minds were designed. Software is limited by the constraints of the hardware it runs on--engineers who try to ignore this will write slow and buggy software. Similarly, if we design lifestyles and societies that ignore, clash with, or subvert our biological and bio-psychological imperatives, we are likel…

> not fighting against the way that our bodies and minds were designed Our minds and bodies were not designed. They evolved — slowly — under conditions of relatively harshness and scarcity that to a large extent no longer exist. The human "habitat" has changed radically in the past several hundred years. One might argue that we're no longer adapted to our environment. Evolution doesn't work quickly enough for that. I…

They were in a sense designed by an impersonal process--but I agree "design" isn't the best word since it implies intention.

I would agree that we are no longer adapted to our environment, and this seems to be the cause of many "modern" forms of suffering that are unrelated to scarcity, like mental illness and diseases of over-consumption. To me this implies that we have done a bad job in creating an environment for ourselves. We replaced suffering caused by scarcity (something we historically had little control over) with suffering caused by deliberate choices.

The point isn't that aligning our choices with biological and psychological needs will end all suffering. It's that not doing so pretty much guarantees a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#78

The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our built environment. If you live in a village with multiple generations of a family around, it’s much easier for grandparents to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the village, especially keeping an eye on t…

I remember a trip to Hong Kong. I was very surprised to see a lot of old folks hanging out together, in the park, or traditional restaurants. Actually, even in NYC, there were always a lot of elderlies spending time in the Deli near my home. Maybe the secret is to retire in a place where one can maintain a good social life at an advanced age.

This is very true. Unfortunately such places are almost all very expensive these days. So if you’re not already into late retirement age (and you moved there 40 years ago when it was affordable), then it’s not economically feasible for most people to get in now.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#79
post #61

Interesting. Totally anecdotal here, but here are my thoughts: As I get older, I see less value in friendships, mostly because I realize that many of my friendships didn't serve me and added a lot of stress to my life (and distracted from time that could have been spent on career / legacy). Meanwhile, time invested in my personal life, hobbies, and career pays off in spades - spending a few months getting better at a…

Yeah I agree, it is funny hearing younger people claim that all of their friends are their best friends and as they get older their relationships dwindle. I suspect that it is crucial for young people to have more relationships in order to socialize them during early development. Once you hit your 40's having too many relationships becomes a burden.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#80
post #47

What I find interesting is time spent with coworkers. It's about equal to time spent with partner throughout most of adulthood, and it's significantly higher than time spent with friends. Unsurprisingly, time spent with coworkers drops precipitously at retirement age, but perhaps surprisingly, time spent with friends does not then increase to compensate. A lot of people in the comments are talking about children, but…

The post-Covid remote utopia so many seem to be excited about is going to be hard for a lot of workers. Work, lunch, happy hour, bowling, league sports. Now they all have is Slack.
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