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Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

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Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#3
The real wisdom of this graph is that for people who aren't friends with their coworkers, they are spending 4x as much time with not friends as friends. For people who are friends with their coworkers they're just cheating on that play, boosting their friend time.

Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#4

I’ve seen this graph before and it always makes me very sad - friends and family fade after 40, and everyone ends up spending the vast majority of time alone past 60.

I would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.

Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#6

I’ve seen this graph before and it always makes me very sad - friends and family fade after 40, and everyone ends up spending the vast majority of time alone past 60.

I'd say the only major thing is time spent with friends sharply decreasing, but that happens in the 20s. Family is an odd one since there is also the category of children and partners. I guess family means your parents, siblings, and extended family? In general speech I would say spending time with your partner or kids counts as spending time with your family.

I also don't think the difference is that drastic over time. The charts shows people spending about 4-5 hours a day alone in their 30s-40s, and then 7-8 hours alone when they get into their 70s-80s. 2-3 hours extra per day doesn't seem like that much to me, especially when you consider the main reason is retiring from work

Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#7

I’ve seen this graph before and it always makes me very sad - friends and family fade after 40, and everyone ends up spending the vast majority of time alone past 60.

I would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.

Tragic for folks without a friend circle - your main remaining company is basically your partner which, unless you delight in each others company, isn't great.

Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#8

I’ve seen this graph before and it always makes me very sad - friends and family fade after 40, and everyone ends up spending the vast majority of time alone past 60.

I would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.

that you implicitly reduced family to "partner" says a lot. Not seeing your adult kids or them not seeing you or their grandparents, not maintaining a multi-generational and extended family, as used to be the case until very recently is a sad state of affairs in my opinion.

Re: Who do we spend time with across our lifetime? (2020)

#10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would reread the chart. Time with friends and time with partner stays the same through 60. You just don’t work as much, and your kids move out. It doesn’t seem so tragic to me.

that you implicitly reduced family to "partner" says a lot. Not seeing your adult kids or them not seeing you or their grandparents, not maintaining a multi-generational and extended family, as used to be the case until very recently is a sad state of affairs in my opinion.

I agree. I think we have taken a wrong turn when we 'decided' to ditch the extended family. As I get older I increasingly feel the deep wish to live with the ones I love in a group. Including my children and their children.

This by the way would solve a lot of societal problems we have, including health care, mental health, financial problems, parental care to name a few.

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