go volunteer. they're needed everywhere. problem solved. most able-bodied lonely people are that way because they can't be arsed to get off the damn couch. they would just rather discuss loneliness on social media. I can't be arsed either, but I don't feel lonely when I'm alone, which is the majority of the time.
Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
211–220 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#212People need to purposefully and intentionally do things. Sitting home on an app, watching TV is easy. There is no fear or rejection, there is no work to get out of the house, there is no risk. But there is also no reward. My thoughts on this are you need to have multiple roots into your community. This is something that you go to often and talk to people, become a regular, say hi. Think back to how your parents or gr…
> 2. Join a religious organization. Go to church, but also join the mens/womens group, join a bible studies class. Attend every week. So no atheists then?
if [ atheist ] then
's/joins a religious org/join a service org/'
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#213I normally don't contribute to HN comments these days (too much anger in the comments section) but I appreciate your post and activities. I am a tail-end boomer in the U.S. so my experiences were with a world where socializing was more functional: we shopped in public, played in public, read in public libraries, watched movies in public, rode transit together, etc. Being in public was a requirement, not a choice. Whi…
Your first paragraph is what I've always thought: "back in the day" most people simply didn't have the option to be a hermit. In modern life, your bills, grocery shopping, car registration, hobbies, etc. can all be handled online / in your home.
In my opinion, it takes a lot of time and energy to avoid loneliness in the modern era. So, advice about "just get yourself out there" is technically accurate, but it misses the mark since previous generations didn't need to put much thought, if any, into socializing. Perhaps not everyone is wired to focus so much energy into that aspect of their life and we're seeing that play out with modern amenities?
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#214I'm also in this group, so I have a few theories as to what causes it and how to fix it. For one thing, I was severely traumatized as a kid, which delayed a lot of my social skills. I'm catching up but not all the way there yet. When my social battery is full, I can do pretty well, but if I'm even a little down, it's basically impossible to act normally. I also had it hammered into me as a kid that nobody wants me ar…
Traumatic childhood almost always messes with how one attaches with people. A small exceptional fraction somehow manage to remain unaffected.
When attachment styles get warped, behaviors that were a self protective behavior in childhood, become self-defeating behaviors in adult life. The person is quite oblivious to all this because those behaviors and fragile modes of attachment feel perfectly normal -- it is like growing up in a different g (acceleration due to gravity).
It feels like - I am right, it's the others who are wrong, unfair, greedy, needy, flakey, stupid.
For me this book [0] was very helpful for understanding what's going on in and around me
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#215We (reading this) can't do anything. An enlightened government might set policy in such ways as to fix this over the course of decades, but I don't even seen that being acknowledged as possible or desirable in those same decades. The problem will continue to deteriorate until it becomes catastrophic.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
Exactly this. Vote for representatives that want to build walkable cities, support small businesses, and want to build parks. Suburban sprawl sucks.
No it doesn't. I live in a planned neighborhood in the suburbs. I can walk to a branch of my local library, a few restaurants, a bar, a bookstore, I even get my haircut in my neighborhood. And even if none of that existed, nothing has stopped me from being friends with my neighbors, or the parents of my kid's friends. The suburbs are a different model with tradeoffs, but they're also useful for periods and phases of life different from the ones served by urban settings.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place
The common retort is that these don't exist any more, but in my experience they're all over. If you have kids you start seeing them everywhere, too. They're not as classically romantic as an ancient Greek agora, but there are plenty of spaces. During the summer I'm probably at a different space 5 days a week with the kids after school. I think the real problem is that some people forget how to go places. It's so easy…
Also, people forgot how to find places. If you're driving a car, places speed by too fast to see or remember (and it's dangerous to spend too much time looking at them). On Google, places are actively hidden from you for the sake of making the map look "cleaner". Every time I go downtown (on transit, not by car) I notice new shit that just doesn't exist on the map unless you specifically type in the name to get Google to admit that it exists.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#218build another software platform /s This community is not going to be the one to solve that problem, sorry.
I actually wanted to suggest government funded online dating, so we aren't beholden to godawful Tinder and its clones (OkCupid was great for me until it got bought out and turned into Tinder).
OkCupid was great before it got turned into a swiping app. Such a shame.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#219I don't think this will ever be resolved.
It's a twofold problem, I believe. People are lonely because of fear of rejection and also actively avoid new people out of caution and high standards.
So two people who are otherwise lonely will make no effort to connect.
I think social networks have done a tremendous amount of damage to our collective psyche. Because on the web, you can single-click permanently block someone and never see them again. If you are admin of a group this person is in, you can also ban this person and prevent them from interacting with members of the group (in the group, that is, you cannot control private messages, but by banning someone from a community you are effectively isolating them), and I think we haven't considered how much power we are giving to random Reddit mods due to this.
Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
#220People are suffering from PCNS. Here is a great documentary about it https://youtu.be/9kqgF5O354E?si=5UMifCZuk_sP71m0