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Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#731

Post by arnejenssen »

Solitude is not the same as loneliness. A person can feel lonely surrounded by others. Like being the only non-drinker in a family Christmas celebration.

Loneliness is when there is a gap between desire for companionship/connection and reality.

I've done both extended periods of home office and a period of co-working in an open plan space. I didn't feel lonely in the home office. I guess because I did it by choice and had the agency to opt into joining a co-working.

I think that loneliness could be a symptom of lack of connection. And this need for connection can in some cases be fulfilled online or even through reading books. Participating in forums like hackernews or effect-ts satisfies some of the handful facets of connection that I need. It gives me a feeling of not being totally alone with some of my ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#733

Post by yibg »

neilk wrote: post #438

You have to be the one who creates things to do. Really, that’s it. You want to play D&D together, you host and DM. You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing. You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with. Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little…

Unfortunately a lot of these require either an existing network or high stakes interaction (sending invites, accepting invites etc). They're good advise, but can be hard to execute on for most people.

If we want to solve this at the society or community level, there needs to be more opportunities for low stakes interaction. Places that people can passively gather around a communal activity. I'm reminded of the ladies dancing together in public squares / parks in China. They're usually a group, but mostly anyone can join in. You can just follow along and interact as much as you'd like. If you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay and chat, stay and chat.

Downtown San Mateo for example has the potential for this. It's already a closed off street where people go. But today there aren't group activities there that encourages passive interaction, people are still in silos. Perhaps if there were some games / puzzles, chalk boards, townhall type of table setup, that'll encourage passive interaction.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#734

Post by watwut »

Aurornis wrote: post #161
pkulak wrote: post #61

Earlier 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…

What happens when they try to go to that place, they go there, they are there alone and bored. There is no one to talk with. So they end up being on the phone and more depressed.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#735

Post by watwut »

jselysianeagle wrote: post #115
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People 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. This is the wrong model: Sitting (alone) at home and working on program code or reading scientific textbooks does have a reward. Many things for which you go outside of the house or where you inte…

I think by "reward" in the context of this discussion on loneliness, OP may have meant the opportunity to meet people, make friends, perhaps hit it off with someone and land a date, if you're single. Not that it's entirely useless/detrimental to spend time at home reading or pursuing whatever solo hobbies you happen to have. To be sure, there certainly are many introverts who are perfectly happy on their own with no…

"Opportunity" is not reward. Actually making friends is reward. And that actually making friends requires a lot more then just "go outside somewhere we cant tell you where". If you just go to a cafe or club, you will sit alone in cafe or club. And if you walk to someone randomly, they wont appreciate it because it is weird.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#736

Post by bstsb »

mullingitover wrote: post #131

> So they sit on social media all day when they're not at work or school. How can we solve this? The naive solution is to place blame on the people who are influenced by the most advanced behavior modification schemes ever devised by humans. Kinda like how the plastic producers will push recycling, knowing they can shift blame for the pollution away from their production of the pollution, because people love blaming.…

the “real solution” wouldn’t involve isolating children in already marginalised minorities, making them lose one of the only sources of community they feel safe in.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#737

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

futuraperdita wrote: post #710
mullingitover wrote: post #131

> So they sit on social media all day when they're not at work or school. How can we solve this? The naive solution is to place blame on the people who are influenced by the most advanced behavior modification schemes ever devised by humans. Kinda like how the plastic producers will push recycling, knowing they can shift blame for the pollution away from their production of the pollution, because people love blaming.…

I don't see how the control and enforcement of "social media age verification" solves for the "people who are unable to stop... under their own willpower." My grandparents are more addicted to the phone than I am. Taking the superlative stance of social media being the "most advanced behavior modification schemes ever devised by humans" wouldn't the correct regulation be some sort of threshold of consumption (screen…

Laws and regulations are also ”advanced behaviour modification”. That is how they work. Tobacco is clear example of this, almost everybody used to smoke back in the 90’s and 00’s (including me) whereas after years of laws regulatios, taxation, public education, and providing healthcare for addiction, we are at the point where smokin makes you a loser rather than some cool Marlboro dude/dudette. There is very little society can do for grandparents addicted to fb, but we can prevent the same happening to the future elderly.

Limiting at which age you can use the product is just one part of the puzzle. You could also hit a big tax on ad revenue gained via social media to veer people off from ruining their brains. There is a host of others tools as well and I think we will see them implemented more and more. The tech billionaires fight back and rather fund a fascist dictator to power than lose a single cent, but there you go. But I think the Musk’s and the like have constantly stepped over boundaries to the extent that the tide has changed.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#738

Post by hexbin010 »

thephyber wrote: post #699
hexbin010 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not a rando taking a walk for mysterious and possible nefarious purposes Good god, where do you live where people think like that?

I take it you’ve never been on the NextDoor app or any neighborhood Facebook Groups…

The irony is they're the weirdos

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#739

Post by p_v_doom »

neilk wrote: post #438

You have to be the one who creates things to do. Really, that’s it. You want to play D&D together, you host and DM. You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing. You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with. Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little…

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

Problem is it gets fucking exhausting to organize and reach out after a while. Especially with DnD.

Re: Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?

#740

Post by watwut »

alecco wrote: post #397
hombre_fatal wrote: post #286

Spending time in parts of Latin America or western Europe or east Asia and then coming back to the US, you can see a lot of ways in which we've built loneliness into the fabric of US culture. It goes beyond car culture. It's probably illegal to build a cafe within walking distance of your neighborhood or into the first floor of your apartment complex. Americans get an idea of how bad we have it when we go on vacation…

> Latin America or western Europe or east Asia I can attest both LatAm and Europe are quickly turning the same way. At least in the bigger cities. Take public transport and 70% are frying their brains with their phones on algorithmic timelines, dumb mobile games, or worse. Women even more. You go to a bar and try to start a conversation and people look at you like you are a creep or a scammer. I've heard this happens…

Public transport was never a place where you start conversation with a stranger. Nor even meant to be that space. I genuinely do not understand why would you pick public transport as a place where you would expect people to socialize.

And yes, I was using public transport before cell phones. And yes, women are using public transport more then men, always were, because if the family have only one car, man is typically the one using it.

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