Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health • Hacker News Board

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#91

Post by Mwntalhwalth » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

Wfh since long before covid (15 years) . It will 100% burn you out slowly while you think you are better and stronger than it. Feels good at the beginning likely b.c your current job is super toxic and your away from your boss but there are many factors largely due to isolation that will settle in.

To survive wfh you need to concentrate heavily on early morning sunlight, walks throughout the day, yoga, acupuncture, blue light glasses at night time, major attempts to get out and socialize outside of work, creating a safe place in your home for working so you don't mix them together, get out in nature, tend to a garden otherwise aka try really hard not to work after hours and offset the toxicity of wfh.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#92

Post by poszlem » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:29 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #9

Working remotely or in an office requires a routine that includes having other interests and hobbies scheduled and on the calendar.

Interestingly, when times were good, companies did everything in their power to pull employees' hobbies, interests, and social lives into the workplace. Hence the huge "campuses" and all the rest. Now, suddenly, everyone is surprised that people have no life outside of work.

This may turn out to be a huge wake-up call, perhaps even for the best. People may start going back to a proper 9-to-5, closing their laptops at the end of the day and actually living their lives. Let's hope that the next time the market goes crazy, we remember these lessons - though I'm very doubtful.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#93

Post by wonderwonder » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:32 PM UTC

I’ve worked remotely for about 8 years now. I currently have zero IRL friends and if not for my wife and kids I would go months without speaking to another person. For the last 4 years I didn’t even have standups, I could go weeks without speaking to anyone at work besides the occasional teams message. I have daily standups now and they are mentally exhausting.

The only time I leave the house is gym, to take the kids somewhere, grocery shopping or similar. I have forgotten how to even pretend to care when people speak to me, they are all npcs to me. I don’t remember anyone’s name. To be clear this is a personal flaw due to my isolation, not anything to do with them.

It’s been like this for so long that I have no desire to change, it’s simply the way things are now. When I take the kids to sports my wife asks if I interacted with the other parents and Im not sure why or even how I would do that.

I have the gym though which I love, headphones on, music up and grind, alone in the crowd.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#94

Post by tensor » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:32 PM UTC

obscurette wrote: post #63

small_model wrote: post #35

But if I want to be social why does it have to be people I didnt choose (i.e. co workers). Why can I WFH and socialise with my family/friends who I choose to be with. This is basically nothing to do with remote work and more about isolation.

Being forced to interact with people you haven't chosen to socialize is good for your mental health and for society. People interacting with different people are less afraid of the world, more trusting etc. Clustering into echochambers is bad for society as a whole.

I don't think it has anything to do with echo chambers. It's simply that weak tie relationships are different than close ties, and very valuable. This narrative that we somehow are required to interact with people who are "very different" (often it actually means "offensive to us") is something that seems to be pushed by the US alt-right very hard. I call BS on it.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#95

Post by Cyclone_ » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:34 PM UTC

sharts wrote: post #87

tianqi wrote: post #71

I don't understand how the research methodology used in the article supports this conclusion. How did they rule out the possibility that the post-pandemic economic situation has had a greater impact on these jobs, leading to greater stress? How did they we rule out that remote work has led to greater range of outsourcing, resulting in more intense competition for these jobs, rather than that caused by the lack of soc…

Unless the research is going to get funded to the tune of billions, they likely had to cut some corners

Billions? Where are you seeing a need for billions to do a study like that?

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#96

Post by shmel » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC

ZpJuUuNaQ5 wrote: post #67

ajkjk wrote: post #3

> After the pandemic, workers in remote-capable jobs spent more time working alone and avoided social activities with their friends, remaining more isolated both during and after work. This pattern was most pronounced among remote workers living alone: They spent entire days without human contact and their mental distress, use of mental healthcare, and antidepressants increased acutely. One of those results which is…

>This pattern was most pronounced among remote workers living alone: They spent entire days without human contact and their mental distress, use of mental healthcare, and antidepressants increased acutely. I guess there is a cultural component to it too, or maybe I'm just that much disconnected from humanity. It's just hard for me to imagine that spending time alone would, in general, affect someone so much that they…

It's certainly personal. I live alone for the last 11 years and I remember the pandemic as the worst period of my life exactly because I couldn't interact with people. Surely moving to another city just before played a role, but I realized that one week stuck at home was enough to drive me completely insane. While going to office doesn't replace normal social life, it's still something that helped me before. After the pandemic I kept WFH, but found a relatively big and diverse friend circle. Now I treat social life as something mandatory like food and sleep because I learned that even "going out" alone (grab a dinner somewhere and go to a cinema or something like that) barely helps when I need to connect with someone and have a meaningful conversation. And yet, some of my friends are exactly like you, they barely noticed the pandemic and were perfectly happy to stay at home and tinker with their side projects.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#97

Post by Cyclone_ » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC

Mwntalhwalth wrote: post #91

Wfh since long before covid (15 years) . It will 100% burn you out slowly while you think you are better and stronger than it. Feels good at the beginning likely b.c your current job is super toxic and your away from your boss but there are many factors largely due to isolation that will settle in. To survive wfh you need to concentrate heavily on early morning sunlight, walks throughout the day, yoga, acupuncture, b…

I've felt the same way. At first it felt great to be able to get more done both at work and at home. But I did feel more isolated as time went on. The last in person place(with some hybrid) I was at had super toxic coworkers but the 2 places I've been at that are fully remote all had great ones. So it's a little disappointing now that they don't allow in person.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#98

Post by bentley » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #33

ubertaco wrote: post #10

This reminds me of growing up as a homeschooled kid and hearing people ask my parents "but how will they socialize?", generally while we were at the youth soccer field or at the playground or somewhere else that the irony should have caught their attention. Homeschooled kids can be isolated more because they don't have the forcing function of mandatory group settings, but often there are other opportunities available…

Homeschooled people just assume others must be unhappy in those places where they dont go, but that is not the case and not shown in statistics. Also, those people asking the question you find weird were asking about the experiences and kind of socialization that they consider big deal and was not going on in that place.

As someone who was public schooled six years and homeschooled six years, public school definitely made me more unhappy, and was worse for me socially.

Of course, I wouldn’t assume everyone in my shoes would have the same experience. But it definitely cemented my positive opinion about homeschooling generally.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#99

Post by wonderwonder » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:39 PM UTC

gbraad wrote: post #26

This is also why having a good manager is key; I worked as an engineering manager and kept a near weekly 1-1 with my engineers, not per se to socialize, but to allow them to ask questions about the tasks, implementation comments, etc. but the environment I created allowed them to talk other stuff. All my associates appreciated this mix of technical talk, but also fun discussions, etc. I am sure it help them to stay a…

I work remotely, my manager for the last 4 years had a 1:1 on the books every Friday. We met a total of 7 times, 4 of those were to give me my annual review and tell me my bonus.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#100

Post by smeej » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 11:40 PM UTC

This seems like such a classic example of mixing up correlation and causation.

Who's more likely to choose a job that can be done from home? People who already have reasons they'd rather not go out and spend their entire day around other people. How do you control for all those reasons?