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Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

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Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#111

Post by keithpeter »

auctiontheory wrote: post #68

In poor countries, like India, you have no privacy at all. The overreaction, in rich countries like the US, is to buy privacy the richer you get. But Americans take it to extremes, buying huge houses that allow them to go days without interacting with another person. In fact, not having to deal with other people is considered a desirable luxury. Sit at home and eat and watch TV and shop. I know people who drive (down…

As a child (1960s) in a working class neighbourhood in the Liverpool area (UK), we lived in small terraced houses and lived very close to the neighbours. The children played in the road (hardly any cars) and in a park and on the beach (not the cleanest). During our long summer days (52.5 degrees North) we had the whole day down the beach. Basic safety: we stuck together and avoided strangers, but we spoke to known adults such as bargemen, ferrymen, train drivers, tug crew &c

Now I see children in nurseries behind substantial railings (safeguarding). They are protected from any contact with adults who are not in the immediate family. The family may or may not know the neighbours at all as modern housing seems to be designed to reduce contact - placement of doors &c. Playing on the street is impossible as your street is almost certainly a rat run for commuters.

I think I'm seeing real changes not just remembering my childhood with rose tinted glasses. I certainly see the effects in the 17/8 year olds I teach for one class. They have no idea about how adults live and communicate.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#112

Post by mtdewcmu »

sejje wrote: post #44
ams6110 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try doing volunteer work on the weekends for some cause you care about. One it will get you out of the house and two you will meet people who may be like-minded but are different enough from your co-workers as to be more interesting. I'd recommend also trying church. Not trying to push religion, but it's a way to get involved with a group of people who often organize social or community activities.

Serious question: do you (or anyone else) think it's immoral to go to church as an atheist just to meet people? I get along really well with church people, but I simultaneously hate talking about religion.

One of the benefits of being an atheist IMO is not having to worry about unwittingly committing trivial sins. No one is keeping score.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#113

Post by keithpeter »

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #57
Pxtl wrote: post #56

Part of the problem is that loneliness has a terrible feedback loop. Isolation makes you bitter and desperate and then nobody wants to be around you. Do it too long and your culture starts diverging from the main and connecting with new people is like crossing a river.

Then that culture is broken. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

I can be in the game and interacting with my neighbours, co-workers, students to try to change things. I can combine with like minded people and try to amplify my influence. I can use the rather tinny megaphone the Internet gives me to spread critical thinking beyond my local environment (through the thin broth of text and argument as opposed to the rich stew of shared action and problem solving). In the process, I may have to compromise some of my thinking but not, I find, the core values.

Or I can sit out the game and polish my wellness.

I think the former is better for me.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#114

Post by mtdewcmu »

Amadou wrote: post #90
sejje wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: do you (or anyone else) think it's immoral to go to church as an atheist just to meet people? I get along really well with church people, but I simultaneously hate talking about religion.

Serious question: do you (or anyone else) think it's immoral to go to church as an atheist just to meet people? My opinion, as an atheist who finds personal religiosity quite boring, but finds the cultural phenomena of religion rather interesting, is that most people who attend church do so for socialization rather than faith. Most people (not all) don't really know much about their own religion, they just participat…

My opinion, as an atheist who finds personal religiosity quite boring... is that most people who attend church do so for socialization rather than faith. Most people (not all) don't really know much about their own religion, they just participate in the rituals because that's what they've always done and they've had no reason to really question it.

I've observed that, but I've never understood it. I was raised to go to church on Sundays, but I found it about as enjoyable as going to prison. As a child, adults would tell me that someday I would start to like going to church, but it never happened. I seem to lack whatever gene makes people begin to like things and continue doing them just out of habit.

As an irony, I was a good student in CCD (Catholic education) and I probably possess more knowledge about Catholicism and Christianity than those habitual church-goers. I like to know things, but I can't stand the tedious rituals. It just shows that knowledge of religion and actually practicing it are not related or perhaps negatively correlated.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#115

Post by mrcactu5 »

My 7 year old nephew can't tell the difference yet between the carefully scripted dialogues we hear on TV and the impromptu ones we hear face to face.

Social media has enriched our online-interactions at the expensive of face-to-face.

We can find exactly the person we want to talk to - virtually, and maybe in person - why deal with anyone else?

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#116

Post by thenomad »

So what can we do to fix this?

I mean, we're hackers, right? We build things that solve problems.

What can we build to solve this problem?

Some initial thoughts:

1) Personally, I've observed that video chat comes a lot closer to genuine human contact than anything else digital. Better video chat technology would be useful. Also, ChatRoulette but not terrible?

2) Infoproducts - perhaps it's time for an update of "How To Win Friends And Influence People" with more emphasis on the "Win Friends" part? There's a surprising lack of solid information on how to actually make contact with human beings.

3) There are loads of dating sites out there, but no friend-making sites. It's gotta be a solvable problem at least to the (terrible but usable) extent that dating sites have solved the finding-a-partner problem.

4) Nootropics? Cranial stimulation? Brain-training for chronically lonely people? Something even crazier?

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#117

Post by reinhardt »

evanmoran wrote: post #22

When I was in college a classmate of mine would come by every day or so to my dorm. He would just hang out, talking about class or whatever. I couldn't understand why he kept coming over, but I was too polite to mention anything. Turns out, he came by because we were friends. In fact, we had been friends the whole time, but I didn't know it! What I missed is that the stages between meeting people and friendship look…

I've never really grasped the concept of "hanging out". I feel a get-together has to have a tangible purpose, be it solving a problem, playing a game, cooking or whatnot. Hanging out without a specific "agenda" has always felt forced, awkward and in the long term boring, resulting in me gradually withdrawing from most social circles I've found myself in. I guess I don't get the point of abstract friendship for its own sake.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#118

Post by petercooper »

keithpeter wrote: post #111
auctiontheory wrote: post #68

In poor countries, like India, you have no privacy at all. The overreaction, in rich countries like the US, is to buy privacy the richer you get. But Americans take it to extremes, buying huge houses that allow them to go days without interacting with another person. In fact, not having to deal with other people is considered a desirable luxury. Sit at home and eat and watch TV and shop. I know people who drive (down…

As a child (1960s) in a working class neighbourhood in the Liverpool area (UK), we lived in small terraced houses and lived very close to the neighbours. The children played in the road (hardly any cars) and in a park and on the beach (not the cleanest). During our long summer days (52.5 degrees North) we had the whole day down the beach. Basic safety: we stuck together and avoided strangers, but we spoke to known ad…

The children played in the road (hardly any cars) and in a park

Now I see children in nurseries behind substantial railings

The family may or may not know the neighbours at all

There's a separate issue which reveals itself in what you say but which wasn't specifically addressed.

A big reason for less community cohesion nowadays is that no longer are large numbers of parents staying at home and interacting in the community while looking after their kids. Instead, the majority are going to work and putting their kids in nurseries instead.

I live in Lincolnshire where many of the villages used to have thriving communities and shops, yet are now commuter villages and everyone has to drive to town to buy things instead.

The reason? There aren't hundreds of (mostly) mothers milling around acting as the glue for the village communities. Instead, they're all out at work and the kids are in the nurseries in town.

This isn't a particularly politically correct point to make, however, since obviously mothers should be free to work if they wish, but the movement of millions of mothers from daily community life into the workforce has had a serious impact on modern British society.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#119

Post by hrjet »

auctiontheory wrote: post #92
hrjet wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating loneliness (the feeling) with isolation (the physical separation).

They are positively correlated. TFA suggests that physical separation contributes to loneliness.

I read it twice and I don't see any such suggestion in the article. Rather it cites a study that actually suggests the opposite:

> Forty per cent of high-rise dwellers felt lonely, almost twice the number (22 per cent) living in detached homes.

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