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The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

happiness.hks.harvard.edu

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Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#121

Post by dartharva »

prhn wrote: post #35

I'm not sure what caused this, but I think the expectations of modern friendship have become unrealistic. Maybe it's movies and TV, where a "close friend" is more or less a non judgemental therapist that will throw down in a fight for you. What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us hav…

Have I been watching the wrong movies? Because from my perspective Hollywood's depiction of friends is a rather sorry benchmark - most depictions are of exemplarily bad friends.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#122

Post by barry-cotter »

BruceEel wrote: post #30
tycho-newman wrote: post #12

It's not lost, just no longer necessary for survival. Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Until recently, individuals needed to be part of some sort of kinship group to get their needs met and to survive. To communicate with anyone in near real time you had to be close by. We have managed to engineer a society where individuals can survive "on their own" - basically outside their kinship group…

> Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. And, what would be some sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale.

> Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder.

No. Imagined communities are fake communities with none of the feedback mechanisms that make real communities resilient to elements that have extremely different priorities to the median member. See how the Swedish Social Democrats imported over 1% of the Swedish population in one year from Syria.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#123

Post by barry-cotter »

carlosjobim wrote: post #90
BruceEel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. And, what would be some sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale.

Yes, when the nation is ethnically homogenous you can have that. But it's not a guarantee. "I against my brother. I and my brother against my cousin. I, my brother, and my cousin against the world" -Arab Proverb

It’s a Bedouin proverb, not an Arab one, and it’s me, not I.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#124

Post by paulryanrogers »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #46
paulryanrogers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only modern technology taking up time. I foolishly bought a project house and have spent nearly every weekend and some weeknights doing repairs and improvements. My SO also tends toward time consuming hobbies like gardening and aquariums. Add young children and every free moment in between is precious.

But you see the Amish, they just rebuilt a whole lumber sawmill in only eight days. https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1915121027820159414 Your project house was an individual pursuit when it should be a collective one.

My project has involved neighbors, family, and even a few contractors. But unlike a barn built from scratch there are a lot of random bespoke tasks. Many of them require judgement and experimenting to make it work. Sadly the property was neglected a long time, and poorly built in the first place. Bulldozing and having a new house professionally built would've been faster, produced a better outcome, and only been moderately more expensive--in hindsight.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#125

Post by [deleted] »

oddthink wrote: post #56

I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk. On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat din…

[deleted]

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#126

Post by globnomulous »

> has fallen by nearly threefold

What on earth does this word salad mean? Fallen by 300%? 200%? 75%? 2/3? All are reasonable interpretations of this incoherent math.

> to tolerate the messy work of forming friendships

If it's true that people are becoming worse at maintaining friendships and losing some skill or tendency they require, then people are ipso facto also worse at being friends. (And even if there's no ipso facto corollary, the following seems just as valid an explanation for the decline in friendship as the author's expnarion: not that anybody is worse at maintaining friendships but rather that there are fewer friendships worth maintaining, fewer people worth the effort.)

I have no idea whether this is actually happening. I'm just stunned by the article's poor, predictable reasoning and odious, sanctimonious, middle-brow, TED-talk moralism: the author takes it as a given that we "manifest" our social lives, that somehow (magically?) our intention and dedication create the desired reality. The author doesn't consider an alternative hypothesis.

But if I tell you that someone is a bad, tedious, or insufferable friend, you won't expect, let alone (I hope) encourage, me to "tolerate the messy work," demonstrate the "courage" this author has decided is missing, or "show up" and be "vulnerable." You'll encourage me, rather, to save my energy for those who deserve it.

If social skills have withered in some portion of a person's pool of available, possible friends, then that person not only cannot be blamed for ending friendships; doing so is actually the best outcome, short of "manifesting" more tolerable people.

Edit:

> embedded myself in existing social structures and prioritized in-person social activities —ecstatic dance gatherings at the Harvard Divinity School, morning prayers at Memorial Church

Uh huh. If you're the kind of person who decides, I don't know, to seek friendship through daemonic possession, speaking in tongues, or, I don't know, shaman-guided spirit journeys, you're not someone whose advice I particularly want.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#127

Post by BruceEel »

barry-cotter wrote: post #122
BruceEel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. And, what would be some sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale.

> Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. No. Imagined communities are fake communities with none of the feedback mechanisms that make real communities resilient to elements that have extremely different priorities to the median member. See how the Swedish Social Democrats imported over 1% of the Swedish population in one year from Syria.

Interesting take. And yeah, indeed, Sweden. It breaks my heart.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#128

Post by nayuki »

The content was alright but the fade-in animation of every single paragraph was annoying. This is a text article, not a startup company's marketing page! It was especially bad when I was hitting Page Down quickly to try to skim the content; the animation forced me to wait until the text showed up.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#129

Post by h2zizzle »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #76
oddthink wrote: post #56

I don't really get where people with kids found these 6.5 hrs / wk to spend on friendships, or even the quoted current averages of 4 hrs / wk. On a workday, there isn't much time. I roll out of bed at 6:30, get the kids up and fed breakfast and out the door. I finally get actually working at 8:30-9:30, depending on if I exercise or not. Stop work in the 5:30-6 range, switch into making dinner, getting kids to eat din…

I have 2 young kids, run a widely used open source project and a startup, eat dinner with my kids 6/7 nights a week and do this. Here’s some ways how: My best friend comes over once a weekend and we watch the TV that my wife doesn’t want to. I participate in a sport (powerlifting) where I’ve made friends and there’s room to socialise while exercising. I chose to move back to my home town and also go to college there.…

>We pay for a cleaner.

Buried lede.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#130

Post by highstep »

torben-friis wrote: post #34
dm03514 wrote: post #16

For the us, I feel like it’s late stage individualism. This is what happens I think when people prioritize themselves over their communities, I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before. We can order grocery pickup and not even have to be physically around people for basic life tasks. We order ne…

It’s not only lack of dependence, but also lack of idleness. Most of my friend interactions would come from things like having a moment with nothing to do in the bus, realizing I have no particular plans this weekend and reaching out to a couple friends to see if they’re available. Now those moments are instantly drowned by opening instagram before a thought bubbles up. And when the weekend eventually comes and there…

you're right. Now delete that app!
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