18 to 22 is the worst? Wow. That was unexpected!
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Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
151–160 of 344 posts
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, suicides are climbing, up 50% since 1999. It's the #2 cause of death of people between 10-34. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o...
To rephrase my question: is preventing suicide the primary reason why we should address loneliness?
I mean, loneliness also sucks? So that's one reason. Also there's evidence that it reduces life expectancy overall https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/does-... But why do we need to pick a primary reason?
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#153Incredible how the subtext here is "loneliness requires healthcare" rather than, say, "loneliness requires coordinated social change". Almost as if the goal is "how can we frame loneliness as an illness and reap some sweet insurance money."
I kind of agree with you, but what does positive "coordinated social change" look like? I can only think of negative ones, like those that occurred with radical political changes, or else explicit/thinly-veiled marketing campaigns for consumer goods..
Redesigning neighborhoods to be walkable not driveable. Rezoning so that more businesses can open near residential areas, so people can walk or bike to work, walk to get groceries, etc. More people around leads to more serendipitous interactions, maybe improved safety.
I guess that's not really coordinated social change, but I think tweaks to the context in which we live can have huge, positive social impacts.
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#154For a long time I've been wanting a "Tinder For Platonic Adults" app. I'm not looking for romance or sex, but I want to find nearby matches with similar interests; do you drink, play board games, are you married, how many kids and what age? There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just don't know how to find them . I'm a friendly guy and would love to have that friend that feels comfortable…
The solution is a one-on-one Meetup.com-style service. You post an event based on subject matter and see who joins. If more than one person is interested, you can make it a small group activity or you can decide to meet each one individually, to foster the potential friendship.
You can even provide your (free-time) schedule for the other person to mark a suggested time to hang out.
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#155I think a huge factor is the growing theme of social interaction being unacceptable. Back in the day you could walk up to and make friends with almost anyone, it wasn't weird to interact with strangers, thus making new acquaintances. Modern society stigmatizes that kind of interaction, don't talk to people you don't know if you don't want to be ostracized. You could want to befriend someone in a crowd, but come up wi…
I'm learning elixir and ios/android development to try and conquer this problem via friendly geolocation games which include lots of mandatory icebreakers like talking about favourites colors, current books being read and other harmless dumb stuff that helps get that social brain muscle pumping.
I like that. Would be nice with more games like that.
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#156"Decades of research substantiate the devastating effects of social isolation. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and increases the risk of death by 26-45%, which is on par with risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, and lack of exercise."
It would be interesting to know if men are more lonely than women as everything I've seen has shown that it's easier for women to join social circles and find dates whereas most men struggle with this. As a result, I wonder if this connects to the much high suicide rate for men.
I don’t have the study on me but there is evidence for that. The key I remember is that men bond over EXPERIENCES and doing things together, while for female-female (and male-female) interactions, just talking on the phone and catching up works. It changed how I approached some of my relationships (ex. Catch up with a male friend over a sport/activity vs over coffee)
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#157For a long time I've been wanting a "Tinder For Platonic Adults" app. I'm not looking for romance or sex, but I want to find nearby matches with similar interests; do you drink, play board games, are you married, how many kids and what age? There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just don't know how to find them . I'm a friendly guy and would love to have that friend that feels comfortable…
I founded a company that did this. Despite our best efforts and aggressive marketing campaigns, it turned into a dating site. For example, messaging almost entirely stopped when we only matched same sexes. We found that even if the app is used for making friends, people look for someone they're attracted to first, since it's just more fun. During our market research, nearly everyone wanted to meet new friends and lik…
And that's the difference between "listening to your customer" and "listening to your customer". Also we get to see where "the customer is always right" actually falls.
Customers said "we want a friend app". You listened to them, you made them what they wanted because they were right.
But once you listen to what your customers are actually doing, you realize where you should be focusing your energy. Because the customer can't use the app "wrong", they'll use it how they use it.
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#158I'm curious if this is a direct result of the internet and smartphones. The two make us feel more connected, more global, but I think it makes us more isolated. I miss talking to my friends on the phone, and hanging out in the 90s. Everything, especially how humans interact, is so digital today.
My hunch is that this isn't the primary reason for such high loneliness though. If smartphone and internet use is contributing so substantially to loneliness, you might expect loneliness to be increasing across the world. I am not sure if that is the case, but I would be surprised if all other countries with equivalent internet and smartphone usage would have similar rates of loneliness.
Was looking for this response as it's the key point.
If you're going to make a hypothesis that A leads to B then you should at other countries that also have A (in this case, lots of smart phones and internet) and see if they also have B (in this case loneliness). That doesn't seem to be the case, certainly not anywhere near the rate in the US.
This basic practice refutes a really large percent of unfounded views, and so is really a good habit to get into when looking to explain things.
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotal evidence suggests not all Bumble BFF seekers actually have platonic intentions, kind of defeating the point of the feature.
I mean, some percentage of people using any service which matches people up for social activities will not have platonic intentions, whether knowingly or not. I think the point of the feature is to minimise the chances of this being the case, right?
Nearly every dating site allows you to officially put you're looking for friends. It's the whole idea that people want to ideally marry their best friend, or that people want to be friends first before dating.
In my experience, nearly everyone hopes that a meeting from a dating site will be more than platonic, even if you go out of your way to set platonic expectations. After all, it's much easier to become friends if you're attracted to each other!
Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely
#160For a long time I've been wanting a "Tinder For Platonic Adults" app. I'm not looking for romance or sex, but I want to find nearby matches with similar interests; do you drink, play board games, are you married, how many kids and what age? There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just don't know how to find them . I'm a friendly guy and would love to have that friend that feels comfortable…
If you have hobbies, look for a meetup around them. If you have pretty generic interests (wine, board games, and cheesecake), perhaps the best thing you can do is join a unitarian universalist church near you. It's all of the social benefits of church without the need to (pretend to) believe in anything specific. Failing that, you can probably find another reasonable-ish religious community. There's a huge spectrum,…
...and if you don't have a hobby, get one! no one really wants to know about your job, they have one of their own.
If you want people to be interested in you, be interesting!