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Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

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Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#231

Post by pastor_elm »

gwbas1c wrote: post #61

Honestly, I've never had problems talking to random strangers. Some of my best friends were random strangers at first. IMO, the problem has nothing to do with the internet. Instead, the problem has more to do with poorly controlling marketing and homelessness. Political correctness also takes a toll. When I lived in the Bay Area, most of the time I was randomly approached, "on the street," it was from a homeless pers…

>Even political correctness takes a toll. If I start talking with someone who has a different opinion than me, or is a difference race than me, faux pas get blown out of proportion

You call it a 'faux pas,' others would call it casual racism or casual sexism, etc. Funny enough, when you point this out to a lot of people, they wind up being the ones to blow up about it.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#232

Post by skookumchuck »

godot wrote: post #36
Rotdhizon wrote: post #9

I 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 feel like these interactions go through phases of 1. Being ok and acceptable and even enjoyable at first; 2. People abuse it more and more; 3. Gradually turns into a negative experience in general; 4. The ordinary person will then avoid it and that becomes the norm. Taking your example of meeting people online. I was on the internet in the late 90s as a teenager and it was incredibly easy and fun to meet people on…

> Nowadays this is almost not the norm anymore.

A couple years back I knocked on the door of a stranger's house. A man answered it with "what the f*ck do you want?" I replied "the car in your driveway has its lights on." He softened up immediately and thanked me.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#233

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

nyokodo wrote: post #8
ronnier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Women attempt suicide at a rate 40 to 60% higher than men. Men on the other hand die at a greater rate because of the greater use of lethal means like guns etc. It still may be that loneliness is a greater factor in male depression but gender differences in suicide rates are misleading indicators.

I've always wondered just how reliable the suicide stat is because once someone commits suicide, they are no longer able to attempt it.

It's kinda like how one has to be careful measuring people interviewing for jobs, since someone who interviews poorly will spend many interviews before being hired but someone who interviews well will only do a few (on average). So measuring the average ability of the candidate in interviews will be worse than the average ability of people who have been interviewed.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#234

Post by grawprog »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #9

I 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…

How much of that is in your head though? I learned a lot from a friend of mine who is completely and entirely unabashed when it comes to talking to anyone and everyone in public. Most people responded positively. My friend would compliment random people's clothing, ask random questions to people point stuff out randomly. Any time i'm out with this friend we end up talking to random people and 99% of the time it ends positively.

I take public transit a lot and I always see people start random conversations with strangers over little things. People usually don't even respond too badly to the crazy people who talk to everyone. Unless they're being rude or agressive the worst reaction I tend to see is people politely ignoring people like that.

I also have random people come up and talk to me fairly regularly, i've had some great conversations with random people i've met.

My dad gave me a piece of advice he got from a friend of his when he was young about interacting with people in public. It helps to remember most people are just as nervous and afraid of you as you are of them, but at the same time, most people are looking for someone to talk to.

Paying attention to people's body language and reactions helps. If you pay attention you can usually tell the difference between someone who's nervous and someone who just doesn't want to talk.

People really aren't so bad. You gotta remember humans are social animals interacting with eachother is something we naturally do. Today's society may make it difficult, but those drives for human companionship are there.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#235

Post by watwut »

probe wrote: post #156
ronnier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The problem with activity based socialization strategy is that it starts failing when you have less time, get sick, weak or whatever else that prevents you or your friends to regularly do the choosen activity. As in, it is easier, you don't have to think hard about topics nor listen to boring parts, it helps smooth over personal differences at least to me and activity inviation makes things less weird (I even considered it superior). But it failed me in some life situations and left me having really hard time to find socialization.

When I thought about it afterwards, maybe the mistake is to treat your socialization strategy as something inflexible "I do it that way" instead it is set of skills, habits and decisions that can be learned and tested.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#236

Post by diogenescynic »

We are an incredibly divided country—whether by religion, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, language, etc etc. it’s a constant issue of us vs them. Unfortunately, Trump takes complete advantage of this to divide the country daily which only exacerbates the situation. I truly think this lack of ‘community life’ is killing Americans and the cause of a lot of other issues like health problems and suicide.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#237

Post by austincheney »

I suspect this is a growth trend largely resultant from intentional self-induced social isolation. This problem is similar, in the brain, to addiction in that the inflicted are incapable of perceiving the problem while the implications are immediately clear to them.

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#238

Post by AnimalMuppet »

diogenescynic wrote: post #236

We are an incredibly divided country—whether by religion, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, language, etc etc. it’s a constant issue of us vs them. Unfortunately, Trump takes complete advantage of this to divide the country daily which only exacerbates the situation. I truly think this lack of ‘community life’ is killing Americans and the cause of a lot of other issues like health problems and suicide.

It's a vicious circle. This lack of community life also makes us more divided. That in turn helps destroy community life...

Re: Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely

#240

Post by ironjunkie »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #9

I 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 think you hit the nail on the head.

I would also add that the whole minefield of communicating with someone of the opposite sex, especially if you are a man. It seems that you have a high risk of being called up for harassment if you want to start a friendly conversation with a female as a male for example. This is a direct consequence of the whole metoo thing.

Over the last 15 years, society has been more and more strict into defining what is an acceptable social behavior. You are supposed to stay in your lane and not talk to anyone basically, except in accepted places like a bar, sometimes.

I think in 20 years nobody will talk openly on the streets. All the interactions will take place in well defined "apps" or in defined places like a bar. Everything outside that will be looked down as weird.

This is already half happening with dating. You have a higher risk of creating an incident in real life so everyone is now using well defined dating apps with a well defined flow and a well defined experience.

The world is becoming more and more tasteless. Everything has to take place into well defined boundaries.

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