Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

happiness.hks.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 469 posts

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#241

Post by Braxton1980 »

zug_zug wrote: post #64
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…

>> 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 have close friends. I've come to this same conclusion, but rarely express it because it's possible I'm just different. And I'd even go one step further, I think what a lot of people say friendship is, isn't actually what human friendship is…

>The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy

My best friend of 30 years now met me because I distributed warez in Junior High. He hung around because I had something useful and wanted to maintain a relationship with me. This grew into something more meaningful

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#242

Post by dottjt »

hollerith wrote: post #206
dottjt wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I generally hated being dragged to the friends houses of my parents. It was just needlessly boring. On the contrary, it sometimes was okay if that friend had children. I think the issue in the modern day however, is that less people are having children, so there simply isn't the opportunity. For example, I'm the only person in my friend group who has children.

Interesting. Did you also hate it when your parents hosted a party for adults in your home?

I mean, that's probably a different dynamic. I didn't have to interact with the adults in that scenario, I could just be alone in my room.

To be fair, I think I was just a shy child/teenager. I didn't really feel comfortable talking, it's more I'd just sit and listen. In the back of my mind, all I really wanted to do was watch TV or playing videos, and often what would happen is I would just sit in front of their TV.

That's not to say that their friends weren't interesting people. It's just more, as a child I didn't really feel like I could directly interact.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#243

Post by pdonis »

tdrz wrote: post #208
ryandrake wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships Yea, this tracks my observations. A lot of adults make connections in their community through their kids and kids' friends. Kids pick their friends and their parents and guardians just go along for the ride, so when the kids play together, it kind of forces the parents to meet and i…

Maybe they are not anti-social, they are just not being social to you! They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.

From the GP's description, they're not being social with anyone. They're on their phones.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#244

Post by mikemcquaid »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #139
mikemcquaid wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

You have resources many parents don’t. Congrats on the luck (genuinely, no snark), but the median is having a much worse time. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/parents-under-pressu...

I don’t live in the US so have no idea about that. I have friends who are parents who make below the median household income in the U.K. who make time for hobbies and socialising (including with me). Resources help but I know many people with far more resources than I who would say on forums like this my life is impossible.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#245

Post by mikemcquaid »

astura wrote: post #194
mikemcquaid wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Scotland. HCOL here is not very H, despite living in the most expensive city. Part of the reason I don’t live in America is I see a lot of people on salaries 2-4x mine who seem to be unable to have time to see their friends.

>Part of the reason I don’t live in America is I see a lot of people on salaries 2-4x mine who seem to be unable to have time to see their friends. This is just a choice though. A choice Americans absolutely love making, but a choice none-the-less. On Reddit some dude was trying to argue that an individual needs $70,000 a year in fixed expenses just to live. Bare minimum. OTOH, I have what I consider an absurdly luxu…

Yeh, for sure it’s a choice. I just feel like far more of my US friends make this choice than my Scottish ones.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#246

Post by siquick »

creata wrote: post #38
torben-friis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's just the attention economy. I think the Internet was bound to replace a lot of the time that people spent with friends. There's just too much interesting stuff too conveniently accessible.

I’ve got a feeling that if you looked at the average persons average internet usage it would not be full of interesting stuff.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#247

Post by decimalenough »

sgt wrote: post #215
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 3x/week housekeeper and it means I practically don't clean at all, including tidying/putting things away. Costs around $15k/yr though, so not for everyone. I wouldn't do this if not for kids though.

I mean, with 3x/week or even 7x/week housekeeper you'll be cleaning something . Even Jeff Bezos probably wipes a plate clean once in a while, or makes a sandwich. They're not going to be right next to you 24/7.

24/7 live-in maids are quite common in places like Southeast Asia, India or the Middle East. And yes, 24/7 really means that: always on call.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#248

Post by globnomulous »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #222
globnomulous wrote: post #126

> 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 ip…

I think it's pretty normal" threefold = three times = 3x fallen by 3x means now it is 3x lower, so if the old value was x now the value is x/3

You're right that it's normal(ish), but it's sloppy. The new value isn't 3x lower than the original. The old value is 3x the new, and the new is 2/3 lower than the old.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#249

Post by michaelt »

closewith wrote: post #63
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…

With respect, I think this is quite a sad and revealing comment, but your Hollywood definition of a friend fits my friends. I wonder if you maybe never experienced friendship but rather just acquaintances.

The friends who would throw down for you in a fight at age 19

when you reach age 40, will have families to look after and a lot more to lose than they used to have, like a nice house and a good job

or they'll be at the far end of a skype link / international flight

or they'll have discovered a new chill side to themselves now they don't have 19-year-old energy and hormone levels

and you'll realise you don't want your boy to fuck up his custody arrangements by getting sent to jail over some dumb brawl

They'll still support you in the face of life's challenges, but it'll be support of a very different kind.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#250

Post by tdrz »

pdonis wrote: post #243
tdrz wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they are not anti-social, they are just not being social to you! They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.

From the GP's description, they're not being social with anyone. They're on their phones.

Anyone at the playground. Maybe they have enough people to be social with elsewhere.
Post reply on HN