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Who Americans spend their time with, by age

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Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#31

Post by _qulr »

dcolkitt wrote: post #18
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #11

I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty nest' and mid-life crisis.

The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another by 30+ people in a typical day. The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and others of meaningful…

I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history, and history is often ugly.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#32

Post by TameAntelope »

wil421 wrote: post #3
TameAntelope wrote: post #2

What counts as "spending time"? I'm sure they define it somewhere in the article, but I wonder what percentage of the effects do I get to experience by commenting here. Are we "spending time" together right now? I ask because I've bugged a few healthcare professionals I randomly meet about how millennials (and younger) will age, and if their comfort with the connective nature of the Internet will help reduce mental d…

No I don’t think it’s the same. We are spending some time here but the amount of interaction is very low. I recently bought something from a whiskey group on FB. We spent about 30 minutes talking about whiskey after our transaction. It was probably more meaningful than a week of HN interactions.

I think I'm with you on the general notion that this time doesn't generally hold a candle to "real" interactive conversation, but you put it at "more than a week of HN interactions" so there is some value here, which I do find interesting, if ultimately negligible/useless.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#34

Post by baron_harkonnen »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #20

I wonder what are the strategies folks can adopt to see that they don't become victims of loneliness.

Somewhat ironically, I think the important thing here is to learn to be more comfortable spending time alone.

The pandemic has surprised me with both how much people are unable to just be alone for awhile, and related to this, how much they have a difficult time being with partners and family without larger social distractions.

Being able to be alone, at least in my experience, helps you to be with other people in a sincerely intimate way. People that struggle the most with their partners during the pandemic seem to be people who need socialization to distract from their own relationship problems.

If two people can be "alone together" in a room for awhile, they can still refresh, and restore their energy. This allows them to be more supportive and close when they need socialization because they aren't exhausted.

Loneliness is being forced to deal with your fear of being alone, without every taking the time to be comfortable being alone.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#35

Post by Broken_Hippo »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #20

I wonder what are the strategies folks can adopt to see that they don't become victims of loneliness.

Loneliness is a feeling, not a state of being alone. It tends to go alongside feelings of not being understood, not having anyone that you can relate to, and feeling ignored: It is also a sign of depression. This is why so many folks will be lonely while surrounded by people, yet not so much when physically alone.

I've generally been at my most lonely when my life was unhappy. I went through a short spout of it again after I moved countries, but in all reality, that one was different and I had some knowledge it'd pass (and it was more positive: I chose this, unlike when I was younger).

I have hobbies and such, and this should serve me well into my old age, so long as I'm able to do things. I vary myself and try to keep decent mental health. (Oddly, age itself has helped with this: I'm 42 now).

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#36

Post by burlesona »

The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our built environment. If you live in a village with multiple generations of a family around, it’s much easier for grandparents to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the village, especially keeping an eye on the kids roaming around. This is also true in the more traditional urban neighborhoods with walking-oriented life (safety from cars) and a wide mix of housing types etc.

But (to varying degrees) most of the new construction around the world since WW2 has been oriented around driving and separation of land uses, and as a result when you age you end up living in a nice little garden home far removed from any day to day life going on. And once it gets hard for you to drive... then you really end up spending a ton of time alone.

I don’t think there’s an easy fix for this, and that makes me sad.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#37

Post by mhh__ »

silveroriole wrote: post #30
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #11

I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty nest' and mid-life crisis.

Makes me feel better in a way. By age 60 it won’t matter much whether I had kids or not. Time spent with them per day equals, like, one TV episode. So I’m happy to see that my partner and my self will continue to be more important by that metric.

I would be willing to bet that most parents first and last thoughts in a day is about their children, the idea of it working out to roughly a TV episode a day is absolutely bizarre.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#38

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #34
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #20

I wonder what are the strategies folks can adopt to see that they don't become victims of loneliness.

Somewhat ironically, I think the important thing here is to learn to be more comfortable spending time alone. The pandemic has surprised me with both how much people are unable to just be alone for awhile, and related to this, how much they have a difficult time being with partners and family without larger social distractions. Being able to be alone, at least in my experience, helps you to be with other people in a…

I don't know if this is the sort of thing most people can use mental jiu jitsu to dodge out of. Social connection is a drive most might not be able to satisfy without actual social connection.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#39

Post by tristor »

I think it'd be interesting to see this data split by gender as well as by age cohort. I think we'd find that men juncture towards spending time alone sooner than women, and that they start out with a higher level of being alone. Those are just my assumptions though.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#40

Post by yodsanklai »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #11

I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty nest' and mid-life crisis.

> I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting at age 40.

I don't see anything wrong with this line. It's not because you don't see your kids often when they're adult that it wasn't worth having them, or that you don't appreciate the little time you still spend with them.

Personally, I didn't want kids but now it's something that I regret somewhat. Being a man, I wrongly assumed the option would always be there.

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