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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

#331

Post by Der_Einzige »

closewith wrote: post #327
zug_zug wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Come on, time to get offline and go make some friends. Oof, I really struck a nerve huh? I'm sure you're smart enough to know you shouldn't try to hurt people's feelings just because they believe and idea that you don't believe.

> Oof, I really struck a nerve huh? No, you're misreading the tone here. It's more gentle paternal nudging. Don't let confirmation bias mislead you into a lonely life, especially not based on a study on somecollege students. I know it's more comforting to believe real friendships exist only in fiction rather than admit you haven't experienced it, but in the long run, this belief only hurts you.

Paternalism in all of its forms is bad on face. You clearly got triggered hard by these comments.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#332

Post by edg5000 »

NalNezumi wrote: post #104

The article already mention physical changes (car dependent suburbs, lack of 3rd places) and cultural shift (work as identity and nuclear family) but I think the two last things can be expanded to: we now have higher expectations of friends/people we meet. I recently moved back from Asia to Northern Europe, famous for being a place hard to make friends. I made a new friend, when I one day went to the local swimming p…

Good point. To uncover new good things, you have to jump in blind without much preexisting knowledge, e.g. when meeting people. You have to enjoy that process itself as well as any connections that come out of it.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#333

Post by Ozzie_osman »

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…

Agree. The book "WEIRDest" people in the world was kind of eye-opening in arguing that the Western world (especially the US) is unique (both in time, and geographically) in being so individualistic.

And it's getting worse. Decline of the local church or equivalent religious community, decline of even the workplace especially after Covid, etc. And of course, social media giving people a way to consume time and feel some (fake) version of being connected.

My wife and I moved our kids from the US back to our country of origin last year. Partly because we wanted to be closer to family. But partly because we didn't want them growing up in a society that lacks community and social fabric.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#334

Post by baazaa »

agnishom wrote: post #305
baazaa wrote: post #298

No-one ever suggests the simplest explanation... maybe socialising is just getting worse? Where I live there were long covid lockdowns and most people expressed relief about not having to go to parties and make painful small-talk with strangers. They were already forcing themselves to go to social engagements because they didn't want to be seen as a loser, but they weren't enjoying it. This is historically unusual, p…

I agree with what you said in the other two paragraphs, but I think people _are_ suggesting what you said, and it is not really an "explanation": it is part of the observation itself

The article is claiming that people need to put more effort into organising social events with tips on how to do it. And the tips around escalating discloure etc. are very much like workplace ice-breakers... utterly awful experiences that everyone hates.

Unless you first diagnose why people dislike socialising nowadays you're unlikely to fix the problem. Enjoining people to 'invest' in relationships is entirely missing the point, people used to hang out with their friends because they enjoyed it not because they thought it was an investment.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#335

Post by closewith »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #331
closewith wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oof, I really struck a nerve huh? No, you're misreading the tone here. It's more gentle paternal nudging. Don't let confirmation bias mislead you into a lonely life, especially not based on a study on somecollege students. I know it's more comforting to believe real friendships exist only in fiction rather than admit you haven't experienced it, but in the long run, this belief only hurts you.

Paternalism in all of its forms is bad on face. You clearly got triggered hard by these comments.

I suspect this may be projection.

Based on your comments, maybe some paternal advice wouldn't go astray.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#336

Post by edg5000 »

subpixel wrote: post #110

I agree with all the points made in the article, and chuckle to see some comments here (let bad communities fail!) that are manifestations of the lack of vulnerability brought about by living in online, single-player mode. But in my experience, friendship quality is much more important than quantity. I’m only truly friends with people I admire and am interested in, and grow to care about. Some of these friendships ha…

Quality is very important. For example, when people have serious issues such as drugs, it often turns out to be strongly related to the poeple they surround themselves with. So socializing purely for the sake of it, is not ideal. Some standards are needed. But being too picky and judgemental won't work. So a balanced approach is needed.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#337

Post by Ozzie_osman »

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 do think 6.5 hours is much easier if only one spouse works. My wife and I both work demanding jobs, but during times when one of us has been in-between jobs or off work, things look very different.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#338

Post by edg5000 »

zingababba wrote: post #134

My personal hot take is it's because the majority of people are consuming caffeine and that drug harries you to no end.

It may be. Generally stimulants (legal, soft ones such as cafeiine and nicotine, as well as stronger ones) stimulate parts of the brain that facilitate productivity and focus, but at the cost of "warm" things such as empathy, romance, comradry. Whereas depressants, such as THC and opioids, lower productivity but facilitate these "warm" behaviours. Due to coffee being relatively light, the effect may not be as obvious as the behaviour you see when people take large amounts of stimulants.

This may also tie in to work, as more mentally taxing office work I believe is much easier to do while on a mild stimulant such as caffeine. I could let go of cafeeine, but I think I'd struggle to make money.

It is indeed a hot take, an argument you don't hear often.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#339

Post by edg5000 »

0n0n0m0uz wrote: post #195

I am an introvert who prefers solitude to human interaction as my base mode. I find most interactions to be draining and unnecessary. They basically only increase or serve as a source of stress while offering nothing meaningful that somehow improves my mental state. I probably had this tendency but never had enough solitude to really recognize how much I preferred it. It is actually addicting and almost impossible to…

For the first 22 years of my life I was spending my hours in crowded school buildings. It turns out that most of my productivity happens in solitude. Learning through doing and self study. But now that I finally don't have that terrible rigid school structure anymore (for over a decade), the tables have turned. I am in complete isolation for entire days, most days. I found that I do want and need a bit of interaction, but not much is needed, and certainly not in the way that school provided that.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#340

Post by doright »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #324
caseyy wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maintaining adult relationships post-Covid is hard as a millennial. Or rather, getting friendly relationships started/restarted has gotten very awkward. But I’ve noticed that most people respond very well to my efforts. I started texting my acquaintances and old friends at random just to ask what’s up every once a week or two. I also started calling some people instead. Almost everyone responded really well to that.…

> It’s okay to be the one who initiates. It seems like not everyone can, somehow the level of social anxiety has gone up in the world. In the end, I get my socialization full and so do they. So I’d recommend to whoever feels a bit lonely — reach out to your past friends and current acquaintances. Agreed. Before Covid I used to have a pretty vibrant social life but I was the initiator and back then I could easily set…

> It would be great if I could go back to how things were, but unfortunately I've changed.

I'm in agreement. I do think it would be a nice thing for friendship to work out, but I've been burned one too many times and the motivation just isn't there any longer.

I sometimes view this as a positive. I used to very much be a people-pleaser and thought that I was going to suffer and die if I didn't come out of one of my social outings with an acquaintance at some point. I was always told humans are tribal, we have a need to feel listened to, and not having friends leads to premature death. In practice I was just forcing myself to socialize based on that doomerism and that rubbed off onto the people I met, so it wouldn't have helped anyone.

When I turned inward and chose to put my own needs in front of those of others, I did become more comfortable with being myself. That's a prerequisite to having healthy relationships anyway (though I still wouldn't say I have any). Since then I've had lots of great conversations with people I've met at outings and large gatherings. I sometimes have conversations that go on for hours about all sorts of topics I may or may not know about and they're satisfying in hindsight.

...But I don't feel like being friends with any of those people anymore. I just let them pass and cherish the moments we did have together. I decided that the only person I have the capacity to fight for is myself from now on.

Nobody said you had to have friends in order to have a source of socialization to stave off bad health outcomes. "Having friends" and "being a bit social occasionally" are two different beasts.

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