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Who Americans spend their time with, by age

ourworldindata.org

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Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#391

Post by tripzilch »

exolymph wrote: post #232
caymanjim wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice that you feel this way about your parents and grandparents, but this is a nightmare scenario for me. I hope I die suddenly before I have to rely on anyone else to support me in any way, and if I'm being honest, I hope my own parents go out that way too.

Might be best to make the suicide plans now. Do be sure to inform your parents that you'd rather not help them through their elderly infirmity.

After all, having made babies entitles them to being cared for. That's the rules. /s

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#392

Post by dash2 »

irrational wrote: post #317
FalconSensei wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”Move far away enough that your parents can’t visit in their slippers, trust me you don’t want that kinda meddling” What I always heard was something like: ”Move far away enough that your parents can’t visit in their slippers, but not far enough that they have to packs their bags to visit"

My in-laws live 3 hours away and my parents 14 hours away. We have seven kids so it would be useful to have them nearer on occasion, but my wife and I agree that 3 hours is the minimum we want to live away from other family members.

Do they agree, though? And will you want your kids that far away when you are old?

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#393

Post by romanoderoma »

tripzilch wrote: post #389
romanoderoma wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a family where I am the first generation who could afford going to college, I disagree. OP was talking about Vietnam, my experience is in rural Italy and matches the idea of people helping each other, not of the exploitation of the women. And not in an idealised way either, I could make countless examples that I experienced first hand, growing up with 18 cousins and spending together every easter, Christm…

> I feel lucky to have a family where no one is left behind or alone. Or, to reitate once more, a family that accepts you for who you are. I'm glad for you that it's been so happy and all, but really get it into your head, this situation is not, CANNOT, be for everyone. You're excluding people without a family and/or who chose not to breed.

What does this have to do with the fact that the majority of old people in USA live alone because they are left alone?

Are you saying that most elderly have no family or kids?

And why people with no family or kids should live in solitude?

I have no kids, for example.

Family is not built on blood alone.

A good chunk of what I call family is formed by people who had no family, lost everything during the ww2 and are not my blood relatives.

I simply said that a community that cares about its members is not a pastoral, there are place where it's still the way they live.

The community can be a group of houses in the Italian country in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#394

Post by ad31mar »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #140
typhon04 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even so, what do you do in that time? Isn't it providing some service or building a product for people... and a greater purpose? I doubt you are a hermit doing as little social interactions just to get by and only consuming without producing anything. If so... what is the meaning of it all?

1. Cooking your own meals daily (2 hours) 2. Gym (2 hours with commute) 3. Midday nap (30 min) 4. Eating meals, including slowly drinking coffee (2 hours) 5. Reading (2 hours) 6. YouTube (2 hours) 7. Self reflection (1 hour) This is 11.5 hours so far of the 16 of non sleep time. This does not include any income earning activities, which I still spend time on. I also go on long walks and think. I’m not saying this is…

Oh, I think it's time for self reflection! Start the timer.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#395

Post by hrktb »

br_hue wrote: post #106

Sad data. In my opinion this is the result of a culture that optimizes for the wrong things in life. "Happiness is only real when shared.".

You now have billions of people to share that happiness at any time !

And I had to pause to decide if I mean that sarcastically or not, but I’d say it’s still true in so many senses, be it in a facebook way or a video chat with grandma, or share achievement with your gaming team across the net.

TBH the “time spent alone” line in this graph would require an asterisk in these days and age.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#396

Post by tubularhells »

generj wrote: post #362
tubularhells wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really autistic. Stop arguing semantics, this is not a linguistics forum.

Please don’t use autistic as an insult.

I'm autistic, and I use the word factually. I know what I'm talking about.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#397

Post by superhuzza »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #372
mcguire wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visit any rural diner between 8:00 and 9:00 (or urban diner between 9:00 and 11:00) when it's otherwise quiet. I'll bet you will find a cluster or two of elderly people swapping lies. Indoor malls used to be similar gathering places for people who wanted to walk without being in the weather. Basically, look anywhere the 20- or 30-somethings aren't.

I find it amusing when Americans tell stories about malls being ghost towns. In Australia they are almost reaching the limits of how many people can fit inside the buildings and the whole road and public transport systems are based around the locations of them. I have no idea what the difference between here and America is. Amazon is not super big here like it seems to be in America.

I just did some googling and arrived at some (very rough) numbers (total population / approximate number of malls).

In the U.S., there are ~2,827 people per mall.

In Australia, there are ~15,337 people per mall.

There are probably just way too many malls in the U.S. given a population that's moving to online shopping.

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#398

Post by bluedino »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #237
burlesona wrote: post #36

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 t…

> I don’t think there’s an easy fix for this, and that makes me sad. I mean, there is, which is to reintroduce mixed use zoning. You essentially allow people to operate small businesses out of their homes. This changes the dynamic very quickly because the change can happen before the new construction. As soon as it's allowed, someone buys a house on your street, or one of your existing neighbors does this, and it bec…

Convenience stores and restaurant are two things I don’t want to live next door to

Re: Who Americans spend their time with, by age

#399

Post by simonebrunozzi »

burlesona wrote: post #36

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 t…

You are so right.

Architecture, and city planning, are the main reasons for this. Proof is that even immigrant populations (e.g. Greeks, Italians) still adapt and adjust to the new environment - almost completely abandoning the healthy community habits of their country of origin. It's not the people, it's the environment - at least to a large extent.

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