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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

#391

Post by dripdry45 »

globular-toast wrote: post #359
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…

It's simple: they didn't work as much. Typically one parent would go out and work while the other took care of the home. When the first parent got back the house would be clean and dinner would be ready. Work was over. The work parent tended to socialise in the evening and the home parent during the day. The home parent was essentially self-employed, working directly for themselves and the family. A real "hustler" li…

Do. Less.

all the dogs and furniture and hobbies and subscriptions and running around. Grasping, grasping, grasping...

my partner and I are people of simple means. We garbage pick or get off Facebook marketplace most of our stuff for super cheap (nice OLD stuff... Which I repair!) but have a fairly nice home that we’ve bought. She saved a lot just working for the post office in there pay: She didn’t go anywhere, and enjoys things like house cleaning and doing the dishes and reading. It’s the same as the Buddhist monks I spent time with. I give this example and people flat out rage at me, saying how awful a life that is. But my partner is one of the kindest, happiest people and adores simple things (she's also really fit and stellar in bed, so that helps...) She has found ways to legitimately enjoy the small moments and being present in life, not chasing a bunch of shiny flashy things all around the world. I’ve learned a lot from her.

In short: we don’t need AI, we need to just do less and learn to get back to simplicity. THAT would afford time to socialize.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#392

Post by rescbr »

derefr wrote: post #240
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…

Is it us, or is it corporations? Look at a specific microcosm: dating. Dating is "awful" now (according to people both young and old), in a particular way that it wasn't even ten years ago. And sure, this is in part because we do everything online these days, and online dating has a few inherent problems with it. But not as many as you'd think; online dating used to "work" at least alright , in a way that it very muc…

You described orkut on its heyday.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#393

Post by mantas »

TimByte wrote: post #374
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…

The convenience and isolation are so baked into modern life that choosing to invest in community feels weirdly countercultural now for many

Anecdata, but quite a few people I met in alternative music and politics sphere a good decade ago, I meet again in unrelated non-music/political bubbles focused on heavy community involvement.

Further confirming the joke, many of those either apreach own or look to buy a bunch of power tools.

Today’s grown-up counter culture seems to be building sheds and growing wide variety of tomatoes.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#395

Post by mjevans »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #329
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.…

Honestly, I think that is related to the algorithmic collapse of facebook. Facebook was legitimately good for keeping people connected in the first decade or so. Then the monetization enshittification happened, both at the overarching corporate level of facebook and internet advertising in general, and with people becoming exhaustingly self-promoting, which devalued trust between friends and degraded new connections.…

Facebook was probably part of the _problem_ for people like me who refuse to create accounts inside of walled gardens.

An _illusion_ that 'everyone you know' (and might want to know) is in a single place; while ignoring the razor wire fence surrounding the compound that keeps others out.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#396

Post by mjevans »

kortilla wrote: post #279
mjevans wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What community? Many of us still can't afford housing anywhere near where the jobs are. How could we possibly put down roots and be a real part of a lasting community worth investing time, effort, and possibly savings in?

You don’t need that at all. I’ve seen people temporarily renting in a location act as better community members than someone who has owned a home for 10 years. Look at the communities that form in dorms

Dorms are a poor example. Everyone there expects it to be a temporary community other than larger structures like fraternal organizations that slowly nibble in new members and continuously digest them as things progress.

It's not like you're in an apartment or house where you don't know if it'll be next year, 4-5 years, or 10 years when you move; only that someone's going to raise the rent, or you'll get a different job somewhere far enough away and have to endure the hardship of moving everything yet again.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#397

Post by taormina »

em-bee wrote: post #376
SamBam wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly there's a lot of value in kids experiencing some boredom.

yes, but i needs to be boredom in an environment/situation where they can do something about it. being forced to sit still and be quiet in a foreign house while the adults have fun is not it.

I mean, as much as the modern world wants to convince you to revolve your life around making your kid comfortable at every moment of the day, this is actually a super important life skill and you need your kid to develop it.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#398

Post by tycho-newman »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #282
tycho-newman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“On their own” is in air quotes because it’s a vast simplification. In kinship group days, and especially before vaccines, children simply didn’t survive. They died by the millions. Today, a child has a viable alternative to the abusive or neglectful kinship group. Very often it is The State, but still. An alternative!

Ah, I had a different interpretation of "until recently"... I am afraid that the child is still pretty screwed... especially if you try to generalise this to 60% of children !

In "On Love", bell hooks points out just how screwed children are by their circumstance and their lack of agency/autonomy. Highly recommend reading her.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#399

Post by TacticalCoder »

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…

[dead]

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#400

Post by james_marks »

bilsbie wrote: post #137
paulryanrogers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only modern technology taking up time. I foolishly bought a project house and have spent nearly every weekend and some weeknights doing repairs and improvements. My SO also tends toward time consuming hobbies like gardening and aquariums. Add young children and every free moment in between is precious.

You could involve friends in those hobbies. In fact men do better hanging out if they have a goal. My stepbrother has declined hang out invitations for decades but the minute I need the most minor house or car repair he’ll drop everything and be there all day.

I can relate to your step brother. I don’t want to “hang out”- full stop. I want to build and make and do things, and when I can combine that with friendship, all the better.

There’s something about needing to feel and appear independent that discourages the ask, and it’s worth challenging.

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