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Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

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Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#61

Post by badpun »

onion2k wrote: post #31
chewz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Young people has way more options to enjoy life such as traveling, playing video games, watching youtube by themselves This is killing time not enjoying life.

I can understand someone thinking video games and YouTube are just killing time (although I don't agree), but traveling ? That's pretty much universally accepted as one of the best things you can do to improve yourself.

There are different ways you can travel. You can do it on a shoestring budget, sleeping rough and working odd jobs in the process to sustain yourself. This I believe is very challenging and enriching. The other alternative is to just take a bunch of money and go to country where it goes a long way (like Thailand) and then spend time in hostels, eat out and basically live a life of partying and leisure. This I believe is much less valuable.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#62

Post by agent008t »

chantelles wrote: post #24
jchw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, being introverted definitely seems to impact the amount of time you want to spend with others, though I am maybe somewhat different in my preferences. I absolutely enjoy spending time with people, but even spending time with other introverted folks can be tiring for me, because sometimes I just want to sit in a quiet room completely alone. (Many of my other, also very introverted friends, disagree and can sp…

Yep. Though I am gregarious, I grew up very isolated with very little interaction even with parents and my biggest problem as an adult is remembering to make time alone for myself because if I do not I grow less patient with people around me. But I also know that many people need to always be with people and I wonder: am I a result of a strange/bad upbringing? So I have committed to spending time with people but ther…

Have you tried going over to countries where you cannot even read the language? E.g. Korea, Japan? I found the experience very refreshing and surreal in a good way.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#63

Post by saiya-jin »

randomsearch wrote: post #38
kr4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key to attain ever-lasting happiness is to commit ourselves to doing kind or selfless deeds as a habit [0]. Scientifically it's been observed that when we make someone happy the same region lights up in our brain [1] when we do something to make ourselves happy. Coupled with meditation that makes you more mindful so you can be more kind (kindfullness), you can attain a state of mind in which you can remai…

Sharing this because I said it the other day and it seemed to resonate. Happiness is overvalued. Meaning or purpose is undervalued. Happiness is based on a transition: something new, a change of circumstances, and is by its nature temporary. Meaning and purpose are long term. Seek meaning, not happiness.

> Seek meaning, not happiness.

Hold your horses a bit here. Just because some mental model works for your, please don't do blanket statements for entire human civilization.

I for example pursue many utterly selfish hobbies without any proper meaning to me or anybody else, full of objective dangers that can kill me in case of lack of attention (or pure bad time at bad spot situation), last time this Sunday (ended up with scratches all over me after some nasty snow field slide, albeit this is very rare outcome).

The only meaning of those things (hiking, climbing, diving, paraglide, ski alpinism etc.) is feeling 200% alive, being extremely content with my life which can be described as... you get it... happiness. Climbing to the top of some peak doesn't have any proper meaning, it has been done 1000s before and will be done after me, the only meaning is how it feels during and after the adventure.

Maybe its just juggling words and we both mean same thing at the end, but I know far too many people technically unable to find long term happiness, to see how that sucks. Most of them are these highly-driven super-competitive types that have lives that look great on outside... but only if you don't know them very well.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#64

Post by andai »

mapcars wrote: post #57
axaxs wrote: post #22

Anecdotally... I am, but I seem doomed. I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.

>I seem doomed If you think you are doomed you will be doomed. >I'm not really antisocial If you think you are not really antisocial you will be not really antisocial. >I can become overtalkative at times If you think you can become overtalkative you will be able to become overtalkative. >I never seem to want to 'get out' If you think you never seem to want - you will never seem to want >when I force myself If you th…

But how? Also your comment could have been a bit more concise. This way it reads really tedious and kinda like you're making fun of it.

Or rather, the actually important part (how to do it) is concise to the point of not even being included!

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#65

Post by lloeki »

axaxs wrote: post #22

Anecdotally... I am, but I seem doomed. I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.

Sounds like you have an introvert trait (in the Myers Briggs sense), which does not mean despising human interaction but that even though you enjoy it, it’s taxing at some level (but you get some benefit at another level). If this is the case, the rejection comes from energy being exhausted (no one enjoys being exhausted) and you have to recharge your social interactions batteries.

At some point you may have intuitively associated meeting with people with that exhaustion and balanced your NN towards “not meeting” by default, hence the doominess feeling.

Active, conscious steps I took to get me out of that:

1. Recognise that being social brings you something internal (mood improvements)

2. Recognise that being social costs you some energy (depletes a battery)

3. Stop self-bashing for “not being social” at times (battery needs topping up)

4. Create a positive feedback loop instead of a negative one, by having less long/intense social interactions but more frequent, so that the battery never truly runs out and has time to recharge quickly

This takes time as the NN has to be retrained to break the default fight or flight reaction of staying in the safe zone at home.

It’s a bit like enjoying running a marathon and have a happy and relaxed mind following that, but the body is exhausted and certainly doesn’t want to run again back to back as it needs time to recover.

The introvert trait will not go away but the battery can be trained and improved in capacity, and end up looking forward to meeting people as long as it’s properly managed.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#66

Post by rjf72 »

idoubtit wrote: post #37
rjf72 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC ran a phenomenal article here [1] detailing a wide array of data on the longevity of people through the ages. How long did higher class Ancient Greeks live? Ancient Greece dates back to starting around 3,300 years ago. In spite of their remarkable technological achievements they remained almost entirely ignorant of medicine. They relied on a system based around the 'four humors' - blood, phlegm, yellow/black…

This BBC article intends to surprise the reader, and I think the reader has to be extremly cautious with its content. Yet, it briefly mentions that the Roman longevity concerned only the nobility. > all working-class people who were buried in common graves. The average age of death was 30, and that wasn’t a mere statistical quirk Back to the BBC article, some of its source are dubious, and I suppose they were selecte…

There was no magic longevity potion those of means had. All they had over the common class are the things we all have and take for granted today - protection from the consequences war and mostly stable access to clean food and water. The upper class of times back then arguably less so on both accounts than even a lower class individual today. This was the whole point. It's not like you could attribute their longevity to sophisticated medicine, because it literally did not exist at the time.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#67

Post by rofo1 »

mapcars wrote: post #54
vectorEQ wrote: post #46

people looking for blanket solutions to happiness. there is no one size that fits all for that. find what makes you happy by listening to yourself.

Happiness is exactly the same in every human being - is just a certain type of chemistry. In which ways people find access to it depends on person, environment, society and your background - this is what is unique. But all these things are indirect and involve (unreliable) mediums. There are ways to access this directly and be happy and ecstatic every single moment without literally anything.

This is correct and congruent with what science knows as of today. I sometimes wonder how the world will look like when we would have evolved our science to (perfectly) control the ratio of chemicals inside us.

Imagine, happiness on a click. Something like quick dopamine release without side effects.

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#68

Post by rofo1 »

ed-209 wrote: post #8

Better question: how out of touch must one be with themselves for this to even be a question?

This is not obvious at all, especially the effects on health.

Mental health - ok, that might be something that you can deduce based on examples (grumpy old solo grandpa that yells in the air - mental issues).

But can you really conclude just from common sense that human relationships have effect on your _physical health_?

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#69

Post by mikekchar »

axaxs wrote: post #22

Anecdotally... I am, but I seem doomed. I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.

You may be like me. I discovered when I did a teaching gig that I love being at the centre of attention. If you have an opportunity to try giving some talks, you may find that you really enjoy it. Having a schedule where you have to show up and do that kind of thing helps (or at least it does for me). Speaking of which, I really need to find some place to give talks around here...

Re: Are we happier when we spend more time with others?

#70

Post by rofo1 »

_8j50 wrote: post #27

In my experience no human is ok with being socially isolated for a long period of time. But difficulty with forming healthy social relationships makes the experience of attempting to "warm up" to others very unpleasant to people who don't get social exposure to begin with. Especially for anyone that performs extensive introspection it is very difficult and the experience can be interpreted as unhappiness. I think may…

> I think maybe being with others is most pleasant when one has a healthy relationship with one's self.

I don't agree with the rest of your points, but the quoted one is key.

No studies to back this up, but I would say that you are decidedly better off being alone than being with (for lack of better word) evil people.

These are degrees of evil that seem to be tolerated but that's another topic.

In the end, it's literally all in our minds. It's technically in our control (balance of chemicals). Maybe we should devise a way to control them sentiently.

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