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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

#81

Post by api »

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…

There were more kids around, which meant there were more kids for your kids to play with instead of hanging on you and more parents in the same boat to form a support network.

It’s one of the problems with birth rate collapse. The fewer people have kids, the harder it is in very hard to measure ways.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#82

Post by Lyngbakr »

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…

This is almost identical to my experience. And during that brief sliver of time that I do get to myself, I simply don't have the mental energy to engage with others. Instead, I usually decompress by working out or reading or something else solitary, because for me socialising requires effort.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#83

Post by api »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #76
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 have 2 young kids, run a widely used open source project and a startup, eat dinner with my kids 6/7 nights a week and do this. Here’s some ways how: My best friend comes over once a weekend and we watch the TV that my wife doesn’t want to. I participate in a sport (powerlifting) where I’ve made friends and there’s room to socialise while exercising. I chose to move back to my home town and also go to college there.…

If you moved from a high cost of living city back to your home town, how much did that have to do with it? In HCOL cities the crazy rent or mortgage costs keep everyone running and cut into discretionary funds for assistance.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#84

Post by mfer »

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…

Imagine the time we would have if....

Instead of doom scrolling on social media we called a friend.

Instead of binge watching another meh show, we had friends over to play cards or a board game.

Instead of over scheduling kids with constant activities, parents had a regular night out with friends while kids spent quality time at home with the other parent.

The time is there. It was in the past. We just have a finite amount of time and use it differently.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#85

Post by api »

Lyngbakr wrote: post #82
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…

This is almost identical to my experience. And during that brief sliver of time that I do get to myself, I simply don't have the mental energy to engage with others. Instead, I usually decompress by working out or reading or something else solitary, because for me socialising requires effort.

I am the same and I’m an introvert. That’s kind of the definition of an introvert: socializing is effortful.

Still, it’s healthy. Working out is also effortful but healthy.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#86

Post by barry-cotter »

redczar wrote: post #6
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

> The government slowed down its investment in and construction of third spaces—such as community centers, parks, and coffee shops—which has left fewer places for organic social interactions. My anecdotal impression is that people don't really use those that are available very much and the drop in investment is because of that. I have organized a few events in community halls over the past few years and I have been s…

[flagged]

This reminds me of a tweet I saw in 2023, during the height of the Floyd Riots, that has since unfortunately been deleted, that said approximately that suburbanisation was a long term bet on the inability of the US State to keep order in urban areas. Basically, once a generation (last one before the Floyd riots were the Rodney King riots) the US has massive riots, everyone learns of remembers that if you don’t live in walking distance of an urban centre you’re safe from having your house burned down by a mob and after that there’s a durable uptick in desire for suburban rather than urban property.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#87

Post by BlueTemplar »

tycho-newman wrote: post #12

It's not lost, just no longer necessary for survival. Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Until recently, individuals needed to be part of some sort of kinship group to get their needs met and to survive. To communicate with anyone in near real time you had to be close by. We have managed to engineer a society where individuals can survive "on their own" - basically outside their kinship group…

How a child is supposed to survive "on their own" ? And why do you think this would even be a good thing ?

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#88

Post by kenjackson »

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…

Almost all my in-person friends nowadays are parents of kids who my kids associate with. Mostly through sports. You get to kill two birds - support your kids and associate with adults. A few you’ll make good bonds with.

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#89

Post by BlueTemplar »

prhn wrote: post #35

I'm not sure what caused this, but I think the expectations of modern friendship have become unrealistic. Maybe it's movies and TV, where a "close friend" is more or less a non judgemental therapist that will throw down in a fight for you. What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us hav…

I did a double take on that "ten or more close friends"... wouldn't that be a very small fraction of the population in the first place ?

I doubt even popular school / university kids manage to sustain that many actually *close* friends for long !

Re: The Friendship Recession: The lost art of connecting

#90

Post by carlosjobim »

BruceEel wrote: post #30
tycho-newman wrote: post #12

It's not lost, just no longer necessary for survival. Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Until recently, individuals needed to be part of some sort of kinship group to get their needs met and to survive. To communicate with anyone in near real time you had to be close by. We have managed to engineer a society where individuals can survive "on their own" - basically outside their kinship group…

> Also, bad communities fail. They should be allowed to fail. Are there circumstances under which nation states could/should be seen as 'communities', I wonder. And, what would be some sensible ways of detecting and handling failure at such scale.

Yes, when the nation is ethnically homogenous you can have that. But it's not a guarantee.

"I against my brother. I and my brother against my cousin. I, my brother, and my cousin against the world" -Arab Proverb

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