I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up.
Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more clearly than the NYTimes piece) between what it calls loneliness of emotional isolation and loneliness of social isolation, and, to me, its examples like the condition of married couples who moved far away are much more salient (and convincing) than reliance on surveys and dry statements like "loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline" and "increases risk of heart disease by 29%".
Am I missing something?
P.S. One cool thing I learned about from reading about Cacioppo's research is that when designing a survey about loneliness you can't ask questions like "do you feel lonely?" because it's much too ambiguous and people end up giving incoherent useless answers. I never thought something so basic could be so confusing to people.
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again.
The national highway system was great for a nation on the brink of all-out war. We needed to move troops, tanks, people, supplies quickly and efficiently. This system ended up being used to separate black people from working class whites. Naturally we have drug and violence problems in those communities that were segregated from the more educated and affluent white population.
Terrible. I wish I could be governor or something and make sure that we stop this. It makes me sad.
Volunteer with your preferred local political party. The path to getting into politics can start as easily as showing up until people know you, and having good ideas that enough people agree with. Your job as a politician would be to carry those ideas to the structures of power (town council, school board, whatever).
It's pretty time-consuming, but it's a big responsibility, making decisions that affect lots of people's lives. So, trade-offs.
We city apartment people aren't better at socializing with our neighbors, probably even worse. The stereotype that cities can be harsh and unfriendly is very much rooted in reality.
It very much depends on the city and even the specific part of the city. e.g. London, despite mostly being as you describe, has areas where there is a strong sense of community, even for new comers. Typically more working class areas.
I have lived in my Manhattan building for only 2 years. Know most of the other residents, the owners of neighborhood restaurants, local politicians, et cetera.
That said, I do not feel that expectation of social and civic engagement in San Francisco.
Yup. I've lived in SF since 2000 and every time I go to NYC it's way easier to connect with people. It's either I'm different when I'm in NYC or it's SF. Or maybe a bit of both but your comment resonates very strongly with me.
I've live on a cul-de-sac (back) in Extreme Flyover Country now for a whopping ... three months, and I met all the neighbors and chat with 'em often. People in stores are very open and will talk if spoken to.
I find driving my car is much more efficient than taking trains allowing me to make multiple stops thus talking with numerous people through out the day.
In Brazil, architects often build a social space into their apartments. It's a good idea and works really well, but the people have to want to socialise together in the first place.
I can imagine the sprawling suburbs would be really hard to live in, obvious benefits in lower cost housing and more green space but the isolation and need for a car seems pretty terrible.
I live in Barcelona and the majority of people live in flats/apartments, my apartment building is like a large family, mixture of retirees, families, young couples and mixed flats of people just out of university. Everyone knows each other and relies on each other, for our neighbours' 90th birthday almost the whole building (10 flats) took her cake and stayed and chatted and had fun. (My partner and myself are both foreigners here and we're still accepted into the culture and events like this. IMO it's really hard to overstate how crucial this sort of interaction and sense of belonging is in a large city. What intensifies this even more is in Barcelona the first floor of a lot of apartment buildings is where there are shops/bars/butchers/restaurants etc. For most of my food and leisure needs (including the gym for example) I don't need to go more than 400m, this also creates social situations where you bump into the same people and staff over and over creating a real village feel.
I have often watched Barcelona's honeycomb structure in Google Maps. Didn't know it was home to a small-village-like atmosphere. That's an amazing thing.
I think it's cultural. I've lived in apartments and condos designed with nice common spaces (pool, clubhouse, lawn, chairs), and those areas were empty 95% of the time. At most, a couple of people swimming, or a guy taking a phone call.
We work all day, come home at 8pm, watch TV while surfing with phone, update Facebook, text a friend, go to bed. Repeat.
I think some people don't like being visible in a public space that includes "others". Maybe a feeling of being judged and feeling self-conscious as a result?
Go back 10,000 years and almost all people encountered would be people familiar to you. Any other instances would've been a potential stand-off. I'd guess it's a carry over from that.
This is an extremely poor argument. Try starting a conversation on a Manhattan subway. The lack of boxes between you and your fellow commuters does not make it remotely acceptable to interact with them, nor should it.
It is much harder to meet friends who are separated by 5 miles of bus ride than 5 miles of freeway. It is much harder to actually hear each other at a crowded bar than someone's home, but only the very rich (or the suburban) can afford homes large enough to host gatherings. Economic circumstances may coerce interaction with roommates, but living with someone is more likely to destroy your friendship than strengthen it.
I think this is a cultural/attitude thing, not really a manifestation of urban planning.
i speak with strangers in bars all the time, seriously. I thought it's one of the reasons bars exists. Even most tinder-dates start in bars, because if it's not going anywhere there other people to talk to. You just might not get laid.
I also became good friends with a bartender who I met when she was serving me. She no longer bartends now that she's out of school but we still see each other all the time.
A lot of my friends now usually prefer to meet out rather than have someone come over. It takes the pressure off to be a host.
well, if i am not interested in keeping the conversation between me and the friends i am meeting or if i want to talk to strangers because they're late/i am in a foreign city etc. what works for me is to sit directly at the bar (is this correct english, i hope you understand what i mean). It's way easier to start a conversation there.
Yeah I prefer to sit at the bar (that's the correct phrase), but I think my problem is more what wott said. The bars I go to just have a "come with your group of friends and only talk to them" culture. Thus, me going alone doesn't really give me interaction other than a quick chat with the bartender.
Very likely. There are bars where people go to be alone; bars were people go in a group to stay purely within their group; bars where people go to meet between regulars and are closed to newcomers; bars where people are opened to anyone, regulars or 5-minute newcomer; etc.
The most classy, and also often the most hyped ones are the coldest ones. The most popular are often the warmest... providing that you manage to get into the 'family' circle if it is a matter of regulars/locals; or that you belong to the same scene if it is a subculture oriented place.
And it also depends also on you. And not necessarily as you expect. I am amongst the most introverted, shy, less talkative persons ever, and yet bartenders and regulars generally great me by calling my name on my 2nd or 3rd visit in a bar while some mates who've been coming to the same place dozens of times in are given the cold shoulder (I have plenty of examples like this, it was quite funny sometimes to see how upset by the situation my mate was :-).
I would also add, if getting-to-know-you conversation is difficult for you, memorize a list of about 10 basic questions (do you have any siblings, did you grow up here, what's something you really enjoyed about the last year, etc). Ask people these and be ready to share your answers, and it'll become pretty clear when someone wants to be your friend.
I too have made friends with strangers I've met in bars, as well as with servers and bartenders at places I've been a regular.
You don't have to drink alcohol at bar. I have plenty of friends who don't consume alcohol, but have no problems going out and order non-alcoholic cocktail, juice, tea etc. Sure, it depends on a place a lot -- there are places where people go to chat and meet new people and there are places where people go to drink until passing out, so find the one that suits you..
I don't often drink, maybe twice a year and I've been given the advice you just gave the previous poster. The truth is drunk people are insufferable while sober I don't recommend anyone do this.
Well, as I said, it depends on a place. I usually go to places where people are going to play board games, pool, foosball etc. while getting few beers, not drink themselves unconsciously.
To each their own of course, but I find even mildly impaired people annoying. You don't realize how much an effect a few beers can have alcohol is deceptive that way, that's why you see people down a bottle of vodka and get behind the wheel. They honestly believe that they are fine to drive.
A tip if you do decide to try this advice, don't let anyone know you aren't drinking. Not only will you often get accosted "Come on buddy just one!", but at the end of the night you will often be pressured to become some sort of unpaid Uber.
I actually usually don't mind being a DD, only because keeping drunk drivers off the road is a net benefit to society. I usually don't have to go much out of my way either as nobody lives very far away. Of course, if I were expected to do this all the time I'd be annoyed.
For sure some people are extremely obnoxious when they drink, especially heavily, myself included (which is a reason I don't like getting drunk - I try to stay mildly buzzed if I do drink, but usually I don't at socal gatherings, unless they are major social gatherings, and I even usually only drink water at bars) but the vast majority of people are fine after a couple brews. Most people stop getting blasted at around 25 or so anyways.
Your attitude indicates to me that if your perception of someone changes when they've had a beer, just because they've had a beer, rather than their actual behavior. I don't mean to be rude when I say that - I can understand. I used to not be able to stand being around people when they were drinking. I avoided anywhere where I thought there may be alcohol... but that was because I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and I was projecting my hatred of my father onto other people. It wasn't until years later I learned to be comfortable around social drinking. I learned to realize that my father did the things he did because he is a bad person, not because alcohol somehow forced him to.
As I said in another post, I actually ended up meeting the person I ended up marrying in a bar!
(I also did start drinking myself later on.)
To be clear I don't want to put you down or anything, just sharing my perspective.
I usually went because I wanted to meet someone new. I had very mixed results. While I had mixed results; people did seem to interact with eachother. Yes--it was small talk, but interaction.
Fast forward to today. The smart phone seems to have just ruined the experience all together.
I can blame myself--I'm not the same social person? I've aged? I don't find people and their stories as interesting? Blah--blah--blah?
I don't know? I do know that Phone Stare is really played out. It seems like everyone is engrossed in that screen?
The last time I was out, I was in an Irish themed bar in San Francisco. The older Bartender was asked a question by a patron. "This place is dead?"
He then said, "Maybe you should put the phone away? Plus, the led light brings out all the fine lines around the eyes?"
Yea--it was kinda rude, but he said it in a joking way, and with that Irish accent it came across as kinda endearing. Someting a father might say?
The phone eventually went into the bag. A person sat next to her, and asked her if he could buy her a drink. They talked, and talked. They genuinely seemed content--
I walked out, and it seemed like 90% of the patrons were still staring into that screen. All looked kinda misserable. I thought--what could be so interesting? A fifteen dollar drink, and waste the time on the screen?
I don't know if we are going to put the phone away, but I hope I'm still around if that day comes.
(I understand pulling out the phone if your socially awkward, or shy, but after awhile of Staring into the Abyss, put it away? And yes, if your at lunch putting together that huge business deal; I get it, but most of us just arn't that important. You're in a bar because your lonely. Admit it! Own it! Life is short--no one is judging you, nor cares. That phone is a huge turn off on so many levels. This goes two fold for guys.)
A typical "Irish pub" these days is usually the bar equivalent of Applebee's. However, the bartender in your story definitely sounded legit. :)
I find that small, established live music venues that operate a bar regardless of shows tend to be far more "real". There's usually only a few of these in any given major metropolitan area.
The phone stare ratio is far lower than average, but you run into the opposite problem: everyone knows everyone, and you're the outsider. Of course, that's usually a healthy sign that just indicates the place is worth becoming a regular at.
Many people who live in small apartments can and do host social gatherings. In my experience, how frequently someone hosts gatherings has more to do with their personality than the size of their living space.
Having your own studio in Manhattan puts you so far into stratospheric income (or a family heirloom rent controlled lease) that we may as well be talking about the problems of private jet owners.
I'm talking about the kind of people who have to choose between part of a shared apartment in a conveniently transit-connected part of SF/Manhattan, or their own studio/1-bedroom somewhere with low density and poor transit. Y'know, software engineers making $100k.
Ehhhhh... What? All my NYC friends are below average in income. None are software engineers and of course they all rent. Their housing costs are probably a very significant part of their income as well, but I've seen a lot of higher income people do the same with McMansions. A few ended up moving to Brooklyn too for cheaper rent.
I don't live in the NY metro area but I visit several times a year since I got friends there. I always crash on the couch.
I vary rarely socialize with people with high income because, one, I grew up poor so most of my childhood friends are still below average in income but more importantly I find it very difficult to relate to people who grew up well off. Sometimes I hear my co-workers talk and I feel I am living on a different planet.
As far as shared housing, yes, 99% of college kids live in shared housing and the vast majority of them still socialize.
To say that it is an extremely poor argument (as though I was giving an argument) is a bit hyperbolic. I'm not a proponent of the style of urban living you find in mega-cities either, though I'll propose that they are a superior alternative to somewhere like, say, Atlanta.
Your argument is poor, too. I see people starting conversations in subways all the time, and occasionally start them myself. I've never regretted it. Driving back from work in a bunch of cars, it's of course impossible, and it's amazing how easy it is to get angry with other drivers.
It's easier to meet people in a city, where the 5 miles of a bus ride can cover a neighborhood of a hundred thousand people and hundreds of venues to meet them, while the freeway ride in a suburb will cover less than ten thousand. And what does living with someone have to do with it? We're talking about interacting with people outside your house. I think US urban planning has certainly sucked, and the sprawl will hurt us socially as well as economically.
>I see people starting conversations in subways all the time
Where? In New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, the only people who do that are begging, preaching, or rambling incoherently. The sense of community I'll observe on a public transit vehicle is when something has gone wrong, or when everyone shares a look of relief after someone who was trying to start unwanted interactions has left. Granted there are some magical moments like the sax battle [0] that could never happen on a freeway, but did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?
There are people who will sit down next to you and start talking. Groups of friends traveling together will "rescue" each other from these interactions. People traveling solo will just get off and move to another car, or wait for the next train. The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"
> It's easier to meet people in a city,
From a pure numbers perspective, there are more people to meet per unit area. But are there more people to meet per travel minute by fastest viable means? I doubt it. If we accept 50 minutes (time for a walk to bus to train journey from mid south side to near north side Chicago by CTA), well, that is 50 miles at 60mph.
If my friend lives in a distant suburb it is not a problem, I can drive to his home in 10 minutes. If my friend lives in a distant urban neighborhood, I'm looking at a 50-minute 3-segment public transit journey.
You also have less free time living in a public-transit-oriented city. A New Yorker whose primary mode is the subway spends 90 minutes per day commuting [1]. A national average car commuter spends just 51 [2]. What would you do with an extra 3 hours per week? I'd see friends more often.
> And what does living with someone have to do with it?
Parent claims it is a problem that people live in separate boxes. Density does prevent this, in that real estate contention means relatively few people can afford their own box, but I claim that roommates of economic necessity don't actually strengthen social ties that well, and may weaken them.
If you're the type of person who thinks it's creepy for a random stranger to start a conversation with you, a random stranger (who's not a creep) will never start a conversation with you.
Just chiming in as another New Yorker who has spent lots of time on the subway and seen/overheard plenty of random interactions and conversations between strangers that aren't at all 'creepy' or one-sided. It's not that common, but definitely happens occasionally if you take the train a lot.
> Where? In New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, the only people who do that are begging, preaching, or rambling incoherently.
Agree with the other replies to you; I've had lovely chats with people on the subway in literally all three of the cities when I've visited. Also at the laundromat, or at a bar, at a museum, and other places.
> ...did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?
I never made a lifelong friend from these conversations (though I have received business cards or other contact info), but I got a sense that I mattered to a stranger, even if only for a little bit. That's certainly part of what the article is talking about.
> The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"
I can genuinely tell you that many conversations I've had did not end with either side thinking the other was creepy.
Of course, I've avoided conversations with people who I felt were creepy. Typically, these conversations happen when the person is speaking to me and I've given pretty clear body and vocal language that I am not interested in speaking.
I do my best to initiate chatting only with people who show interest in talking. Having an idea of who's interested in that takes practice, and some other identification skill I have a hard time describing, but which would likely fit the definition of "emotional intelligence."
# # #
Here's a little chestnut similar to what btmorex mentioned:
A young couple moved to a new town, and upon driving up to their new home for the first time, saw their neighbors outside. After a few pleasantries, the young couple asked, "So, we're wondering, what are the people like around here? Is it a good place to live?"
The neighbor paused, then said, "What were your neighbors like at your last town?"
The young couple agreed, "they were great!"
The neighbor, audibly relieved, said, "well they'll be great here, too."
# # #
What you look for and expect from others will greatly color your experiences. I figure most people are generally friendly, and I tend to be able to recognize when someone wants to chat... and they likely see my desire for a friendly chat, too.
This is a fair observation; Manhattan always feel to me very impersonal. However, I think the parent comment is referring to the Interstate Highway System construction in the '50s (and the broader 'Urban Renewal' movement of that era), which razed many of the dense neighborhoods in smaller cities to make room for highway construction. The relevant comparison isn't Manhattan to Scarsdale but the life one could once live in Hartford or Newark to how those cities are today.
Even if conversations with strangers isn't a normal thing, it does happen - I have multiple friends who've dated people they met in subway cars.
The point is that crossing paths is naturally going to lead to more spontaneous interactions. All else equal, driving alone and living in silo'd suburban houses means less interactions with strangers compared to living in an apartment in NYC.
I grew up in the suburbs and now live in Manhattan. I meet a lot more people in Manhattan than I ever did in the suburbs, and this is the main reason why I have no intention of moving back to the suburbs.
I'll also add that I spent my youth living in both suburban America and rural Japan. I made a lot more friends and had a lot more fun in Japan largely because I could get anywhere via walking or biking. In America I was dependent on adults driving me everywhere, so I spent way more time alone playing videogames in my house.
Your last paragraph struck home for me. I had a very similar experience, except it was rural central Africa and suburban America. The only friends I have in America are from college where (guess what?) there were a lot of people my age living within walking/biking distances.
I've seen this brought up many times before but I disagree completely that American cities' designs are the culprit. I enjoy visiting my family in their "suburban fortresses" out in the Midwest where you have to drive a car to get anywhere. I enjoy it because it gives me a chance to recover from the crippling social isolation that comes with living in a city with roommates, taking buses everywhere, walking around in crowds, and generally being surrounded by people who don't care about you.
The way I see it, the level of community involvement and social interaction in general have almost nothing to do with infrastructure, unless you decide to go full-on hermit in the mountains. It matters what people are in your life, not just how many are in your proximity.
That's the difference. Not city vs. suburban. Where are the people that care about you and that you care about? That's where you will feel less socially isolated.
I'd bet that if you went to a suburbia that doesn't contain your family, you'd feel just as isolated as you do in the city.
I would build mixed-use development neighborhoods, and create spaces where people would be able to meet together for events, etc. I'd move highways that go straight through the downtown area and reroute them around the city. I'd make cities more walk/bike/subway/bus - able and work on smart regulation that would allow for mixed-use development so people could work-live-play in different areas.
I'd also fix the schools. But that's a much larger discussion.
The vast majority of zoning laws are done at the local level. You'd actually be better off running for mayor of some city. It's much better to do what you're proposing at a local level anyway.
A lot of that funding comes from the federal government. Basically anything involving roads has to come from Washington because roads are so damn expensive to build and maintain.
I know the whole stereotype of suburban isolation is popular, but I have never found it to be true. I have lived in cities, small towns, and in suburbia. I found suburban folk knew their neighbors the most. In the city, people ignore each other. In small towns, you know everyone, but almost too much so. But in the suburbs, we knew everyone within about 5 homes, and the kids would go out and play together, we'd have dinners together, see each other at the parks... it was a community. It was the stereotype of talking across the fence to your neighbor as you both did yard work.
I'm not defending suburbia... I don't like it in general, and now have a small homestead in a small town, but my dislike of suburbia does NOT stem from social isolation.
Just the same, there are city neighborhoods where everyone down the block knows one another and whose families spend time together often, and suburban neighborhoods falling into crime and dysfunction where few community bonds exist.
Neither of these is proof that one is inherently better than the other, just that there are many dependent factors which can change the fabric of a neighborhood in any setting. That's the point of the entire field of urban studies existing; to understand what makes these types of places happen. As you would expect, many of the communities that we have in reality don't implement the best solutions that have been discovered due to local resistance, funding issues, misguided political mandates, etc.
> it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again.
That's not the highways fault in any way. Walkable neighborhoods are expensive, and most Americans are too poor to afford anything like that.
You can't jump in early, because you'll just get gentrified out as soon as decent density & transit exist. You can't jump in after, because the costs are 3x to 50x higher. If your not wealthy, it's a loose-loose situation. That's why walkable neighborhoods can't maintain their "variety of incomes and backgrounds".
If anyone could afford to put their family in walkable NYC / San Francisco / Seattle / etc, many more would choose to do it. But until high-quality safe family housing in walkable neighborhoods drops to $150k - $250k, it's just not going to happen.
Suburbs don't happen because people love looking at asphalt. Suburbs can be made cheap, safe and affordable for regular middle-class people. Dense urban housing is almost never affordable, even in tiny little towns with no zoning or permitting in low-cost-of-living places like the Midwest.
Until people honestly address the exploding high costs of density (and not just blame "red tape" or "design" or "subsidy" for it), that won't change and suburbs will continue to get built.
Older research is generally given less credence than newer research because of certain assumptions which may or may not be accurate:
* That the researchers looked into previous research, examined those results, and are either replicating them (thus adding extra evidence to those hypothesis), or have found some sort of flaw in how the research was gathered.
* That the researches have, in their research, looked into multiple previous studies, including the old one you referenced, and synthesized them all for their new research.
* It's often been shown that older research studies are flawed in some way, especially in certain fields, such as nutrition, so older studies should be held suspect (really the newer studies should be held with just as much skepticism, but they never are)
Again, the assumptions that this is done is not necessarily what happened in reality, but without media or laypeople doing their own research into things (and neither have time for that), it's usually a useful greedy heuristic to assume newer research is better and more accurate than older research.
I think this passage is key, I had not heard this postulated before:
"New research suggests that loneliness is not necessarily the result of poor social skills or lack of social support, but can be caused in part by unusual sensitivity to social cues. Lonely people are more likely to perceive ambiguous social cues negatively, and enter a self-preservation mind-set — worsening the problem."
Totally agree. I think the internet and social media have just exacerbated the existing problem that society is fracturing into countless splinter groups, with no tolerance for any of the others' views, and it's really difficult to find and keep up with those handful of people you can actually tolerate enough to keep a close social bond with. I don't think that it takes a degree in sociology, or a controlled study, to see this happening. As for WHY, my own, personal theory is that "we" (the US) came together to support the war effort in the forties in a way that the world had never experienced before or since, and it's all been a snowballing disassociation since, made worse as a reaction TO the perceived stifling effect of the dominant societal norm of that day.
FWIW communities coming together in times of emergency is a pretty universal experience, not unique to the US in the 1940's (the UK's home front experience during WW2 [1] is cited as an example most often I think). A book I've been meaning to read for a while is "A Paradise Built in Hell" by Rebecca Solnit. From the Washington Post review [2]:
"Her book is worth reading for its storytelling alone. But what makes it even more fascinating is Solnit's demonstration that disasters give rise to small, temporary utopias in which the best of human nature emerges and a remarkable spirit of generosity and cooperation takes over. 'Disaster,' she writes, 'along with moments of social upheaval, is when the shackles of conventional belief and role fall away and the possibilities open up.' People suffering unimaginable misfortune often revert not to savagery but to an almost beatific selflessness, comforting themselves in extremis by aiding others. Solnit cites many examples of those who remember a disaster as, paradoxically, one of the great moments of their lives. The reaction is similar to that of some who recall the Great Depression as a time of spiritual and social richness."
It's because loneliness is much more prevalent now than in 1974. It's no longer exotic but a condition sometimes voluntarily chosen and supported by modern technologies in 2016.
Also we used to think that heart disease risk is mostly tied to diet and exercise. But it's still the #1 killer in the United States. So every protective or risk factor needs to be considered. As such, new research linking heart disease, CVD, CHD to loneliness, friendship or marriage is interesting.
That's not to say that loneliness causes those things. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that lonely people are more likely to be depressed and sedentary. Many diseases follow from being depressed and sedentary.
My folks were Silent Generation,and I think we're a lot less lonely than they were. And face it, I like being alone. I haven't felt lonely since college, and I think that was mostly performance anxiety.
I think that been undergoing a number of changes - including (but not limited to) the increase in urbanization (moving away from close small communities), increase in movement (relatives spread across the country/globe), increase in secularism (decrease in religious communities), and more access to personal entertainment (see the end of the Chautauqua movement), that have definitely caused us to be more isolated and have less of a sense of community. We are still trying to adapt to - or even be aware of - the changes we have been undergoing and the implications of it.
It seems like a sense of community is extremely important for a society, particularly with the connection there seems to be between community and happiness (my understanding is that much of the happiness that religious people get is from the community, for example). Still, I haven't seen a great idea as to how one can be fostered (though there are some decent ideas about what you as an individual can do to get a better sense).
Indeed.. while waiting for the new research to come out, read Marcus Aurelius, Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt. Maybe throw in some Roman and Greek classics. That should "help a bit".
The problem isn't that we don't know how to live well and healthy and sleep soundly, it's that we want to be healthy and sleep soundly without living that way. We don't want to be simply just and honest and go from there. Well, joke's on us, the truth remains where it is, waiting for dithering people to stop being scared of it.
> why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough?
Because the NYT is a newspaper and they need a reason to publish a news article. This is known as a "hook." The hook in cases like this will be something new being published. It's hard to hook readers by announcing: What we've known since the 1970s still holds true. Just doesn't work.
Yep, same reason Taylor Swift has so many breakup songs. They sell. The NYT has so many words to push per release and they have to come from a variety of topics.
If you find this interesting you may enjoy The Village Effect[1] by Susan Pinker. It's a more in-depth look at this phenomenon.
If social isolation is as deadly as smoking or not exercising, should we approach the problem with a similar level of seriousness? Maybe we need "social exercise" three times a week, and if we aren't getting it naturally should contrive a way to get it much like going to the gym.
Social isolation is a huge problem. There's stigma around declaring it.
I'm doing my part to address this problem right now:
Any HN'ers in downtown Vancouver reading this post, let's
grab coffee near Robson Square. My email is in my profile
and synced to my phone so I will reply promptly.
I've been just reading principles.com (from the other HN thread) and inspired to take action.
To some extent, Meetups help. It's not just an opportunity to hear about the latest in a filed that you have an interest in, but also an avenue to meet-and-greet.
I found Meetup to be the same way for me. So I'm starting something that allows you to limit how many people can join and have the option to create plans without needing a Meetup Group. Check it out TheCoopApp.com and let me know what you think.
I love the idea but I'm stuck on the "Logging in" page looking at a diamond-shaped spinner on both Firefox (50.0) and Chromium (53.0.2785.143), both on Linux. I notice the page is trying to load a script from facebook.net, something that's not going to happen on any system that I have control over. Not sure if that's the problem or if it's something else...
We are pack animals, it is why dogs evolved in to our family. Isolation is a severance from our natural social state and is hurtful. I think one of the great benefits of the internet is that it is possible to meet and befriend people outside of the normal social routes. It is not a cure for isolation, but friends you game with or chat with or share stupid stories with is a help.
The problem is that reddit and digg killed the conventional forum, so no one really cares who you are any more (unlike when people would start to 'know' regular posters on forums). Now it's a crapshoot of random people and a smattering of comment replies if people vote on your comment. No personality, no real interaction.
They still exist, but they have been dying. There are a few niche forums that still hold on to users, but the proliferation of subreddits leaks people away.
I visit no forums today, whereas when I grew up it was a majority of my online-life.
I agree with this wholly. I used to play chess on a service called FICS and it had a decent social scene in some ways for someone who was growing up geek in a town that wasn't really giving avenues for it (I grew up in the rural Midwest...it's no rural south but it's not great either) I went back recently and it's usershio is wwaaaay down
Well, I think like every other loosely federated communication system from the 90s (except email), the scene has moved on to a couple proprietary platforms providing a better user experience. lichess.org and chess.com have pretty good scenes now, and you can still make friends there.
That's interesting now that I think about it....I do still belong to a few forums for dedicated topics, and they are always such friendlier places than reddit.
Depends on the subreddit. The smaller ones still have strong community. I know lots of people from /r/mechanicalkeyboards for instance, many of whom are local. I think it helps a lot that users organize a TON of meetups all over the world so people have faces to put to usernames.
I have been "lonely" most of my life. I have lived in a terrible town growing up where everyone lived on the other side of town.
I went to college where nothing was happening and nothing is really interesting and I didn't connect with anyone really.
Now, I am reaching 30, and have spent the most of my 20s trying to find a way to move to a place that will make me happy. I'm hoping this will eventually happen, but I have lost a lot of hope.
I don't feel connected to humans whatsoever. However, the greatest joy for me is sitting in front of my computer interacting with you folk.
Man, could I give an advice to you? Don't expect too much from other people, and try you to create "events" and invite some people, with similar interests, to join with you. Don't worry about the "no"s you will receive, pay attention to the "yes". The change start on you. This works for me.
I mean I still try and I give more than I receive for sure, but nothing seems to be working.
For the first half of my 20s I didn't leave the house under the assumption that, "if I work hard, I can live where I want to and find a job in a cool place. No reason to make friends now."
I have since replaced that assumption, but it's hard to find meaningful relationships in a place you despise.
My (not so limited) connections come from continuously contact, not common interests or hates.
Very different, oposing views and values can break a relationship. Very similar views cannot make them - only if this similarity leads to continuous contact.
My friends come from: childhood neighboors, two student organizations I was part of and college soccer team. Each of these environments allowed for years long contact with the same people. And from that came friendships. Not from similar anything.
Friendships are born from tedious hours of boring conversation with random people that only happened because no one there had nothing else better to do.
That comfortable feeling of having a meaningful relationship only comes years after that.
Agree with this, circumstance can accelerate this process: sharing some mutual experience like going on a tour or living in a foreign country can leave you making friends with people you would probably never have associated with back home
If you live in a community too small to have a meetup, make one yourself and see if anyone attends. I did it, fully expecting not a single person to show up. I met so many people through that, starting in a community of under 70,000 people.
Are there any meetups in your area or other groups that have weekly/monthly meetings? If not, can I ask where you are located? Also, have you tried volunteering? Or teaching a free class at a library or civic organization?
Life (generally) returns what a portion of what you give. If you never put yourself out there, you can't get relationships back in return. I'd focus first on getting new acquaintances, they don't have to be friends. As your circles grow, you will find some number of actual friends.
For 4 years, at university, I lived surrounded by people I didn't found interesting, and I was pretty sure that I was the problem.
Then I changed the city, and found cool people, smart and interesting, I never was so happy.
I really hope you do not stop trying, and find your place.
I think you have to at least "expect" things to change for the better socially. Maybe its just a matter of finding the right people where you can set expectations of each other? There will be times when the expectations cannot be met, but respect and communication help with that.
Sorry, I tried to mean, don't expect people will "love" you easily or for few reasons. Don't do good things to people expecting they will do the same to you, just do.
I feel the exact same way. It's quite strange. I find I can't connect with others either. In my job I appear to be quite social and pass largely as someone who is considered nice and socially adept...not that I'm not a nice person I just mean nice in the sense of being easy to get along with and "understanding" people but unless I have a given context for interacting with someone (like...work) I've been deemed 'too intense' to be around for a long time in my life. I can't just turn 'me' off so I often find it hard to make friends. I'm lucky that I met my wife because she's very understanding of my peculiarities. If it want for her I wouldn't have a lot of social interactions outside work at all.
Be happy where you are. It's essentially a form of self-delusion. And I DARE you to watch Ren & Stimpy's "Stimpy's Invention[1]" and not be happy, at least for a little while.
[1] in which Stimpy invents "The Happy Helmet" and Ren is his ... involuntary happiness subject.
And yes - it's on YouTube.
"I don't think you're happy enough! That's right! I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"
TLDR - Stop worrying about finding the perfect place and try to get the best out of what is around you. Find a local volunteer opportunity that will force you to interact with random people and other volunteers (volunteermatch.org is not a bad choice). Just pick something and do it immediately, you may find better/different connections than you would with friends (I have at least).
Long version:
I have a couple recommendations that could help you to connect with people better if you can take a couple minutes to read this, its a little longer than I would like but I really think that you can turn things around. I am by no means an expert and I have struggled with isolation myself at other times in my life, but I do feel like I have made some small improvements so my guess is you could to.
First off, while I think a location can be either conducive or adverse to the type of lifestyle you would like, I think a big part of how well or poorly you fit into a place is on you - you get out of it what you put into it (or something like that). That sucks to hear and you probably already know it and I think it is the truth. The only reason I say that is to caution you to not overlook what might be around you already. That being said, I have a buddy who I feel like was in a similar situation until he picked up and move to Portland kind of on a whim (after doing similar things with other places) and this time it worked out for him (so far), but he probably had to be ready and open to good things happening or else it would have been like it had been before in other places.
More importantly, I think it is way easier to connect with people outside of what we typically think of as "social" situations. I've never liked going to bars to meet people or any kind of mixer situation although these days I'm much better at it. What really did it for me was to go way out of my comfort zone and do volunteer activities that forced me to do things I really didn't feel like doing but I kind of put myself in a situation that made it hard to give into my desire to bail. The main one for me was political volunteering, starting during the primaries of this year and going into the general election. The outcome was devastating but the process and the changes I felt were pretty amazing. The actual work required connecting with total strangers in situations where I otherwise never would have: registering people to vote (talking to people on the street, going to large festivals and walking around and talking to strangers), going door to door to talk to people (mostly giving information but also trying to convince people to vote and giving them my personal opinions), and phone banking (talking to random strangers who were mostly in my city but who I would never likely meet). All these things were really uncomfortable at first but once I met the organizers involved and got excited by their excitement and passion I would sign up for something and then it was like "well, guess I gotta do it". Lock yourself into something that can't really hurt you but that pushes you outside your comfort zone.
After doing all of that, at 30 years old I felt like I had kind of finally figured out how to be a part of my own environment (as opposed to a mindless drone only focused on going from A->B). I haven't found my "next thing" yet, but since then I've found many social situations to be easier than they used to be, even something as stupid as buying a car was 10x less stressful than it used to be for me (and I got a couple grand better of a deal than I usually would have). Once you get over knocking on the door of a strangers house and realizing that a) most people are actually pretty cool and b) the vast majority of the time you are going to be totally fine no matter what, a lot of other things feel like a cakewalk. I met more new people in 6 months than in the prior 6 years and since we were all going to a similar stressful time, connecting was easy for once (even though aside from politics perso...
Thanks for the very long response. I will definitely look into volunteering. I am apart of the Planetary Society volunteer program, but never really do anything with them.
I guess I just need to start doing it and not question it so much
I used to be like you. I am high functioning autistic so social interaction is mentally very hard for me and I feel completely drained after talking to people for an extended period of time. That said, I am now quite extroverted, especially when intoxicated.
Making friends is hard. I am a lot more social than I used to be now but I have a wide and shallow list of people I get along with. I don't feel there is anyone I am actually close to (other than my wife and kids). So don't take my advice too closely because I am definitely not a model for socialisation, I spend most of my free time child raising and studying.
If I can give one piece of advice it is that you should get involved in some activities. Be it sports, gaming, joining a hackerspace, whatever it really doesn't matter what it is as long as there is some level of complexity that keeps people hooked and enough to keep you interested as well. You will find that in situations of mutual difficulty you find the people you actually like and the people who actually like you. As long as you aren't a completely antisocial arsehole you should develop a connection to someone eventually if you just throw yourself into it. Listen to people when they talk, almost everyone has some interesting story lurking away inside them. Even if you don't like them at all you can at least be entertained by the occasional anecdote or bizarre circumstance. The important thing is to try and you might surprise yourself.
As somebody else on the spectrum, how did you get to understand dating? I find that I miss so many cues, and there's a lot about human interactions that I don't understand.
If you are a guy, you're not alone. We just generally suck at cues. Ya gotta get lucky and find someone to spell it out for you. At least that's how I met my wife.
This is an honest fear of mine. Maybe "fear" isn't the right word, but I feel like I exhibit behaviors that would indicate I'm on the spectrum, but they're always intentional and rooted in the idea that I don't want to bother or disturb others.
So I keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and don't initiate conversation if it's for "selfish" reasons. I need an excuse to be social that isn't just "because I want to". If I have such an excuse (like I'm part of an established group, or it's business related, or so on), I have absolutely no problem. Only when the purpose is personal or self-serving do I have problems. Not because I don't want to interact, but because my fear is that in doing so I'll just upset or annoy everyone else. I've been actively fighting this peculiarity for many years (with professional help) and while it's gotten better it's still very difficult. And I think from an outside perspective this comes off as a bit like mild autistic behavior.
I missed sooooo many cues. I started having much, much better luck in my mid-twenties when I just said fuck it, and started making moves on date 2 or 3 without trying to 'read the situation, see if she'd react favorably first'. And even after I started doing that I'd get women saying afterwards, "Phew! I thought you might not like me before you did that!" to which I'd always think "You're crazy! I would have ended the date or not asked you out again if I wasn't interested!"
Thanks, that makes sense! Sorry if this sounds autistic, but what kind of moves did you make and how did you know you weren't jumping the gun too soon?
Bit of a necro (raised from a dead thread) reply but worth adding a little more.
I gave up trying to pick up all the cues at all. Instead I focus mainly just on conversation. It take a lot of work but it is possible (for me at least) to focus entirely on the content and when to say something, when not to in an almost scripted way. Listen to conversation and interject at the right time. I am interested in almost everything and if you listen and probe well enough then you will find almost anyone has something interesting to say or an amusing story to tell. That said, I don't pick up on much of the group interaction at all but it doesn't matter. All this is quite mentally challenging but just focusing on one part, the conversation, and not all of the other meta communication is pretty much how I do it. It is still quite stressful and mentally draining but I think that I can mostly hold a discussion with random strangers now. People will either think I am an interesting person to talk to or not and we part ways.
How this ties back into dating is where it gets interesting. I've had remarkable luck in forming lasting relationships just by talking to people, I usually miss all of the early cues entirely and I don't even know whether someone is interested in me until their number is in my phone (the modern equivalent is adding you on facebook) or some similar forward sign. The important thing is just to start the conversation and to listen to people. Don't hold any preconceptions about people; be open and friendly and be unafraid to talk about yourself and your own experiences.
You are what's making you unhappy, and that's what you have to change. The good thing is you have plenty of free time to do it in, and all the power to do it.
Unfortunately, as someone who has lived in many, many places, this is true. People are socializing everywhere and if you're lonely where you are, you will probably be lonely anywhere. Unless you're flamboyantly gay in Aleppo, or something, moving probably won't affect your ability to socialize too much.
However. I've found there is a period of increased energy upon moving to a new city. During this period, I am more open and alert, more willing to start conversations that may not end well.
When you live in a place for years, a mental cocoon forms that blocks out most of the stimuli.
I'm the same, except I actually found such a place: a 38-person student cooperative during my last year of college. I'm convinced living in a creaky old house with a varied cast of characters is the way to go for a happy and socially fulfilling life. College is almost a decade behind me, but I hope to find such a place again before I turn 30. (And one that's hopefully not 100% filled with startup folks... we need artists, writers, researchers, educators, and everything else -- not just programmers.)
Yes, I completely agree. The difficulty is finding the right people. And I don't think of this as being exactly the same as co-living or other movements. I'm not sure what to call it...but it requires a certain mindset...or maybe we're thinking of different setups. The "creaky old house" says a lot about the character of the people; I don't think that's a small detail--not that it would have to be a creaky old house, but that the occupants wouldn't mind that. Because for the living conditions there is a priority above materialism...
One thing I really loved about our house is that it bore the scars of many past generations. Odd wiring... staircases leading to nowhere... strange wooden fixtures holding things up... handmade room extensions. The house had its own eccentric character, shaped by the people who lived in it.
Hey, welcome to the club! I loved reading your comment and feel more connected now. Ah, the social webs of hacker news, can't beat it. Except I say stupid shit sometimes and get downvoted to oblivion. Let me tell you something... There is no place you can move to cure what you have. Sorry.
Going to encouragingly dispute that. Tech hubs are full of people who came out of just this situation and are ecstatic at having found a like-minded community. You may not suddenly be a social butterfly, but the chances of making friends and finding meetups you enjoy etc go up by literal orders of magnitude. If you're an isolated computer type, you owe it to yourself to at least visit a place like this for a weekend and schedule some meetups or job interviews etc to see what life could be like.
At age 30 most people are strong and healthy. That is huge asset. When you get older like 60 or 70 you may start losing these and needvto depend on others whether friends or government. Young people feel invincible, read some of these nebulous self help articles and believe they will never become dependent. Well we have news for you - life is not always roses.
It is very important this research was shared. However, the very difficult and likely impossible part is to actually change the emotional and interpersonal ethos of society. Given the very intangible nature of the problem, no one in power will care enough to initiate a national program to motivate such social change. Therefore, it must come from us, the people. We ought to stand to the call and do something of value to nudge society towards a more interactive state.
I think it's valuable to think about this problem from an evolutionary perspective. Almost every problem we have can be viewed this way.
We should be asking ourselves how we were living 100,000 years ago. This is what our bodies and our brains are expecting. The whole concept of the nuclear family and a house and a fence is a completely foreign concept to our bodies because we haven't been doing it for very many generations.
From what I know, we should be living in tribes, right?
From that perspective, I would immediately look at communal housing solutions. Maybe we should often be living in very small apartments with communal living areas and communal eating and cooking areas. That's closer to what our bodies and minds expect, right?
> I think it's valuable to think about this problem from an evolutionary perspective. Almost every problem we have can be viewed this way.
Spot on. I was an Anthropology major in college, and this is the single most important takeaway from my education.
Even a few decades ago, families often at least lived with or close to the elder generation (grandparents) which created a greater sense of community and history. At some point it was decided that elder persons should live by themselves, or they were not welcome in their adult children' homes (or there was no room for them there.)
I think what you say about tribes is interesting -- I think people tend to create their own "tribes" either with friends, workmates, hobbies that are communal etc.
Not just old people, but having young people segregated into cohorts of kids the same age, being directed in activities, away from what adults are naturally doing at that time.
There is a whole age spectrum from 0 to 100 where the 20-60 year olds are providing the main physical sustenance, but the others are giving the main social sustenance.
Our society has organized all that away. So kids wait to grow up so that they can finally have freedom and old people wait around to die. That's a bit extreme, of course, but there is a kernel of truth in it.
If that's the way we "should" be living, why then as a society did we mostly chose to live separately in family units? It must have a survival advantage or we would have stopped doing it.
That's the wrong way to think of it. Rather, it must not be a crippling survival disadvantage or we would have stopped doing it. And happiness doesn't necessarily correlate with survival either.
I don't remember the name, but in an anthro class we discussed a culture where children were married as infants and raised together. This ends up being suboptimal because the kids identify each other as siblings and biology basically interferes with them developing a romantic relationship. As a result they end up taking romantic partners outside the arranged marriage. But hey, it still produces kids so the culture continued on, even with this suboptimal practice.
Likewise for tribes who practiced eating the brains of the deceased. It gives you a neurodegenerative disease, but the incubation period is sufficiently long so that you can still keep your population up.
This is a well written article. I agree that this problem is growing, due to less social interaction and more reliance on social media tools and apps. This is not good for society
A great paradox of our hyper-connected digital age is that we seem to be drifting apart. Increasingly, however, research confirms our deepest intuition: Human connection lies at the heart of human well-being. It’s up to all of us — doctors, patients, neighborhoods and communities — to maintain bonds where they’re fading, and create ones where they haven’t existed.
Robert Putnam has written extensively on this issue and the underlying causes:
Only few things made me feel more isolated than using Facebook. Living newly in Tokyo, having a hard time making new friends, everyone seemed to live these wild an exciting lives. Left the service, the disconnect from my old friends made it easier, made new ones. A new life commenced.
One observation I've had: I feel/have felt more isolated when I don't have close connections with people around me but I am around a lot of people. I grew up in a really rural area and spent a lot of time outside alone and never felt isolated in nature. However once you get out in the city, get an internet connection etc, all the sudden you do feel isolated.
Also, does anyone else like it when the power goes out? Its so surreal to be in the city without power (I'm used to it in the country however) and all the sudden everyone is on their porch or out in the street chatting. Then it comes on and everyone goes back into their little isolation chambers.
> I feel/have felt more isolated when I don't have close connections with people around me but I am around a lot of people.
I really like Venkat’s write-up about masks[0]. Large cities, dense yet impersonal, strain our voice masks. Smaller communities, what you likely experienced in the rural area when you were not outside alone, can be psychologically healing but on the other hand strain our exit masks. Everyone has their own tipping point—you seem less susceptible to exit mask stress than me, for example.
It's articles like this that genuinely make me wonder if I'm a weirdo because I actually prefer to be alone when at all possible.
And I like people! I have no trouble engaging in small talk while getting to know new folks. But man, they wear me out. Even ones I love. At the end of the day, I need aloneness if I'm going to recharge for tomorrow's challenges.
Sort of anecdotally, I think the big difference is whether it's voluntary or involuntary aloneness. Even the difference between 1 person and 0 persons to just call/talk to is huge
Same for me. I think small talk is draining because it lacks authenticity and the possibility of a real exchange that allows both party to understand themselves better.
They do, but not the same type or intensity of extroverts. That's another facet of what I call "extrovert's dictatorship". Extroverts just assume that their way of doing social interaction is the healthy and correct one.
Similar introvert here. Open plan offices destroy me. It's a balancing act, not being too isolated so you get depressed, but having your own space really matters
One of the biggest differences of the Philippines that I noticed on arrival was how many people are out and walking around in neighborhoods and around the city in general. One of the first comments my friend made when moving from the Philippines to the US was that she never saw people because everyone was either in their cars or their houses.
Personally, I love being alone. I don't get lonely though. It's from my social life where all my bad and unhealthy habits come from. So, I would say it's a wash for me.
I'm glad so much of the discussion here is about suburbanization. As a staunch urbanist I want to beleive this is a huge cause, but I must admit the "alone in New York" counter-narrative is also compelling. I think I have to speculations on reconciling the two.
First, I think we can agree that frequent interactions with another is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for friendship. If so, it should be obvious that density is good but size is bad.
Second, I believe our major metros—especislly since the great invertion—attract a certain sort of person less likely to foster community. Your steriotypical new gentrifier is career-focused with strong sense of individuality, moving for work, and, perhaps most importantly, fresh out of school where making friends presents very different challenges.
For anyone reading, really feeling lonely and having the means yo affort it. Come and visit a country like Colombia, we love having people over and making friends (really honest and helpful ones) is what we do best. I met an Austrian girl last week who told me she never felt as much in home as the next day she landed here. She now quit his tech job in Europe and moved here.
Great comment. Solitude and loneliness are different things. The former can build you up, the latter tear you asunder. An article from the New Yorker that was posted here a few months captured the sentiment:
> Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.
I'm currently three months into a stretch of solitude as I focus fully on building an online business. While not prone to loneliness, there are films I won't watch and songs I refuse to play because they remind me too much of friends and loved ones.
Which is to say, loneliness is like a lever that you have at least some control over. But it still stabs at you unexpectedly sometimes.
Although perhaps saudade is the better term for this feeling. And I'm not too sure if it's an entirely undesirable emotion.
I wonder if intelligence and propensity-to-learn gaps are major causes of social isolation among us here. I feel that they are two of the most important factors affecting my social life, from childhood up to now. The times I felt less socially isolated had always been when I studied or worked among some of the more intelligent and eager-to-learn people. And it gets more pronounced as I grow more mature and have spent more time learning and thinking.
I found this out a few years ago and thought it might be pertinent to my situation:
“Observation shows that there is a direct ratio between the intelligence of the leader and that of the led. To be a leader of his contemporaries a child must be more intelligent but not too much more intelligent than those to be led… But generally speaking, a leadership pattern will not form—or it will break up—when a discrepancy of more than about 30 points of IQ comes to exist between leader and led [1]
I grew up in a developing country with inadequate educational system, to put it mildly. I have always done well academically, ranking top 10 nation-wide in two middle school exams. I got impatient and skipped two years of high school to attend a local college, which is considered a 'good' one. (I picked it for personal reasons, while having the 'national entrance exam' score high enough to pick the top university in the country.) I became increasingly aware of how much most people think differently in those years, as I could ace most analytical tests without putting much efforts and my friends struggled. We remained good friends but we shared few interests and not much in common intellectually. (I can perform most other activities, like sports or dance, fairly well given the little amount of time I spend on them, but I find most of them boring.)
Then I got a scholarship to study in a top 10 CS graduate departments in the US. I found out that there are many more people who share my interests and we can interact on equal terms intellectually. I moved back to the country after graduation and started to suffer social isolation again.
I dated someone who is a bit above average in intelligence but did not have the patience to explain everything so we parted away soon after. I had since have trouble finding people who I can be myself with in most respects intellectually and can explain my thought process concisely and get them to give interesting responses back in turn. For friends, it's not as big a problem since we usually don't have to see each other that often; but for dates, I think it might be a problem after a while. (Please let me know if and why you disagree. It would be helpful.)
Earlier this year, I went back to live for a few months in a very intellectual city with a top university in the US and felt like I could connect with people around me again. Unfortunately, it will take quite a bit of efforts to move there permanently.
If anyone has a differing perspective and interpretation that I have, please comment here. I'd love to connect better with the 'intellectually average' people as well.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadHere's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more clearly than the NYTimes piece) between what it calls loneliness of emotional isolation and loneliness of social isolation, and, to me, its examples like the condition of married couples who moved far away are much more salient (and convincing) than reliance on surveys and dry statements like "loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline" and "increases risk of heart disease by 29%".
Am I missing something?
P.S. One cool thing I learned about from reading about Cacioppo's research is that when designing a survey about loneliness you can't ask questions like "do you feel lonely?" because it's much too ambiguous and people end up giving incoherent useless answers. I never thought something so basic could be so confusing to people.
[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/loneliness
[2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...
The national highway system was great for a nation on the brink of all-out war. We needed to move troops, tanks, people, supplies quickly and efficiently. This system ended up being used to separate black people from working class whites. Naturally we have drug and violence problems in those communities that were segregated from the more educated and affluent white population.
Terrible. I wish I could be governor or something and make sure that we stop this. It makes me sad.
It's pretty time-consuming, but it's a big responsibility, making decisions that affect lots of people's lives. So, trade-offs.
That said, I do not feel that expectation of social and civic engagement in San Francisco.
I live in Barcelona and the majority of people live in flats/apartments, my apartment building is like a large family, mixture of retirees, families, young couples and mixed flats of people just out of university. Everyone knows each other and relies on each other, for our neighbours' 90th birthday almost the whole building (10 flats) took her cake and stayed and chatted and had fun. (My partner and myself are both foreigners here and we're still accepted into the culture and events like this. IMO it's really hard to overstate how crucial this sort of interaction and sense of belonging is in a large city. What intensifies this even more is in Barcelona the first floor of a lot of apartment buildings is where there are shops/bars/butchers/restaurants etc. For most of my food and leisure needs (including the gym for example) I don't need to go more than 400m, this also creates social situations where you bump into the same people and staff over and over creating a real village feel.
Here's a great shot of Eixample, a district in Barcelona divided by distinctive grids that lends itself to these 'micro' village communities. http://lh4.ggpht.com/-I28z_xwspR0/UdgqfgPxzCI/AAAAAAAAqCY/Mj...
Sorry that was quite the tangent to go off on!
We work all day, come home at 8pm, watch TV while surfing with phone, update Facebook, text a friend, go to bed. Repeat.
Go back 10,000 years and almost all people encountered would be people familiar to you. Any other instances would've been a potential stand-off. I'd guess it's a carry over from that.
It is much harder to meet friends who are separated by 5 miles of bus ride than 5 miles of freeway. It is much harder to actually hear each other at a crowded bar than someone's home, but only the very rich (or the suburban) can afford homes large enough to host gatherings. Economic circumstances may coerce interaction with roommates, but living with someone is more likely to destroy your friendship than strengthen it.
I think this is a cultural/attitude thing, not really a manifestation of urban planning.
Never live with someone you aren't prepared to hate. Nothing kills a friendship like becoming roommates.
I also became good friends with a bartender who I met when she was serving me. She no longer bartends now that she's out of school but we still see each other all the time.
A lot of my friends now usually prefer to meet out rather than have someone come over. It takes the pressure off to be a host.
Bars in big cities provide more opportunities but then I think people are generally seen as more "disposable" if that make sense.
This is coming from someone who also feels like they have been going to the wrong bars.
Very likely. There are bars where people go to be alone; bars were people go in a group to stay purely within their group; bars where people go to meet between regulars and are closed to newcomers; bars where people are opened to anyone, regulars or 5-minute newcomer; etc.
The most classy, and also often the most hyped ones are the coldest ones. The most popular are often the warmest... providing that you manage to get into the 'family' circle if it is a matter of regulars/locals; or that you belong to the same scene if it is a subculture oriented place.
And it also depends also on you. And not necessarily as you expect. I am amongst the most introverted, shy, less talkative persons ever, and yet bartenders and regulars generally great me by calling my name on my 2nd or 3rd visit in a bar while some mates who've been coming to the same place dozens of times in are given the cold shoulder (I have plenty of examples like this, it was quite funny sometimes to see how upset by the situation my mate was :-).
Here's a book that can help you stop thinking it has anything to do with luck:
How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships [1]
[1] https://amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships/dp/...
I too have made friends with strangers I've met in bars, as well as with servers and bartenders at places I've been a regular.
A tip if you do decide to try this advice, don't let anyone know you aren't drinking. Not only will you often get accosted "Come on buddy just one!", but at the end of the night you will often be pressured to become some sort of unpaid Uber.
For sure some people are extremely obnoxious when they drink, especially heavily, myself included (which is a reason I don't like getting drunk - I try to stay mildly buzzed if I do drink, but usually I don't at socal gatherings, unless they are major social gatherings, and I even usually only drink water at bars) but the vast majority of people are fine after a couple brews. Most people stop getting blasted at around 25 or so anyways.
Your attitude indicates to me that if your perception of someone changes when they've had a beer, just because they've had a beer, rather than their actual behavior. I don't mean to be rude when I say that - I can understand. I used to not be able to stand being around people when they were drinking. I avoided anywhere where I thought there may be alcohol... but that was because I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and I was projecting my hatred of my father onto other people. It wasn't until years later I learned to be comfortable around social drinking. I learned to realize that my father did the things he did because he is a bad person, not because alcohol somehow forced him to.
As I said in another post, I actually ended up meeting the person I ended up marrying in a bar!
(I also did start drinking myself later on.)
To be clear I don't want to put you down or anything, just sharing my perspective.
I usually went because I wanted to meet someone new. I had very mixed results. While I had mixed results; people did seem to interact with eachother. Yes--it was small talk, but interaction.
Fast forward to today. The smart phone seems to have just ruined the experience all together.
I can blame myself--I'm not the same social person? I've aged? I don't find people and their stories as interesting? Blah--blah--blah?
I don't know? I do know that Phone Stare is really played out. It seems like everyone is engrossed in that screen?
The last time I was out, I was in an Irish themed bar in San Francisco. The older Bartender was asked a question by a patron. "This place is dead?"
He then said, "Maybe you should put the phone away? Plus, the led light brings out all the fine lines around the eyes?"
Yea--it was kinda rude, but he said it in a joking way, and with that Irish accent it came across as kinda endearing. Someting a father might say?
The phone eventually went into the bag. A person sat next to her, and asked her if he could buy her a drink. They talked, and talked. They genuinely seemed content--
I walked out, and it seemed like 90% of the patrons were still staring into that screen. All looked kinda misserable. I thought--what could be so interesting? A fifteen dollar drink, and waste the time on the screen?
I don't know if we are going to put the phone away, but I hope I'm still around if that day comes.
(I understand pulling out the phone if your socially awkward, or shy, but after awhile of Staring into the Abyss, put it away? And yes, if your at lunch putting together that huge business deal; I get it, but most of us just arn't that important. You're in a bar because your lonely. Admit it! Own it! Life is short--no one is judging you, nor cares. That phone is a huge turn off on so many levels. This goes two fold for guys.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_pub#North_America
A typical "Irish pub" these days is usually the bar equivalent of Applebee's. However, the bartender in your story definitely sounded legit. :)
I find that small, established live music venues that operate a bar regardless of shows tend to be far more "real". There's usually only a few of these in any given major metropolitan area.
The phone stare ratio is far lower than average, but you run into the opposite problem: everyone knows everyone, and you're the outsider. Of course, that's usually a healthy sign that just indicates the place is worth becoming a regular at.
In NYC I feel much more welcome talking to strangers in bars than I do in London.
In a big house, the party often naturally squeezes into the kitchen, leaving the handful of introverts to sit quietly in the living room.
I'm talking about the kind of people who have to choose between part of a shared apartment in a conveniently transit-connected part of SF/Manhattan, or their own studio/1-bedroom somewhere with low density and poor transit. Y'know, software engineers making $100k.
I don't live in the NY metro area but I visit several times a year since I got friends there. I always crash on the couch.
I vary rarely socialize with people with high income because, one, I grew up poor so most of my childhood friends are still below average in income but more importantly I find it very difficult to relate to people who grew up well off. Sometimes I hear my co-workers talk and I feel I am living on a different planet.
As far as shared housing, yes, 99% of college kids live in shared housing and the vast majority of them still socialize.
It's easier to meet people in a city, where the 5 miles of a bus ride can cover a neighborhood of a hundred thousand people and hundreds of venues to meet them, while the freeway ride in a suburb will cover less than ten thousand. And what does living with someone have to do with it? We're talking about interacting with people outside your house. I think US urban planning has certainly sucked, and the sprawl will hurt us socially as well as economically.
Where? In New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, the only people who do that are begging, preaching, or rambling incoherently. The sense of community I'll observe on a public transit vehicle is when something has gone wrong, or when everyone shares a look of relief after someone who was trying to start unwanted interactions has left. Granted there are some magical moments like the sax battle [0] that could never happen on a freeway, but did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?
There are people who will sit down next to you and start talking. Groups of friends traveling together will "rescue" each other from these interactions. People traveling solo will just get off and move to another car, or wait for the next train. The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"
> It's easier to meet people in a city,
From a pure numbers perspective, there are more people to meet per unit area. But are there more people to meet per travel minute by fastest viable means? I doubt it. If we accept 50 minutes (time for a walk to bus to train journey from mid south side to near north side Chicago by CTA), well, that is 50 miles at 60mph.
If my friend lives in a distant suburb it is not a problem, I can drive to his home in 10 minutes. If my friend lives in a distant urban neighborhood, I'm looking at a 50-minute 3-segment public transit journey.
You also have less free time living in a public-transit-oriented city. A New Yorker whose primary mode is the subway spends 90 minutes per day commuting [1]. A national average car commuter spends just 51 [2]. What would you do with an extra 3 hours per week? I'd see friends more often.
> And what does living with someone have to do with it?
Parent claims it is a problem that people live in separate boxes. Density does prevent this, in that real estate contention means relatively few people can afford their own box, but I claim that roommates of economic necessity don't actually strengthen social ties that well, and may weaken them.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_9IMZcbKHQ
[1] http://origin-states.politico.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazo...
[2] https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42...
Agree with the other replies to you; I've had lovely chats with people on the subway in literally all three of the cities when I've visited. Also at the laundromat, or at a bar, at a museum, and other places.
> ...did any of those people exchange contact information or form any lasting connection?
I never made a lifelong friend from these conversations (though I have received business cards or other contact info), but I got a sense that I mattered to a stranger, even if only for a little bit. That's certainly part of what the article is talking about.
> The mood afterword is "can you believe that creep?" not "wow aren't we so connected!"
I can genuinely tell you that many conversations I've had did not end with either side thinking the other was creepy.
Of course, I've avoided conversations with people who I felt were creepy. Typically, these conversations happen when the person is speaking to me and I've given pretty clear body and vocal language that I am not interested in speaking.
I do my best to initiate chatting only with people who show interest in talking. Having an idea of who's interested in that takes practice, and some other identification skill I have a hard time describing, but which would likely fit the definition of "emotional intelligence."
# # #
Here's a little chestnut similar to what btmorex mentioned:
A young couple moved to a new town, and upon driving up to their new home for the first time, saw their neighbors outside. After a few pleasantries, the young couple asked, "So, we're wondering, what are the people like around here? Is it a good place to live?"
The neighbor paused, then said, "What were your neighbors like at your last town?"
The young couple agreed, "they were great!"
The neighbor, audibly relieved, said, "well they'll be great here, too."
# # #
What you look for and expect from others will greatly color your experiences. I figure most people are generally friendly, and I tend to be able to recognize when someone wants to chat... and they likely see my desire for a friendly chat, too.
The point is that crossing paths is naturally going to lead to more spontaneous interactions. All else equal, driving alone and living in silo'd suburban houses means less interactions with strangers compared to living in an apartment in NYC.
I grew up in the suburbs and now live in Manhattan. I meet a lot more people in Manhattan than I ever did in the suburbs, and this is the main reason why I have no intention of moving back to the suburbs.
I'll also add that I spent my youth living in both suburban America and rural Japan. I made a lot more friends and had a lot more fun in Japan largely because I could get anywhere via walking or biking. In America I was dependent on adults driving me everywhere, so I spent way more time alone playing videogames in my house.
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere...
The way I see it, the level of community involvement and social interaction in general have almost nothing to do with infrastructure, unless you decide to go full-on hermit in the mountains. It matters what people are in your life, not just how many are in your proximity.
> surrounded by people who don't care about you
That's the difference. Not city vs. suburban. Where are the people that care about you and that you care about? That's where you will feel less socially isolated.
I'd bet that if you went to a suburbia that doesn't contain your family, you'd feel just as isolated as you do in the city.
It matters how many of the people you meet actually know you.
How would you stop this as governor? I have a feeling your solution would be far worse than the problem you're trying to solve.
knock knock knock <opens door> "Huh?"
"I'm Sergeant Jones with the 665th Airborne. Our records show you haven't been out all week. Come with us, sir... "
It'd be different if he handed you a beer first, I guess.
I'd also fix the schools. But that's a much larger discussion.
This is my opinion.
You'd probably have better luck as a senator.
What about poor immigrant Asian communities? Low crime as well.
There must be another explanation for the drug and violence problems you discuss, unrelated to education and wealth.
I'm not defending suburbia... I don't like it in general, and now have a small homestead in a small town, but my dislike of suburbia does NOT stem from social isolation.
Neither of these is proof that one is inherently better than the other, just that there are many dependent factors which can change the fabric of a neighborhood in any setting. That's the point of the entire field of urban studies existing; to understand what makes these types of places happen. As you would expect, many of the communities that we have in reality don't implement the best solutions that have been discovered due to local resistance, funding issues, misguided political mandates, etc.
That's not the highways fault in any way. Walkable neighborhoods are expensive, and most Americans are too poor to afford anything like that.
You can't jump in early, because you'll just get gentrified out as soon as decent density & transit exist. You can't jump in after, because the costs are 3x to 50x higher. If your not wealthy, it's a loose-loose situation. That's why walkable neighborhoods can't maintain their "variety of incomes and backgrounds".
If anyone could afford to put their family in walkable NYC / San Francisco / Seattle / etc, many more would choose to do it. But until high-quality safe family housing in walkable neighborhoods drops to $150k - $250k, it's just not going to happen.
Suburbs don't happen because people love looking at asphalt. Suburbs can be made cheap, safe and affordable for regular middle-class people. Dense urban housing is almost never affordable, even in tiny little towns with no zoning or permitting in low-cost-of-living places like the Midwest.
Until people honestly address the exploding high costs of density (and not just blame "red tape" or "design" or "subsidy" for it), that won't change and suburbs will continue to get built.
* That the researchers looked into previous research, examined those results, and are either replicating them (thus adding extra evidence to those hypothesis), or have found some sort of flaw in how the research was gathered.
* That the researches have, in their research, looked into multiple previous studies, including the old one you referenced, and synthesized them all for their new research.
* It's often been shown that older research studies are flawed in some way, especially in certain fields, such as nutrition, so older studies should be held suspect (really the newer studies should be held with just as much skepticism, but they never are)
Again, the assumptions that this is done is not necessarily what happened in reality, but without media or laypeople doing their own research into things (and neither have time for that), it's usually a useful greedy heuristic to assume newer research is better and more accurate than older research.
I think this passage is key, I had not heard this postulated before:
"New research suggests that loneliness is not necessarily the result of poor social skills or lack of social support, but can be caused in part by unusual sensitivity to social cues. Lonely people are more likely to perceive ambiguous social cues negatively, and enter a self-preservation mind-set — worsening the problem."
"Her book is worth reading for its storytelling alone. But what makes it even more fascinating is Solnit's demonstration that disasters give rise to small, temporary utopias in which the best of human nature emerges and a remarkable spirit of generosity and cooperation takes over. 'Disaster,' she writes, 'along with moments of social upheaval, is when the shackles of conventional belief and role fall away and the possibilities open up.' People suffering unimaginable misfortune often revert not to savagery but to an almost beatific selflessness, comforting themselves in extremis by aiding others. Solnit cites many examples of those who remember a disaster as, paradoxically, one of the great moments of their lives. The reaction is similar to that of some who recall the Great Depression as a time of spiritual and social richness."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_front_during_World_War_II...
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08...
Also we used to think that heart disease risk is mostly tied to diet and exercise. But it's still the #1 killer in the United States. So every protective or risk factor needs to be considered. As such, new research linking heart disease, CVD, CHD to loneliness, friendship or marriage is interesting.
And It doesn't stop there. Loneliness is also tied to breast cancer, lymphoma and obesity : http://outcomereference.com/causes/59
It seems like a sense of community is extremely important for a society, particularly with the connection there seems to be between community and happiness (my understanding is that much of the happiness that religious people get is from the community, for example). Still, I haven't seen a great idea as to how one can be fostered (though there are some decent ideas about what you as an individual can do to get a better sense).
Indeed.. while waiting for the new research to come out, read Marcus Aurelius, Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt. Maybe throw in some Roman and Greek classics. That should "help a bit".
The problem isn't that we don't know how to live well and healthy and sleep soundly, it's that we want to be healthy and sleep soundly without living that way. We don't want to be simply just and honest and go from there. Well, joke's on us, the truth remains where it is, waiting for dithering people to stop being scared of it.
Because the NYT is a newspaper and they need a reason to publish a news article. This is known as a "hook." The hook in cases like this will be something new being published. It's hard to hook readers by announcing: What we've known since the 1970s still holds true. Just doesn't work.
If social isolation is as deadly as smoking or not exercising, should we approach the problem with a similar level of seriousness? Maybe we need "social exercise" three times a week, and if we aren't getting it naturally should contrive a way to get it much like going to the gym.
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18167005-the-village-eff...
I'm doing my part to address this problem right now:
I've been just reading principles.com (from the other HN thread) and inspired to take action.Btw, nobody showed up yesterday but I haven't given up. I'm here from 9am ~ 5pm near Robson Square. Coffee (or tea) is on me.
If you are not in Vancouver then shoot me an email, you can talk about anything.
The problem is that reddit and digg killed the conventional forum, so no one really cares who you are any more (unlike when people would start to 'know' regular posters on forums). Now it's a crapshoot of random people and a smattering of comment replies if people vote on your comment. No personality, no real interaction.
the problem with reddit is that there is too much news, outrage, and hype there.
I visit no forums today, whereas when I grew up it was a majority of my online-life.
I went to college where nothing was happening and nothing is really interesting and I didn't connect with anyone really.
Now, I am reaching 30, and have spent the most of my 20s trying to find a way to move to a place that will make me happy. I'm hoping this will eventually happen, but I have lost a lot of hope.
I don't feel connected to humans whatsoever. However, the greatest joy for me is sitting in front of my computer interacting with you folk.
I don't get social interaction...
For the first half of my 20s I didn't leave the house under the assumption that, "if I work hard, I can live where I want to and find a job in a cool place. No reason to make friends now."
I have since replaced that assumption, but it's hard to find meaningful relationships in a place you despise.
Take this lightly, but I bet you can find at least one more person that "despises" your place and you can discuss that with them. :)
Not sure if that is good or bad.
Very different, oposing views and values can break a relationship. Very similar views cannot make them - only if this similarity leads to continuous contact.
My friends come from: childhood neighboors, two student organizations I was part of and college soccer team. Each of these environments allowed for years long contact with the same people. And from that came friendships. Not from similar anything.
Friendships are born from tedious hours of boring conversation with random people that only happened because no one there had nothing else better to do.
That comfortable feeling of having a meaningful relationship only comes years after that.
If you live in a community too small to have a meetup, make one yourself and see if anyone attends. I did it, fully expecting not a single person to show up. I met so many people through that, starting in a community of under 70,000 people.
Life (generally) returns what a portion of what you give. If you never put yourself out there, you can't get relationships back in return. I'd focus first on getting new acquaintances, they don't have to be friends. As your circles grow, you will find some number of actual friends.
I really hope you do not stop trying, and find your place.
I think you have to at least "expect" things to change for the better socially. Maybe its just a matter of finding the right people where you can set expectations of each other? There will be times when the expectations cannot be met, but respect and communication help with that.
Maybe this view is too idealistic :/
That sounds like my version of hell.
I think the best thing you can do is ask people to do things with you. Many will say no, but that's okay. Eventually you'll make friends.
i feel you man, I feel you
Be happy where you are. It's essentially a form of self-delusion. And I DARE you to watch Ren & Stimpy's "Stimpy's Invention[1]" and not be happy, at least for a little while.
[1] in which Stimpy invents "The Happy Helmet" and Ren is his ... involuntary happiness subject. And yes - it's on YouTube.
"I don't think you're happy enough! That's right! I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVRJ8TiicM4
Love that rockabilly beat. Can't be sad when listening to that.
I still don't connect to most folks, but that's ok. I found a few.
But I also moved countries, so the stakes changed and so did my relationship with the world around me. Best thing I've ever done.
Long version:
I have a couple recommendations that could help you to connect with people better if you can take a couple minutes to read this, its a little longer than I would like but I really think that you can turn things around. I am by no means an expert and I have struggled with isolation myself at other times in my life, but I do feel like I have made some small improvements so my guess is you could to.
First off, while I think a location can be either conducive or adverse to the type of lifestyle you would like, I think a big part of how well or poorly you fit into a place is on you - you get out of it what you put into it (or something like that). That sucks to hear and you probably already know it and I think it is the truth. The only reason I say that is to caution you to not overlook what might be around you already. That being said, I have a buddy who I feel like was in a similar situation until he picked up and move to Portland kind of on a whim (after doing similar things with other places) and this time it worked out for him (so far), but he probably had to be ready and open to good things happening or else it would have been like it had been before in other places.
More importantly, I think it is way easier to connect with people outside of what we typically think of as "social" situations. I've never liked going to bars to meet people or any kind of mixer situation although these days I'm much better at it. What really did it for me was to go way out of my comfort zone and do volunteer activities that forced me to do things I really didn't feel like doing but I kind of put myself in a situation that made it hard to give into my desire to bail. The main one for me was political volunteering, starting during the primaries of this year and going into the general election. The outcome was devastating but the process and the changes I felt were pretty amazing. The actual work required connecting with total strangers in situations where I otherwise never would have: registering people to vote (talking to people on the street, going to large festivals and walking around and talking to strangers), going door to door to talk to people (mostly giving information but also trying to convince people to vote and giving them my personal opinions), and phone banking (talking to random strangers who were mostly in my city but who I would never likely meet). All these things were really uncomfortable at first but once I met the organizers involved and got excited by their excitement and passion I would sign up for something and then it was like "well, guess I gotta do it". Lock yourself into something that can't really hurt you but that pushes you outside your comfort zone.
After doing all of that, at 30 years old I felt like I had kind of finally figured out how to be a part of my own environment (as opposed to a mindless drone only focused on going from A->B). I haven't found my "next thing" yet, but since then I've found many social situations to be easier than they used to be, even something as stupid as buying a car was 10x less stressful than it used to be for me (and I got a couple grand better of a deal than I usually would have). Once you get over knocking on the door of a strangers house and realizing that a) most people are actually pretty cool and b) the vast majority of the time you are going to be totally fine no matter what, a lot of other things feel like a cakewalk. I met more new people in 6 months than in the prior 6 years and since we were all going to a similar stressful time, connecting was easy for once (even though aside from politics perso...
I guess I just need to start doing it and not question it so much
Making friends is hard. I am a lot more social than I used to be now but I have a wide and shallow list of people I get along with. I don't feel there is anyone I am actually close to (other than my wife and kids). So don't take my advice too closely because I am definitely not a model for socialisation, I spend most of my free time child raising and studying.
If I can give one piece of advice it is that you should get involved in some activities. Be it sports, gaming, joining a hackerspace, whatever it really doesn't matter what it is as long as there is some level of complexity that keeps people hooked and enough to keep you interested as well. You will find that in situations of mutual difficulty you find the people you actually like and the people who actually like you. As long as you aren't a completely antisocial arsehole you should develop a connection to someone eventually if you just throw yourself into it. Listen to people when they talk, almost everyone has some interesting story lurking away inside them. Even if you don't like them at all you can at least be entertained by the occasional anecdote or bizarre circumstance. The important thing is to try and you might surprise yourself.
This is an honest fear of mine. Maybe "fear" isn't the right word, but I feel like I exhibit behaviors that would indicate I'm on the spectrum, but they're always intentional and rooted in the idea that I don't want to bother or disturb others.
So I keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and don't initiate conversation if it's for "selfish" reasons. I need an excuse to be social that isn't just "because I want to". If I have such an excuse (like I'm part of an established group, or it's business related, or so on), I have absolutely no problem. Only when the purpose is personal or self-serving do I have problems. Not because I don't want to interact, but because my fear is that in doing so I'll just upset or annoy everyone else. I've been actively fighting this peculiarity for many years (with professional help) and while it's gotten better it's still very difficult. And I think from an outside perspective this comes off as a bit like mild autistic behavior.
I gave up trying to pick up all the cues at all. Instead I focus mainly just on conversation. It take a lot of work but it is possible (for me at least) to focus entirely on the content and when to say something, when not to in an almost scripted way. Listen to conversation and interject at the right time. I am interested in almost everything and if you listen and probe well enough then you will find almost anyone has something interesting to say or an amusing story to tell. That said, I don't pick up on much of the group interaction at all but it doesn't matter. All this is quite mentally challenging but just focusing on one part, the conversation, and not all of the other meta communication is pretty much how I do it. It is still quite stressful and mentally draining but I think that I can mostly hold a discussion with random strangers now. People will either think I am an interesting person to talk to or not and we part ways.
How this ties back into dating is where it gets interesting. I've had remarkable luck in forming lasting relationships just by talking to people, I usually miss all of the early cues entirely and I don't even know whether someone is interested in me until their number is in my phone (the modern equivalent is adding you on facebook) or some similar forward sign. The important thing is just to start the conversation and to listen to people. Don't hold any preconceptions about people; be open and friendly and be unafraid to talk about yourself and your own experiences.
I'm sorry, but that is not how it works.
You are what's making you unhappy, and that's what you have to change. The good thing is you have plenty of free time to do it in, and all the power to do it.
When you live in a place for years, a mental cocoon forms that blocks out most of the stimuli.
We should be asking ourselves how we were living 100,000 years ago. This is what our bodies and our brains are expecting. The whole concept of the nuclear family and a house and a fence is a completely foreign concept to our bodies because we haven't been doing it for very many generations.
From what I know, we should be living in tribes, right?
From that perspective, I would immediately look at communal housing solutions. Maybe we should often be living in very small apartments with communal living areas and communal eating and cooking areas. That's closer to what our bodies and minds expect, right?
Spot on. I was an Anthropology major in college, and this is the single most important takeaway from my education.
Even a few decades ago, families often at least lived with or close to the elder generation (grandparents) which created a greater sense of community and history. At some point it was decided that elder persons should live by themselves, or they were not welcome in their adult children' homes (or there was no room for them there.)
I think what you say about tribes is interesting -- I think people tend to create their own "tribes" either with friends, workmates, hobbies that are communal etc.
There is a whole age spectrum from 0 to 100 where the 20-60 year olds are providing the main physical sustenance, but the others are giving the main social sustenance.
Our society has organized all that away. So kids wait to grow up so that they can finally have freedom and old people wait around to die. That's a bit extreme, of course, but there is a kernel of truth in it.
LOL yea because we have totally stopped polluting the earth or filling our food with sugar. Give me a break, this is pop evopsych at its worst
I don't remember the name, but in an anthro class we discussed a culture where children were married as infants and raised together. This ends up being suboptimal because the kids identify each other as siblings and biology basically interferes with them developing a romantic relationship. As a result they end up taking romantic partners outside the arranged marriage. But hey, it still produces kids so the culture continued on, even with this suboptimal practice.
Likewise for tribes who practiced eating the brains of the deceased. It gives you a neurodegenerative disease, but the incubation period is sufficiently long so that you can still keep your population up.
Robert Putnam has written extensively on this issue and the underlying causes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam
Also, does anyone else like it when the power goes out? Its so surreal to be in the city without power (I'm used to it in the country however) and all the sudden everyone is on their porch or out in the street chatting. Then it comes on and everyone goes back into their little isolation chambers.
I really like Venkat’s write-up about masks[0]. Large cities, dense yet impersonal, strain our voice masks. Smaller communities, what you likely experienced in the rural area when you were not outside alone, can be psychologically healing but on the other hand strain our exit masks. Everyone has their own tipping point—you seem less susceptible to exit mask stress than me, for example.
[0] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/05/20/pretending-to-care-pret...
And I like people! I have no trouble engaging in small talk while getting to know new folks. But man, they wear me out. Even ones I love. At the end of the day, I need aloneness if I'm going to recharge for tomorrow's challenges.
But even introverts need some social interaction.
Personally, I love being alone. I don't get lonely though. It's from my social life where all my bad and unhealthy habits come from. So, I would say it's a wash for me.
First, I think we can agree that frequent interactions with another is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for friendship. If so, it should be obvious that density is good but size is bad.
Second, I believe our major metros—especislly since the great invertion—attract a certain sort of person less likely to foster community. Your steriotypical new gentrifier is career-focused with strong sense of individuality, moving for work, and, perhaps most importantly, fresh out of school where making friends presents very different challenges.
> Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.
I'm currently three months into a stretch of solitude as I focus fully on building an online business. While not prone to loneliness, there are films I won't watch and songs I refuse to play because they remind me too much of friends and loved ones.
Which is to say, loneliness is like a lever that you have at least some control over. But it still stabs at you unexpectedly sometimes.
Although perhaps saudade is the better term for this feeling. And I'm not too sure if it's an entirely undesirable emotion.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitud...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade
I found this out a few years ago and thought it might be pertinent to my situation: “Observation shows that there is a direct ratio between the intelligence of the leader and that of the led. To be a leader of his contemporaries a child must be more intelligent but not too much more intelligent than those to be led… But generally speaking, a leadership pattern will not form—or it will break up—when a discrepancy of more than about 30 points of IQ comes to exist between leader and led [1]
I grew up in a developing country with inadequate educational system, to put it mildly. I have always done well academically, ranking top 10 nation-wide in two middle school exams. I got impatient and skipped two years of high school to attend a local college, which is considered a 'good' one. (I picked it for personal reasons, while having the 'national entrance exam' score high enough to pick the top university in the country.) I became increasingly aware of how much most people think differently in those years, as I could ace most analytical tests without putting much efforts and my friends struggled. We remained good friends but we shared few interests and not much in common intellectually. (I can perform most other activities, like sports or dance, fairly well given the little amount of time I spend on them, but I find most of them boring.)
Then I got a scholarship to study in a top 10 CS graduate departments in the US. I found out that there are many more people who share my interests and we can interact on equal terms intellectually. I moved back to the country after graduation and started to suffer social isolation again.
I dated someone who is a bit above average in intelligence but did not have the patience to explain everything so we parted away soon after. I had since have trouble finding people who I can be myself with in most respects intellectually and can explain my thought process concisely and get them to give interesting responses back in turn. For friends, it's not as big a problem since we usually don't have to see each other that often; but for dates, I think it might be a problem after a while. (Please let me know if and why you disagree. It would be helpful.)
Earlier this year, I went back to live for a few months in a very intellectual city with a top university in the US and felt like I could connect with people around me again. Unfortunately, it will take quite a bit of efforts to move there permanently.
If anyone has a differing perspective and interpretation that I have, please comment here. I'd love to connect better with the 'intellectually average' people as well.
[1] http://www.functionalmovement.com/articles/Philosophy/2013-0...