I lost all of my social network during 2020. Being almost 40 and with the current situation still in progress, I don't even know where to start. I have no social contact outside of remote work and some sport activities.
How did that happen? My friend circle reduced a lot due to my countries restrictions. You could only meet one person, so it was often the same people that paired up. I guess a lot of people were left out of that.
I'm very grateful I had an SO and two good friends I could often meet up with.
Building a social network / support network is non-trivial even in the best of times.
It's one of the more challenging parts of life anyways as YMMV. Some people have loads of contacts and friends, others have enough with only a handful of close ties. There's no catch-all that works for everyone. And I think it's important to acknowledge that everyone has different individual needs.
Building a sturdy social network with a variety of contacts isn't something you do overnight. Rome wasn't build in a single day either. This takes time. And yet, you might surprise yourself one year from now. A lot can happen in 365 days if you decide to put your shoulders under this.
> I don't even know where to start
Group activities are a great way to meet people.
Group travel, classes / workshops, local social / cultural communities, outreach activities,... For instance, I enrolled into cooking classes for a few years, which was a great way to meet people and have great food. Many non-profit organizations do stuff like guided walks and tours, visits to venues, organise workshops and so on.
Volunteering works too. Doesn't have to be charity. Working with youths is a pretty great way to get involved in a local community. Even in your late 30s.
What worked for me in the past was just walking into a community center and striking up a conversation with people who are working there: What are they about? What do they offer? Are they doing cool stuff? If you show interest, they will pick up on that.
One challenge is to get out of your comfort zone. Try out things you haven't tried before. Like, try following a first aid, dance or yoga class if you haven't. Don't get stuck in an area related to work or older hobbies you have.
Be mindful that not all things you explore will work out for you. You might feel that some stuff just isn't for you, or that the group dynamics aren't a match. That's totally valid. It's fine to drop an activity for something else if you feel disengaged.
As for making friends: those are actually a side effect of the above.
One doesn't make friends out of the blue. You put yourself out there first, trying and exploring the world, following your own interests. And as you do so, you will hit upon people who might become friends. And in due time, some of them might even become close friends.
Personally, I'm in a similar boat as you. Intend to put myself out there over the next few months, try some new things I have on my mind, and spend less time in front of digital devices as I did in 2020.
>One woman who felt isolated in lockdown said loneliness was now a bigger health risk than smoking or obesity.
So, this is the source of the article. No reference to any single study, despite all the research available on the topic.
What a piece of anecdotical crap this article is.
>Pre-pandemic, the Royal College of General Practitioners Wales called for all practices to have their own social prescriber in a bid to tackle GPs' workload, and "free up their time for those patients most in need of medical care".
In its loneliness action plan it said: "Loneliness and social isolation can be as bad for patients as chronic long-term conditions.
"Loneliness puts people at a 50% increased risk of an early death.
Where the hell is this figure coming from?
What's enraging is how important this topic is. All the bbc could produce is this gossip rag level piece of journalism?
Appalling.
It is stated in the article. The first voxpop is from a Mind Cymru project. They are a Welsh non-profit working with mental health. The other one from Royal College of General Practitioners Wales. You can find their oppinion here[0] and
the study with the specific 50% figure here[1].
I think you are overselling how little information is provided. Taking in account the venue and audience it is still easy to look up more specific information with what the article provides.
You might argue that a non-profit organisation that describes itself as "[...] an unstoppable community of people in Wales who won't give up [...]" (See: https://www.mind.org.uk/about-us/mind-cymru/) might not be the most neutral entity that can produce non biased studies/data.
I do believe in their cause, and "raising awareness" usually is a major mission for these orgs. But "raising awareness" is a marketing/communication/political process, that is incompatible with scientific rigour.
I've noticed that the BBC has been churning out a good number of "loneliness epidemic" articles for a few years now (since before covid). I haven't noticed this trend in any other publications that I read.
I have no idea why they've been doing this. To be honest, I haven't looked further into it, and maybe I'm just noticing a pattern where there is none. But it's a thought that's crossed my mind a few times now.
It's known since the humanity exists that humans are social creatures, yet we as a society don't do anything to promote social interaction between people. Actually, we are actively suppressing real social contact due to the way our society is set up.
- "State / faceless institution" organized social security, reducing the need of social network / safety net.
- The rise of "social media" leading to less social interaction.
- Push for long working hours that leaves not much time for socialization
- Spreading fear through the media. Many people are lonely, yet are afraid to talk to a stranger because "who knows what's on his mind".
- Economic improvements leading to the decreasing necessity and dependence on the extended family.
- Instead of tackling the actual social isolation problems, the trend of virtualization and automation of tasks that previously required social interaction is making it even worse.
- Covid-19 fearmongering and voluntary/enforced (self) isolation didn't help either.
It's almost like we are going to end like in the book "1994" from Borislav Pekic, isolated and afraid of humans, surrounded with robots, unhappy but not able to change anything until the humanity is doomed.
EDIT: Since some misunderstood me, I don't judge if the "state provided" social network is good or bad, or if it should be kept or dismissed, just state the fact that it significantly reduces the need for social interaction between people, leading to more loneliness.
I also observed that in poorer countries with less state provided social safety net, people are much more social and dependent on each other.
The same can be said to other points too.
EDIT 2: Covid-19 is a hot topic. Again, I prefer not to put judgement about all societal effect of it here. By "fearmongering" here, I don't consider only fear from virus. There's also fear from economical doom and fear from the loss of liberties.
All three types of fear are legitimate and present in different social circles and pushed ("mongered"?) by different media.
Which fear is dominant depends on the circumstances of each individual. Person that can isolate himself and has a safe job will be more afraid of loss of liberties than the virus. A person who lost his job due to lockdown fear hunger more that virus, and a supermarket cashier is horrified if he will get infected. Unfortunately, hardly any people can understand that different people can have different fears, and a quick to dismiss ones with different fear.
Anyway, it's again fact that Covid-19 was for many people the final stroke that push them to loneliness.
What's your proposed solution? Cut everyones working hours, abolish social welfare, and make everyone poor so they need to rely on their extended family?
> What's your proposed solution? Cut everyones working hours, abolish social welfare, and make everyone poor so they need to rely on their extended family?
Hey, I'm just pointing things out that I see as a cause :) Although your proposal would help force reduce loneliness, would be a net negative for the quality of life.
The solution, or rather a set of solutions, would require a broader consensus, since it would affect the way we are as a society. At this point, I'm not even sure I have the solution on the society level.
Maybe the evolution of societies would fix it?
Maybe when the problem becomes worse, we would be pressed to fix it to some extent?
Or the societies that have better social approach would thrive and our western world will either accept the new ways and adapt, or go into the sad obsolescence.
People have lost touch with the reason systems were put in place. It's no wonder there's so much enthusiasm for eradicating and privatizing them. Some people see profit and not enough people understand why it's a problem until it's too late.
"State organized" social security IS a social network / safety net. Though it might not feel like one. I may be misreading this but your wording - "State organized" social security - sounds as if it's some kind of alien institution imposed on us by martians. I see it more like a system created by all of us through a social democratic process.
By "state organized" I wanted to emphasize that it's organized by the faceless institution. Lead by legislation and bureaucracy. As opposed to actual neighbours, co-workers, family and fellow union members with whom one has to collaborate (socially interact) to help to get help.
You seem to have a slight partisan political bent, but regardless, what do you want to do? Force people to be friends? The social safety net exists for the thousands (millions?) of people who don't have family or friends to take care of them. This isn't a problem that goes away by making people interact with each other.
COVID-19 isolation wasn't fearmongering, it was a necessary step for countries that didn't get tracing, testing, and masking up to appropriate levels at the beginning. It didn't help the isolation problem, but it also wasn't fearmongering.
State organized social security means that folks have the choice to do things like not have children and can leave abusive situations without having to worry about starving in old age: It also means that folks aren't necessarily forced to quit work to take care of their grandparents and that folks without a safety net actually have one.
It doesn't reduce the need of a social network, and it is there because the 'organic' safety net doesn't work well enough.
I have more social interaction because of different kinds of social media and more options for types of social interaction! I can play games with others without being at their house. I wish the internet was this developed when I was young, and am a bit envious of kids today because chances are, they can find a small group of people that don't make them feel horrible.
People have been spreading fear through media since any sort of media existed. Through most of history, you couldn't call them on their bs, though, since even if you were literate, you usually didn't have access to any other source of information.
You know, talking to strangers is sometimes just a cultural difference. People don't talk to strangers without reason where I am (Norway) - and I gotta tell you, it is great. I can now walk down the street without having to wave at whoever waves to me like I did in the US. Not only that, but a lot of folks talk to strangers... on the internet. Which is totally different, since you know that anyone posting on the internet wants to - in some aspect - interact with other humans.
Family is only good if they are, well, good. But we've seen throughout history that family doesn't always have good intentions. Some families are abusive, both physically and sexually. Some will force strict gender roles on their kids (no, child, you can't play baseball! You are a girl and should be cleaning). Some will send kids through questionable therapies to 'fix' their queer child or beat their child for dating outside their "race". They might expect to choose your spouse for you. I mean, this stuff happens now, even with the "reduced necessity and dependence".
I agree that we aren't tackling social isolation! I'm pretty sure we could let folks work less and improve everyone's standard of living by making sure the safety net is strong enough for more people to afford hobbies and playing sports and going places socially. I don't agree that automation is problem, though, but more that it is one of the solutions to making life better.
The Covid-19... we are not starting from the same set of agreed upon facts here.
> "State organized" social security, reducing the need of social network / safety net.
The literally hundreds of thousands of homeless scattered around the United States and Canada and the millions living with daily food insecurity are probably wondering exactly how the "state organized" safety net has reduced their need.
> Covid-19 fearmongering
Current count for COVID-19 deaths in the US is almost 620,000.
I'm not sure what the definition of "fear mongering" is but I'm pretty sure it doesn't include steps to reduce the effect of a pandemic that has killed 620K people in the US alone WITH the mitigations that were put in place.
> It's known since the humanity exists that humans are social creatures, yet we as a society don't do anything to promote social interaction between people. Actually, we are actively suppressing real social contact due to the way our society is set up.
But many people voluntarily and willingly choose to be alone.
Shameless plug, I'm trying to build an app to hopefully help with this. A platform for platonic friend making based on shared interests. I find that it's very hard to meet and connect with like minded people regardless of where you live.
do you think email sign up would be preferrable? I was thinking it's better to get people to follow the Instagram account so I can reach them when I launch
I would recommend putting a large amount of effort into email. Email is the channel you own forever. Your Instagram followers are subject to Facebooks whims and they are not a company to be trusted.
Nice. I understand what you're trying to say with that title on your website, but I kind of disagree. Just because you have online friends doesn't mean that they're not "real" friends.
in my opinion, having friends that you can meet up with and hang out in person >>>>>>> online friends. it's a night and day difference. you can still feel lonely if you talk to a bunch of people online but don't meet anyone face to face. but to each their own.
There's definitely an element of the last several years revealing how many people are just awful human beings. I'm wary of spending time getting to know someone only to find out they think certain people (like me) don't deserve equal rights, or something like that.
I know on some level people were always like that. Bad ideas are pervasive and always have been. But there's more echo chambers reinforcing bad ideas now. There was some hope in the past of maybe changing someone's mind. Now they get it reinforced constantly with push notifications and digests. High speed, personalized media both revealed it and made it harder to change.
You said deplorables, not me. Clinton is as useless as the rest of them[1]. Maybe follow up and ask for an example before assuming I'm hitting on your favorite political bugaboo or part of The Other Team. Your reply is an example of the problem.
>> "Believing about half of your fellow countrymen are 'awful human beings' is bonkers."
You said half, not me. You have literally no insight into what I mean and you think you know everything about me because of the media you consume. This is the problem.
To be clear: I don't think the noisy few are representative. I think most people don't have strong opinions on anything. That's not great, but I can work with them. But I can't tell whether they're just politically zoned out or waiting for something in a comment to latch on to for an unhinged rant until spending time getting to know them.
Clinton was talking about half of Trump supporters. Even taking that statement literally, that doesn't equate to anywhere near half the country.
It would only be a quarter of the country if every person in the country voted and if half went to Clinton and half to Trump.
But we know that more people voted for Clinton, so just because of that the Trump-supporting half would be even less than that... and yet less than that because a lot of people don't vote.
Also, let's remember that Clinton said this during the campaign, when everyone (including Clinton) thought that Clinton had way more support than Trump, so she was expecting that Trump supporters were much fewer in number than they actually were. So that makes the total numbers she was (figuratively, not literally) talking about fewer still.
I grant your larger point about polarization, however. It's hard to see who in the US political arena is not contributing to ever greater polarization. Somehow we need to deescalate before more serious violence occurs.
This rings very true to me. The combination of Twitter and pandemic has been very revealing to me. I used to think most people agreed on fundamental human values, and that political disagreement was about details like level of taxation, size of government, some moral judgements like abortion, that kind of stuff. Now I have the impression that we live in entirely different worlds / value systems, and that the correlation with politics is quite low. Also, not very many people support the fundamental values I took for granted, like equality before the law, the really basic stuff.
PS. I’m in Sweden, so not part of the US political debate. This is probably a global phenomenon.
Don't base you view on the opinion of others on the content of Twitter or you will end up a supervillain that wants to destroy humanity. At least anyone with a heart would, ironically.
I had a Swiss colleague (he grew up in France/Switzerland, settled in US in his 30s) who firmly believed that being poor is a choice. His argument is that he worked hard for what he has (which he did) but he conveniently ignored that fact that he was born in a wealthy country and was given all the opportunities. No matter how much I explained to him, giving examples (like a kid born in poor, drug ridden neighborhood and raised by single mother with father in prison etc), he simply refused to acknowledge his geographic birth lottery. He simply wasn't able to see beyond his bubble.
Which made me think - do I understand, can I understand the issues faced by people who I have minimal/no contact, experience with? LGBTQ, physically challenged, mentally challenged, deeply religious etc? I don't know. I am terrified that I might say something stupid/offensive if I meet a transgender person, for example. Not because I am an arsehole, but because I simply do not comprehend what they are going through.
These echo chambers are only going to get worse and worse. I wish we all talked less and listened more
The science I've skimmed/read summaries of shows that ostracism just makes people dig their heels in. At best, it makes them quiet outside their bubbles, but it doesn't change how they vote or who they donate to. I don't just want them to shut up. I want to shut off the pipeline into the bubbles and make sure there's a way out.
You might not be surprised to learn I also favor restorative justice over retributive justice.
Individualism, which I'm an advocate for just not as rabid as our society has taken it, makes people awful. If you don't temper it when all the qualities you need to participate ans belong to real communities, individualism is toxic.
Its like hedonism. If you don't temper non-conformiry and sensation seeking with higher goals for your mental and physical health, your social standing, the quality of your participating in your family or in your ability to rear a child, it's destructive.
Hedonism, individualism, consumerism, these are all toxic without self-restraint for higher goals.
More and more social interactions moved to social media whose business model and entire medium relies on and thus encourages toxicity, "keeping up with the Jones'" and virtue-signaling.
Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Loneliness is also described as social pain—a psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections.
Since lockdowns, I hate everybody. I just broke up with the idea that we are a society. No, we’re just insane people who are eating at other people’s sanity, using lockdowns as a means to dismantle our fellow citizen.
How to become homeless when you start millionaire and CEO of a small/moderate company? Well this is the first and main step, because on any major problem, you are alone and no-one is going to testify in your favor. Especially if you genuinely wouldn’t mind if everyone went to hell for the hell they’re causing me.
Sure, my parents. But my parents are the ones who vote for locking up everyone and mandating social isolation. So their love stops at mandated lockdowns. Their love, and the same goes for 90% of my fellow citizen, their love and social fabric stops at giving you a hell if a time to deal with.
Same goes for feminism. Everyone likes feminism! Men commit suicide at 5x the rate? Not a problem! Men work themselves till death while women enjoy choice, choice of careerS, choice of being a mother while the husband provides, choice of sexualizing their body? Must be their sexism! Men have little choice and become insane? It’s their fault! Let’s clearly not provide resources to fight men’s workaholism!
I hate people. I really hate all my fellow citizen who cheer happily at the idea of stopping the economy, and lockdowns drove me practically insane. If they took my job away, I wouldn’t have passed the winter. And they were this close to taking our jobs away.
I’m trying to make good use of my money (buying a house, giving myself a chance) but I’m writing this so people understand the depth of the ordeal, especially for people who don’t have the extreme luxury that I have with having enough money for such a project (I’ve earnt every bit of it, but other people have worked just as much and didn’t meet success).
I feel bad about you man, and I wish people in this website could recognize your experience rather than simply downvote it because it is not aligned with their political views.
No reason to feel bad. Reactionaries get lots of support on this site. See! Their rant about how all their problems are the fault of feminists and liberals is no longer grey.
You can only get -4, so it depends on how much upvotes in a row you get (until you’re flagged).
That said, “it’s fault of feminists and liberals” is not what he meant, afaiu. He is complaining about the lack of attention to all “boring” problems like men suicide only because there are some fast-fashion peak problems which are supported by those who have less to do in their life. Again, afaiu. While my views are different, I see no reason to summarize his views the way you did.
It's funny how these sort of posts only seem to bring up male suicide when talking about feminism. It's almost like they don't actually care about male suicide as a problem just as a handy cudgel to be used against feminism. Yet when the conversation turns to things which actually have a major impact on suicide among men like toxic masculinity, they often deny such things even exist or is really just an attack against men. This is clear if you just take a look at a few more posts from the above poster. The only time they ever bring up issues with men is to contrast them with "how easy" women have it. It's got gems like this:
> "- Cult of female employment as their main role in society, which, in positions of power, happens to soften the stance towards criminals and deconstruct structures (hierarchies, things that worked to develop our nations, justice system). I don’t know the ratio for Cali but in France, 76 to 81% graduates of ENM (main school for judges) are female since 1977, and we basically free the criminals because they have compassion for them."
> "So I never demanded anything from my father up to the point I needed him. At 35 years old I told him modern women were unmanageable and my life was turning sour, and I needed help, I needed people to understand that men are being mistreated by the system, but I said it with ample documentation (you could watch the excellent movie The Red Pill, which depicts pretty much the complexity of our position), and that the only answer of society towards us is “Incel”. By the time I asked my father, I had already created some networks through politicians, but on the topic that interests me, all still had the same dismissive position, because promoting men doesn’t work politically. I’m saying that so you don’t say that I hadn’t walked my walk."
> "There aren’t many ways besides violence to be heard by people who refuse to hear us. I’ve already tried words! And more importantly for me: I’ve already tried taking positive action."
Feminists only want to blame "toxic masculinity" (which I believe is a real thing but feminists often define toxic masculinity as all masculinity) for male suicide rates and is just as disingenuous as the point you think your making
What I found so frustrating about the comment was how close it was to some sort of insight, while maddeningly not connecting the dots.
He has some vague sense that his unhappiness is related to "workaholism", but is so fixated on gender politics that he twists it to revolve around that. He imagines that women have a "choice of careers, choice of being a mother while the husband provides", apparently oblivious to the economic reality that single-income families are an impossibility for the majority of people, not because of feminism, but because of market forces.
You can see the alienation and the sense of rage and despair engendered by social atomization and hustle worship, only to be channeled not against any of the root causes, but some bogeyman like feminism which, precisely because of the aforementioned dislocation, hits closer to home emotionally.
And the worst of it is hearing echoes of my previous self in the words (projected or not), but being aware of the irony that it's only people who ARE close to you who have a chance of helping you out of that kind of morass.
Feminism was just one of the several things he said.
There are plenty of zero-income families - single mothers. So single-income families are surely even more possible. Usually only women have this choice. Men can't choose family over career.
I’m not sure why you think this. I have quite a few friends and families in my circle where the women are the primary breadwinners of the family. Let alone the number of two-mother and two-father households. In almost all cases dual-incomes are the norm.
When you say, “men can’t choose family”, who’s preventing that?
How does that work? You get money just for being a mother?
At least the way it works in the countries I’ve lived in is that if you’re on the dole it doesn’t matter if you’re a mother (or a father for that matter)—you still have the obligation to find a job.
And as a man you can totally chose family over career, in the same way that women do. There’s a social stigma against it, of course. And it can be economically difficult—but that’s the case for women as well.
Of course, the pressure for a man to act as a provider and to focus on his career is very real. I think laurent92 isn’t wrong about the pressures men face. It’s weird though to blame that on feminism. I think feminism already helped chip away at the pressure. A stay-at-home dad should be acceptable to a feminist, more so than to someone who never gave pause to these questions. But in the end, it’s not feminism’s job to take care of men’s mental health, that’s really something that requires a movement of its own.
Just the other day I read a comment from a single mother with three children who just sent her children back to school after 15 months of home schooling. Her comment indicated that her views on society did not improve much during the pandemic, either, no workaholism required.
Society has very openly displayed its disrespect for certain groups of people during the pandemic, he clearly has a point there.
I don't know OP, but a lot of people just spent a long time all alone with no outside communication except the internet. Lots of them discovered that as soon as in person work was removed that they really had no real friends. That can be quite a terrible discovery finding out you are really all alone. Isolation does strange things to the mind. That coupled with whatever echo chambers people happened to wonder into online probably had a dramatic effect on hundreds of thousands of people coming out of this thing. May take years for some to recover and many will probably never return to the same person they were.
It sounds like you can afford therapy, you should strongly consider it. They can probably help you deal with your problems in a way that doesn't externalize your negative experiences onto others. If everything is someone else's fault, then there is so cause for self improvement and you will remain stuck where you are.
Lockdowns are pretty bad, I think this cannot be emphasized enough. Still I think nobody wants to experience full-fledged pandemics like in the past that not just wreck social lives but whole economies. Right now some economies are quite well off again.
I think society is fading during lockdown, it really goes by the distance, let's hope that's changing back to normal soon.
> Everyone likes feminism! Men commit suicide at 5x the rate? Not a problem! Men work themselves till death
So do women, even in the G8 nations. Not sure if everyone likes feminism but also men have to suffer from the fallout of toxic masculinity. Like over-competitiveness, and yes this can also result in overworking. Even unrelated movements bring something anyone can benefit from. It's like with software, you think you fix a bug but at the same time you improve a structural problem.
Dude, like you, I don't like to be locked up. Disregard comments sending you to the psych, I believe you are sane and the rest of the people, living in fear and locked up are the insane.
Its good to be angry because this is bullshit, and remember, were not for people like you, we would still be slaves.
Sorry about your problems. I hope things get better for you soon. Good on you for buying a house. Don't get married or you'll eventually lose it.
Just a bit of personal thoughts on parent's love. I think it's valuable when you're a child, then when you're an adult, you only need to remember the feeling. You don't need the actual parents anymore. Everyone's parents eventually die and can no longer love them. Perhaps you didn't get it while you were a child and still crave it? There's ways to recreate that feeling without needing your parents. It's harder and it's unfair, but it puts you in control. Nobody else will ever care about you as much as yourself, so don't rely on anyone's love.
> Men work themselves till death while women enjoy choice
As a man, isn't the "work themselves till death" part also a choice? Women enjoy all the choices you listed, sure, but what prevents the man from enjoying his choices? A man is likewise free to do anything.
Dude you need to chill out. Stop blaming external factors for how you feel and take ownership of your internal monologue and feelings. You can change how you think.
I think it helps a lot to understand why people think differently than you. People (like your parents) didn’t vote for social distancing and shutting down the economy because they are evil. They’re not deserving of hate. When this all started it wasn’t clear how many millions might have died. So they were choosing the less worse option from what they knew. And who knows - maybe all those precautions ended up saving millions of lives. Give people the benefit of the doubt - the vast, vast majority of us are doing the best we can with what we know and understand and given our constraints.
Our built/lived environment is so bad and corrupting after tens (if not hundreds) of years of anti-humanisc approaches to building (including modernism and postmodernism). No incentives for a wider range of housing possibility, like community and social understanding encouraging cohousing or just shared kitchen/reading facilities (apart from very lately apparently purely commercial driven development I've heard about from the US like in SF).
Maybe some post-post-structural theme is emerging. I've seen developments which have elements of that, but I have also seen some of those elements being coopted by modern estate builds (like, well at least from kinds of basic informal security but without internal walkways and personal space in front of flats along the walkways; like surrounded green spaces but that are left to fend for theirs self after build has finished), and that have little relation between integrating working spaces (workshops, community cafes and even theaters, etc.) into the plan, and most certainly no indications of resident open working groups for all aspects of the running of the building almost as a cooperative.
Wake me up when a Timeless Way of Building etc inspired and the like concepts are starting to become somewhat more of part of standard reading/planning/construction. All these new builds recently that are wasting so much already known wisdom and humanist conceptions of how to progress the mental well-being of residents as well as the state of society.
If only architects took on "patterns" in a way that the computer/design community have..
Having architecture which encouraged communal living would help, but much more needs to be done.
Even when people are in common areas way too many have their noses buried in their cell phones or laptops. City dwellers are often incredibly distrustful of strangers. They complain of being lonely but few make much of an effort to meet new people or deepen existing relationships. Architecture alone is not going to solve this.
Well, naturally, yes, it's just one part of the picture, and I didn't think I was expressing that it wasn't, so I don't think it's really fair to assume that I was only thinking of this as the one solution and write a reply based on that.
New more social architecture is literally one of the solutions available for providing opportunity for people to meet new people.
And oof, a downvote to 0 on my original fair-enough comment.
And now -1? Dang, sorry to rub your lamp, thanks for your eventual reply to my mail about the rational for flagged posts a while back and for asking for ideas then (I didn't reply again as I didn't have one then, but saying "Post flagged by users" would remove ambiguity from that system), but to save time now; single dimensional democracy without checks and balances is what makes this world unsustainable. Please seriously consider bringing the advancement of metamoderation that made Slashdot and kuro5hin not be sucked to a place where it feels like fair participation is not unjustly muted.
Yep. Divorced 2017, lost most of my friends due to Brexit then COVID hit. Social life down the pan.
Discovered Meetup earlier this year. Worth looking into it if you’re in a similar situation. No one knows anyone already on it and everyone is still battered from COVID so it’s a good starter for getting back out there and back to being sociable creatures.
Our local "CDC"-equivalent has posted a warning (mostly to media) to avoid reporting about suicides during "the plague"... so yeah...
For young people, the school closings, dorm closings, curfews, movement restrictions and other "only for 14 days" decrees will cause greater psychological harm (and number of dead in that age group), than just letting them all get the virus.
Older people have a higher chance of dying due to corona, so the number might be different, and their social circles are usually a lot smaller, but suicide numbers are going up there too.
2. humans are endowed with the ability to rationalize abstractions and form imaginations , unlike other animals. This makes in-person social interactions less necessary.
3. the purported loneliness epidemic is more of a creation by the media than reality. By writing hundreds of articles about it, people will be influenced to believe it is real.
4. people are voluntarily choosing to be alone. Being alone and watching Netflix or using a smartphone is perhaps more enjoyable to group activities like bowling. Or that online communication is replacing real life communication.
5. many ppl engineer their lives to minimize social interactions and pay a premium to do so, like stadium box seating, man caves, vacation retreat homes, etc..
I do feel bad for those who have lost their social net during the pandemic; loneliness sucks, I know it. At the same time, I find it hard to be sympathetic because - it must be nice to have had a social net to lose! For me personally, the isolation of the last year and a half has been a barely noticeable difference from the decades prior.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] threadI'm very grateful I had an SO and two good friends I could often meet up with.
It's one of the more challenging parts of life anyways as YMMV. Some people have loads of contacts and friends, others have enough with only a handful of close ties. There's no catch-all that works for everyone. And I think it's important to acknowledge that everyone has different individual needs.
Building a sturdy social network with a variety of contacts isn't something you do overnight. Rome wasn't build in a single day either. This takes time. And yet, you might surprise yourself one year from now. A lot can happen in 365 days if you decide to put your shoulders under this.
> I don't even know where to start
Group activities are a great way to meet people.
Group travel, classes / workshops, local social / cultural communities, outreach activities,... For instance, I enrolled into cooking classes for a few years, which was a great way to meet people and have great food. Many non-profit organizations do stuff like guided walks and tours, visits to venues, organise workshops and so on.
Volunteering works too. Doesn't have to be charity. Working with youths is a pretty great way to get involved in a local community. Even in your late 30s.
What worked for me in the past was just walking into a community center and striking up a conversation with people who are working there: What are they about? What do they offer? Are they doing cool stuff? If you show interest, they will pick up on that.
One challenge is to get out of your comfort zone. Try out things you haven't tried before. Like, try following a first aid, dance or yoga class if you haven't. Don't get stuck in an area related to work or older hobbies you have.
Be mindful that not all things you explore will work out for you. You might feel that some stuff just isn't for you, or that the group dynamics aren't a match. That's totally valid. It's fine to drop an activity for something else if you feel disengaged.
As for making friends: those are actually a side effect of the above.
One doesn't make friends out of the blue. You put yourself out there first, trying and exploring the world, following your own interests. And as you do so, you will hit upon people who might become friends. And in due time, some of them might even become close friends.
Personally, I'm in a similar boat as you. Intend to put myself out there over the next few months, try some new things I have on my mind, and spend less time in front of digital devices as I did in 2020.
So, this is the source of the article. No reference to any single study, despite all the research available on the topic. What a piece of anecdotical crap this article is.
>Pre-pandemic, the Royal College of General Practitioners Wales called for all practices to have their own social prescriber in a bid to tackle GPs' workload, and "free up their time for those patients most in need of medical care".
In its loneliness action plan it said: "Loneliness and social isolation can be as bad for patients as chronic long-term conditions. "Loneliness puts people at a 50% increased risk of an early death.
Where the hell is this figure coming from?
What's enraging is how important this topic is. All the bbc could produce is this gossip rag level piece of journalism? Appalling.
I think you are overselling how little information is provided. Taking in account the venue and audience it is still easy to look up more specific information with what the article provides.
[0] https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/facult... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30007359/
I do believe in their cause, and "raising awareness" usually is a major mission for these orgs. But "raising awareness" is a marketing/communication/political process, that is incompatible with scientific rigour.
I'm not. You are arguing against something in your own mind.
I'm aware of negative health effects, but mostly in older people: https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older...
I have no idea why they've been doing this. To be honest, I haven't looked further into it, and maybe I'm just noticing a pattern where there is none. But it's a thought that's crossed my mind a few times now.
She is not the only one.
Is that done to prevent her loneliness?
- "State / faceless institution" organized social security, reducing the need of social network / safety net.
- The rise of "social media" leading to less social interaction.
- Push for long working hours that leaves not much time for socialization
- Spreading fear through the media. Many people are lonely, yet are afraid to talk to a stranger because "who knows what's on his mind".
- Economic improvements leading to the decreasing necessity and dependence on the extended family.
- Instead of tackling the actual social isolation problems, the trend of virtualization and automation of tasks that previously required social interaction is making it even worse.
- Covid-19 fearmongering and voluntary/enforced (self) isolation didn't help either.
It's almost like we are going to end like in the book "1994" from Borislav Pekic, isolated and afraid of humans, surrounded with robots, unhappy but not able to change anything until the humanity is doomed.
EDIT: Since some misunderstood me, I don't judge if the "state provided" social network is good or bad, or if it should be kept or dismissed, just state the fact that it significantly reduces the need for social interaction between people, leading to more loneliness.
I also observed that in poorer countries with less state provided social safety net, people are much more social and dependent on each other.
The same can be said to other points too.
EDIT 2: Covid-19 is a hot topic. Again, I prefer not to put judgement about all societal effect of it here. By "fearmongering" here, I don't consider only fear from virus. There's also fear from economical doom and fear from the loss of liberties.
All three types of fear are legitimate and present in different social circles and pushed ("mongered"?) by different media.
Which fear is dominant depends on the circumstances of each individual. Person that can isolate himself and has a safe job will be more afraid of loss of liberties than the virus. A person who lost his job due to lockdown fear hunger more that virus, and a supermarket cashier is horrified if he will get infected. Unfortunately, hardly any people can understand that different people can have different fears, and a quick to dismiss ones with different fear.
Anyway, it's again fact that Covid-19 was for many people the final stroke that push them to loneliness.
Hey, I'm just pointing things out that I see as a cause :) Although your proposal would help force reduce loneliness, would be a net negative for the quality of life.
The solution, or rather a set of solutions, would require a broader consensus, since it would affect the way we are as a society. At this point, I'm not even sure I have the solution on the society level.
Maybe the evolution of societies would fix it?
Maybe when the problem becomes worse, we would be pressed to fix it to some extent?
Or the societies that have better social approach would thrive and our western world will either accept the new ways and adapt, or go into the sad obsolescence.
Before this, people just died. Hard to be lonely when you're dead.
COVID-19 isolation wasn't fearmongering, it was a necessary step for countries that didn't get tracing, testing, and masking up to appropriate levels at the beginning. It didn't help the isolation problem, but it also wasn't fearmongering.
It doesn't reduce the need of a social network, and it is there because the 'organic' safety net doesn't work well enough.
I have more social interaction because of different kinds of social media and more options for types of social interaction! I can play games with others without being at their house. I wish the internet was this developed when I was young, and am a bit envious of kids today because chances are, they can find a small group of people that don't make them feel horrible.
People have been spreading fear through media since any sort of media existed. Through most of history, you couldn't call them on their bs, though, since even if you were literate, you usually didn't have access to any other source of information.
You know, talking to strangers is sometimes just a cultural difference. People don't talk to strangers without reason where I am (Norway) - and I gotta tell you, it is great. I can now walk down the street without having to wave at whoever waves to me like I did in the US. Not only that, but a lot of folks talk to strangers... on the internet. Which is totally different, since you know that anyone posting on the internet wants to - in some aspect - interact with other humans.
Family is only good if they are, well, good. But we've seen throughout history that family doesn't always have good intentions. Some families are abusive, both physically and sexually. Some will force strict gender roles on their kids (no, child, you can't play baseball! You are a girl and should be cleaning). Some will send kids through questionable therapies to 'fix' their queer child or beat their child for dating outside their "race". They might expect to choose your spouse for you. I mean, this stuff happens now, even with the "reduced necessity and dependence".
I agree that we aren't tackling social isolation! I'm pretty sure we could let folks work less and improve everyone's standard of living by making sure the safety net is strong enough for more people to afford hobbies and playing sports and going places socially. I don't agree that automation is problem, though, but more that it is one of the solutions to making life better.
The Covid-19... we are not starting from the same set of agreed upon facts here.
The literally hundreds of thousands of homeless scattered around the United States and Canada and the millions living with daily food insecurity are probably wondering exactly how the "state organized" safety net has reduced their need.
> Covid-19 fearmongering
Current count for COVID-19 deaths in the US is almost 620,000.
I'm not sure what the definition of "fear mongering" is but I'm pretty sure it doesn't include steps to reduce the effect of a pandemic that has killed 620K people in the US alone WITH the mitigations that were put in place.
But many people voluntarily and willingly choose to be alone.
https://trypoppin.com/
I know on some level people were always like that. Bad ideas are pervasive and always have been. But there's more echo chambers reinforcing bad ideas now. There was some hope in the past of maybe changing someone's mind. Now they get it reinforced constantly with push notifications and digests. High speed, personalized media both revealed it and made it harder to change.
Believing about half of your fellow countrymen are 'awful human beings' is bonkers.
>> "Believing about half of your fellow countrymen are 'awful human beings' is bonkers."
You said half, not me. You have literally no insight into what I mean and you think you know everything about me because of the media you consume. This is the problem.
To be clear: I don't think the noisy few are representative. I think most people don't have strong opinions on anything. That's not great, but I can work with them. But I can't tell whether they're just politically zoned out or waiting for something in a comment to latch on to for an unhinged rant until spending time getting to know them.
[1] Historical context for future readers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables
It would only be a quarter of the country if every person in the country voted and if half went to Clinton and half to Trump.
But we know that more people voted for Clinton, so just because of that the Trump-supporting half would be even less than that... and yet less than that because a lot of people don't vote.
Also, let's remember that Clinton said this during the campaign, when everyone (including Clinton) thought that Clinton had way more support than Trump, so she was expecting that Trump supporters were much fewer in number than they actually were. So that makes the total numbers she was (figuratively, not literally) talking about fewer still.
I grant your larger point about polarization, however. It's hard to see who in the US political arena is not contributing to ever greater polarization. Somehow we need to deescalate before more serious violence occurs.
PS. I’m in Sweden, so not part of the US political debate. This is probably a global phenomenon.
Which made me think - do I understand, can I understand the issues faced by people who I have minimal/no contact, experience with? LGBTQ, physically challenged, mentally challenged, deeply religious etc? I don't know. I am terrified that I might say something stupid/offensive if I meet a transgender person, for example. Not because I am an arsehole, but because I simply do not comprehend what they are going through.
These echo chambers are only going to get worse and worse. I wish we all talked less and listened more
Now everyone is on social media, and it turns out including the obnoxious and crazy turns society insane.
So... - and I hate every word that follows - maybe ostracising was a necessary evil, and needs to be reinvented.
You might not be surprised to learn I also favor restorative justice over retributive justice.
Its like hedonism. If you don't temper non-conformiry and sensation seeking with higher goals for your mental and physical health, your social standing, the quality of your participating in your family or in your ability to rear a child, it's destructive.
Hedonism, individualism, consumerism, these are all toxic without self-restraint for higher goals.
The whole article is about loneliness and it was not clear for me what they mean by 'loneliness'?
How it is defined?
What we can consider as already a 'loneliness' and when we can say it is not yet there?
Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Loneliness is also described as social pain—a psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections.
It really wasn't hard to find.
This is what I call - undefined. You can "percieve" it whenever you want/need/wish/like etc
Then I bought myself a book about narcissism, and a dozen floor to ceiling mirrors.
Now I stay at home every night, reading stories i've written about myself out loud from my diary, and taking selfies.
I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
I'm awesome ;-D
How to become homeless when you start millionaire and CEO of a small/moderate company? Well this is the first and main step, because on any major problem, you are alone and no-one is going to testify in your favor. Especially if you genuinely wouldn’t mind if everyone went to hell for the hell they’re causing me.
Sure, my parents. But my parents are the ones who vote for locking up everyone and mandating social isolation. So their love stops at mandated lockdowns. Their love, and the same goes for 90% of my fellow citizen, their love and social fabric stops at giving you a hell if a time to deal with.
Same goes for feminism. Everyone likes feminism! Men commit suicide at 5x the rate? Not a problem! Men work themselves till death while women enjoy choice, choice of careerS, choice of being a mother while the husband provides, choice of sexualizing their body? Must be their sexism! Men have little choice and become insane? It’s their fault! Let’s clearly not provide resources to fight men’s workaholism!
I hate people. I really hate all my fellow citizen who cheer happily at the idea of stopping the economy, and lockdowns drove me practically insane. If they took my job away, I wouldn’t have passed the winter. And they were this close to taking our jobs away.
I’m trying to make good use of my money (buying a house, giving myself a chance) but I’m writing this so people understand the depth of the ordeal, especially for people who don’t have the extreme luxury that I have with having enough money for such a project (I’ve earnt every bit of it, but other people have worked just as much and didn’t meet success).
That said, “it’s fault of feminists and liberals” is not what he meant, afaiu. He is complaining about the lack of attention to all “boring” problems like men suicide only because there are some fast-fashion peak problems which are supported by those who have less to do in their life. Again, afaiu. While my views are different, I see no reason to summarize his views the way you did.
> "- Cult of female employment as their main role in society, which, in positions of power, happens to soften the stance towards criminals and deconstruct structures (hierarchies, things that worked to develop our nations, justice system). I don’t know the ratio for Cali but in France, 76 to 81% graduates of ENM (main school for judges) are female since 1977, and we basically free the criminals because they have compassion for them."
> "So I never demanded anything from my father up to the point I needed him. At 35 years old I told him modern women were unmanageable and my life was turning sour, and I needed help, I needed people to understand that men are being mistreated by the system, but I said it with ample documentation (you could watch the excellent movie The Red Pill, which depicts pretty much the complexity of our position), and that the only answer of society towards us is “Incel”. By the time I asked my father, I had already created some networks through politicians, but on the topic that interests me, all still had the same dismissive position, because promoting men doesn’t work politically. I’m saying that so you don’t say that I hadn’t walked my walk."
> "There aren’t many ways besides violence to be heard by people who refuse to hear us. I’ve already tried words! And more importantly for me: I’ve already tried taking positive action."
He has some vague sense that his unhappiness is related to "workaholism", but is so fixated on gender politics that he twists it to revolve around that. He imagines that women have a "choice of careers, choice of being a mother while the husband provides", apparently oblivious to the economic reality that single-income families are an impossibility for the majority of people, not because of feminism, but because of market forces.
You can see the alienation and the sense of rage and despair engendered by social atomization and hustle worship, only to be channeled not against any of the root causes, but some bogeyman like feminism which, precisely because of the aforementioned dislocation, hits closer to home emotionally.
And the worst of it is hearing echoes of my previous self in the words (projected or not), but being aware of the irony that it's only people who ARE close to you who have a chance of helping you out of that kind of morass.
There are plenty of zero-income families - single mothers. So single-income families are surely even more possible. Usually only women have this choice. Men can't choose family over career.
I’m not sure why you think this. I have quite a few friends and families in my circle where the women are the primary breadwinners of the family. Let alone the number of two-mother and two-father households. In almost all cases dual-incomes are the norm.
When you say, “men can’t choose family”, who’s preventing that?
At least the way it works in the countries I’ve lived in is that if you’re on the dole it doesn’t matter if you’re a mother (or a father for that matter)—you still have the obligation to find a job.
And as a man you can totally chose family over career, in the same way that women do. There’s a social stigma against it, of course. And it can be economically difficult—but that’s the case for women as well.
Of course, the pressure for a man to act as a provider and to focus on his career is very real. I think laurent92 isn’t wrong about the pressures men face. It’s weird though to blame that on feminism. I think feminism already helped chip away at the pressure. A stay-at-home dad should be acceptable to a feminist, more so than to someone who never gave pause to these questions. But in the end, it’s not feminism’s job to take care of men’s mental health, that’s really something that requires a movement of its own.
Society has very openly displayed its disrespect for certain groups of people during the pandemic, he clearly has a point there.
The parent poster is literally seething with hatred.
If that doesn't deserve a downvote on HN, regardless of your political views, I don't know what does.
We've also seen many times that hatred against women in online forums has led to acts of violence against women in real life.
That also deserves to be called out and condemned, regardless of one's politics.
I think society is fading during lockdown, it really goes by the distance, let's hope that's changing back to normal soon.
> Everyone likes feminism! Men commit suicide at 5x the rate? Not a problem! Men work themselves till death
So do women, even in the G8 nations. Not sure if everyone likes feminism but also men have to suffer from the fallout of toxic masculinity. Like over-competitiveness, and yes this can also result in overworking. Even unrelated movements bring something anyone can benefit from. It's like with software, you think you fix a bug but at the same time you improve a structural problem.
Its good to be angry because this is bullshit, and remember, were not for people like you, we would still be slaves.
Just a bit of personal thoughts on parent's love. I think it's valuable when you're a child, then when you're an adult, you only need to remember the feeling. You don't need the actual parents anymore. Everyone's parents eventually die and can no longer love them. Perhaps you didn't get it while you were a child and still crave it? There's ways to recreate that feeling without needing your parents. It's harder and it's unfair, but it puts you in control. Nobody else will ever care about you as much as yourself, so don't rely on anyone's love.
As a man, isn't the "work themselves till death" part also a choice? Women enjoy all the choices you listed, sure, but what prevents the man from enjoying his choices? A man is likewise free to do anything.
Maybe some post-post-structural theme is emerging. I've seen developments which have elements of that, but I have also seen some of those elements being coopted by modern estate builds (like, well at least from kinds of basic informal security but without internal walkways and personal space in front of flats along the walkways; like surrounded green spaces but that are left to fend for theirs self after build has finished), and that have little relation between integrating working spaces (workshops, community cafes and even theaters, etc.) into the plan, and most certainly no indications of resident open working groups for all aspects of the running of the building almost as a cooperative.
Wake me up when a Timeless Way of Building etc inspired and the like concepts are starting to become somewhat more of part of standard reading/planning/construction. All these new builds recently that are wasting so much already known wisdom and humanist conceptions of how to progress the mental well-being of residents as well as the state of society.
If only architects took on "patterns" in a way that the computer/design community have..
Even when people are in common areas way too many have their noses buried in their cell phones or laptops. City dwellers are often incredibly distrustful of strangers. They complain of being lonely but few make much of an effort to meet new people or deepen existing relationships. Architecture alone is not going to solve this.
New more social architecture is literally one of the solutions available for providing opportunity for people to meet new people.
And oof, a downvote to 0 on my original fair-enough comment.
Discovered Meetup earlier this year. Worth looking into it if you’re in a similar situation. No one knows anyone already on it and everyone is still battered from COVID so it’s a good starter for getting back out there and back to being sociable creatures.
https://twitter.com/dcoxpolls/status/1408415456600395782?s=2...
Was it really a good idea to ban all-male spaces using civil-rights law?
https://twitter.com/herandrews/status/1408429235409141762?s=...
For young people, the school closings, dorm closings, curfews, movement restrictions and other "only for 14 days" decrees will cause greater psychological harm (and number of dead in that age group), than just letting them all get the virus.
Older people have a higher chance of dying due to corona, so the number might be different, and their social circles are usually a lot smaller, but suicide numbers are going up there too.
https://greyenlightenment.com/2021/04/30/skepticism-about-lo...
1. high rates of domestic violence and divorce
2. humans are endowed with the ability to rationalize abstractions and form imaginations , unlike other animals. This makes in-person social interactions less necessary.
3. the purported loneliness epidemic is more of a creation by the media than reality. By writing hundreds of articles about it, people will be influenced to believe it is real.
4. people are voluntarily choosing to be alone. Being alone and watching Netflix or using a smartphone is perhaps more enjoyable to group activities like bowling. Or that online communication is replacing real life communication.
5. many ppl engineer their lives to minimize social interactions and pay a premium to do so, like stadium box seating, man caves, vacation retreat homes, etc..
Tell me about it.
> often associated with the older generation - despite more young people struggling with loneliness.
Thanks for the age shaming.
> Three times as many young people deal with loneliness compared to older people.
I do wonder what dark hole you pulled that factoid out of.