[tapp]

> It was just as hard 30 years ago as it is now. As it was 300 years ago. 3000 even.

I understand what you're saying, but I also think it's important to acknowledge that dynamics have changed - and we don't need to go back 30 years to see it.

As recently as 5 or 6 years ago, I would quite often strike up conversations with strangers at the bus stop or on the train or at the post office.

Usually these conversations would last for just a few minutes, sometimes an hour or more, and in a handful of instances I made a long term friend.

I find that this is vastly harder to do now, because nearly everyone in those common spaces is now engrossed by their phone. This changes the dynamics of interacting and striking up a conversation substantially by adding a lot of social friction.

Historically, the interaction was something like: slightly awkward silence -> random comment about the weather or some equally anodyne topic to break the awkward silence -> possibly a rewarding conversation.

Now, the awkward silence never occurs in the first place. It's been entirely replaced by everyone scrolling the feeds on their phones. To start a conversation, you have to proactively interrupt what the person is doing and ask for their attention.

What's more, even if you successfully navigate that dynamic and start a conversation, the soft dings and tapping reminders from the phone constantly pull people's attention back to the virtual from the physical.

Smartphones have been a boon in myriad ways, but I do miss the chances to engage in face-to-face conversation with strangers in the real world that existed before they commanded every second of our spare attention.

[arstin]

Good points, especially how unplanned interactions have become interruptions. Slumping through life looped into a slab of infinity glass used to be an absurd dystopia...

Sure, most interactions never develop into anything lasting, but you only need one to click every few years...or even a lifetime!

Excuse a slight tangent, since it was on my mind today: I'm sure I'll be defensively sniped at as an "extrovert" here (lol), but I do think we have a duty to each other to be outgoing, warm, forbearing...to make every effort that others feel at ease. Techies will sometimes make icky demands like that a social interaction must be "useful". Yes, looking random people in the eye and talking to them...even when they're not giving you anything...is tough. I know well that it can be among the hardest and most draining things. But I, anyway, believe we're obliged to learn to do so well and to suffer through it.

Resolving to take on this incredibly modest, day-to-day responsibility of making others feel acknowledged and at ease---of trying to bring out the best in everyone---should surely be one key step in addressing your own loneliness.

Obviously part of this skill is respecting the extent to which others want left alone. And I, for one, prefer to spend most of my own time far away from people. Please don't snarl at me for not understanding "introverts"! :) But the point is of course tied with how tech can affect what people in fact expect and want and how tech can adjust the "cost" of an interaction (smartphones, public spaces optimized for laptops inside and cars outside...and on...and on...).

[mncharity]

> Now, the awkward silence never occurs in the first place. It's been entirely replaced by everyone scrolling the feeds on their phones.

It will be interesting to see which ways AR/VR goes.

() You're walking somewhere, displaying a side banner of things you're enthused about. So there always fodder for striking up conversation when standing around. And look, the gal unlocking the eyeglass shop is an Atlantic winter solo sailor. Perhaps a "good person to have a conversation with" rating system might help cope with those that aren't.

() Standing at the bus stop, you don't see the stop. You don't see the people waiting, and they don't see you. Especially the homeless guy. You see a "tree", placed so you don't run into the pole. A log for the guy, so you don't walk into him. You see bushes, or boxes, or bears. But no people. The bus pulls up to a stream in a glade in the woods.

() Bus? Are you going on vacation? Wouldn't your vacation be a nicer at home, and around your block, in VR? Like work. And play. And getting together with friends?

() No more two-body problem. What's a "long distance relationship"? Oooo, that sounds like what you were telling me about yesterday, how when you were meeting someone in olden times, you had to arrange exactly when and where you would meet, because without real phones, otherwise you might fail to find each other. Wieerrrrd.

[dragonsky67]

I'm not sure that your observation of peoples behaviour is accurate.

Just a bit of background. I'm an introvert, I'm happy in my own space. Too much noise or too many people make me very uncomfortable. Birthdays, for example would have to be up there as one of the worst events of the year only topped by Christmas Parties. So you see, I'm not one for talking to random strangers. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fairly contented person with a small family group of about 6 people I happily interact with on a regular basis.

I travel to work via bus and it is a rare day when I don't get approached by somebody at the bus stop or on the bus who is looking to chat. I'll go through the polite hi how are you type of thing before getting back to my book or whatever I was filling the time with. My point is, that most of the people on the bus seem to be conducting some degree of social interaction with semi random strangers and if I were a different person I guess I'd be right along with them. Even with my attitude I still enjoy the fact that on our bus there is a small thriving community where people share the time of day.

Yes, there are a lot more phones being used than 10 years ago, but people still seem to be chatting, the phones are just there as an adjunct rather than as a barrier to communication.

[ar-nelson]

That doesn't seem typical to me... I've used public transit for years, in both the Seattle area and Massachusetts, and it's rare for anyone to strike up a spontaneous conversation, with me or anyone else. Whenever someone did, they usually seemed a little... odd. Maybe one time out of five it would be an interesting conversation, and that only happened every few months of riding the bus every weekday.

The main thing I learned from this is, if I started conversations with random people on the bus, I'd be that odd person who makes people uncomfortable. I wish it didn't work that way.

[chillacy]

I can confirm that seattle is pretty cold on the metro. I did meet an ex-girlfrend at the bus stop, but even then I felt weird chatting on the bus since it's so quiet it feels everyone else is listening in. So yea, public transit in seattle, a bit weird to talk. But airplanes, I'm usually very chatty.

[mncharity]

> I travel to work via bus and it is a rare day when I don't get approached by somebody at the bus stop or on the bus who is looking to chat.

Local cultures can vary a lot. In NYC, riding the bus, I more often end up in a conversation than not. In Boston, that is just not done. Except with tourists sometimes. I used to travel more, and it became a standing joke... At someplace not Boston, chatting. While traveling, chatting. Hit the subway by Boston Logan airport, chatting... sort of... with people awkwardly uncomfortable... facepalm, back in Boston, burned again.

[Zitrax]

Cultures must really be different. I have used public transport to work for years and I can't even recall one single time someone tried to start a conversation.

[weavie]

Indeed. Here in Devon, Uk, at one time when I was commuting by bus, the regulars on the bus were so friendly we got to the stage where we were decking the bus out in tinsel and sharing cakes and bubbly when it was someones birthday.

[RugnirViking]

Wow thats really odd. I've always thought in the UK that in london and the south people keep themselves to themselves but in the north like Sheffield people were a lot friendlier but maybe thats just because I lived there longer ago before smartphones were a thing

[thorin]

Devon/Cornwall is a lot more like the north or indeed a different country compared to London. Even in London people will come together in the right situation - commonly moaning about the weather, queuing etc.

[InternetUser]

> Now, the awkward silence never occurs in the first place. It's been entirely replaced by everyone scrolling the feeds on their phones. To start a conversation, you have to proactively interrupt what the person is doing and ask for their attention.

That is exactly right. No one can be bothered to exert the effort to carry on a relationship--not when their handheld Internet has an ocean of stuff that's easily more entertaining and less judgmental or potentially problematic, whether that content is memes, videos, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter posts, or incoming text messages, which now look more like rebuses, with the emojis. I saw a very representative meme that said "In the early 2000s, it was 'Why would I text message someone when I can just call them" and now it's 'Why would I call someone when I can just text message them?'" The asynchronous nature of those communications, and how the contact is divided across multiple services, whether text message, WhatsApp, Kik, Instagram, or whichever, makes it that the user gets used to having low expectations for the reliability of their dozens or hundreds of online "friends," and of course Facebook redefined that very word.

See this statistic from a recent article in The Atlantic published just the other day:

> The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out.

"Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? - More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...

And the New York Post had an article saying that those in the next oldest generation (Generation, or I suppose "pre-Millennials") should try to address those problems, as though people in their 30s and 40s aren't glued to their phone screens as well:

> Generation X needs to save America from millennials

http://nypost.com/2017/08/05/generation-x-needs-to-save-amer...

Wikipedia: Generation Z and their use of technology and social media:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z#Technology_and_so...

[losteric]

Idleness is dead. We're constantly picking up novel stimuli and concepts, getting triggered by emotional politics/entertainment, and following infinite trends... as soon as our minds are idle, we immediately jump back to the things we've been absorbing, or feel that obsessive itch to scan for new stimuli.

What happened to being bored? To doing things, not because they were "cool" or even "fun", but simply because there was time that had to be killed? Going out because there was nothing inside, and meeting other bored people, connecting on anything because it was better than nothing?

Technology is raising the "minimum acceptable interest level" for activities - killing our mental slack, the slack where offline novelty could slip in.

I've been thinking about it for a while, but this thread has made my decision. Next time I'm off-call, 3pm tomorrow, I'm going to cut the cord. Unplug the modem and tell my friends I'm only answering phone calls (disable data) - no internet outside of work.

I want to feel bored again. Not brief moments of boredom, the hours of boredom I felt as a kid, the boredom that drove me to do new things... instead of today's boredom, that merely leads me to learn new things.

[icebraining]

Going out because there was nothing inside, and meeting other bored people, connecting on anything because it was better than nothing?

To me, that's an alien experience. I was and am never bored when I'm alone, I just think and imagine. I only get bored when I have to pay attention to boring stuff that prevents me from drifting off.

[losteric]

I grew up without internet/tv/cellphones - books, art, and dreaming was the first line of defense from boredom, but eventually they ran dry after weeks of repetition.

[cousin_it]

Yeah, going offline to get bored and do stuff is a good solution. Joining classes, meetups or workout groups can also work well.