[kiwih]

The loneliness crisis is what I have been wondering about lately amongst the greater push (especially within tech circles) to 100% work-from-home arrangements. Personally, although I enjoy WFH once or twice a week, I know that for me I must go in the other three days or else I do start feeling chronically lonely - even though I live with my wife and another flatmate.

One thing that I worry about is that one side effect of being lonely, as noted in this report, can be depression: and this depression can lead you to isolate yourself further, only increasing the loneliness.

That said, I have another friend working for a web developer who only began full WFH during the pandemic, and now says they'll never go back. They've told me that they don't feel lonely at all. Different strokes for different folks.

[treeman79]

Did work from home for many years. Decided to back to office after I had mostly convinced myself that the people in zoom calls were just figments of my imagination.

[schnevets]

Ha, I can relate to this. As someone who has worked remote for 5 years, I have had dreams of interacting with co-workers that I have never met face-to-face.

[tsol]

Ever notice how rare computer screens and phones are in dreams? At least for me. Even during periods where I'm using then near constantly while awake. It's like the brain isn't made to focus on that during dreaming

[AlwaysRock]

I don't think I can ever go back in. At least not more than once a week. But I always got relatively little out of office relationships. It felt like not quite friends and not quite acquaintances. A weird middle ground relationship that made me feel like I would rather be spending time with someone I actually cared about, deeply, or would rather be alone.

[api]

The loneliness crisis long predates the acceleration of telework adoption during COVID, and the job has never been peoples' primary place for socializing.

[azemetre]

How can a place where you spend over a 1/3 of your life NOT be a place for socializing? A large amount of Americans date coworkers and office relationships are absolutely the norm:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/one-in-three-americans-has-d...

[vorpalhex]

Not the parent but I'll do my best to make a good counter argument.

The job should not be your place of socializing. People have opinions, make jokes, have bad days, get upset at each other, misbehave and so on. These things are fine, they are human.

However, these things aren't appropriate for work. My coworkers don't get to choose me, they are stuck with me. I try very hard to be mild, polite and gentle at work.

That is very much not who I am as a person. My friends know this and are fine with it, but they also get to choose to be my friend (or not).

I literally feel like I can't have a real friendship or genuine social interaction at work. I might exchange pleasantries and try to make polite small talk, but it's not worth the risk of making someone else feel alienated or offended.

[soared]

The job is definitely some peoples primary place for socializing.