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If you spend all your time just mulling about online, or watching Netflix, or playing a game, then it's not surprising that you are lonely. You are engaging in solo activities that other people can't really join. It is not anymore surprising that you are overweight if you don't exercise, and especially if you aren't cooking at home ever. Cut out any drugs, go to bed at a reasonable hour, exercise, get a hobby, eat decently. If you don't know how to do those things or have medical issues preventing you, go to a doctor/therapist/personal trainer/nutritionist/life coach. No you aren't going to become a social butterfly just because you finally logged off your game, but if you try a few different organized social events (board game meetups, hiking group, whatever) you will probably start talking to a few people. If you still can't, then you need to talk to a therapist. You probably have either never developed or allowed your social skills to decay and need help to get them back on track. |
> If you spend all your time […] watching Netflix, or playing a game, then it's not surprising that you are lonely. You are engaging in solo activities that other people can't really join.
The relevant qualifier here is "all your time", and I agree, all your time is bad, but these activities can be plenty social if they’re engaged in for a reasonable amount of time and with an eye toward being social.
Netflix and playing games to be were vital to me keeping a social link with friend when the pandemic started. What worked for me was to do these activities in a group with friends, friends of friends, and family of friends in a group. For example, we treated NetFlix like a book club treats a book store - a source of material to discuss. We picked out movies and series and would discuss them like a book club discussed movies. Hearing the perspective of others and their understanding of the shows/movies was very interesting and it allowed expanding my social circle with people that either had similar interests or were articulate, civil, and respectful about our differences.
Same for gaming - we would run social gaming nights for people that would break off into smaller groups based on gaming preferences. Did that over Discord and it worked great to break the ice and keep socializing.
The key was to use these things as a backdrop to bring people together and drive engagement and let their desire to be social drive relationships. This takes active effort as opposed to binging a show alone or just queuing in another public lobby in a game.
Another key was limiting time. We alternated between games and movie/series discussion every other week, and that gave everyone (especially participants with a busy work schedule or kids) time to set aside a couple of hours to watch/discuss the shows/movies or game.