Practically almost all people got highly manipulated into having no hobby's or interests in their free time. They will find no use for a 4 day week not will they see any advantages.
If you had to guess, how much of that time is used on social media apps?
Even playing videogames is a better hobby than doom-scrolling, or going for a walk/run, that's free. Maybe reading a book? I have friends who plow through 2-3 books a week, all from the local library. Cooking?
I don't think people are as poor as you indicate. Everyone just takes their gramme of soma whenever they can.
Yes, there are examples of things people can do for free
But what they want to do may be different
For instance it's very difficult to do any kind of creative craft if you don't have a budget. Woodworking, metalworking, or anything like that
Even videogames is kind of expensive, you need a console or computer and then games can be pricey as well
And yes, people may genuinely prefer to watch videos about working on cars rather than reading a book, when they would really rather be working on their own car but can't afford to
Fwiw, my local library rents newly-released video games, and you can get a Nintendo Switch cheaply.
I know a LOT of poor people who fix their own cars, so I don't buy that argument much at all.
I asked about TikTok and doom-scrolling, not watching youtube to educate yourself. People spend HOURS on that mess every day. And costs them a phone every 2-ish years and a service plan, so that isn't even remotely free.
> Costs them a phone every 2-ish years and a service plan, so that isn't even remotely free
This doesn't seem relevant, honestly. People more or less need a phone to function in society nowadays, it's not really optional and it becomes more and more required all the time. So owning a phone and having a plan for it is more or less a sunk cost for almost everyone already
I suspect you will quibble about this, phones aren't actually required, people could live without them.. but more and more you cannot participate in society without one. More and more you need mobile 2FA to interact with your banking, government services etc. Hell some restaurants you can't even see the menu without a phone to view QR codes on. Owning a phone is "optional" but the cost of not having one is high enough that it is basically ridiculous to suggest people should save money by not having one
So if we take that a phone and plan is already a baseline, it's not really an extra expense for people to scroll feeds
Meanwhile a hobby that requires access to specialized tools is an extra expense, and sometimes a big one
Most poor people I've ever known (including myself, years ago) fix their own cars out of necessity because it's cheaper than going to a mechanic, not as a hobby
You said:
> And yes, people may genuinely prefer to watch videos about working on cars rather than reading a book, when they would really rather be working on their own car but can't afford to
And then said:
> Most poor people I've ever known (including myself, years ago) fix their own cars out of necessity because it's cheaper than going to a mechanic, not as a hobby
These seem at odds with each other.
People are generally poor because they were never taught how to manage money, not because they don't have any.
I'm not trying to argue with you in the sense that one of us absolutely right and the other is not, I just can't see it.
I did my amateur radio license in Canada about 15 years ago, which involves also getting to know the older members of the local radio club. Their attitudes were quite incredible - very normal working class dudes with tens of thousands a year to spend on any serious hobby. (Like spending thousands on amplifiers, then thousands shipping them to pacific islands and up mountains etc.) They would also have cottages with arrays of recreational vehicles of different sorts and so on.
You can also see this in the pinball community as there is an age boundary when it drops off entirely.
It is amazing how quickly the normal expected standard of life in north america has taken a nosedive while the property values have exploded. Europe is even worse.
There's two dimensions to consider here: many hobbies require monetary investment, and many hobbies require quite a bit of space
You basically cannot have woodworking for instance as your hobby if you live in a small apartment
Yes, maybe there's some kind of Maker-space you can go to, but there may not be. That also just creates a barrier to entry because now you need to deal with a membership to the space, travel time, etc. And you still need space at home to store finished projects too!
So people are pretty restricted in the activities they actually can do if they don't have money or space to do things
It’d be nice to have at least one actual day off every week instead of a day of catching up on all the must-do personal and family work that you had to defer during the work week and then another day that’s half more of that and half fretting that the work week is about to start again and you haven’t gotten any relaxation in.
"We've tried nothing and we're all out of options." The data on 4 Day Week trials has been positive in almost all cases [1], across many countries, same with remote work. We should try it if we care, I just don't think we care at a system level.
Like rapidly declining fertility rates, there is enough will to complain, no will to change anything (imho, based on observations and the data). Maybe things need to get worse before they get better, I think we're just arguing over how bad the situation will need to get before change is made (structural demographics, socioeconomics, etc).
It’s eye-opening to watch management ignore incredibly obvious methodological errors that clearly render the entire PowerPoint they’re looking at so suspect that it’s worthless. And it happens just about constantly.
They’re either dumber than a slightly-bright 8th grade science student, or simply don’t care about the substance of trying to make decisions based on good data, but just the appearance, the theater, of doing so. Either way, outcome’s the same.
Whatever you do, don’t point it out. They will not listen, because they don’t care.
An astonishing number of people live paycheck to paycheck and basically any hobby costs at least some money