[KittenInABox]

--I cut a misinterpretation here.--

> We’ve long pondered why the marriage rate, and the corresponding birth rate, has plummeted in America. Answers often focus on financial stressors: Young Americans can’t afford a home like their parents could at their age, some speculate; others blame limited parental leave or poor day-care options.

> Perhaps — but the corresponding slump in close friendships doesn’t add up. People can still afford to make friends, can’t they?

Again, this is some ivory tower kind of nonsense. Of course if you can't afford to host people (no space), if you can't bond with other parents because you cannot be a parent, if you can't afford to leave your kids (with daycare or a carer) to socialize, how the hell are you supposed to invest the time in close friendships? And also, not being able to afford to invest in friendship makes total sense to affect the working class.

This article is a bunch of illogical slop.

[tyleo]

Agreed. Friendship kinda costs money. I had a friend loose a job like a year ago. I used to see them every other week but it became like twice a year while they were broke.

[Retric]

Friendship can also be an economic net positive, it mostly depends on how you’re interacting. Watching each other's kids at home creates extra free time. Having an extra hand and different set of tools when working on home projects is a net gain which means you can be better off while helping each other etc.

However, so much of how people spend their free is consumptive that hanging out has become increasingly expensive.

[KittenInABox]

> Watching each other's kids at home creates extra free time.

Not a thing if no one has free time because everyone has to work.

> Having an extra hand and different set of tools when working on home projects is a net gain which means you can be better off while helping each other etc.

Again, who has the money to have tools? Who has the money to work on home projects? Have you seen the cost of construction materials lately?

[Retric]

Not having any tools is far more expensive because now you’re always paying for labor and parts not just parts.

As to things being more expensive that’s in part an illusion. Things where more affordable in the 1950’s when homes where 1,000sf, there was no cable bill, no cellphones, no internet, and no PC etc and that still represented a far higher standard of living than what came before.

I’m not advocating for giving up modern convince, just recognizing the slow shift from luxury to expected has real costs.

[readthenotes1]

Is that because y'all couldn't think of ways to spend time with one another that didn't cost money? Seems like a fairly tenuous friendship...

[acdha]

American society is set up around spending money - since it was rebuilt around car travel in the 20th century, simply meeting up with your friends often requires a fair amount of money and time and public spaces have been steadily curtailed or made less pleasant to try to discourage homeless people from using them. If you live in a dense urban area, yes, you can probably walk, bike, or take the bus to a park or library but if you live in many suburbs that option either doesn’t exist or means an hour trip each way with nothing else to do nearby.

[furyofantares]

It's bad writing. But in between your first two quotes, you clipped out a paragraph that ends with this:

> Americans with college degrees experienced a similar but less steep drop.

They are saying the same thing as you on that point.

[KittenInABox]

Point taken, thanks for pointing that out.

[darth_avocado]

The article may be a bunch of slop but there is something deeply cultural in the US that is contributing to this. Not being able to afford things or social media or pretty much anything that gets the blame for the “loneliness pandemic” isn’t unique to the US.

My personal experience has been that the same individualistic culture that allows people to do whatever they want and become whoever they want, that yields great results in a lot of aspects of life, also results in weaker relationships with others. At some point prioritizing oneself over everything else starts taking a toll on relationships. Do you really stop seeing a friend because they can’t afford to go places? Or do you stop seeing them because you are not willing to change your wants and not meet them somewhere that they can afford to go?

[johnnyanmac]

It's not unique to the US but there are factors that accelerate the lack of ability to freely be around people.Some a unique-ish societal problem (declines of US malls while EU is fine) . And part of that is indeed cultural attitude.

>Do you really stop seeing a friend because they can’t afford to go places?

On a personal level, it's because I was traditionally the one planning get togethers, and then life got rough and I just planned less with no one to step up. Maybe they are also on hard times, maybe they had other groups they prioritized. Hard to tell.

I still try to at least check up once and a while remotely, but I do miss those times.

[KittenInABox]

> Not being able to afford things or social media or pretty much anything that gets the blame for the “loneliness pandemic” isn’t unique to the US.

No, I think not being able to afford things contributing to a loneliness pandemic is also visible in other cultures where people are expected to work a ton for not enough money like South Korea.

[hooverd]

People gotta touch grass. I want to say it's cars too: it's easy to be on your phone and hard to meet up with friends.

[readthenotes1]

"if you can't afford to leave your kids (with daycare or a carer) "

- some lawnmower parents won't even their kids with close relatives

- many apparently bought into the "nuclear family" (parent[s] + kids) and not the extended family. About the extended family, or the replacement by a close neighborhood group, parents are on their own - - and that's a recipe for disaster.

[georgemcbay]

> This article is a bunch of illogical slop.

Well, yeah, its the NY Post. Slop is all they ever publish.