[araes]

The article in the New York Post, appears to be referencing this article by Daniel Cox of the "Survey Center on American Life". [1] The article itself on americansurveycenter website is far more extensive with a much larger discussion.

[1] https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-p...

Much of the article that is the source is actually devoted to the discussion about working class vs educated divides and lack of access to communal public places then resulting in diminished possibilities for socializing and friendship. Quite a bit actually focuses mostly on public parks, libraries, public gardens, restaurants, bars, libraries, and community centers.

Parks and libraries have some of the most significant shift as far as the educational divide. Half with 4 years visit, while only a quarter without.

Restaurants being the most popular among the "third places" (not public parks or libraries)

  "Americans report that people in their community can gather in restaurants or diners (46 percent), coffee shops or cafés (41 percent), gyms or fitness centers (37 percent), and local markets or corner stores (35 percent). Relatively few Americans report they can spend time with their neighbors in bookstores or other retail spaces (20 percent) and barbershops or hair salons (22 percent)."

Across the board, 4 year degree respondents also respond more positively towards almost every single public social location as an area where they go to meet and socialize with others. High School or less appear simply appear to have less "access" to these locations. And thereby less friendships that develop.

Restaurants, grocers/markets, and barbershops appear to be the most egalitarian, parks and gyms appear to be the furthest separated based on educational divides.

Even "no access" to "minimal access" has a fairly significant shift in friendship numbers reported. 32% "no access -> no friends", vs 17% "minimal access -> no friends" The "3-5 friends" category also jumps from 23% to 36%, and the "10 or more" jumps from 6% to 13%.

Educated people also tend to walk their neighborhood a larger amount, thereby resulting in greater amount of "chance encounters" or "friendly chats", and thereby more friendships.

The best opportunities that the "high school or less" members seem to feel they often have is religious society membership and communities.

There's also some discussion on divides on hobbies and freetime with education, and that part was actually kind of saddening from a certain perspective, as the numbers really look like "high school or less" feel little ability to engage with hobby, activity, community, workout, or sports related groups in their communities. Rather stark divide. 5-10% vs 15-20% in almost every category. Slight variation with ethnicity (African Americans seem more comfortable with community groups) yet lack of college education really seems to impose a harsh sensation of isolation in America.

Notably though, the project does appear to mostly be a one person show doing their own surveys, and writing every article (this survey notes Sam Pressler as supporting).

The article's appear to be well written, and methodology appears to be sufficiently explained. Appear to be notes, sources, and citations on supporting material (some self referential to their own articles). However, simply, a note that it also appears to be a one person website doing their own independent surveying, publishing, and research.

  Methodology: "AEI’s Survey Center on American Life designed and conducted the survey. Interviews were conducted among a random sample of 6,597 adults (age 18 and up). All interviews were conducted among participants in the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the US general population, not just the online population. Interviews were conducted in Spanish and English between March 29 and April 15, 2024."

[aredox]

I think this is taking it backwards: communal places are dying because of a deeper trend of di-socialization. You can't make those spaces work for long if nobody comes there.

What I notice here (Switzerland) which has a lot of clubs and associations is that less and less people come and less and less volonteer to help manage the club's functions. Notice that the clubs are still there; the opportunity to socialize is present, the club exists, has a place for its activities, a program; yet less and less people take the opportunity.

[araes]

Personally, tend to believe it's iterative (like the iterative method in software).

Basically, it has both issues. Your rationalization is valid, and its one side of what's going on. Society de-socializes, the clubs and activities still exist, yet less and less people take the opportunity. Those activities and clubs then wither and fade away with lack of participation.

However, on the other side, once those clubs and activities vanish, then opportunities that might have been there before no longer exist to even attempt. An opportunity for socialization vanishes, thereby accelerating the de-socialization.

Very tragedy of the commons type result. There's a communal field. Then some participants start abusing the communal field. Then people accepted of the communal situation previously (because of fair behavior) start pulling back and becoming stingy / paranoid / anti-sharing in response to the exploitive actions of their neighbors. Then the communal resource no longer exists and is ruined for all participants. People who might have joined the communal field use previously no longer have a communal resource to join.

[20after4]

Another factor, presumably, is that people at the low end of the income spectrum simply don't have any time to socialize because simply surviving takes almost all of their time and what is left is simply exhaustion.

Many parts of the world are experiencing very extreme income inequality as more wealth gravitates towards the top. I suspect this is happening almost everywhere but it definitely seems to be the case in the US, Canada, the UK and (to a lesser extent, perhaps) in western Europe. With the bottom 50% of the population just barely able to survive it's not at all a surprise that social activities and opportunities are going extinct.

I think socializing really is a luxury not afforded to most people. The folks in the top 50% of income live in a very different world from the bottom 50%

[araes]

Generally agree. Had about the same experience working the last job. Took significant effort to go out and find social activities, or develop regular social appointments each week that encouraged participation. Find a board gaming group, just to leave the house after work. Develop a roleplaying group, just to leave the house after work.

Many days of the draining 9 to 5 that mostly just encouraged crashing on the couch and trying not to do very much for several hours. And that was a relatively stable paying job by comparison to many. Working a normal plus a gig job in the modern world seems like there would be little time for anything else.

On the wealth gravitating, had the same consideration (figure many have). With the excessive focus on wealth, the majority of the world is different for the upper 50% (with the caveat that they then focus into the upper 50%, of the upper 50%, of the upper 50%, ect...)

Personal view is it would not be so bad, if the wealthy were actually spending anything. Except unfortunately it seems to have turned into the Russ Hanneman joke from Silicon Valley. They don't want to spend anything because they're worried about losing their status on the ladder bracket. And the only objective is "move to the next upper 50%." If you're $999 millionaire, you fall off the "wealthy" list, and it's like binary where suddenly you get uninvited from all the events people on "the list" get to go to.

From a game designer background though, it's frustrating, because it's like a game where there's 10-20 possible "resources", and all anybody will pay attention to is the "coin" quantity. Almost nothing else provides any form of status or tangible benefit. Academic citations don't really provide that much. Military rank doesn't really provide that much. They all still converge towards "bank account" and "coin" quantity.

[xracy]

The sad part here is that the 4-year degree vs high-school also feels like it's probably more of a class divide than anything else.

[araes]

That was kind of my take on the situation also. Something of unspoken class divide in America.

I've seen the same on several discussion forums, where writers talk that way, using terms and self descriptions that are like internalized societal denigration. Like they're not really part of America, because they didn't get the 4-year degree that's expected.

They get some form of implicit "you're not book smart" response, or "you're not pursuing societally 'correct' behavior", and that turns into a class divide. Often it seems to arise like resentment or hate for not choosing whatever it was you're "supposed" to do to be socially acceptable.