[dm03514]

For the us, I feel like it’s late stage individualism. This is what happens I think when people prioritize themselves over their communities, I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before. We can order grocery pickup and not even have to be physically around people for basic life tasks. We order next day delivery on Amazon and don’t even have to go out in the world and be in the physical presence of others :(

The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships

I’m grappling with this myself, it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships. I keep seeing my neighbors out at the playground, I reach out and say hey and hi and ask them how they are doing but stop short of investing the time necessary to form real friendships with them and I know deep down that it’s perpetuating late stage individualism

[torben-friis]

It’s not only lack of dependence, but also lack of idleness.

Most of my friend interactions would come from things like having a moment with nothing to do in the bus, realizing I have no particular plans this weekend and reaching out to a couple friends to see if they’re available.

Now those moments are instantly drowned by opening instagram before a thought bubbles up. And when the weekend eventually comes and there’s no plan, Netflix is just a button press away.

We need moments of boredom and reflection to push us into action, the attention economy is robbing us from that.

I’d even say the increase in anxiety related symptoms is due to this lack of idleness. The mind feels as if it’s super busy moving from active task to active task when in reality there were hours of just defaulting to reels.

[paulryanrogers]

It's not only modern technology taking up time. I foolishly bought a project house and have spent nearly every weekend and some weeknights doing repairs and improvements. My SO also tends toward time consuming hobbies like gardening and aquariums. Add young children and every free moment in between is precious.

[SamBam]

But people have had activities that take up their time since time immemorial. But the "friendship recession" seems to be much newer.

FWIW, my friend recently built a summer home. I went over about four weekends to help drywall, put in flooring, build stud walls, etc. He's had other friends over other weekends. Sometimes it's just one friend, sometimes a few of us go up together. It's a great time, and definitely strengthens our social bonds.

I'm also friends with my kids' parents (one of whom is the one with the house). Playdates turn into dinner invites.

I think we're lucky that we're on the older end -- mid-40s -- so maybe we had time to work our social muscles before social media and Netflix, and have socialization as an expectation.

I'm also personally lucky I have a wife who does a lot of the social reaching-out. For whatever reason, this seems like it's more and more a gendered role, and I'm definitely worse at it -- if I were a bachelor I'd probably be happy staying home alone much more, to my long-term detriment.

[7thaccount]

I think you're right that those of us that had to socialize either before or when the Internet was more in its infancy are just a lot more used to small talk and meet ups. I've noticed younger family members seem to not value that kind of community. The boomers and their parents would say the same about my generation as we have nothing on them. That's literally all they do is drink beer with friends and socialize at various clubs. D&D is the closest equivalent that the younger generation has and half of the people I see playing at my local game shop have gray hair.

[torben-friis]

That is true, but real hobbies will rarely take up your micropauses - going to the bathroom, coffee break at work, commuting, waiting between sets at the gym, and so on.

You won’t do social stuff in those micropauses anyway, that’s true, but I think those moments are where you’d normally “mentally review”. Wondering how a friend is, feeling like you miss a connection, etc.

Without that, I think we mentally drift away from social connections.

[bilsbie]

You could involve friends in those hobbies. In fact men do better hanging out if they have a goal.

My stepbrother has declined hang out invitations for decades but the minute I need the most minor house or car repair he’ll drop everything and be there all day.

[Braxton1980]

You just found the ultimate hack to getting your friends to rebuild an entire house for you

[james_marks]

I can relate to your step brother. I don’t want to “hang out”- full stop. I want to build and make and do things, and when I can combine that with friendship, all the better.

There’s something about needing to feel and appear independent that discourages the ask, and it’s worth challenging.

[FollowingTheDao]

But you see the Amish, they just rebuilt a whole lumber sawmill in only eight days.

https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1915121027820159414

Your project house was an individual pursuit when it should be a collective one.

[paulryanrogers]

My project has involved neighbors, family, and even a few contractors. But unlike a barn built from scratch there are a lot of random bespoke tasks. Many of them require judgement and experimenting to make it work. Sadly the property was neglected a long time, and poorly built in the first place. Bulldozing and having a new house professionally built would've been faster, produced a better outcome, and only been moderately more expensive--in hindsight.

[jagger27]

In the old world you would have the distinct privilege of bringing this experience to your community. No naive youth can afford even a “starter” house for you to help them rebuild.

[gehwartzen]

There’s Habitat for Humanity which I think would fit this description.

I’ve personally never involved myself with it but over the last few months the group built a modest house on a small lot next to my ex-spouse’s place. Every weekend I saw a group of folks (ranging in age from early 20s to retirement) there building, chatting and generally being very friendly with one another. Really cool to see.

[is_true]

Most of my friends don't like doing manual work, they think it's below them unfortunately.

There's just one that really loves to do it, the rest would feel exploited.

[BigGreenJorts]

On one hand I'm inclined to believe this particular example relies on personality. My aunts and uncles had their home hobby projects and so did they're friends. They'd help either other out on their projects and then take a break over a beer or cigs, chatting the rest of the evening away.

[dyauspitr]

Real hobbies are great though. I enjoy doing them so much more than just visiting people.

[creata]

I don't think it's just the attention economy. I think the Internet was bound to replace a lot of the time that people spent with friends. There's just too much interesting stuff too conveniently accessible.

[siquick]

I’ve got a feeling that if you looked at the average persons average internet usage it would not be full of interesting stuff.

[barry-cotter]

The world is full of people who find things interesting that I don’t but that’s a fact about me, not the world.

[thimkerbell]

What would happen if you tried a meetup with nearby people to read&discuss what you found interesting?

[Pamar]

Key word: "conveniently".

I can now (probably, not sure if this exists) don my Apple VR set and walk around Machu Picchu or the Sistine Chapel.

But this would be a vicar experience. Just like reading lots of Wikipedia pages on, I dunno, Brutalism will not make an architect out of me.

[AbstractH24]

> It’s not only lack of dependence, but also lack of idleness.

While I enjoy listening to podcasts I recognize how much its reduced the amount I'm idle. Particularly while commuting.

[highstep]

you're right. Now delete that app!

[caseyy]

Maintaining adult relationships post-Covid is hard as a millennial. Or rather, getting friendly relationships started/restarted has gotten very awkward. But I’ve noticed that most people respond very well to my efforts.

I started texting my acquaintances and old friends at random just to ask what’s up every once a week or two. I also started calling some people instead. Almost everyone responded really well to that. When I go out to eat, I often check with a few people if they want to go if I swung by and picked them up.

This is how things used to be for me before the pandemic. But it was difficult to get back to it. What I found though is that most people are lonely but they don’t want to put much effort into building friendships. And that’s ok, I can be the one who initiates the outings and chats.

It’s okay to be the one who initiates. It seems like not everyone can, somehow the level of social anxiety has gone up in the world. In the end, I get my socialization full and so do they. So I’d recommend to whoever feels a bit lonely — reach out to your past friends and current acquaintances.

The only issue with always being the initiator is that no reciprocation is a bit of an… issue to our social brains. Validation, trust, confidence, and friendship itself forms better when there is reciprocation. It’s best not to overthink it, the world is different and what it means to have friends has changed. This is the new normal. It’s better to be the one who leads all the friend groups and activities all the time than to be lonely.

[cherryteastain]

> Almost everyone responded really well to that

That's the impression I got at first as well. However, then I realized a really big proportion of people I'd contact this way would say they'd love to meet up but either repeatedly decline suggestions to meet up or even ghost me. I feel like the positive response is just out of general politeness, not willingness to reconnect.

> It’s okay to be the one who initiates...The only issue with always being the initiator is that no reciprocation is a bit of an… issue to our social brains.

It's also about gauging whether the other person cares about you. I carried out the experiment where I stopped texting people with whom I was always the contact initiator. Years later, they still haven't written a single message to me. To me, it's clear that those people never cared about me, I was just their plan B for a saturday hangout in case their real plans fell through.

[stuxnet79]

> It’s okay to be the one who initiates. It seems like not everyone can, somehow the level of social anxiety has gone up in the world. In the end, I get my socialization full and so do they. So I’d recommend to whoever feels a bit lonely — reach out to your past friends and current acquaintances.

Agreed. Before Covid I used to have a pretty vibrant social life but I was the initiator and back then I could easily set up physical events. Covid obviously added a lot of friction to that. Now that we are half-way through the 2020s I have enough perspective to say the bad habits that a lot of folks developed during Covid have stuck and it's a shame.

> The only issue with always being the initiator is that no reciprocation is a bit of an… issue to our social brains. Validation, trust, confidence, and friendship itself forms better when there is reciprocation. It’s best not to overthink it, the world is different and what it means to have friends has changed. This is the new normal. It’s better to be the one who leads all the friend groups and activities all the time than to be lonely.

How do you set boundaries?

It would be great if I could go back to how things were, but unfortunately I've changed. I was a lot more naive back then, and usually leaned into giving people the benefit of the doubt. It didn't help that the friendships / acquantainces I'd developed weren't exactly high quality.

In retrospect none of it was sustainable. All this happened when (1) I had lots of free time (2) Could physically meet with friends and (3) Hadn't suffered through betrayals from people I thought I was close to.

As much as it pains me to admit, I just don't have the emotional reserves to deal with one-sided interactions anymore. I would really love to hear from folks who have been in such a situation and have gotten over the hump.

[caseyy]

> How do you set boundaries?

I don’t, I just naturally hang out with the people who are most reciprocating and being the most good vibes.

Ultimately, it’s about me first. I function better and am happier when I have recently socialized. I’m not doing this for others, so it’s all good and I don’t feel like anyone particularly pushes me in a way where I’d need to maintain boundaries for myself in this particular context.

Regarding your three points, I hear them. But you probably have enough free time to text a friend, and sometimes physically meet up with them. I’d say, if you really don’t have time for that (and I was there myself), then probably you’re neglecting your social needs (basic socialising, safety net) for something else. Consider if that something else is worth it. Regarding point 3, I used to expect something reciprocal from friendships, but now I just expect to spend time with/among people. Yeah, most won’t help you in a time of need, and some will speak ill of you behind your back. But you’ll also meet many great people that legitimately will be great friends. So I’d say don’t worry about it — “trust the process”.

Overall, I hear some social anxiety in the 3rd point. Social interactions aren’t always ideal but don’t catastrophize them. Just do what’s good for you yourself first. Make sure your social needs are met. Let all other things and friendships develop or not as they would.

[doright]

> It would be great if I could go back to how things were, but unfortunately I've changed.

I'm in agreement. I do think it would be a nice thing for friendship to work out, but I've been burned one too many times and the motivation just isn't there any longer.

I sometimes view this as a positive. I used to very much be a people-pleaser and thought that I was going to suffer and die if I didn't come out of one of my social outings with an acquaintance at some point. I was always told humans are tribal, we have a need to feel listened to, and not having friends leads to premature death. In practice I was just forcing myself to socialize based on that doomerism and that rubbed off onto the people I met, so it wouldn't have helped anyone.

When I turned inward and chose to put my own needs in front of those of others, I did become more comfortable with being myself. That's a prerequisite to having healthy relationships anyway (though I still wouldn't say I have any). Since then I've had lots of great conversations with people I've met at outings and large gatherings. I sometimes have conversations that go on for hours about all sorts of topics I may or may not know about and they're satisfying in hindsight.

...But I don't feel like being friends with any of those people anymore. I just let them pass and cherish the moments we did have together. I decided that the only person I have the capacity to fight for is myself from now on.

Nobody said you had to have friends in order to have a source of socialization to stave off bad health outcomes. "Having friends" and "being a bit social occasionally" are two different beasts.

[ryandrake]

> Before Covid I used to have a pretty vibrant social life but I was the initiator and back then I could easily set up physical events. Covid obviously added a lot of friction to that. Now that we are half-way through the 2020s I have enough perspective to say the bad habits that a lot of folks developed during Covid have stuck and it's a shame.

Another thing that maybe people don't like to talk about so much: COVID outed a lot of really mentally unwell people who had prior to it managed to keep that part of their personality to themselves. COVID and stay-at-home brought out so much anti-social nastiness: Selfishness, anger, belligerence, rudeness, conspiracy theories, defiance, and just this sense of contrariness for the sake of contrariness. I got a text during the height of the pandemic from a (now former) friend saying "Dude, did you know there's a bar downtown that's ignoring stay-at-home and letting people in the back door? We should go!" Like, what the fuck, man, don't you see there's a deadly disease going around? What the hell is wrong with you? I think during that time we really saw a lot of "true selves" that we now can't unsee.

[tayo42]

Being the one that initiates triggers my own anxieties lol. I start wondering how come no one else ever is?

[caseyy]

I added a little bit about that in my comment above. Yeah, I feel the same way, it’s not a pleasant feeling.

I think many people don’t make the effort anymore, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you if you do — nothing to be anxious about, I’d say. Besides, leading and organizing things has its advantages.

[AtlasBarfed]

Honestly, I think that is related to the algorithmic collapse of facebook. Facebook was legitimately good for keeping people connected in the first decade or so.

Then the monetization enshittification happened, both at the overarching corporate level of facebook and internet advertising in general, and with people becoming exhaustingly self-promoting, which devalued trust between friends and degraded new connections.

The weird thing about the world is seeing everyone turn into me when I was in my teens and twenties ... and I was a product of extreme social bullying that really only alleviated in my 40s.

Which scares me because it means there is some either low-key or high similarity to the trauma / rejection / betrayal I felt from society being exerted on a massive scale.

I used to go around errands trying to engage with people as little as possible, but now, maybe it is projection, I see the effects of isolation on so many people in public, that I get great joy in having a quick exchange with someone. Granted I am now far better at making smalltalk, strangely I slingshotted from being absolutely abysmal at it to well above average.

Smalltalk almost seems like rebellion against the oppressive antisocial time-stealing inferiority-inducing powers that have gatewayed using the mobile phone into all parts of people's lives.

[zelphirkalt]

I rather think FB was always part of the problem for most. Having 200 FB friends, but not a single one to go out with and meet them, that's not a healthy social life. Some people might have used FB in a different way, but they would have been fine without FB existing in the first place.

[mjevans]

Facebook was probably part of the _problem_ for people like me who refuse to create accounts inside of walled gardens.

An _illusion_ that 'everyone you know' (and might want to know) is in a single place; while ignoring the razor wire fence surrounding the compound that keeps others out.

[ryandrake]

> The article talks about how it’s more of a younger generation phenomenon suggesting older generations still maintain their friendships

Yea, this tracks my observations. A lot of adults make connections in their community through their kids and kids' friends. Kids pick their friends and their parents and guardians just go along for the ride, so when the kids play together, it kind of forces the parents to meet and interact.

Without exception, the parents I meet in the 25-40 age range are what I'd charitably call totally anti-social. Not actively mean (although some are), but just not interested at all in even saying a word to you to pass the time when the children are playing together. They just sit there on their phones trying to get through the experience. In general, these parents project outward an attitude of vague grumpiness and annoyance.

A few of the kid-friends are evidently raised by the 50-70 year old grandparents (never even seen the parents), and these folks tend to be much more social and will shoot the shit with you while the kids play. Much more pleasant and willing to interact while we're forced together. My relationships with them have been civil at worst and friendly at best.

Of course, this is just one person's observations, and yea they are a crude generalization. I'm in my mid-40s so don't have that much in common with either of these groups, but the attitude and behavior difference has been stark!

[jvvw]

This sounds weird to me. What's the context? Toddler group? Play date? Playground?

Also as somebody said, if you are male which from your username I guess you are, then that will change the dynamic - it will be easier for an older person to make conversation without there being any worries of sending the wrong message.

If there are lots of children playing together then parents aren't always social but at a play date I would definitely expect them to be. Also looking after young children is intensive and it might be the only break they get.

I mostly went to toddler groups when mine were young so that I could socialise not them!

[ryandrake]

A couple example scenarios (tween kids, suburban setting: which are other variables that probably matter), ordered from least to most weird (IMO):

- Public park, where kid just spontaneously starts playing with other kids, and parents are temporarily, and more or less randomly associating: In this case, I can sorta see that maybe people just doesn't want to talk to a total random person in a park. Fine. Not my style but it's forgivable--they don't know if I'm deranged or dangerous.

- Public park, or commercial indoor play place where the kids pre-arranged to play together with known friends: This is where it starts getting weird. We all deliberately bring the kids, the kids find each other and go off to play, and at that point, some parents will just totally ignore the other parents, and other parents slink away over to a corner with their phones where they won't have to interact. In these cases I end up just chilling with the grandparents.

- Private setting, kids pre-arranged to come over to our house to play together: This is to me the wildest case, and where the different generations of parents behave totally differently. The youngest parents will just drop the kid off at the end of the driveway and speed away in their car, not even entering our property. The semi-young parents will drive the kid up to our house and drop them off, but leave without coming up to the door or anything. The older generation (grandparents) typically drives up, exits their car, comes up to the door with the kid, and we say hi, exchange pleasantries, and then off they go. It really does seem like socialization norms are changing generation to generation.

[flopsamjetsam]

I see this in other social situations too (though social may be stretching it a little bit) e.g. in the gym, on the bike paths, and inside my apartment complex. I'm in my early 50s and people in their 20s and 30s aren't interested in saying hello in a polite way (and as neighbours especially), whereas older people (my age or older) are always interested in at least being friendly.

You can argue that, in gyms and on the bike path, people are more focused on their goal, but I still find in those situations that oldies are happy to chat for a bit, but younger people just want to block you out.

TBH I hate saying "young people" in this way. I feel like I'm running them down for what is their choice, and that feels bad. But it is something I have noticed in general i.e. not just 1 or 2 individuals.

I recently went back to studying, and it's almost the opposite there. Lots of people need "tutorial/lab friends," and so the barriers to conversation are really low. You literally stand next to someone and bam, instant friend (at least during the lab).

[ryandrake]

> TBH I hate saying "young people" in this way.

Yea, I also hesitated to post because I feel bad and don't want to be the stereotypical "grumpy old man complaining about young people" but the generational differences in attitudes towards IRL socializing are so stark and clear. It's hard to ignore.

[AtlasBarfed]

Social networks invite an inner monologue of extreme critique ... and an inevitable self-critique.

Which leads to social paranoia of judgment and withdrawal.

This is of course by design. Because while people like this are less social, they consume more.

[thimkerbell]

If the young parents are women and you're a guy, the situation could fall into a different category to them.

[tdrz]

Maybe they are not anti-social, they are just not being social to you! They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.

[pesus]

> They have no obligation to entertain you even if your kids are playing together.

This is a really cynical and negative way to view basic human interaction, the cornerstone of our species and civilization. I've been seeing it a lot lately online, and it doesn't surprise me that people are lonely and aren't making friends if they adopt an attitude like that.

[ryandrake]

That's right. The whole "He is under no obligation to [do nice thing | be social | act friendly]" is a very Reddit attitude. Yes, it's technically correct: You don't have to be nice. But you are allowed to be nice, and that choice doesn't hurt or cost anything.

If you go up to a fellow parent and say, "Hey, nice to see you again." and they just ignore you scrolling their phones, sure, they have a Constitutional right to do that and are under no obligation to return the greeting. But going through life only doing what you are "obligated" to do seems like a very miserable and anti-social way to live.

[fknorangesite]

> "He is under no obligation to [do nice thing | be social | act friendly]" is a very Reddit attitude

It's also a very Hacker News attitude, as you are witnessing in this thread.

I don't understand why people HN talk down about Reddit so much when it's really no better here, either.

[nottorp]

I wonder if someone will try to put a monetary value on socializing lower in this thread...

[samsonradu]

Right, this reminds me of the threads around here on teleworking vs working in-office.

Once someone points out that they like going to the office because they get to socialize with co-workers, the replies typically sound like ‘don’t care, I’m not paid to socialize but to do my job’

While I understand the context can vary, it always struck me as an anti-social behavior.

[SoftTalker]

We (most of us) live in a society. Therefore we are obligated to be social.

If you don’t want to be social go live in a cabin out in the woods.

[watwut]

You are not being nice of social here. When you care only about what you can get from the interaction while villyfying them for not providing it, your interest is inherently selfish.

[thayne]

> But you are allowed to be nice, and that choice doesn't hurt or cost anything.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but as someone who suffers from social anxiety, talking to someone I don't know very well absolutely does cost me.

That said, I do try to be nice despite the anxiety it causes me, and if someone came up to me and said something to me I probably would respond. But I certainly wouldn't go approach someone else.

[Bootvis]

In the proposed setting I’d say that’s just anti social behaviour. If you need to be obligated to act socially, you’re within a hairs width of antisocial.

[pdonis]

From the GP's description, they're not being social with anyone. They're on their phones.

[tdrz]

Anyone at the playground. Maybe they have enough people to be social with elsewhere.

[kortilla]

That’s anti-social…

[coldtea]

The mindset you excibit is already antisocial...

[mjevans]

What community?

Many of us still can't afford housing anywhere near where the jobs are. How could we possibly put down roots and be a real part of a lasting community worth investing time, effort, and possibly savings in?

[Braxton1980]

What if you can afford the housing but don't want what you can afford? How many immigrant families lived in 2 bedroom apartments in brooklyn while working in the city?

[aprilthird2021]

That's also part of it. The generation before me, 3 brothers bought houses in the same cul de sac. The chance of any 3 siblings being able to do that anywhere in the US nowadays is extremely slim. Home prices have gone out of whack with wages. On a side note another reason we have less friends is that we work far longer hours than generations before us did. We are the most overworked generation in history, strangely enough...

[kortilla]

You don’t need that at all. I’ve seen people temporarily renting in a location act as better community members than someone who has owned a home for 10 years.

Look at the communities that form in dorms

[mjevans]

Dorms are a poor example. Everyone there expects it to be a temporary community other than larger structures like fraternal organizations that slowly nibble in new members and continuously digest them as things progress.

It's not like you're in an apartment or house where you don't know if it'll be next year, 4-5 years, or 10 years when you move; only that someone's going to raise the rent, or you'll get a different job somewhere far enough away and have to endure the hardship of moving everything yet again.

[kortilla]

Every community is temporary. The folly is thinking you need to find a “permanent” one to join.

[mjevans]

Do you expect it to be commonplace that someone who starts living in a college dorm will still be there in 10 years? I hope they'd graduate by then, and failing that it seems likely they'd run out of debt to continue funding education.

Meanwhile, 'the golden days' of the American Dream included a stable house that lasted most of an adult's life, and maybe moving again at retirement. It also included a career track at a corporation that continued to pay well as an employee developed into a more valuable 'resource'. (back before Human Resources wasn't as transparently about harvesting all the value they could...)

[sltr]

> it requires a lot of energy to form adult friendships

My experience corroborates this. Reminded me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618

[SecretDreams]

Do you actually want to make friendships/connections? If so, the park is probably not the play.

Identify your hobbies/interests and figure out which ones have budding local groups. E.g. sports, bird watching, hiking, camping, volunteering, etc.

It takes a ton of energy to form and grow new friendships, but once you pass the critical phase, it's much easier to keep them.

I don't think what we're seeing is late stage individualism. It's more like forced/bred isolationism invoked by modern technology. Newer gens are more trapped since they were bred to be on a screen. It's pretty evil, albeit unintentionally (by their parents, at least). Tech giants absolutely love it.

[ddr123]

This sounds the most legit to me out of any comment so far. I think there's a tendency to want to either 1.) innovate our way out of this with a novel solution, or 2.) be really passive like "this happening to me and it's hopeless." I think the way out is less profound, less complicated, and ultimately more fulfilling and efficacious than people imagine. Virtually everyone who is researching/writing in the friendship space talks about finding common interest groups, regularly occurring interactions, consistent effort (supposedly 200 hours to form a close friend), candid conversations to strengthen commitment, etc. Honestly, it's all the same stuff that a romantic relationships requires, just with a couple significant variations ;)

A helpful corollary (from writer Shasta Nelson author of "Frientimacy") is that we all understand that working out requires some amount of pain and struggle (also fun, enjoyment, accomplishment, etc...) in order to get a great bod. We would do well to expect the same experience in friendship. It's not a question of access to people, like Facebook, or even Bumble BFF would have us believe. Again from Shasta "We don't need better friends, we need better friendships."

[redczar]

The less dependence on community started with desegregation. There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free. These things and more all ended with desegregation. Now we live in a society in which people don’t walk and don’t have places in their neighborhood where others congregate. Kids rarely play in the street anymore. The notion of it taking a village gets laughed at and as you say get individualistic. We live in a deeply unhealthy society from a social standpoint of view.

[paulryanrogers]

Having talked to folks from the segregation era, you may be thinking of red-lining and white flight. As folks realized cities and schools were desegregating many moved out of urban environments to suburbs and rural areas, then excluded POC through zoning.

Even if we accept that as the primary cause (which I don't) that would mean cowardice and racism are the root cause. An irrational fear of people who don't look and talk like us.

[typewithrhythm]

You can't argue your way into making a homogeneous population.

The reality is that the groups are distinct, and immediately changes the dynamic from "a facility used and maintained by the group who established it", to "a facility maintained by a third party, to be shared". These do not have equal value to an individual.

[watwut]

The reality was that whites were disgusted over idea that black guy could swimm in the same pool as a white girl. It made them feel dirty. It was really that dynamic, not just abstract "who established it".

There is this knee jerk wish to constantly make that dynamic into something nicer or "normal outside of racist interactions". But, it is not. The same effect does not happen when two groups just merge.

[redczar]

Redlining and white flight definitely happened. It also happened that cities stopped funding municipal pools and other services. Things like Elks Lodges went into long term decline when women and blacks had to be admitted.

[paulryanrogers]

I don't deny white flight and red-lining happened, continues in some places, and is horrible. I'm not convinced that's the sole or even primary reason for modern loneliness.

> Things like Elks Lodges went into long term decline when women and blacks had to be admitted.

People don't need institutionalized racism and misogyny to make friends. They already have a right to be racist and privately associate / not associate.

[redczar]

I think you don’t understand what happened. When the laws were changed and forced communities to allow blacks to use municipal pools and when places like Elks Lodges were forced to accept women and minorities white men abandoned these things. Cities stopped funding municipal pools and membership in clubs drastically declined. White men gutted the idea of communal activity in response to civil rights.

[queenkjuul]

Yeah, surely the old white men's clubs were the only communities to be found

Sorry i find this whole line of reasoning absolutely asinine

[BigGreenJorts]

> There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free.

I live in place where this is still true. The rec centers are barely solvent and it's mostly retirees and summer camps (cheap daycare) that keeps them afloat.

[thayne]

> There used to be community pools and rec centers. Garbage pickup was a municipal service. Ambulances were free.

All of that is still true of everywhere I have lived in the US, except for the free ambulances. And I think the cost of ambulances has more to do with the evolution of health insurance in the US than desegregation.

[redczar]

Ambulances were a municipal service and insurance had nothing to do with them. The gutting of municipal services followed desegregation.

[thayne]

It absolutely has to do with insurance. Without insurance or government funding, ambulance service would be prohibitively expensive for most people.

The fact that in America health insurance is often part of worker compensation, meant that cities could transfer the cost of ambulances from taxes to insurance premiums.

[redczar]

Getting rid of municipal ambulance service did not occur for insurance reasons. It was gutted along with the gutting of municipal services in general. Insurance had nothing to do with why the service was cut.

[graemep]

If that was true it would only be a problem in the US. It is not. The same has happened where there never was segregation.

[typewithrhythm]

Desegregation coincided with the mass "multicultural" migration initiatives in the rest of the western world.

Unfortunately in reality there is a huge difference between a facility used by one group, and one shared between several. Many community facilities become unpleasant when they are anonymous.

[graemep]

Why does the presence of multiple ethnic groups make facilities anonymous? That would only be true if people never knew anyone of a different "race".

Immigration is only relevant if immigrant communities do not integrate. If it was the cause then you would expect a strong correlation between loneliness and populations of immigrant origin. It certainly does not leap out from a quick look at the numbers: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbein...

The timing of the numbers in the paper do not match either. SOme of them happened in the last two years. A bit recent for desegregation to be a factor.

On the other hand the article does mention a lot of far more plausible possible causes: online only friendships, working hours, decline of religion etc.

[PessimalDecimal]

This same effect goes a long way to explaining the abandonment of public transit in the US, and strong preference for private travel in a car.

[Der_Einzige]

The idea that multiculturalism is incompatible with a harmonious society is empirically denied by the existence of basically utopias like Singapore. All citizens have to learn 4 languages and there is a huge amount of tourists which add to the already multicutral demographics of the country. Lowest crime in the world, best education in the world. Among the best public transit in the world, etc.

What it really is is that some minorities have shittier cultures than others, and some states have handled the integration and assimilation better than others.

Even the USA, for example, is blessed that nearly all of our illegals are Catholics (or more recently evangelical protestants...). Compare this to Europe where it's often muslims who try to bring their Burkas and sharia law with them.

The mass rise of latino voters for trump indicates a very strong effort from America's latino minorities to "act white", to "integrate", and to "assimilate".

I am fine with a multicultural society, as long as it's good culture - and yes, it is quite easy to nearly objectively quantify if a culture or cultural practice is good or not. For example, Americans except for asian americans don't wash their asses with bidets after using the toilet. This leads to swampass/BO, increased toilet paper usage/resource consumption, and far more rectal related health problems. America objectively should change it's cultural practices around bathroom usage.

Unfortunately, cultural critique against bad culture has a tendency for folks to call you "racist", so we aren't allowed to have this conversations with more specificity...

[graemep]

Singapore is not multicultural in the sense it is often used: different communities have to learn each others languages, as you said, for example. A huge effort was made to create a common identity.

This is very different from multicultural meaning groups having separate communities. That is de facto segregation.

" Compare this to Europe where it's often muslims who try to bring their Burkas and sharia law with them."

I think this is much exaggerated.

Its also not immigrant groups pushing Islamic fundamentalism as much as international funding and ideology that is global.

There are also groups (mostly white people!) who are politically committed to this multiculturalism vs integration.

[watwut]

While latinos voted for Trump a little more then last time, saying it was "the mass rise" is just a lie.

[zeryx]

It is though, in the English speaking world - to to Latin America or southern asia, anti-social behavior is treated like the disease it is

[redczar]

It possible but unlikely that there are different causes of the multiple instances of the problem. Maybe different societies had different catalysts.

[rendang]

Which area are you speaking about, exactly?

[TimByte]

The convenience and isolation are so baked into modern life that choosing to invest in community feels weirdly countercultural now for many

[mantas]

Anecdata, but quite a few people I met in alternative music and politics sphere a good decade ago, I meet again in unrelated non-music/political bubbles focused on heavy community involvement.

Further confirming the joke, many of those either apreach own or look to buy a bunch of power tools.

Today’s grown-up counter culture seems to be building sheds and growing wide variety of tomatoes.

[Ozzie_osman]

Agree. The book "WEIRDest" people in the world was kind of eye-opening in arguing that the Western world (especially the US) is unique (both in time, and geographically) in being so individualistic.

And it's getting worse. Decline of the local church or equivalent religious community, decline of even the workplace especially after Covid, etc. And of course, social media giving people a way to consume time and feel some (fake) version of being connected.

My wife and I moved our kids from the US back to our country of origin last year. Partly because we wanted to be closer to family. But partly because we didn't want them growing up in a society that lacks community and social fabric.

[coldtea]

>I think we have less dependence on our communities than ever thanks to the internet and being able to physically avoid community. We have less interaction than before.

And are more depressed, sexless, purposeless, and lonelier than before...

[zelphirkalt]

I think you are on to something there. Already doing more than most people, I guess. Most people wouldn't even make the effort of going to the neighbors and saying hello.

I often ask myself, why some people, who are closest to what I would call friends, do not initiate any shared activity at all and how they can always be "busy". Do they not realize, that they are squandering the time they could have with friends?

[trod1234]

Older generations who received a proper education recognize the dangers, but are often unable to communicate it effectively to others that have been indoctrinated during their formative years.

Specifically it relates to what putting your ability to communicate with others into malicious hands represents. If you allow third-parties to dictate what you see, you'll never be able to make correct decisions based on reality. This distorted reality, or more aptly called distorted reflective appraisal. Reflected appraisal is inherent in our ability to form culture, society, and personal identity. The distortion takes advantage of that, and it happens at a pre-awareness level. Our internal psychology warps to it without us recognizing it, to retain internal consistency.

When you are raised to believe something is impossible, you discard anything to the contrary unless you've experienced direct and extreme personal loss associated to it.

Most people today earnestly believe that they make their own minds up about things and nothing external can change that, which is untrue, but places perceptual blinders so they can't see it no matter how much you may point it out.

Most dependents are unable to adapt after being tortured (which occurs during indoctrination).

The social environment has been shifting towards isolation because that's one of the main elements needed for torture, which is the imposition of psychological stress to induce involuntary hypnotic states.

[porridgeraisin]

> individualism

Yes.

One good counter-force against this wave is dependence. If you depend on someone for something, or you owe them a lot(I don't mean monetarily), you will not cut ties with them even if you have a temporary fallout. You'll push through it. Yes, this has negative effects (abuse) but at the system level you need to optimize for the majority case not the minority case. One of the things an overly financialised society does is to commoditise/securitize every dependency. Homes, food, care, groceries, maintenance, health, everything is attached a value. It is now possible for someone to live entirely on their own, with fully commoditised dependencies. Even when they start a family, the kids go to day care, and eventually the parents go to an old age home - more things commoditised. In fact, the number of old age homes is the best sign of a failing society. Like a nail in the coffin, these commoditized fractures increase the perceived wealth of everyone, rally the stock market and the variety of casinos around us, and people celebrate it.

[rokhayakebe]

In fact, the number of old age homes is the best sign of a failing society.

Great insight.

[sureglymop]

Do you feel that politically "extreme" movements are a reaction to that and actually mostly about community and community interaction?

For example, during covid I believe the anti vaccination movement was largely about community and only tangentially about political goals. Especially because it was an otherwise hard time for people to interact.

It's probably largely the same for the maga movement, the rationalism movement, etc.

It feels nice to be a part of something and to be able to identify with something and such movements tend to easily accept new members as long as they at least aesthetically support the same cause.

[ddr123]

>Do you feel that politically "extreme" movements are a reaction to that and actually mostly about community and community interaction?

Yes. Great writing on this from Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind), Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone) and Ezra Klein (Why We're Polarized) and Vivek Murthy (Together). Haven't read these, but I've read about them. One of their main ideas is that when people lose trust in institutions and feel disconnected, they’re more likely to embrace extreme ideologies or groups that promise belonging.

[derefr]

Is it us, or is it corporations?

Look at a specific microcosm: dating. Dating is "awful" now (according to people both young and old), in a particular way that it wasn't even ten years ago. And sure, this is in part because we do everything online these days, and online dating has a few inherent problems with it. But not as many as you'd think; online dating used to "work" at least alright, in a way that it very much doesn't today / with none of the particular pathologies that it has today.

Dating sites and apps used to do things that actually helped people meet — vaguely optimizing for relationships. So people increasingly gravitated toward using dating apps. And for a while (peaking, I'd say, around the early 2010s), this actually increased the number of people meeting and getting into relationships.

And then one company, Match Group, came along and gradually bought up every "good" dating site, and enshittified them all, in a particular way that maximizes user retention + profit margins (and thereby minimizes the chance of a successful, happy relationship being formed.) They made dating apps bad at being dating apps. But there are no good dating apps — so people now feel stuck/confused, flailing around trying to make "online dating" work when there are only bad options for doing so.

I posit that online social networking in general went through the same evolution. Not because of one asshole company buying up and enshittifying everything, mind you; more because of market consolidation under a few companies who were all willing to copy one-another's homework in advancing the frontier of enshittified social experiences.

Facebook (and Facebook-like experiences) used to be a place you'd turn in the expectation of seeing updates from your actual literal friends, and engaging with those updates. Now it's radioactive for that purpose — and so is abandoned to being a sea of advertisements (and memes from boomers too inattentive to realize when the people they're talking at have left the table.)

And Instagram and even Snapchat have just copied TikTok's enshittified-from-the-start model of "personalized TV but all programs are 10 seconds long."

I have many friends I met in the 2000s and 2010s, where I recall heavily relying on social media as a fit-to-purpose tool to maintain and deepen those friendships. But I can't imagine what social network I could lean on to serve as that kind of tool for me today.

---

Yes, IM and group-chat apps always existed and still exist today. But that's not what traditional social networks got you.

It's funny that I even feel the need to explain this, but here's what social-networks-as-tools had to offer:

1. profile pages — like dating profiles or LinkedIn profiles, but from a lens of "this is what I want potential friends to know about me"!

2. "walls" — a specific semi-public place, attached to a person's profile, to leave a message "performatively" for not only that person, but also anyone else who looked at that person's wall, to see (think: birthday wishes.) Critically, walls are owned and therefore moderated by the profile they're attached to — so, unlike a feed, you can't really (successfully) cyberbully someone on their own wall. They can just delete your message; block you (which will block you from posting to their wall); or disable non-friends from posting to their wall entirely.

3. a home page view, that is simply a dumb chronological view of anything your direct friends have posted to their own walls. Not including friends-of-friends content. It was a social norm, back in the heyday of social networking, that you'd always be caught up on on everything your friends have posted — because it shouldn't add up to much. Nobody could "share" anything out of its originally intended broadcast audience (the poster's friends), and thus there was no benefit to "posting performatively, as if for a mass audience" — and therefore, posts were sparse and personal, making it practical to truly inbox-zero your feed in maybe 20 minutes per day.

Modern social networks don't have profile pages (at least, not that anyone populates with anything — Facebook has vestigial ones nobody uses), owner-moderated public walls, or non-re-shareable "just for mutuals" posts. They have none of the tools that we originally associated with the category of "a tool that makes it easier to network socially." And yet these apps that do not successfully accomplish social networking, are what we today refer to as "social networking apps." And are what everyone therefore thinks to turn to when trying to network socially online.

No wonder, I think, that people find it hard.

[Pamar]

Personally I really miss Google+. Maybe it was not a perfect fit for what you are describing, but it sure was the best fit for my own interests and use cases.

[rescbr]

You described orkut on its heyday.

[kortilla]

This is unrelated to individualism. Individualists still can have strong communities and lots of friendships. Collectivists can just as easily be extremely anti-social.

The examples you gave of grocery delivery and overnight prime delivery are things that city people have, who generally vote against individualism and for collectivist policies.

Even in some socialist utopia where the community provides everything and individualism has been snuffed out entirely, that wouldn’t force more or less human interaction to create friends.

[somedude895]

Another factor I'd mention is, ironically enough, government social programs. Humans were always social because they needed each other. If you don't depend on your community or your family, you'll be much less inclined to invest in those relationships. It used to be if you fell on hard times you might rely on your community to help you out, which would however require you to take part in it, and contribute to it in some way. If instead you just automatically get money or housing from some faceless govt institution, that incentive is removed. Black children growing up in one-parent households was 9% in the 1950s. Today it's 65%. It's controversial what the causes are of course, but it makes sense: Make it easier for people to replace their relationships with government assistance, and it removes any need for taking responsibility for your peers. I'm not saying government-provided social safety nets should be abandoned, but the devaluing of human connection – even if transactional – is an unintended social consequence that isn't talked about nearly enough.

[watwut]

If this was true, Europeans would be much more lonely then Americans. It is not the case.