
Loneliness is pervasive and rising, particularly among the young - known
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/31/loneliness-is-pervasive-and-rising-particularly-among-the-young
======
PeterStuer
Another thing I wondered about is the impact of automation and volatility on,
for lack of a better word 'involuntary' micro social interactions.

Until fairly recently people had 'forced' social interactions when doing their
finances, shopping etc. Even if involuntary they 'trained' people's social
skills and withered away at their acquired/innate social anxiety.

Furthermore, even in these situations the persons you interacted with, the
cashier at the supermarket, the bank teller, the shop assistant, were often
there for a fairly long time, so that all those social-micro-transactions
added up over the years. Yes, they were 'strangers', but stangers you to some
extend 'knew' or where familiar with. Being around those made you less lonely.

Now you do your banking through an app and a teller machine, you shop online,
and if we are to believe the proponents soon your pizza and beer will be
delivered by a drone and your online groceries and other purchases by a self
driving van. The few contacts in those situations you might still have are not
with the same person, but with randos fulfilling a 0 knowledge scripted for
efficiency procedure. These interactions can't compound into a latent unspoken
social bond and thus contribute nothing to alleviating the feeling of
loneliness.

~~~
dghughes
I agree with you 100% but I have an interesting personal anecdote, pretty much
the opposite.

When I was young I was very shy, painfully shy even into my early 20s. All
social outings were family reunions or church.

But I liked computers. So in the early 1990s I bought a computer and tried
this thing called the Internet.

By chance I discovered IRC. It was a world of strangers who interacted in real
time. I could converse without facing or looking at a person. And at the time
I used it for help when working on my PC so I'm a way it was forced
interaction.

I've often thought if it wasnt for IRC and other Internet chat applications my
life would be quite different. It helped crack my shell of shyness.

In a way you're right interacting with people is the key. But in my situation
it was slightly different.

~~~
m0rphy99
IRC back in the days was literally another world. It was something special.
You could bond with other online users like family members even though the
only thing you knew about them was their nickname. We have more advance
technologies now but we would never be able to experience anything like IRC
again. Slack and Discord servers today are not even close.

~~~
WilliamEdward
I think because you're a bit jaded and have had the experience of IRC as your
first relay chat makes you bias towards it, whereas a kid experiencing Discord
for the first time might have the same feelings as you did towards IRC.

------
djsumdog
There's no indication in this short write up if they also surveyed how often
people get out. I think it'd be a likely hypothesis that people today do hang
out more with friends, simply because it is easier.

Remember the 90s? You're waiting in a parking lot to go caving. "Where's
Will?" "I don't know." "Call his house, there's a payphone over there." "His
mom said he left 30 minutes ago." "Well I guess we'll just wait for him."

Today we can use speech-to-text to quickly tell people we're running late,
organize impromptu outings very quickly and probably end up hanging out more.
Even those with families and kids probably find it easier to organize events
with other families thanks to shared group chats.

I wouldn't be surprised if these two things aren't really correlated and part
of me wonders if our interaction may have gone up and our loneliness also gone
down. If that's true, it could be more of an indication of us not _really_
talking to one another. Maybe there is less we can say today, or there are
other factors that, in the age of acceptance and commodified outrage, make use
feel more isolated.

A find thought, another really big factor should be online dating (Tinder,
OKCupid, Grinder, POF, etc). Are people romantically lonely? Do average
individuals have a harder time now that everything has been reduced to an
image? I personally have observed that online dating really only works for
attractive people, and for everyone else it's pretty much a wasteland.

~~~
dannyw
I think you’re spot on with online dating. It’s not a stretch that it only
works for attractive people, when the whole screening test is attractiveness.

~~~
80386
Is the whole screening test attractiveness?

I tried OKCupid a while ago, and came away with the impression that most
people have their profile filled with political shibboleths. Maybe that's just
because I live in a major coastal city, but...

~~~
JeremyBanks
Tinder for looks.

OKC for ideology.

POF if you like your partner skewed to the wrong aspect ratio.

~~~
djsumdog
I think it's all looks. Even OKC has changed their system recently to be more
like Tinder. The first impression is never the profile, but the photo. Pretty
much everything else is weighted against that in most peoples' minds (either
consciously or unconsciously).

~~~
repolfx
Yeah, but a well written profile and message can go a long way even if you
look fairly average (for a man).

The messages and profiles most men do on these sites are awful. You don't have
to work that hard to stand out from the crowd.

In fact my most recent OKC experience went like this - reviewed all the women
in this city (it's not a large city and it's not in America so this is quite
possible), picked the one I liked the most, messaged her. Got a reply the next
day, first date a few days later.

That said, Tinder is pretty useless for men. But then you can't send high
quality messages and the UX makes it annoying to view profiles, so what a big
surprise. The number of women who post Tinder profiles saying they don't want
hookups is ridiculous - the entire app is optimised for nothing but that. They
should be on more traditional dating sites; I suspect they can't be bothered
writing or reading profiles however.

------
badrabbit
Have you seen the movie "Shawshank Redemption"? It makes an interesting point
about becoming institutionalized. There was an inmate that was released after
~50 years,he committed suicide because he couldn't adopt to living outside of
the prison system.

What they call the loneliness epidemic these days is a bit like that. In
fact,I would say loneliness is social imprisonment. For one reason or the
other individuals end up lacking the skills needed to develop meaningful
social relationships,the opportunities are there but the skills are lacking.

Much like becoming institutionalized, prolonged loneliness becomes a
dependency in itself. At first you try everything you can to escape from the
prison,then you learn to tolerate it,then you can't function outside of it.

I said all this to make one important point: For most people who experience
prolonged loneliness,It's not lack of solutions or opportunities that keeps
them lonely.

Not just in the US or the west but for all people,the importance of teaching
children proper social skills needs to be communicated much like communicating
the importance of good nutrition and hygeine has reduced preventable diseases
throught the world.

For adults,I honestly don't know of any solution other than to continue
creating opportunities for social interactions. It takes a lot of
time,patience and practice to learn to make more friends and socialize once
you settle down as a working adult.

~~~
Thriptic
This is very true and I see it even in myself. I used to have several friends
where I live and they subsequently all moved away. Now I have no real friends
here and the work required to get more seems to require a huge activation
energy to get over. Sure I could go out and have random conversations with
people or join clubs, but very few of those are going to result in anything
interesting; of those, a few may result in an acquaintance; of those, a few
may progress to a friendship; of those, a few may progress to a meaningful
friendship. So I could bang my head against the wall generating unhappiness
and frustration for years with no guarantee of success at any point, or I
could just chill in my room, smoke some weed, and read hacker news / watch
Netflix / play games and be guaranteed some base level of immediate happiness.
That's a very hard feedback loop to exit once you get started.

I'm willing to put in a lot of work and have had great success at things where
there is a clear goal and highly probable success if I put in the work: weight
loss, fitness, studying, career changes, financial management, running a
business etc. Relationships are so irritating to me because acquisition is a
probabilistic, even random process which seems to have a very low success
rate. I'm not fundamentally sold on the idea that it's worth the effort.

~~~
dorchadas
Are you in a rural area? I've noticed that myself here. Granted, I left for
university, which destroyed a lot of the connections I did have, but even with
the ones still here, the different life experience has made it where it's odd
to hang out with them.

Thankfully some of my friends did move back after going to school, so there
are a few people here that I can hang out with, though I do feel like I hound
them to do stuff/hang out at times. But, I also moved a half-hour away to a
town where there's stuff to do, and I just have to actually take _up_ a new
hobby to meet interesting people.

Though that still doesn't change the fact that it's difficult to make long-
term, deep friendships from things like that.

Really, I just say that I understand completely where you're coming from, and
completely agree.

Also, I just kinda realized that this is also similar to the plot of the movie
_I Love You, Man_ , where Rudd's character realizes he doesn't have any deep
male friends.

------
sandworm101
Smartphone use is the symptom, not the cause of loneliness. Young people today
are forbidden the tools used by past generations to counter loneliness. Ask an
urban highschooler how often they just hung out at a friend's house, or in a
public place, for more than an hour or two. Teenagers today are busy. They
have homework and courses to do after school. They are supervised, chaperoned,
by adults far more than previous generations. The smartphone is the place they
get to chat with friends out parental earshot.

Even when they have the time, many normal activities are now forbidden.
Parents don't leave teenagers home alone on weekends anymore. House parties
are unheard of. Teenager-friendly places like arcades, malls, even local movie
theaters are disappearing. And the personal transport, cars, that once knitted
teenage culture together are disappearing. Cars are expensive, risky, and put
kids in more regular contact with police than is safe. So they stay home. All
of these things are replaced by the new malls: whatsapp and snapchat.

Teenagers are not being drawn to smartphones, they are fleeing to them,

~~~
iamcasen
This is an interesting hypothesis. I can definitely see this being true
outside of major urban centers. Public transit seems to be the remedy for
teenagers doesn't it? When I was a kid, my parents had to drive me everywhere,
and I'm thankful they did! I would have had zero friends otherwise.

~~~
dorchadas
I'm from outside a major urban center, and I don't really see it being true.
Yes, those things are gone, but cars are extremely common, and it's unusual
that someone doesn't get one at 16, especially if they're the oldest sibling
and can take the younger ones to school, etc. And even when people wreck,
they're generally looking for new ones fairly quickly. And this is in a rural
area with 20% of the population below the poverty line.

I do think smartphones are a lot of the problem. The kids have grown up not
having to interact with anyone, so they rarely do. And they also _don 't know
how_, since they never had to learn. It's funny, as you can usually tell which
students got their phones first from how they interact with other students.

And they still do hang out together a decent amount. Going to school sporting
events, playing Fortnite at each other's houses, going out to eat, or even
partying each weekend.

I see the loneliness issue creeping up more in the urban areas for the reasons
listed above, actually. Or with those who grow up in an area and then leave
it. Even if they come back, not all their friends will, and the people who
stayed will have vastly different life experiences, which makes it difficult
to make friends.

While I do see smartphones being an issue, as here kids don't really want to
talk with each other but just be on their phones, even when "hanging out".
That's what increases loneliness. Despite hanging out and doing stuff
together, they're not _interacting_ with each other nearly as much, nor on as
deep a level.

~~~
sandworm101
Not only do the kids not know how to interact, they are repeatedly told that
personal interactions are dangerous. Today's kids have grown up with concepts
of gangs and mutual accountability. They fear being held responsible when
something happens. Relations between the sexes, particularly for young boys,
also look like minefields. The line between romantic rejection, and the filing
of an incident report, starts looking very slim. So the boys avoid the girls,
and everyone avoids unregulated group activities. Playing fortnight is safe.
There is nothing you can do in fortnight that will result in the police
interviewing anyone. Asking a girl out is risky. Meeting a bunch of other
teenagers in a field is downright dangerous.

------
whitepoplar
Moving to NYC saved my life. I was depressed, lonely, insecure, and starving
socially. When I got here, I discovered a city of people who were earnest,
open to meeting others, and happy to welcome me into their lives. What makes
this city so great for people like me is that it forces you to both strive for
better and not take yourself so seriously (because no one fucking cares). It's
a city full of selfish, caring, hardworking, arrogant, kind people. It's this
balance that makes life great.

~~~
bscphil
Agree with others - some more details or examples would be great. As someone
who's been in exactly that kind of rut for years, I would seriously consider
dropping everything and moving somewhere like this.

~~~
chadmeister
If you can afford it, do it. There are so many people in such a small space
that as long as you're willing to put yourself out there you're bound to
inevitably meet others you click with. It's ultimately a numbers game and I'd
say NYC in particular is inherently a very social place so I'd put it at the
top of your list. Good luck!

------
ronnier
My opinion is that likely mostly impacts men. I see men struggling to find
women to date (and the opposite for women, too many men to pick from). The
internet and apps have made the dating market very difficult for men in
general. Women literally have 100's or 1000's of choices at any given time
while men will struggle to have a single option.

There are just more men now than ever it seems, and it's really exaggerated in
the Western US tech cities. When I go out, I sometimes count and I'll see 20
men to 1 woman at places.

~~~
gbear605
For people between 25 and 54, in America, there are almost exactly as many men
as women, to within less than one percent. [0] So if you see more men than
women around you, that's a filter bubble that you've artificially put yourself
in. Therefore the converse must be that there are many other places in America
where there are more women than men.

So go out, socialize, get away from your bubble, and meet other people.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio)

~~~
ronnier
Looking at this, singles between 18 and 44, there's just a massive amount of
men compared to women:
[http://jonathansoma.com/singles/#1/6/2/0](http://jonathansoma.com/singles/#1/6/2/0)

~~~
kuroguro
How is that even possible?

~~~
ronnier
Naturally there are more men born than women.

I'd guess also more men than women migrate to the US for work.

Men used to die in large number from war and work, not so anymore.

So here we are.

~~~
yorwba
Also young women dating older men. Just look at the excess of female singles
at the upper end of the age range on that map.

------
ada1981
If anyone is looking for adventure and connection, I run a group called
Founders Hike, which is what it sounds like.

Founders get together to mastermind, hike and support each other about once a
month.

We have some really successful and amazing Founders.

Nature is it’s own medicine, the community is great, and the wisdom runs deep.

NYC / SF and chapters forming in other cities.

Email me if you’d like to join, and I’ll gift you a ticket.

A@175g.com

~~~
dclowd9901
I can think of nothing more insufferable than being surrounded by wealthy
people who are business-driven.

Why does it have to be a “founders” hike? Why can’t people just fucking get
together and hike?

~~~
dang
Everyone knows almost all startups fail, and one group existing doesn't
preclude others.

More importantly, please don't be rude on HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
dclowd9901
Who’s being rude? I’m asking a valid question. Being a founder doesn’t
preclude someone from liking to hike and this seems exclusive for exclusives’
sake.

~~~
ada1981
Have you ever gone to an EO meeting? Or another event for folks who are in a
similar industry or job?

It’s founders because it allows for entrepreneurs to connect around challenges
specific to their lives.

I’m confused as to why this bothers you — no one is saying you can’t go on a
hike or start your own group.

Nor does it mean non-founders can’t like to hike. I’m simply offering a group
that I run that is already running as an option for folks here - many of which
are founders.

------
NotCamelCase
I've watched Friends last year for the first time in my life and it was
shocking to me, among other 90s things, how everyone is dating left and right,
one after another as if they were in a race or something. I don't know your
social circle but in mine, currently it's quite the opposite. I observe that
less and less people go out/date/interact with each other socially, which is
sad.

~~~
dnomad
Friends is quaint.

Thanks to dating applications in major cities (NYC, Paris, London, Bangkok,
Shanghai) it's possible for a reasonably attractive man to go on multiple
dates a night for weeks on end.

There's also literally endless functions, meetups and places to hang out... if
you can afford it.

Outside of the cities, particularly in the US, it's shocking how mechanical
and isolated people become. The combination of religion withering away and
increasing technological automation means "small-town living" \-- with
mutually interdependent neighbors gathering each week at Church -- is dead and
gone. In its place you find isolated exurb drug-addled dystopias. It's a bit
horrifying.

~~~
djrogers
> In its place you find isolated exurb drug-addled dystopias. It's a bit
> horrifying.

I think you may have spent more time reading Atlantic articles and listening
to documentary podcasts about small town America than you’ve actually spent in
it.

It is still alive and well, in pretty much the way you describe, in many/most
small towns.

------
0xcde4c3db
I have a really hard time finding any kind of social connection that seems
genuine and not a front for some kind of business/religious/political pursuit.
It's like social connections are seen as merely a resource to exploit rather
than being valuable for the actual human connection.

~~~
bittercynic
When the explicit goal of the event is social interaction, it usually feels
that way to me, too, but when there is something else going on, the social
interactions are somewhat optional, and feel way more natural/less forced.

I highly recommend finding something you're sincerely interested in doing, and
then finding a group to do that thing with. Could be cycling, robot building,
3d printing, softball, etc. I've had the best luck when it is an event that is
not generally attractive to people trying to "network" or hook up, etc; not
that it's a problem if some people there are doing those things, but if that's
what the majority are doing it detracts from the atmosphere for me, and you,
too, from the sound of it.

------
jarjoura
Wouldn't surprise me that a British publication would note that loneliness is
on the rise as American culture norms are being spread around the world
through our media and technology.

There are thousands and thousands of books and papers written on American
individualism at the root of our very superficial friendships since the early
20th century. A quick Google search returns books that date to the 1970s on
the very topic.

How many of your friends have only been along for a part of your life journey
and then you lose touch and grow apart? We are driven to pursue our dreams and
passions and become as successful as we can in whatever we think that means
for us.

I mean, we're the country that invented the nursing home, complete with the
expression, "you're born alone and you die alone."

------
afarrell
If I was to start a company at this point, it would probably be focused on
this problem. I'm not sure what though, because I worry that anything which
would be profitable wouldn't be really incrementally solving the problem.

Maybe a MOOC which taught courses like:

\- How to arrange an outing with friends: logistics and communication

\- How to follow up after you've just met someone

\- How to loop a new person into a conversation among folks who know each
other

\- How to continue a conversation after someone said something awkward about
the ever-present march of time and our bodies' unstoppable march toward death

\- How to help a friend talk through a problem which is emotionally
distressing for them

\- How to introduce a friend to someone you think they might be romantically
compatible with

\- How to tell exceedingly dorky jokes with excellent timing so as to put
someone at ease

Or other things.

~~~
sobani
In that case you might want to take a look at your competition first. Two that
I know of:

[https://theartofcharm.com/](https://theartofcharm.com/) \- more personal
connections

[https://advancedhumandynamics.com/](https://advancedhumandynamics.com/) \-
more business networking

------
androidgirl
This all hits home, and I agree with a lot of the points on social media.

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just quitting. When I stopped using
Facebook at the start of this year, my loneliness got much higher.

There's less ways to meet people outside of the internet now. For awhile, I
was visiting a hacker-space outside of $WORK, but everyone is already involved
with everyone else and it's tough to break into a social circle.

~~~
iamcasen
I feel this really acutely right now. I'm finding that it takes about 3 years
of conscious, dedicated, effort to build a small circle of friends as an
adult. It feels like all forces are against you in the process because there
is nothing tying anyone to anyone else. Everyone is free to just change
course, leave town, get into a new hobby. So keeping a group of 10 folks
together? Be ready for some monumental effort!

~~~
tcbawo
If you have children, it seems that many parents make friends with similar
ages to their own. Once those groups are baked in, though, it's harder to
crack. People seem to be more open to new friends with their first child than
last.

------
hashkb
It seems obvious that screen addiction is mostly responsible. Take cigarettes
as an analogy- it took decades for everyone to admit they kill you. The fact
that so many people immediately recognize the screen problem is huge, and the
rest are behaving like addicts who need intervention.

------
djrogers
I find a stark and surprising contradiction from some people these days - they
simultaneously insist that social media, most specifically Facebook, helps
them feels ‘connected’ to their friends and family and yet they feel
increasingly lonely.

Maybe if you live your life in Facebook you don’t have as much to talk about
with your friends when you interact in person?

~~~
tcbawo
My theory is that people put a brave face out in public on social media, but
have nobody nearby when they need emotional support.

------
marksomnian
Linked study: [https://www.kff.org/other/report/loneliness-and-social-
isola...](https://www.kff.org/other/report/loneliness-and-social-isolation-in-
the-united-states-the-united-kingdom-and-japan-an-international-survey/)

------
wallace_f
I recall in a freshman sociology course the text noting refrigeration
increased isolation and loneliness as people spent more time indoors.

As I have traveled, I have noticed a lot of further examples of technology
doing the same. Especially in countries with less wealth, people go outside
and share public spaces/activities/infrastructure with each other more, and
that seems to have a lot of positive externalities.

~~~
minipci1321
LOL. For an anecdote -- I was working once on an TV-related product, and our
product manager was persuaded it would fail in these countries you mention
(well he was speaking about the country he was native of). He was saying: "no
chance they spend time in front of TV, however good. They will all be out
having fun as soon as weather is good enough".

------
mg794613
I am going to say something very unpopular just for discussion reasons: What
if, IF, by having so much information at hand and telling each other how much
live sucks, we've created a situation of mass induced depression based on
hypochondria?

~~~
fiblye
I honestly can't bear opening up any sort of social media sites other than HN
because it's all absolutely full of people "joking" about how miserable mere
existence is and how funny wanting to die is.

There are many people out there with depression and who struggle with this
everyday. Some people joke about it as a coping mechanism. But too many people
are latching onto it as a joke, and I think they're turning it into their own
reality. Seemingly everyone my age "jokes" all the time about wanting to die
and it's becoming "normal" humor. That can't be healthy.

------
raffael-vogler
> But this need not make them lonelier. Snapchat and Instagram may help them
> feel more connected with friends.

There is an important difference between being connected in a shallow digital
sense and being emotionally connected. Staring at screen looking at attention
seeking pictures and clips from peers and then clicking on a like button or
writing a comment is not going to come even close to something that will leave
participants feeling spiritually connected.

------
bbrian
The real culprit, IMO, is the automobile. By allowing people travel further,
the frequency your life overlaps with other individuals' decreases
exponentially. Relationships with strangers are much easier to start with
familiarity. I'd like cities to be planned foremost with walkability in mind.

~~~
Buldak
I would have thought that we've lived in a car-centric culture for generations
now, though. How would cars explain why loneliness and isolation have risen
just recently?

~~~
bbrian
The report doesn't say loneliness is rising recently. It says technology use
is rising and then measures individuals' loneliness, following up with a
survey on technology use and a self reported ~"Do you think technology is
contributing to loneliness?".

I think for a large part the Internet is replacing television. Is there a
suggestion that those spending over two hours/day online (correlating more in
the report with loneliness) are being affected by the medium or content or
they're just using PC rather than TV?

I'd wager that car use is also up significantly too. Better roads, better
cars, more two-car families (28% of US households have more cars than people),
kids not walking to school...

[] [https://newsroom.aaa.com/2016/09/americans-spend-
average-176...](https://newsroom.aaa.com/2016/09/americans-spend-
average-17600-minutes-driving-year/)

------
knbknb
Maybe another influencing factor is parents who prefer that their toddlers
only have contact with children of other parents who are somewhat like them.
Thus, children are encouraged to create fewer friendships from an early age
on.

The parents are not overprotective, or rather in a very specific way.

If that is so - (I'm just speculating here) - what we're seeing now is just
the beginning of a trend that will continue for a very long time.

------
hardwaresofton
This problem seems like it would be perfectly solvable with an app, but one
could argue that it's the increased usage of apps (rather than the in-person
meeting) that got us here.

Even apps like LivingSocial seemed to fizzle out relatively quickly, but
mostly-messaging-and-narcissism apps like Instagram/Snapchat are the ones that
came to stay. A part of me still wants to believe that some app that did
nothing but match people (friends or otherwise) for in-person events could
actually buck this trend of loneliness, but a directly adjacent part of me
thinks that after a seed round or two, or some press, that same app would just
find some way to actually make the problem worse.

What a time to live in, humanity has access to the greatest amount of
knowledge it's ever had, and we're have the greatest ability to connect to
each other that we've ever had, yet somehow loneliness is rising.

~~~
furi
I read a very insightful comment on a previous similar thread about this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17682648)

The short of it is that any platform you build to make friends (at least if
you take the naive approach and just build a dating app for friends) turns
into a dating platform. It certainly matches how I interested I am in new
people I meet online despite having a partner already. My hypothesis is that
you typically have friendships with people of the same sex in a group (I
certainly hear about people hanging out with "the lads" or "the girls" more
than I hear about them hanging out one-on-one with same sex friends) and that
isn't something any dating-app-for-friends has provided thus far.

~~~
yorwba
And if that platform doesn't take steps to rate-limit its users, it will
likely become a dating platform only for gay men. At least that's what I
observed when I tried WeChat's "people nearby" feature in Berlin. The first
thing I noticed was that almost everyone was male. The second, that many of
those men had a signature that implied they were looking for gay sex.

My guess is that such a feature will be abused by some men who send messages
to a large number of women, causing them to feel harassed by the onslaught and
leave. Then the straight men notice that there are fewer and fewer women, so
they stop using it as well. Then the people left over are mostly gay men.

------
octosphere
There have always been people who _wanted_ to be lonely though, just as there
have always been people who wanted constant socializing. Both have their own
problems when taken to extremes, i.e: Extreme socialization leads to group-
think and collectivism[1], and extreme loneliness leads to despair and
becoming overly withdrawn. I (personally) try to find a balance between the
two, often withdrawing back into a hermit existence after some socializing.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism)

~~~
djrogers
> There have always been people who wanted to be lonely

I think you’re conflating ‘lonely’ and ‘alone’. Wanting to be alone is
healthy, wanting to be lonely would be very unhealthy.

It’s the difference between wanting to sit by the fire and wanting to be
burned - the latter invites/desires pain and harm.

~~~
octosphere
Thanks for explaining the subtle difference. I always thought alone & lonely
were synonyms!

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jcadam
It's a problem... for now. It's possible natural selection will just cause
humans to become increasingly introverted until we're living in a world
similar to Asimov's Solaria:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria)

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hi41
Anyone knows a book to learn social interaction? I am very awkward and despise
office parties. I want to know reasonable modern etiquettes that can improve
my interactions.

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baursak
Atomization and social alienation has long been a charge against capitalism as
a system. It's interesting that this trend is similar in both the US and
Japan, so can't really be explained by something like American car-centric
infrastructure.

A tangentially related article that this brings to mind:
[http://julesboykoff.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/Boykoff_L...](http://julesboykoff.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/Boykoff_Leaf_blower_CNS_2011.pdf)

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r-bit-rare-e
Surprising that HN wasn't included in the survey

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throwawayperson
I guess I'm involuntary lonely.

~~~
culot
Why?

