
Loneliness is a serious public-health problem - joeyespo
https://www.economist.com/international/2018/09/01/loneliness-is-a-serious-public-health-problem
======
iovrthoughtthis
I feel like a lot of this problem is to do with logistical convenience.

As we get better at traveling further for work / school we build relationships
with people who are less convenient to maintain.

These relationships demand higher effort than a local relationship and are
more fragile than relationships built on convenience (assumption).

IMO the solution to this is to somehow decouple where we work / learn from who
we work for / which schools we go to so that local, convenient people can work
and learn together on different jobs / courses and build relationships that
are convenient to maintain.

Right now i think the neucleus of our social lives and the places we build the
most of our relationships (school, work) are too far from the places we relax
(home) for us to easily maintain longterm, social relationship because those
relationships are often founded and maintined through convenience.

That or we need to spend less time working and officially dedicate much larger
portions of our lives to maintaining social lives. We could do this trough
reduced working hours, increased leisure time and perhaps some sort of
“hanging out” subsidy so that people without disposable income can afford to
travel to spend time together.

~~~
logicchains
Another way is for people to become more comfortable with digital
communication. If you enjoy communicating with someone face to face, you'll
probably enjoy communicating with them in written form too. For instance, I
have some people I message very day, some I message every week, some I message
every month, and keeping in touch like this allows the relationship to stay
strong and grow, in spite of us rarely seeing each other in person. This
approach is also ultimately more scalable: hanging out generally takes a lot
more time than messaging someone, so you have time to hang out in person with
fewer people than you do to message people, especially considering that it's
possible to have multiple conversations simultaneously over instant
messenging.

The alternative is to give up all your friends when you move overseas or
change cities, which seems absurd given the wealth of communication tools the
modern world offers us.

~~~
eswat
> The alternative is to give up all your friends when you move overseas or
> change cities, which seems absurd given the wealth of communication tools
> the modern world offers us.

But why continue communicating with old friends using, IMHO, a shallow form of
building a bond when you can develop new relationships with people where you
are now and can meet or have fun face-to-face?

I’m actually seeing an over reliance of people using digital communication for
everything, to the point where they’re starving themselves and potential
friends of a meaningful way to have a relationship.

This ties into the other comments that point out that we’re starting to favour
global, weak ties to people instead of local, strong ties. I’m not a fan of
that personally.

~~~
logicchains
>But why continue communicating with old friends using, IMHO, a shallow form
of building a bond when you can develop new relationships with people where
you are now and can meet or have fun face-to-face?

Because relationships develop and grow over time? Why deploy your server on
the Linux kernel, when you could just write your own operating system and
deploy on that instead? Why essentially throw away the countless hours you've
invested in building a relationship with someone? I imagine you wouldn't apply
the same logic to a spouse or children: "sorry honey, I'm moving overseas now,
but don't worry, I'll find another wife there."

Why do you consider bonding over text shallow? To me if anything it's less
shallow, as you have to actually engage with somebody as a person. When
hanging out in person, you can bond with anybody over movies, drinks etc.
without ever developing a deeper understanding of them, solely by the
biological nature of how spending time with people promotes bonding.

>This ties into the other comments that point out that we’re starting to
favour global, weak ties to people instead of local, strong ties. I’m not a
fan of that personally.

What don't you like about that? Statistically speaking, you're much more
likely to find someone you get along with better along any particular
dimension among the billions of people on the globe than the few people who by
pure chance happen to be geographically proximal to you. If we assume people
seek the most satisfying relationships possible, it's natural for these to be
geographically diverse.

------
reubenswartz
It struck me when I went back to college for a reunion how the college social
experience is so different from the adult experience. The parties are the
obvious example, but you can still go to parties as an adult. The main thing
is that your spend your waking hours with other people. You may have
roommates, or, if you're lucky enough to have your own room, you're sharing a
hallway, a bathroom, mail room, etc, with people around you. You eat meals
with other people. You _walk_ around campus, with other people and/or running
into other people out doing the same thing. If you want to hangout with people
outside of the regular routine, they're usually 1-10 minutes walk away. It's
like the Steve Jobs office plan, designed to get people to bump into each
other. You can have solitude if you want it, but you have to work for it.
(Being introverted, I didn't always appreciate that.)

As an adult, if you live the "American Dream" and end up with a nice house in
the suburbs, it's possible to not see anyone outside the office, except
through the windshield of your car. Your car will deposit you back inside your
garage at the end of the day, so there's not even a chance to interact with
your neighbors (something Bin Laden pointed out in his plans for people to
blend in without notice). In the name of convenience, schools and other
activities have drop-off and pickup lines of cars, so there's no real social
interaction there. We have scheduled and optimized our way to a lot of
unhappiness.

It reminds of me of creatures in the zoo, out of their natural environment,
looking sad and lonely and bored. Except we often work really hard to put
ourselves in the zoo.

~~~
didibus
That all plays out, but I think there is more. For example, in school, you're
not competing with anyone. You and everyone else are like brothers in arms,
struggling to get through the same challenges. At work, you compete with your
colleagues. You compete for the jobs, the roles, the positions.

When you struggle through challenges with others, like in school, that's
already a great way to relate and bond. When you compete with others like at
work, you can't be close, you need to play smart, don't goof around, be
serious, present yourself to others always with your strongest and smartest
stance.

Then you mention parties, ya you can go to a party as an adult, though they're
rarer. That said, you have less incentive. A lot of parties in college are
motivated by people looking for romance. Love and attraction plays a huge role
in bonding. Ya, even for friendships.

I guess it goes to ask, what are the ingredients to a deep relationship? For
me, it has always involved being vulnerable, showing my true colors, being
goofy, trying things, failing, struggling, making a breakthrough, succumbing
to my desires, being playful, etc.

If you manage to do all that with someone else, and grow comfortable, and feel
safe. That will be a deep and meaningful relationship.

Grown up work life seems conductive to none of those things.

~~~
reubenswartz
These are all great points. Although one thing I notice about school vs
afterwards is that school is very competitive, because everyone literally gets
a grade and people compare in a way that people don’t do with salaries and
bonuses. Yes, there is also great cooperation at school and competition in the
office, especially for promotions, but it seems (to me) less inherently
competitive.

~~~
didibus
Well, it probably depends on your personality, but for me, you do measure
yourself against others, but you're not competing. Everyone can pass, everyone
can get 100%. You win or lose on your own, not because someone else was
better. Well, once you're in anyways. Applications are definitly competitive.

------
plainOldText
We need deeper, local, and more meaningful social interactions, and less
shallow, global, low quality connections.

In the course of the last 12000 years, we've evolved from small, hunter-
gatherer tribes, to highly dense, highly competitive, modern human
establishments, and in the process have created a world perhaps too complex to
successfully navigate without properly augmenting our intellects and social
abilities. It seems that much of the technology we have developed recently
hasn’t worked in our favor, but rather against us, and one consequence might
very well be loneliness.

No matter what we decide the proper course of action is to successfully
address the challenges of modern life, we must not forget that the only way
forward is to accept our shared destiny and the need for collaboration.

After all, we’re in this together. There’s no need to fight.

~~~
WalterSear
We just need 20 hour work weeks and a decent standard of living, rather than
money being creamed off the top.

~~~
BurningFrog
Work is the most meaningful part of many people's lives.

~~~
didibus
That seems to be cultural. I remember reading some study about it. Americans
socialize through work, and make friends at work. Thus, work is their life.
But in Europe for example, this wasn't the case. And thus they worked to live
out their other activities, instead of living to work.

~~~
joaomacp
> they worked to live out their other activities, instead of living to work.

I'm from Europe, and I agree. Not everyone, but most people look at a job as
just a means to a salary, regardless of what they do.

But I'm actually critical of this mindset: if you see things that way, then
you are spending a great amount of your time doing something 'because you have
to', slogging through the work day just to get to the stuff you like to do.

I know I'm generalizing, but I perceive Americans as more intense workers than
Europeans. Maybe it's worse for their health, but look at what it's done to
the world: space travel, computers, the internet, smartphones: all things that
dominate the world (and are ultimately good, even though they have bad sides)
and were made / greatly developed in America.

So hyper-capitalism isn't all that bad :)

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Most Americans feel this way to. Most aren't working for NASA or doing
meaningful work. They just _need_ a paycheck, to pay for all the crap they
bought on credit.

------
bscphil
I think it's interesting that so many here think tech meetups are the solution
to loneliness. In part that's frustrating because I don't work in the tech
industry (programming is a hobby for me), but it's also seems strange because
I don't particularly want to limit myself to meeting people who work in the
same field. But here in LA, that unfortunately hasn't made things any easier
for me. It's just really damn hard to start new relationships here. You need a
reason to see someone more than once, and it's hard to establish that the
first time you meet someone.

I'm reminded of people who do the "if we're not in relationships at thirty,
let's get married" thing. It seems absurd to most of us because it seems like
you _need_ an established romantic relationship. But maybe that's a mistake -
maybe it's just as good to commit to making things work with someone you know
you're compatible with. Likewise, I see people on the subway or bus looking at
their phones, and I know many of them have to be lonely. It seems absurd for
two lonely people to sit beside each other silently for half an hour. But
maybe that's the problem: with modern technology we lack the pressure to
create social bonds. If it's the 1930s I probably need to be on good terms
with my neighbors. We're so independent now - I can even avoid interacting
with a clerk if I want because people are willing to ship groceries to my
door.

What seems to be needed is a way for many of us to blindly push a button that
says "commit", and get randomly matched up with a compatible group of friends.
Is that the _best_ way to form social bonds? Probably not, but it's so much
better than what we have currently that to go on as we do seems like madness.

~~~
XorNot
It seems like a mistake to assume that things were better in a previous time,
when the world in general enthusiastically adopted the current technological
situation.

It didn't happen because people were happy with how things were.

~~~
badpun
People often don't know what's good and what's bad for them - ex. people have
also enthusiastically adopted cigarettes.

------
EGreg
I am passionate about solving this problem. 20 years ago, Robert Putnam wrote
a book called “bowling alone” where he put forth the stats on the collapse of
social groups in the US. Since then, the problem only got worse, and it also
reflects itself in dating, and so on.

[https://youtu.be/VR5nyQmfG7Q](https://youtu.be/VR5nyQmfG7Q)

What do y’all think of this solution? We spent years on it and it is almost
ready to launch. This was a kickstarter campaign video we had put together.

Constructive (good and/or critical) feedback is welcome. Here is our roadmap:
[https://qbix.com/docs/presentation.pdf](https://qbix.com/docs/presentation.pdf)

------
aldoushuxley001
Absolutely, people are vastly underestimating the social and health effects of
loneliness.

Loneliness is the gateway drug to depression and resentment.

Of course, I am referring to unwanted loneliness here. I think people who are
comfortable being alone for most of their lives aren't in the same category.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> I think people who are comfortable being alone for most of their lives
> aren't in the same category.

In fact, we suffer from the opposite problem: lack of solitude. Frankly, I
think this is a much bigger problem than the overblown loneliness issue. There
are people everywhere, avoiding them is practically impossible.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> There are people everywhere, avoiding them is practically impossible.

Move to another country, where you don't speak the language. There will still
be people, but they won't interact with you.

~~~
Aaargh20318
That’s not solitude. I shouldn’t have to have to see or hear anyone for the
rest of my life if I don’t want to.

~~~
thaumasiotes
There have always been hermits too.

But if you tried it, you would find that isolation behind the language barrier
felt like solitude to you.

------
com2kid
I grew up and live in Seattle, where loneliness and meeting people is such
problem we have our own Wikipedia page about it,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze)

When meeting people from other cities, it is hard to explain exactly how bad
Seattle is. One case in point, the Seattle meet up scene is dead compared to
other similar cities. Even the engineering groups (PHP, React Native) that
have hundreds of active participates in other cities will have dozens to none
in Seattle.

Put 10 people from Seattle in a room and suggest an activity, and everyone
will nod their heads, say that sounds like a great idea, and then never take
the final steps of organizing to do it.

This Seattle mentality lead me to found
[https://www.thawd.net](https://www.thawd.net) where we are melting the social
freeze. I'm a technologist, so I have to believe that technology can solve
problems, and I hope that the system Thawd is building can help reduce
loneliness. The tl;dr is that Thawd removes all the friction of social
activities, and presents the user with a great big "get me together with other
people right now" button. Everything Thawd does happens super short term, 3-72
hours in the future, and our MVP is not eating dinner alone, we form a group
of people who'll enjoy spending a couple hours talking with each other.

If I don't solve the problem, I sure hope someone else does, because,
honestly, Seattle is a lonely place to live.

~~~
mannanj
I feel like I have a similar problem here in the DC area particularly as an
engineer. All the meet ups and activities around here I find not fulfilling
enough, and have a disconnect with actually wanting to pull through.

Is this coming to my area? Or could you possibly show me how this works with a
small demo or something so I can maybe help do something similar around here?

~~~
jcstryker
Since you are in the DC area I can plug the DC Code & Coffee[0] and their
sister meetup NoVA Code & Coffee[1]. Both are great, active biweekly meetups
with around 40-60 attendees each time. Its not just for software engineers, we
get data science, devops, security, etc. people coming in. Even people not in
tech but looking to make a switch. Its a lot of fun actually.

[0] [https://www.meetup.com/dc-code-coffee/](https://www.meetup.com/dc-code-
coffee/)

[1] [https://www.meetup.com/NoVA-Code-Coffee/](https://www.meetup.com/NoVA-
Code-Coffee/)

------
vinceguidry
It's my opinion America's social fabric has been thoroughly destroyed by it's
relentless commercial focus, and it will take at least a few more decades
before Americans will rediscover the need to connect with each other.

I have been going to the same coffee shop for 13 years. It is one of the only
coffee shops in Atlanta that has comfortable chairs and couches that one is
happy to spend hours socializing in. Almost every single other coffee shop in
the city has succumbed to the frigid tyranny of aluminum and plywood. If you
spend significant amounts of time at one of these "coffee shops," your only
companionship is likely to be your laptop.

Its bars are a little better, but in general our country has turned our
traditional watering holes from places where you could go to find a social
group, to places where you must bring your social group with you if you are to
have any kind of interesting fun at all. It's becoming difficult to find bars
with an active social scene of regulars which doesn't feel obnoxiously
cliquish. Americans, even when they are social, often fail spectacularly to be
inclusive.

The only place left where you can go to reliably dispel your loneliness
anymore is church. Sadly, even if you're religious, the atmosphere can feel
oppressive. My mom all but gave up her quest to find a church where she could
fit in with, and she is not a picky lady in this regard.

If you were to trace all three of these phenomenon down to a single underlying
source, it's consumerism. If Americans aren't immediately getting what they
want in any given situation, they leave and go back to their ivory tower /
nest that they've constructed out of well-meaning, but myopic products /
services that leave Americans feeling catered to, but not fulfilled. We don't
want to sit and painstakingly build friendships any more. We want friendship-
in-a-box. And our 'third places' have increasingly surrendered to those
wishes.

~~~
squirrelicus
I find your consumerism narrative unconvincing as you've laid it out here. I
am, however, curious how much you blame mobile devices and social media,
because that seems like (a) the Big Thing that's recently changed, and (b)
because narratives and my experience around why people choose superficial
connection or social disconnection through the use of social media and mobile
devices seems very convincing and common.

Wish we had more rigorous data on causation here though.

~~~
vinceguidry
There's certainly a role to play there, but I subordinate the technological
roles underneath the commercial ones. Our mobile devices and social media,
like the rest of our society, leave us feeling catered to, but not fulfilled.

We can go to Instagram and see lots of beautiful photographic artwork, and
even contribute to it yourself, but taking a beautiful picture is not the same
as having a beautiful life, and can indeed blind you to the amount of effort
it takes to construct it behind the relatively much much smaller amount of
effort it takes to snap a decent picture.

We can go to Facebook and discover what us tech kids figured out way back in
the nineties, that interacting with people outside of meatspace removes our
inner filters and simultaneously removes the all-important communication
channel of tone of voice, leading every sentence to feel like an attack to be
defended from. We get an intense "intellectual" experience without having to
do the work of actually understanding not just our own positions, but also how
to best communicate and distill those positions to others. Catered to, not
fulfilled.

We can pick up our phones and obtain, on tap, video games that engage our
minds with an experience that's compelling enough to hold attention without
the work of slowly building up skills or having to coordinate sit-down time
with our fellow humans to hone those skills with. Catered to, not fulfilled.
If you get good at Candy Crush, what bragging rights have you earned?

Technology has finished the job of driving us apart from our peers, but it
didn't begin it. It's the proximate, not underlying cause. Technology used to
bring us together, we used to prioritize that which allowed us to spend time
and engage over a greater surface area than 'mere' conversation. We all
watched network, then later cable, news and then talk about what we all saw at
the diner or bar.

Now every single social interaction we have has been gamified and monetized to
a far more granular degree, and our third spaces sit ossified in the corner
like a beaten step-sibling.

Technology, the phone in our pocket, only has a small role to play. If
Americans wanted more and deeper and harder social interaction, we'd demand
social media and phone apps that would give it to us. I believe China's mobile
app ecosystem is pretty good at providing technology that brings them together
rather than drives them apart. But Americans don't want that, we want to be
catered to.

~~~
avcdsuia
> China's mobile app ecosystem is pretty good at providing technology that
> brings them together rather than drives them apart

What makes you think of that? Please elaborate. IMO people chat, share stuff,
pay and do others things in the same app(wechat) is neither necessary nor
helpful for bringing them together.

~~~
vinceguidry
It's less about what they provide and more about how they use it. Americans
use technology to wall themselves off from others, Asia in general with the
exception of the unfathomable Japanese, uses technology to assist and
facilitate, the same way we used to use it until the last few years.

If an American wants to connect with a fellow American, they must first find a
convincing reason to. We don't just talk to each other anymore. The rest of
the world is not like this. China is merely one example. It's America that's
the exception. China is the rule.

------
lumberjack
I imagine the solution to be some sort of Boy Scouts for Adults. It would be
different from a MeetUp Group in that there would be some minor level of
commitment which is important to keep people attending when they need it most:
when they are feeling a bit down; and there would be a regular meeting
schedule. If I were not traveling I would seriously look into setting
something like this up.

~~~
nopriorarrests
You have just invented church.

~~~
lumberjack
I am well aware of that. I think a sort of secular replacement for
Christianity is needed. Liberalism seems to have just done away with it and
left nothing to replace it. It had its problems but it also served some good
purposes. This is one of them.

~~~
toyg
_> Liberalism seems to have just done away with it and left nothing to replace
it_

The original "inventors" of social liberalism (and arguably its most vocal
supporters today) did have replacements: strong friend circles where they were
popular, political parties with strong ideological roots, cultural clubs,
societies of shared interests, etc. They fought for auto-determination
precisely because they wanted equal dignity for their preferred replacements,
in the face of institutional snobism. At the end of the day, _even anarchists
have clubs._

The real problem is that very little is done in education, in most countries,
to let kids explore different social groups and perspectives in order to
choose the one they fit best; and even less is done for lonely adults. They
are usually grouped per age and along fairly omogeneous class lines, which is
a complete crapshoot.

------
Toine
In the constant pursuit of better opportunities, better jobs, perfect place
for ME, real social circles (family, local friendships, local communities) are
slowly fading away. Unfortunately I don't see them coming back in the near
future, quite the opposite.

Feels like we're all turning into a global network of weakly connected
independant nodes, with no strong roots in any local network. We've become
weak in that sense, because we're nothing on our own.

------
blumomo
Without judging automation, that's the effect off making everything fully
automated and highly efficient. You can

\- order a pizza home without talking to the pizzeria and their staff

\- get a car drive to your destination without knowing the language of the
driver

\- get your shirts washed and ironed without going to the laundry

\- have your grossery delivered home skipping all steps of the purchase
process in the grossery store

\- write code for your customer without ever meeting him

\- and so many things more

As a friend uses to say, the need for warm hearted and human body contact in a
broad sense is built into our DNA. Not being exposed to it will make us
suffer.

~~~
Guest9812398
We always hear that we're social creatures, and as you said, that human
contact is built into our DNA. But, almost everything you mentioned is
successful by choice. If we're that social, why are we ordering pizza to our
house and not socializing at the local pizzeria or arranging a neighborhood
pizza potluck? If we crave interaction, why are we having groceries delivered
to our kitchen and not going to the local market and making friends?

Something doesn't add up here.

Are we more lazy than social? We kind of want to socialize at the pizzeria,
but we'd prefer to sit on the couch and eat pizza while watching Netflix? If
that's true, then why not embrace our lazy selves?

Are we scared? We want to socialize at the pizzeria, but we're concerned we
might say the wrong things, or not be attractive enough. It makes us nervous
and causes anxiety, and we can avoid those feelings by staying home.

Or do we just selectively want to socialize? We might not value conversation
at the pizzeria, but we just need a partner at home, and a good friend as a
neighbor, and that meets our requirements. If we don't have that partner or
friend, we feel a need to socialize, but at the same time, we know that
pizzeria can't fulfill that need, so we stay home and remain lonely.

I really don't know what's going on, but there are lots of opportunities to
socialize, so either we're not that social, or something is holding us back.

~~~
Consultant32452
>If we're that social, why...

We're also tribal, and we don't see those people (pizza worker, grocer, etc.)
as part of our tribe. People need a central rallying "thing." Historically
this has been genetics, religion, that sort of thing. This is one of the
downfalls of multiculturalism, we have not yet figured out what to put as the
central "thing" for us to feel like we're all part of the same tribe.

------
ronzensci
Loneliness, when used for turning the search light inwards, can turn out to be
a very rewarding experience. Most of the enlightened souls have spent a decade
or more in solitude and looking inward. If the time of aloneness is used well,
it can help find many answers. Eventually people do end up spending time with
others, but those interactions turn out better when the time of being alone
has been gainfully spent.

------
budadre75
Too be honest, making social interactions is exhausting, maybe it's because
I'm introverted, but I too feel lonely. I certainly don't want to die early
due to loneliness, lol what a stupid reason don't you think. There are hermits
who live long lives, I think it's a better way to learn the ways of solitude
than tackling these problems with paid services. This is kind of ironic how
capitalism progresses to this point but the prosperity that affords the
individualism causes this loneliness problem. In addition, perhaps biohacking
can come into the picture in fixing the loneliness problem, for example we
know fictional works can induce senses of emotions, so essentially still using
technology to solve the loneliness problem but without the humans involved,
like the Xiaomi chatbot in China that helps millions with their loneliness
problem but beyond just the app level. An anecdote about the Paro robot
mentioned in the article: a professor told me Paro robots actually caused
panic in the elderly care center at first lol.

~~~
pm90
You can't hack your way into fixing what is essentially a non-technical
problem. I guess what I'm saying is that loneliness is not a pathogen that can
be removed but a symptom of something you don't have (social circle, friends,
intimate partners etc.) The most reasonable solution seems to be something
like in the movie "Her", or in Westworld where they use humanoid robots as
"good-enough" replacements for humans.

~~~
disqard
Yes, technology acts as an amplifier for human intentions (Kentaro Toyama's
words, not mine).

Thus, fixing the underlying cause of the Seattle Freeze is the only thing that
can fix the Seattle Freeze, not layering tech-based fixes on top.

As someone living in Seattle since 2011, I hypothesize that most people here
are sufficiently affluent that they do not _need_ to interact meaningfully
(read "make friends") with people other than their family. IMHO, this is the
root cause, and I don't think that technology can change this state of
affairs.

------
aesthesia
I've seen reported that it takes about 200 hours of unstructured time together
to become "good friends" with someone. Outside of high school and college, I'm
not sure where you get that amount of consistent open-ended time with someone.
It makes the outlook for building friendships later in life seem bleak.

------
coding_animal
As someone living in Bay Area, I think the biggest reasons for loneliness here
are:

\- nobody shares common roots.

\- it's difficult to travel to meeting places.

------
mc32
I wonder if we can learn from Japan. I’m sure they hsve studies about this
given some aspects of their culture results in low real-life interactions with
strangers, and they have a number of people[Hikkimori] who basically stay in
days on end.

Not that one culture easily translates to another, but from a health
perspective maybe we can learn from them.

------
lazyjones
Perhaps we‘re just not built for living in metropolitan areas with millions of
people within a few square kilometers and we‘re isolating ourselves from the
strangers we see every day because it makes us uncomfortable. Move back to
small villages and cities?

------
amelius
Makes me wonder what social media do for public health in cases of loneliness.

------
shard972
How about encouraging families again? Could fix the declining birthrate too
and give people plenty of social interaction.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
What does that look like, beyond the vacuous nagging I already get from my
parents about when I'm going to settle down and have kids?

------
rev0lutions
rampant capitalism has destroyed communities and family in america

