
The Loneliness Epidemic - paulpauper
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-loneliness-epidemic-is-so-bad-world-leaders-have-been-forced-to-intervene
======
dexwiz
The Screen and the Job have displaced almost everything else is our lives.
Loneliness is just a primary symptom.

The Screen, whether it’s TV, computer, or phone, has supplanted almost all
social interactions. This manifests itself in things like SitComs on TV (just
a bunch of friends or family hanging out) or Social Media on phones. It’s very
easy to fill the social needs of right now with a Screen. But under even a
minuscule amount of self reflection these are revealed as hollow substitutes
for real human interaction.

The Job has completely taken over as a driving force in evaluating choices.
The average person has to consider all options in the light of both the
current employer and the specter of tomorrow’s. Moving across the country for
a high paying job? Great! Moving to be closer to friends? That’s a career
killer.

No wonder we are lonely. We make choices in the short term that optimize
happiness, often at the expense of our relationships. Ghosting is not just for
dates now. Then turn around and make choices in the long term that optimize
employability at the expense of all else.

~~~
rayiner
> The average person has to consider all options in the light of both the
> current employer and the specter of tomorrow’s. Moving across the country
> for a high paying job? Great! Moving to be closer to friends? That’s a
> career killer.

The median person lives just 18 miles away from their mom. 57% of Americans
have never lived outside their home state. A third have never lived outside
their hometown.

The more I read about it, I’m convinced “loneliness” is an upper middle class
problem.

~~~
LordFast
Interesting. Anecdotally, this checks out. All of my middle/lower-middle class
friends from high school have long been married and raising families, almost
in all cases raising them _with_ their extended families. Most of my
professional tech friends are barely getting started in their late 30s, and
everyone who's started had basically put their career into a slower gear
first.

I made a similar choice a couple of years ago to downgrade my career into a
slower-paced, less stressful scenario with less money, and again personally
for me the results have spoken for themselves.

Unless I'm Elon Musk, the whole business of business isn't really designed in
my favor, so it's logical for me to partake but only just so.

~~~
oposa
By definition you wouldn't know many lonely people. The chronically lonely
ones are going to be the people who didn't end up getting married when they
"should" have, couldn't make it into a proper career or fell out of one at
some point. Most upper middle class people won't be lonely since if you can
afford a career you can afford a social life or you might even be forced into
one. But of course uncertainty and insecurity can make one feel lonely, so I
guess that would count. Still that isn't going to be your epidemic. That is
going to be those left behind.

~~~
badpun
> Most upper middle class people won't be lonely since if you can afford a
> career you can afford a social life or you might even be forced into one.

Social life is not about having money (well unless you're really poor) - it's
about having time and people to spend it with. You can be in top 5-10% of
income and a total loner - plenty such people in tech.

------
rfugger
We evolved living in relatively small groups where everyone knew each other
and exclusion from the group meant likely death. Now we are part of a global
social web where at any time, any of our people may be occupied by other parts
of their network that do not involve us. This risk of being abandoned
instinctively feels like an existential threat, so we live with a constant
underlying anxiety that we do not truly belong and are not really safe. It
will be interesting to see whether this reality selects for individuals better
equipped to cope with it, or whether we develop better systems to allow
everyone to cope better... I'd guess a bit of both.

------
kashyapc
I will quote a previous comment on a similar thread[1] I made verbatim here.
It is from Steven Pinker's _Enlightenment Now_ , where he reviews data on
loneliness in the US students (among two dozen other graphs in the first
twenty chapters).

Pinker implies social critics abuse the words "epidemic" and "crisis" (both
words used in the article of this thread).

After reviewing the downwards-sloping graph (plotted from 1978-2011) and more
data, Pinker writes:

 _Modern life, then, has not crushed our minds and bodies, turned us into
atomized machines suffering from toxic levels of emptiness and isolation, or
set us drifting apart without human contact or emotion. How did this
misconception arise? Partly it came out of the social critic 's standard
formula for sowing panic: Here's an anecdote, therefore it's a trend,
therefore it's a crisis. But partly came from genuine changes in how people
interact. People see each other less in traditional venues like clubs,
churches, unions, fraternal organizations, and dinner parties, and more in
informal gatherings via digital media. They confide in fewer distant cousins
but more in co-workers. They are less likely to have large numbers of friends
but also less likely to want a large number of friends. But just because
social life looks different today from the way it looked in the 1950s, it does
not mean that humans, that quintessentially social species, have become any
less social._

I'm not suggesting that everything is hunky-dory, just that we bear in mind
the proportions of the problem. Also Pinker may well be off the mark here, as
others have pointed out in[1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19914075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19914075)

~~~
rishsriv
> I'm not suggesting that everything is hunky-dory, just that we bear in mind
> the proportions of the problem. Also Pinker may well be off the mark here,
> as others have pointed out in[1].

Tried to find more data on this, which seems to confirm Pinker's hypothesis -
[https://ourworldindata.org/global-mental-
health](https://ourworldindata.org/global-mental-health)

The data seems unrepresentative, though. While data on suicide rates is fairly
clear, it might be more interesting to look at revealed preferences instead of
self-reported ones. To this end, indicators for "lives of despair" (drug OD
deaths, hospitalisation for drug/alcohol abuse etc) might be more appropriate.

------
barberousse
I just hope people don't think the working class somehow has this all down pat
and that this is merely a case of bourgeois overconsumption. As someone who
comes from a ghetto and became a software engineer, I can tell you now that a
lot of people I grew up with engage in combinations of racism, homophobia,
transphobia, etc. The working class are only this candyland of authentic
relations if you _also_ accept all the socio-political tenets that go with
that particular community. That's no better than being alone.

Edit - Removed some emotional language

~~~
mynameishere
_Removed some emotional language_

The part where you condemned the people you grew up with? Oh, you left that
in. What on earth did you remove--something about kicking dogs?

~~~
opportune
There's nothing wrong with having issues with the community where you came
from. I also come from a place with many bigots

------
bazooka_penguin
They say in the article there's no clear rising trend and self reported
loneliness as an "issue" was at a similar level going back to the 1940s as
today. I figure it's mainly up to two things, which the article touches on
briefly.

One, family sizes are down. My parents who emigrated to the US had tons of
siblings. My mom had like 8 or 9 (including a few kids who died early) and
were closely knit until they emigrated the US separately as adults. My dad had
3 or 4 as well iirc.

Two, the transitions, especially the changing of jobs, and especially if it
necessitates a move away from your prior group. People tend to like fixed
roles and fixed communities in my experience, changing that is a big risk and
a big source of anxiety. I've moved around a lot in the US and I've noticed
that a vast majority of people I knew were born and raised in the states they
still lived in, sometimes in the same towns, although college and the first
"career" job tended to be the biggest changes and the transitions slow down
after that unless forced. This even holds true for a lot of the emigrated
workers I've known. As soon as externalities like job security and immigration
status are stable they build families and start looking to settle down and
hope to find a career long employer.

I would imagine that based on what I've seen people would be less lonely with
fixed jobs, in fixed locations, with large, stable families. And people
hopping jobs, company layoffs, long lived local businesses failing, and
families having fewer kids are big causes of "loneliness". Although, like the
article says there's not exactly a strong rising trend going back as far as
the last century anyway...

------
major505
Really. I think the big problem here is social networks. Nobody interact face
to face.I used to go to bars , look for a pretty girl and pay her a drink to
start a conversation. Nowdays this is considered creep. They expect that I
download an app, wait for a match ans just goeet for a quick chat and maybe
some action. Just turn of your computers and go to a bar. Interact to people.
Start conversations with stranger people. You may meet weird people. But also
will meet amazing people.

~~~
astura
I met my husband less than a decade ago in a bar. I still talk to strangers in
bars now too. Its not any more creepy to socialize with strangers in bars now
than it was in the past, as long as you respect boundaries and aren't a creep
about it.

The vast majority of people still meet their partners through "traditional"
means, very, very few meet through sites and apps. And when I say "very, very
few" I'm talking less than 10%.

[https://www.mic.com/articles/112062/the-way-most-people-
meet...](https://www.mic.com/articles/112062/the-way-most-people-meet-their-
significant-others-is-not-what-you-think)

[https://www.bustle.com/p/the-most-popular-ways-people-are-
me...](https://www.bustle.com/p/the-most-popular-ways-people-are-meeting-
their-significant-others-in-2018-8075828)

~~~
swiley
I think he meant buying the drink is creepy. I go to bars on occasion and meet
women my age and younger, but I've never bought them a drink because I feel
the same way (although I don't think they expect it either.)

Starting the conversation is hard and it can be very difficult to tell if they
really want to talk before they do, I guess that's part of why you want a good
bartender because they'll usually start conversations with everyone.

~~~
major505
Welll you just dont walk straing in. You first exchange glances, see if shes
alone, whatt shes drinking (soft drinks, hard licor, beer, some fancy
cocktail) and judge something about her personality, if you think you have a
chance, then you pay for a drink, or just straigth hit her with something, in
my case somthing dumb like "Hey, how much a polar bear weigths? Enougth to
break the ice!".

What I think is creep is some stranger who straigup knows your name, your
face, and can just as easy starting to virtual stalking your life and find out
where you live.

Fucking hating online dating solutions like tinder.... really not good talker
on line, without seeing the person face to face.

------
davidw
I miss the social aspects of living in Italy. It just felt easier to connect
with people there. People are kind of weird and standoffish here in the US,
and in some cases feel a bit fake. If you ask if someone wants to grab a beer
(or spritz/wine/whatever) in Italy, and they respond enthusiastically, it
seems there's a good chance they'll try and make it happen.

~~~
bitL
Try Germany or Switzerland for a year, you'd be super happy to get back to US
;-)

~~~
davidw
Lived in Austria for a couple years... it was hard to say though. I didn't
speak the language there, so people were friendly, but obviously it kind of
limited my interactions to anglophones or locals with the desire to have
English speaking friends.

------
ghostcluster
There was a story here a few months ago that seems pertinent.

> A Solution for Loneliness: Get out and volunteer, research suggests

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19971294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19971294)

~~~
em-bee
at one point a friend of mine was lamenting how all these volunteer activities
kept her from having a social life, to which i responded that these activities
were my social life, and i would not have it any other way. it's all a matter
of perspective.

------
kodz4
Ants don't meet at the bar at the end of the day to chill with each other. It
isn't necessary. And their society isn't unraveling.

The more connected the human ant hill gets the more we will behave like ants.
Disconnected because we don't need to be as connected. Connected because that
is the only way to survive. Those that can't handle the change...wont. This is
a process of societal metamorphosis whose tracks have already been laid.

~~~
AdrianB1
I think the ant brain and the human brain are extremely different. I bet the
ants are not capable of feeling loneliness, they don't have enough neurons for
that.

~~~
kodz4
That's true. Maybe we are going through a transition where we shed some :)
There is lots of evidence for it.

------
quacked
I think I'll be a little buried, but a thought- where can you go to hang out
and not spend any money? Seems like historical gathering places all now cost
money, or you're not allowed to be there.

~~~
jonny_eh
Tech meetups.

Volunteering.

~~~
quacked
Both of those involve doing something. I'm not talking about meeting new
people or starting a new hobby, I mean just... going to sit and gab with your
friends.

------
mises
> "You can see the problem here: A national culture that promotes polite
> restraint, and which actively fends off and forestalls the forming of
> relationships between strangers, is one that might as well be inviting
> loneliness on its population. And at a time when emotional seclusion is
> increasingly being seen as a crisis in countries around the Western world,
> perhaps this is what has made English people uniquely sensitive to
> loneliness as a major health concern."

This is evidently written from the perspective of an englishman, but I find
the contrast with the American South (where I was born and raised) evident:
here, it is very common to strike up a pleasant conversation with strangers.
If you are left in each other's company for a few minutes, it's almost rude
not to. I find that there's something of a cultural difference which might
help here, as you can get a little bit of socialization from unexpected
places. I regularly chat with the doorman at my office, and know he has
another job as a music promoter. He also figured out a particularly clever way
to game Spotify. Same with lots of other random people.

I'm not positioning this as a perfect solution, but as one more change which
might help. Half of me wonders if this is because the South was always so
spread-out that we took company where we could get it. But I certainly am not
qualified to trace the roots of cultural stuff like this. Anyway, just
something to think on.

~~~
T1glober
Not from the South myself, but I noticed a similar trend in parts of the
Midwest and anywhere that's not a big city.

Similar to the UK would be somewhere like Japan, which is well-known for its
culture of restraint and politeness. Loneliness and suicide rates are high,
while dating and marriage are suffering. It would appear a result of having a
relatively restrained social culture.

PS. what is the spotify trick?

~~~
mises
That's the thing about a trick... if you reveal it, it's gone. I suspect there
are a few Spotify engineers who read this; wouldn't want to give it away.

------
cosmodisk
I'm no psychologist or some sort of an expert,so this is just my own life
experience: I grew up with quite a variety of people: some were pure
criminals(drugs,roberry, extortion,theft),while others ended up being lawyers,
mathematicians, businessman, doctors or civil servants. Some lacked brains
while others lacked courage. Ultimately,if you feel lonely,drop FB, Instagram,
WhatsApp and other crap.Just fucking delete that crap. There are always people
who are interested in the way you think and are absolutely excited to listen
and just talk to you till the sun rises... Feeling outspoken and like going to
places? Go to those night clubs, restaurants or parties.Feel like being quiet
persona in the corner? Well,join like-minded people, play Warhammer, build a
train set and so on. Whatever you do,drop that Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn
bullshit,where everyone seems to be conquering the world.Just drop it. Go to
the bloody library,local reading club, whatever. Also,learn how to listen.
Actually hear what people are saying,how they feel. All this stuff turns into
conversations, follow-up meetings and ultimately friendship or something more.
there's plenty of space for everyone, despite of looks, character or anything
else. It's not as hard as you make it!

------
rofo1
It only makes sense for this epidemic to take place in the society we've
developed. We are tearing apart the fabric and the bond that kept everyone
feeling as a part of community; namely, religion. Religion was never designed
for people to fear the man upstairs; it was always about the values and the
bond it created between each member of that religion.

Individualism and decadence are being more or less encouraged, or at any rate
tolerated; families are shrinking and relationships are treated just like
another object. The concept of friendship lost value as a result of the
tolerance towards vices (envy being the leading cause).

I believe that the Christian religion was in part developed to address these
problems. I am not aware of any society that lasted without religion and had
strong communal ties.

I don't understand how anyone can be surprised at this result.

Stop for a moment and think: what bonds me with the people living in my
vicinity? Since in 2019, you can't say: religion, race, nationality and nation
without being labeled one way or another. And historically, nothing else
worked.

~~~
Tade0
I grew up in a highly conservative and (according to statistics) religious
society (Poland) and my observation is that it's not correlated.

People who sought company in church were often disappointed, because most of
the others who went there had lives of their own and weren't that invested in
the whole thing.

Hell, the loneliest people I know are consistently religious.

~~~
badpun
Polish society was very heavily wounded by 50 years of hardcore socialism
combined with the police state (at the hands of the Soviets). The levels of
trust people have towards each other are still abysmally low. I wouldn't use
Poland as an example, because it is (like other post-Soviet block states)
still very much not normal.

~~~
Tade0
I don't know about that. My parents both knew their neighbors very well(which
made a lot of sense in times where you'd need a network of people to find some
of the more rare goods), while I have no little to no relationship with mine -
and I was born just before the previous system collapsed.

~~~
badpun
I don't deny that people are more lonely now in Poland that they were in
socialism. In my opinion, it's the combination of convenience (like you said,
people used to need each other for simple things, and now they can just buy
everything), alienating electronics entertainment and capitalism, where
everyone needs to paddle very hard to get ahead or merely stay afloat. It
seemed to me that my parents were happier under socialism than they are now,
even though now their material standard of living is greater by like a
magnitude.

Regarding trust, I would say there was very little trust in the socialist
times as well. You don't need a lot of trust to borrow some salt from a
neighbor or even trade a favors (ex. you get me ahead in the queue to buy a
car and in exchange I get you access to buying foreign holidays), which is
what people mainly were doing in the socialism. You do however need a lot of
trust to start a business together. Since in socialism all people were just
cogs in the giant socialist machine, they never needed to develop trust
towards each other. Now, in capitalism, it's backfiring.

------
mcdramamean
Why do we need to "run away" from loneliness? Maybe we all need to spend more
time alone AND off the phone to discover what really "makes us tick"? Find
yourself, find a mission, find a purpose. Go do something. There is SOOOO much
to be done... I mean it.. Like RIGHT NOW. If you don't have a mission..
Bruh... Go get one. Loneliness is simply childish. Children sit around and
wish someone would talk to them. Adults go join other adults to make something
happen; or they learn to be with themselves. If you can't find happiness
within; it's not going to come from you visiting your parents, or seeing your
grandchildren, or insert whatever Hallmark phrase you like. Sure being
surrounded by people you love when you die will feel nice. But you can truly
"rest in peace" if you know you tried your hardest to make a difference (and
you actually do!.. Because you actually can...)

~~~
slx26
Choosing to be alone (isolation) is not the same as loneliness. Honestly, the
world has changed a lot, and that might end up not being a big problem in the
future; maybe having isolation become more socially accepted wouldn't be that
bad.

The problem we are seeing right now is that it looks like everything is moving
towards a kind of social-contact-unfriendliness. Too much stress, connection
(the expectation of being always reachable, and therefore available for work),
busy streets, dominated by cars, big and impersonal chain stores, etc. Many of
these are not necessarily bad by themselves, but they also had an important
role in social interaction that has shifted now, and we might need time to
find new spaces and solutions for that interaction.

------
vonholstein
This may seem somewhat out there, very uninformed or misanthropic, but I've
been thinking about basic human needs(emotion,ego,the desire for companionship
- both spiritual and otherwise) as vestigial evolutionary artifacts. Evolution
and the survival of the human race _required_ collaboration, those who did not
died and failed to pass on their genes.

In the modern age though, I could argue that close collaboration is _not_ a
necessity for survival or even success, and as such why cant a portion of
humanity thrive without the need for extensive social contact?

~~~
alfwiefjalwe
Some portion of humanity can undoubtedly thrive with limited/no social
contract, but for the majority of us these "evolutionary artifacts" are still
very real and consequently still exert a very real force on our lives.

Until the day comes that we are able to (if we are able to) remove these
drives, neglecting them will continue to have deleterious effects.

------
dkarl
_You can see the problem here: A national culture that promotes polite
restraint, and which actively fends off and forestalls the forming of
relationships between strangers, is one that might as well be inviting
loneliness on its population._

Let's not forget there are two hazards here. Loneliness is one; the other is
the suffocating tyranny of constantly attending to others' ideas and feelings,
because attending to your own would be unacceptably disruptive of precious
social connectedness. In "A Room of One's Own" Virginia Woolf diagnosed the
injustice of a society that reserves the privilege of aloneness to men, and
particularly upper class men, while denying it to women (who are supposed to
be "selfless") and to a lesser extent the lower classes (who are supposed to
be too mindless and animalistic to make anything of solitude.)

Being reluctant to intrude on another's social space is a good thing. It
should be joined with skill at inviting others in, and a readiness to respond
to that invitation. Let's not shit on people who have solved one half of the
problem as if they were inferior to people who have only solved the other
half.

~~~
throwaway3627
Freedoms of being alone:

\- no one asking favors

\- no obligations

\- no emotional BS dumped on you

\- no judgements

\- no going along with what you don't want to do or opting-out

\- no one invading/pushing your boundaries

\- no meetings to keep

\- fewer liabilities

\- no disappointments

\- no hierarchy

\- more projects and work done

Disadvantages to being alone:

\- more stress

\- more anxiety

\- less potential fun

\- less sex

\- less humor

\- less mental stimulation

\- fewer opportunities

\- less productivity for big projects

To each, their own; there are many trade-offs and no simple answers. Key
question "better together?"

------
austincheney
Is this problem more an urban or rural thing? Is it related to any certain age
groups? Is the problem stratified by education or occupational categories?

------
radcon
At the risk of sounding like a crazy hippy, I'm going to go out on a limb and
say that some kind of subsistence-based neighborhoods would be a great option
for dealing with this problem.

Not only would it provide some relief from the feeling of being shackled to
bullshit jobs for life if you don't want to starve to death, it would also
help foster much stronger communities.

~~~
defterGoose
Some friends of mine from college and I, while considering our impending
matriculation into the housing and job market of LA, conceived of the idea of
'failure house'; a place where we could all live when we failed at life. We
still talk about it ten years on, and it has evolved into the idea of 'failure
commune'. One of these friends became a lawyer and bought a house in Orange
County recently. Traitor.

~~~
dwg465
I just graduated college and am having similar thoughts (but think Bay Area
instead of LA). It seems like a great idea but I know of few examples besides
full-on communes. Do you know of any examples of living communities or living
styles that fall somewhere between living on your own and living on a commune?

~~~
radcon
Look up online communities dedicated to Homesteading. There also seems to be a
movement around "backyard chickens" (i.e. raising small amounts of livestock
at an average suburban house).

So far I haven't come across any information on physical communities of
homesteaders, although a local community seems like a necessity if you ever
want to take a vacation again. Can't really leave crops on their own for very
long without them dying, let alone livestock...

------
ronnier
These articles rarely if ever mention the breakdown between men and women. I
do believe loneliness is largely something men deal with.

~~~
imesh
Why?

~~~
leetcrew
anecdotally (and not GP), most of the women I am friends with have several
good friends in the area where they live and easily make new ones if they ever
move to a new place. for many of my male friends, I am the only friend they
have in the area.

I don't think I can generalize to entire genders from my experience though. it
could simply be that it's easier for introverts to make same-gender
friendships, so I only have a set of relatively outgoing women to select
friends from.

------
alexashka
It's more of a journalist epidemic - they keep reaching for straw-men to
justify their existence.

Talking about loneliness is slightly more interesting than what dress
celebrity X wore at event Y. It's just bullshit - at least the dress talk
doesn't pretend otherwise, for the most part.

We're living in the greatest time ever. I understand that when you make no
money and you're writing articles, it may seem like there is a loneliness
epidemic. There isn't - we're doing better than ever. More people are having
first world problems than ever. It's great to have those, just talk to someone
with a little perspective that you respect for it to rub off on you and go on
about your day :)

~~~
condercet
On the contrary, many of the people I've met who most definitely do not have
first world problems -- people living in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other
destitute parts of the world -- often seem to lead genuinely happier lives
than the stressed out existence that is the norm in the US.

Being able to have a cheeseburger delivered on demand does not make up for
systematic loneliness and dehumanization. The more I travel, the more
perspective I get, the more I think that things have gone deeply wrong here.

------
gxx
Could it be that Facebook and social media in general are the cause?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-
face...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-
making-us-lonely/308930/)

"Likes" and reading narcissistic postings probably are not a good substitute
for real human contact, and the more people become addicted to social media
the less real human contact they are likely to seek. Of course companies like
Facebook and Google (YouTube) purposely design their offerings to be addictive
and as we know additions can be detrimental to one's mental and physical
health.

~~~
higginsc
No. Did you read the OP's article? I'll excerpt a relevant section for you:

 _Although the current focus on isolation is often described in the media as
“the loneliness epidemic,” Robin Hewings, Director of Campaigns, Policy and
Research for the U.K.’s Campaign to End Loneliness, warns that for a
subjective, self-reported experience like loneliness, “it’s not very easy to
make comparisons across time, and it’s not obvious that it’s getting worse.”

While he acknowledges that aging populations mean that there are likely to be
a greater number of elderly people around who are suffering from isolation
than in previous decades, he also points out that when you look at the
percentages of those affected, the trends are harder to discern. “There was
some work done in the late 1940s, which would seem to suggest a not dissimilar
level to today. This is right at the speculative end,”_

------
bitL
Solitude is beneficial for an individual and dangerous for society. Loneliness
is dangerous for individual but beneficial for economy. My guess is that
"solitude" is the one sounding alarm, not loneliness.

------
vectorEQ
A lot of people who feel lonely, are hardly ever alone. imagine how shitty and
uninterested we really are to eachother and ourselves... if we can be together
and feel alone at the same time. Stop neglecting yourself, and that will make
you stop neglecting others.

My tips: Actively take time for yourself. to get to know yourself and become
more aware of yourself. Even if you do not suffer from such symptoms yet, it
will be one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself in whatever
position or situation you find yourself.

~~~
AdrianB1
When I go to work there are 500 people in the building, but less than 10 that
I consider close enough to care about. That can be zero in different
conditions. Having over 7 billion people on the same planet has no impact on
loneliness, the discussion is not about physical loneliness.

------
throwaway3627
\- Decline of organized religion

\- Rise of hyper-mobility

\- Rise of the portable screen

\- Rise of inequality necessitating more workaholism

\- Increase of monopolized corporate media

\- Heightened nationalism, xenophobia and politically-polarized, separate
realities

are factors which atomize people from each other.

~~~
umeshunni
Great list. Can you explain the impact of "Increase of monopolized corporate
media" ?

------
Pamar
My contribution to the topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17794060)

------
leroy_masochist
I thought the puns in the section titles were quite clever, especially "Lonely
Hearts Club: Banned"

------
mrhappyunhappy
.loneliness { position: relative; }

Like all things in life, loneliness is not absolute in origin. Depending on
your circumstances, combined with external levers, loneliness is not easy to
pinpoint, but there are a few common externalities.

For the blue collar worker you have your typical financial concerns that make
you overwork or worry about not having enough work to provide for yourself and
or family. Spending time on people is a luxury most people with financial
concerns simply cannot afford. If you are lucky you’ll be working too much to
be lonely and it’ll only hit you when you have time to catch a breath.

Screen time is certainly a factor but not a cause. It’s a symptom of a sick
society with failed systems, infrastructure, architecture, family structures
and communities.

Depending where you are in the world, design of your community or should I say
the lack of, will play a large role. If it takes a 30 min drive to see a
friend be say a 5 minute walk, it becomes easier to remove yourself from face
to face interactions.

The constant rise in cost of living puts financial stress on families, which
in turn translates to personal stress, health problems, obesity and so on.
This fuels a feedback loop that ultimately leaves little to no room for
interaction with anyone. The easiest way to medicate that issue is you guessed
it, with a screen.

Then you have your constant exposure to media and the team effect of
polarization. People are brainwashed by nonstop streaming of irrelevant crap
which makes them feel like crap and further remove themselves from society.
Add in social media which amplifies all of these effects. The grass is always
greener on the other side and this seems especially true through social media
lens. Down the depression hole we go which further removes us from
interaction.

We make deliberate effort to improve “mobility” and “accessibility” through
roads and infrastructure which alienated public transportation projects. If
you are lucky to live in a small walkable community, you might stand a chance
at running into someone you know to strike up a conversation, but otherwise
good luck talking to everyone speeding down a road. Even small rural
communities in walkable cities are getting less friendly to foot traffic in
certain parts of the world due to vehicle congestion.

Let’s not forget the convenience of online shopping. As awesome as it is, we
simply don’t get as much stimulation as we would going outside and seeing
people face to face, whether we talk or not is irrelevant.

For kids there are video games. Can’t play? No problem, watch others play.
Society norms have changed. In countries like US, depending on where you live,
talking to others outside comes across as odd and unwelcoming. We are so
concerned about everyone’s need to be left alone that we ignore their silent
plea to have anyone take any interest in their life.

Consumer choices have been negatively shaping people to feel more individual.
When everything is customized to your liking, it’s hard to think as a group,
for the benefit of the collective. This in turn leads to more consumerism,
heightened expectations and disappointments when those expectations are not
met.

Information has a large role to play in spread of loneliness. Having to choose
from thousands of products online vs just getting one or two choices, shapes
our expectations. Before, I’d you wanted to buy some nice bed sheets, you’d go
to a store and maybe make a day out of it. Go to the mall, eat out, do things
with others, relatives, friends. Now you click a button and spend days or
hours looking at thousands of search optimized product titles which may or may
not have anything to do with what you searched for. All the consumer choices
and information like reviews, while seemingly great, just cause more mental
fatigue, stress and ultimately contribute to a host of factors, some of which
are tied to loneliness.

This is just scratching the surface. My point being, we are brining this onto
ourselves in many different shapes and forms.

------
Circuits
For me it is a rather paradoxical situation. On the one hand I am a very
lonely person and on the other hand I like being alone. When I am alone I tend
towards depression and crave social interaction but not all social interaction
works. For instance, if I spend a day with my family it is usually great for
about 2 or 3 hours and then all I can think about is getting home so I can be
by myself again.

For me it is not enough to just be with people. For instance, when I was in HS
I would never have characterized myself as a lonely person. I believe that is
because those relationships, long forgotten, had serious depth. I also had
more confidence when I was younger making my intimate life easier to progress.

However, now a days I have neither and I have lost the confidence to strike up
the band. I honestly find it hard to even look a women in the eyes much less
ask her for her name and tell her mine. Tbh, even if I was going to force
myself to make a new friend I wouldn't know where to start.

Luckily for me I have pretty damn thick skin and have learned to deal with my
loneliness, depression and anxiety. That being said, at 32, I find myself
feeling as though dying young and alone is a probability. However, I take
heart in knowing that it could be worse, for many people are simply dying of
starvation and so, on the whole, I am a pretty lucky guy.

If loneliness is a problem that someone else can solve I just don't see how.
From my perspective, this is a problem that, like a snowball rolling down a
hill, builds up over time and eventually takes on a life of its own.

~~~
em-bee
not paradoxical at all. i went through a similar experience. i found that for
me the solution was to have very few but very close friends, including my
wife. those then were the only people that i could socialize with without
being exhausted. but even then i need a few hours to myself every day.

the hardest part was how long it took to understand the problem. you seem to
understand the problem already, and that puts you into the position to do
something about it.

you don't need to strike up the band. find activities that you are interested
in. a hobby, or volunteer somewhere. the nice thing about both is that you are
not expected to do it for the sake of meeting people, so you don't need to
push yourself to talk to anyone, and noone will mind if you just focus on the
work. the socialization will come eventually. by the time you get to look a
woman into the eyes, you may already have shared your activities for a few
months or more. i met my wife that way.

------
trentnix
_When politicians are staging national interventions to force us to connect
with each other — and actually spending real money on the problem — you know
it’s a genuine crisis_

No. Politicians throwing money at something is not evidence of a crisis.

~~~
defterGoose
Can you see that this is an extremely dogmatic view? If society has seemingly
agreed that society needs government, part of society needs to actually
administer that government.

~~~
mises
> Can you see that this is an extremely dogmatic view?

Snuck premise much? I doubt he'd agree that it's dogmatic, nor would I.
Governments are certainly needed for certain things, but politicians tend to
come up with problems to solve, or try to solve problems which they are not
equipped to solve. They aren't really supposed to create a _social_ order so
much as a _legal_ one, anyway. Even if the could, I'd see that as disturbingly
close to brain-washing...

~~~
defterGoose
> Governments are certainly needed for certain things, but politicians tend to
> come up with problems to solve, or try to solve problems which they are not
> equipped to solve.

This is why it's dogmatic. You can't agree that there are use cases and then
in the same sentence denigrate all the use cases. Or... I guess you can,
but...

> They aren't really supposed to create a social order so much as a legal one,
> anyway.

At the risk of being overly ontological, the legal order arises from the
social order, since the law is simply a construct of beliefs that society
nominally agrees on.

> Even if the could, I'd see that as disturbingly close to brain-washing...

...And there it is. It's ok to disagree with some things that politicians do.
That doesn't mean there aren't good politicians.

~~~
impostir
> At the risk of being overly ontological, the legal order arises from the
> social order, since the law is simply a construct of beliefs that society
> nominally agrees on.

That is a big leap to call those two ontological. Laws represent the beliefs
of those that right them, nothing more. I am sure most politicians believe
they know the will of their constituents, which is simply another belief. And
yes, if a law is egregiously beyond social norms, it is possible that it will
be rejected by soceity, but I would argue that is a distinct veto function.

------
yters
The good thing is we can walk next door and meet our neighbor.

It is strange this is an epidemic when it is a problem that seems so easy to
solve.

UPDATE: based on responses to my comment it seems the core problem may be
closer to home than we like to admit. CS Lewis' book The Great Divorce details
this misanthropy, where hell is a product of the residents' own making because
they choose to live on their own because they do not like anyone else.

~~~
squish78
I'm amazed at the responses and downvotes to this comment. Is everyone
terrified of small talk with their neighbors?

~~~
logfromblammo
I live in a place where the neighbors are likely to talk about their religion,
their football team, their other football team, their kids, their kid's
football team, something implicitly racist, something explicitly racist, their
job/boss/business (or lack thereof), or their vehicle. I'd only want to hear
about two of those things.

I'd prefer to talk about events or ideas, or activities that interest me. It's
far easier to join an online discussion already in progress to feel less
isolated in South Bumblefart, USA.

I have found that familiarity does sometimes breed contempt, but absence does
not always make the heart grow fonder.

~~~
squish78
It's hard to make friends when you assume you're superior to everyone

~~~
drivingmenuts
im In the same position a lot of the time when meeting new people. It’s not
because I feel superior, I just lack interest and any knowledge of sports and
cars and most topics that a lot of other people use for small talk.

Now, if they want to talk about that time their fighter gutted an orc with an
awesome double crit, I’m all ears, but Cowboys losing to some other team in
sportsball, not so much.

~~~
logfromblammo
Exactly this. Superiority has nothing to do with it.

Some people have uncommon interests or opinions, and may be reticent about
sharing them in the absence of some enabling signal, as one can be punished
socially just for having them.

It doesn't help that my employer has a mainstream dress code. If I saw an
exact copy of myself before or after work, I wouldn't want to talk to it,
unless we were in a nerd haven.

I've had too many conversations that bring in early "so what church y'all go
to?" or "what's your football team?". The wrong answers can get you a "bless
your heart," which seems to be Southern for "fuck off, asshole". Wearing a
Chicago Cubs tee-shirt sometimes invites conversation, but my spouse is the
fan that live-streams every MLB broadcast that isn't regionally blacked out,
and for me it's really more a signal for "I'm from the Midwest." The Chicago
skyline on my usual payment card has sometimes unintentionally served the same
purpose from restaurant servers and cashiers who are also ex-Chicago-
residents.

It's why I'm considering a nerd tattoo, like "e^pi*i=-1" or the Fano plane
mnemonic for octonion multiplication, or a space-filling model of my favorite
molecule, benzaldehyde.

