
Fighting Loneliness with Public Living Rooms - misnamed
http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/11/fighting-loneliness-with-public-living-rooms/506360/
======
mattjaynes
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously.
But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the
terrible disease of loneliness can be cured." \- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

While I sometimes understand the bemoaning of top engineers spending time on
trivial apps, sometimes those apps aren't as trivial as you would think when
you consider how they positively impact loneliness. Of course, there's plenty
of garbage out there, but I do love to see efforts to connect people in ways
that can be serendipitous and have the possibility of leading to more
meaningful connection.

I can think of multiple long-time valuable real-life relationships I've had
where our first connections were on some trivial platform. Sometimes it's hard
to see past the glaring negatives that come with some of those platforms, but
I'm hopeful that better options will evolve over time.

~~~
unixhero
This is what universities, clubs and festivals are for.

~~~
praptak
These don't work for shy people and are ineffective for forming connections
that are based on unpopular interests.

~~~
majewsky
This. I attended student parties maybe once or twice in my life, and it was
always awful. Meeting people with shared interests is much more effective for
me at forming meaningful acquaintances and friendships.

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Ayraa
In a similar spirit, it could be cool if some coffeeshops and restaurants
explicitly designated one of their communal table as a 'talk table'. Where if
you sit at it, it means you are open to chatting with your neighbors.

I know that many places already have communal tables but I find that unless
there's some explicit display a place is meant for a certain purpose, many
people who want to chat / meet new people won't initiate because they can't be
sure their neighbours are open to it. If they purposefully decide to sit at a
'talk table', then you can be sure they are.

~~~
maroonblazer
I like this idea but I can see the following challenges that would need to be
overcome:

1) In the case of coffeeshops, many people go there to work. The noise of
people gabbing could drive them away. This is a pet-peeve of mine; the local
Starbucks seems to double as a daycare, making it really difficult to focus.

2) How likely is it that the people gathered share enough common interests
that they want to talk to each other? E.g. in my case I'd want to be able to
strike up a conversation about politics or philosophy or music-making or tech.
If no one already-gathered shares any of those interests then I'm not staying
very long.

These aren't insurmountable and there's probably others that haven't occurred
to me. Again, I like the idea.

~~~
sliverstorm
Yes, how dare other people socialize in a coffee shop, aka my personal office!

~~~
Anasufovic
Depending on what you're drinking at the coffee shop it might be enough to
just pay for an actual coworking space.

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bemmu
Pubs and temples can be a bit similar spaces, but this seems great in that it
is not connected to a religion or alcohol consumption.

I guess this is what cafes are could be like, but somehow they have turned out
to be places where you are expected to keep to yourself.

~~~
farnsworth
I was raised going to church but stopped in college, and I really miss the
community. There's absolutely nothing like it that I've found in the secular
world. It almost makes me want to 'fake it' and join a church again, just to
be around such kind and welcoming people so often.

And it's not just the social part of the community, or the moral lessons,
although I liked both of those things - a church gives you an entire framework
for your life. What's a secular wedding? A secular funeral? How do your kids
get involved in the community outside of the public school system (Boy Scouts
is hardly secular) and how do you celebrate their coming of age? What are your
standing plans for Wednesday night and Sunday morning? We have to reinvent all
these things from scratch when we're not involved with a church, and people do
that, but I've never seen such an in-depth and positive out-of-the-box
experience as what a church provides. They've been optimizing this stuff for
literally millennia.

And I think that society is ripe for a group that will provide all of this,
while not also trying to tell us about spirits doing magic tricks. And if you
think about it that way, then the "this is where the world comes from" part of
religion is almost a sideshow to the "here's a community and framework for
your life" part, and yet it's what people focus on and what turns people away.

~~~
gaius
There was an atheist church in London but it fell apart over internal "more-
atheist-than-thou" squabbles in a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile there are ordinary churches in London that are centuries old...

~~~
794CD01
Plenty of religions have fallen apart due to internal squabbling too, often
very violently. There's a lot of survivorship bias here.

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riprowan
This is an interesting concept because it's actually quite old. While
traveling through the north of Holland playing shows we happened to play in a
centuries-old historic public living room in a tiny township in the middle of
nowhere. The place had been a home, but the occupants of the home historically
(whomever they were) would open their living room most every day to travelers
and neighbors, and serve small-fare food and drinks. The modern owners
continue the tradition, and host house concerts occasionally.

It makes sense: it's a sparsely populated location. You could have called it a
"cafe" and converted it, and maybe made a little extra money, but so much of
the social aspect would be gone. The place actually adds more value to the
community as a community living room than it would as a diner.

Edit: the place was also interesting in that it had the original "bedsteads"
or box beds (example: [1]). These open (and latched!) from the outside:
parents would basically lock their kids in these boxes overnight.

[1] [https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/236x/39/70/04/3970041ae87e76aa981ce1ceba4d6bd8.jpg)

~~~
smacktoward
Yup. The English word "pub" has its origins in similar establishments; it's
short for "public house."
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub#Origins))

------
oftenwrong
"A street is the living room of the community."

[http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php](http://www.andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20161027.php)

~~~
taurath
Nowhere is this more apparent than Amsterdam. Too much of America is built
solely for cars. Thankfully millenials want walkable areas and streets first
and foremost.

~~~
mzw_mzw
Really, the nerve of us crazy Americans, wanting to be able to live and work
in different places depending on what we felt was best for our families. What
were we thinking?

~~~
spraak
But that is crazy. If you look deeper, why would you want to work separately
from where you live? Like, "wanting what's best for [your] families" /could/
be that you don't need a long commute, AND where you live is nice :) It's
shallow thinking that the only way to have a safe living environment is to
separate it from where you work.

~~~
closeparen
>why would you want to work separately from where you live?

Because separately, $300,000 is a beautiful 3bd/2ba house with a finished
basement and a backyard in a safe, pleasant neighborhood with excellent
services and infrastructure.

Together, it is _maybe_ a "junior 1-bedroom" condo in a former industrial area
_just_ starting its gentrification curve where you _really_ shouldn't let the
12-year-old walk the dog alone at night.

>It's shallow thinking

It's economics. High density apartments offer less space at higher cost.

~~~
tbihl
The problem with this conversation (European 'let's walk everywhere' vs.
American 'don't tell me how to live') is that it tends to rely on wrong
assumptions from both sides, though obviously I can't read the minds of parent
and GP. In the US we aggressively subsidize low-density living through school
busing, infrastructure, the secondary market for federally insured single
family home mortgages, and many other programs. So Europeans have a hard time
recognizing that telling us to live in walkable places is like telling us to
spit into the wind in so many parts of the country (after all, if a commute is
bad for family, how about moving hundreds of miles from relatives?) Meanwhile,
we Americans have a hard time recognizing that we're making choices on a
severely biased playing field that discourages the living patterns that humans
have used since the dawn of civilization.

We'll get back to the old way eventually, but it's going to hurt bad for a lot
of people.

~~~
mzw_mzw
It's so generous of you to acknowledge how both sides are wrong: Americans are
wrong to want to live the way they do, while Europeans are wrong to not
realize how severely deluded, wasteful, and out of touch with humanity
Americans are.

~~~
tbihl
Sure, you could express it that way, but mine includes some empathy, whereas
yours is so carefully protected against the possibility of anyone benefitting
from it: not Americans, because you're pushing us away by calling us stupid;
and not Europeans, because you don't attempt to help anyone understand why
others are so determined to be wrong.

------
Dowwie
A recent post on the /r/campingandhiking subreddit [1] featured a photo of
five young men, dressed in suits purchased at a thrift shop, at the northern
terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. The OP revealed that none of the men knew
each other prior to the trip. Each just happened to start the trip at the same
time, meeting the others during the _first day_ on the trail. Together, they
backpacked for 5 months over 2,650 miles.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CampingandHiking/comments/5aydxu/i_also_hiked_2650_miles_to_the_northern_terminus/)

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jtcond13
Hmm... almost like a "public house"... maybe they should serve beer?

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empath75
The best part of traveling along was talking to people in the common areas of
hostels. I wish there were more social spaces like that where you can just
randomly talk to strangers without seeming weird.

~~~
Guest98123
It works in hostels because like you said, most people are traveling. This
means they're only in the city for a night or two, so they want to socialize,
meet local people or other travelers as part of their adventure, go out
together, etc.

This doesn't work the same in other 'social' places. If you visit a coffee
shop, 90% of people are meeting friends, doing work, or want to drink alone
and browse the internet. I don't know how you'd start a place that only
encourages visitors that want to meet new friends. What about a coffee shop
that only has big round tables with 10 seats, so you need to share tables with
a handful of strangers and face each other?

You could try local CouchSurfing meetups. I've been to some alone, and
depending on the city they might have 5 or 100 people. They're typically at
pubs, and some are better than others, but they're usually a mix of locals and
travelers from around the world. Quite a few others go alone, so it's
relatively easy to make some friends.

~~~
dazc
"If you visit a coffee shop, 90% of people are meeting friends, doing work, or
want to drink alone and browse the internet."

This is true but if you frequent the same place each day at around the same
time people will start acknowledging you and making conversation. It takes
time but it's a fairly reliable way of meeting people, especially if making
the first move is something you struggle with.

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jasonjei
New condo developments in SF are trying this idea out.

Gentrification, etc, yadda aside, there are now big HOA club houses, sky
decks, and other common areas designed to encourage mingling among neighbors.
Now there will be undoubtedly those who will shut themselves in (just like in
college), but I think it's bringing back a collegial atmosphere.

Our HOA is organizing a bring your own bottle and cheese event once a month on
our sky deck.

~~~
dcposch
I just moved into a sort of a co-op. It's run by residents and owned and
maintained by a startup that's trying to create a lot of these kinda of
spaces.

Beyond "bringing back a collegial atmosphere", it looks and feels like a
straight up dorm.

My rent is $1700/mo. My room is tiny. The common areas are fun. Location is v
central, 1040 Folsom St.

With the caveat that I've been here less than a week: so far it's great.

~~~
douche
Whew, $1700/month to live in a dorm room?

My mortgage is $1800/month, for a 2400 sqft duplex and a two-car garage. I can
rent out the downstairs unit for $1350/month. Location, location, location...

------
WalterBright
One of the best things about living in a dorm in college was they had common
areas, including a dining room. Most of the other students in the dorm became
your friends that way.

~~~
farnsworth
After I left, they converted the dorm common areas into dorm rooms by pulling
out the furniture and installing cheap wall dividers. I'm sad that students
won't get that experience until they catch up on construction, but that's what
happens when your university basically doubles in size in 8 years.

------
golergka
It's obviously have been noted elsewhere in the comments, but aren't those
essentially cafes? Of course, in some countries, it became normal not to talk
to strangers in cafes — but wouldn't the same in the end happen in the same
public living rooms? After all, many cafes and restaurants now are using giant
tables to bring people together, and we're still reluctant to talk to one
another. May be the problem isn't with spaces, it's with us?

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return0
If the social media of the past decades teaches us something, is that when
given the chance, people tend to form cliques and tend to stay in their bubble
when they find one. This persists in large cities where people have adequate
and constant exposure to alternate cultures. Maybe people have gotten tired of
trying to be tolerant to everyone, maybe they don't see enough value in having
to resort to lowest-common-denominator communication and cultural memes. Maybe
in the future the physical layout of cities will come to represent its
ideological /cultural layout. As loneliness is a physical thing, maybe
bringing compatible people closer together enhances communication.

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tgarma1234
I liked the article and the overall concept. The main issue in my opinion is
that the sort of people who would be attracted to such a place would also have
had already a great many opportunities to connect with others throughout their
life and they likely failed in all of those attempts to form positive,
valuable relationships. So the likelihood that they will succeed in this venue
is very small. In other words, the reason they are there is that they could
not do what this place is asking them to do in any other setting that normal
people find plenty of social opportunity to successfully make friends and
build a support network. Such spaces would likely be undermined in the United
States by the fact that it would end up being a magnet for homeless mentally
ill people. If you live in Chicago, as I do, and you want to talk to such
people then you can just go to the library downtown, which has ended up being
basically a day program for the marginalized, who sit there all day using the
free computers and taking bird baths in the bathroom sinks. They don't talk to
each other a whole heck of a lot though.

But yeah the modern world is super alienating for most people. The loneliness
problem is, in my opinion, sort of like the 21st century version of slums. In
the past the existence of slums was a sign that economic progress was not
working to include everyone. In our times the isolation and loneliness of vast
swaths of our population signals that the system is not creating the
opportunity to form effective personal relationships. I doubt there is much we
can do about that. Nobody is a stakeholder in the success of the lonely other
than the lonely person themselves, and they wouldn't be lonely if the knew how
to build relationships. So it's a catch 22 that only gets worse over time.

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jsemrau
Isn't that why entrepreneurs have co-working spaces? Getting beaten down day
after day surely drives you to loneliness.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Not to diminish whats being done but it does feel like a band aid solution.
This is such an important issue. I currently live in London, UK and loneliness
is a big problem here. My parents were from India and it doesn't seem as bad
there but may be I'm only seeing through my own lens and it is actually a
problem there as well. I think the problems stem from a combination of
culture, modern life style and tech.

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BorisMelnik
Easy patch: keep a security guard watching over physical machines, which
should be the case anyway.

The same can be done with paper ballots. The trick with this article is that
the perpetrator has full and unrestricted access to the building. If that were
the case it wouldn't matter what the medium was, any of it can be hacked. They
could throw cameras up in the booths, keyloggers, virii, etc.

~~~
enraged_camel
I think you commented on the wrong submission..

~~~
Lxr
Then again, election day can be a great social experience in my country where
voting is mandatory. Always meet random old friends in the queue etc.

~~~
tomjen3
Aren't most people just listening to music? Especially if they are to stand
for a long time in a government mandated queue?

~~~
Lxr
In my area there are enough polling places that if you go to your local one
you usually see several people you know. And it's not uncommon to have a
social gathering (BBQ etc) at someone's house on that day since everyone has
to go to the same place at the same time.

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gina650
I just met a YC founder and I do think her startup fosters this type of
community and builds deeper relationships beyond the typical "transactional"
world.

[https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-
ceo-11116-316-pm](https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/simbi-
ceo-11116-316-pm)

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javiramos
I wonder if VR could play a part on this? My grandfather had a terrible brain
tumor that didn't allow him to walk, although he was mentally fine. I could
imagine virtual 'living rooms' where my grandfather could've interacted with
other people etc.

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hehheh
This sounds nice and all but how long will it take for these to turn in to a
bar or cafe or whatever, designed exclusively to extract money from
participants?

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amelius
I guess these have a similar function as playgrounds in schools, but for the
elderly.

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jaspervdmeer
if you do this in The Netherlands we all just sit there with our phones out
doing our utmost best not to talk to others.

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snvzz
Your average hacklab will do the job just fine.

~~~
rosser
Because, as long as the problem is solved for nerds, who cares if anyone else
suffers from it.

~~~
mzw_mzw
Because, as long as the problem isn't solved for everyone, we shouldn't try to
solve it for anyone.

~~~
vertex-four
No, but when you solve a problem for yourself, you still need to go and ask
people who aren't like yourself whether they consider it solved before you say
"it's solved for everyone".

~~~
douche
Or you can just be happy that your problem is solved, and move on to other
problems.

~~~
vertex-four
Yep, that's fine. But you don't get to say it's solved for everyone then.

