
Why Loneliness Matters in the Social Age - PakG1
http://wikichen.is/writing/forever-alone/
======
iterationx
There was an interesting article recently about teens and social networking,
and insight of the article was that teens want to socialize IRL, but there is
nowhere for them to go without parental supervision.

I would argue that this approximately true for adults, American cities don't
have pedestrian-only town squares, the public transit is abysmal (because long
ago they ripped out all the streetcars, which led to the destruction of many
social places, like Excelsior Amusement Park and Wonderland Amusement Park),

[warning anecdotal evidence]

The few dynamic social spaces I've known have been

Paved (Hidden Beach),

Pushed out due to rent increases (Loring Bar, Little Nikkis Cafe, CyberX),

Turned into a Bank of America (Filter in Wicker Park),

Out of business due to the smoking ban (The tobacco shop next to Filter in
Wicker Park)

Purposefully destroyed by fake art to prevent gatherings (That little area
next to the Subway on State Street in Madison, WI (where I used to play
hackeysack))

Not to mention that we destroyed all the beer gardens during WW2 (this really
happened), because that was too German, you can't drink a bottle of wine in a
park like the French do, because I guess the drunks would abuse it, and the
parks we do have generally don't also have any commercial activity
_whatsoever_ , not even a little kiosk where you can buy a coffee.

That's not even considering the destruction of ethnic neighborhoods by
intersecting them with freeways (the old Catholic neighborhood [that no longer
exists] that used to surround the Basilica in Minneapolis)

You know we're doing something wrong with urban design (which I argue is
directly related to loneliness), when you see statues of children playing and
not actual children playing.

Further reading/viewing:

James Howard Kunstler: The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs

James Howard Kunstler: Geography of Nowhere

The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing

Streets for People: A Primer for Americans

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and
Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

~~~
heythereman
Could you link the article?

I spent most of my youth "ruled" under extremely restrictive parents in a
suburb that offered nowhere to go without a car, that my parents would never
let me use. I was very lonely as a kid and even after I got to college, it
took me a while to develop the social skills I needed to make myself happy. I
ended up developing a strong hatred for the suburbs in my youth and have
embraced the urban city. Wherever I end up living when I have kids, I'll never
subject them to the loneliness that I grew up with. I want my kids to be able
to have peers as a refuge away _from me_ as a parent.

(Using a throwaway for anonymity.)

~~~
iterationx
Don’t Blame Social Media if Your Teen Is Unsocial. It’s Your Fault

If kids can’t socialize, who should parents blame? Simple: They should blame
themselves. This is the argument advanced in It’s Complicated: The Social
Lives of Networked Teens, by Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd. Boyd—full
disclosure, a friend of mine—has spent a decade interviewing hundreds of teens
about their online lives.

What she has found, over and over, is that teenagers would love to socialize
face-to-face with their friends. But adult society won’t let them. “Teens
aren’t addicted to social media. They’re addicted to each other,” Boyd says.
“They’re not allowed to hang out the way you and I did, so they’ve moved it
online.”

[http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/ap_thompson-2/](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/ap_thompson-2/)

~~~
anti_valley
It's a relevant point she brings forth - albeit a false one. Microsoft just as
Google is much too biased in this debate and so is Danah Boyd. It is not just
the parents fault, the upbringing and social life of a child is composed of
many factors. It is not unreasonable to assume that most regular children at
the age of ten are in possession of a smartphone and have working parents. At
least half of the kids' days will be spent outside of parental jurisdiction
and under the influence of other players. These players are - from most real
to most virtual: Geolocation, Government, School, Teacher, Classmates/Clique,
[...], Mobile device, Software company (Google, Microsoft et al). It is not
just a mistake to blame parents, it is the deliberate attempt to throw off any
kind of debate that needs to be had about the responsibility of tech
companies. If kids learn that likes matter, they will behave accordingly.

~~~
saraid216
I haven't read the book yet, but based on my knowledge of what boyd has said
over the past decade, I'd hazard a guess that she actually means that parents
should stop trying to defend their kids from nebulous external threats and
recognize that their own behavior is a significant part of the issue.

Last I checked, Google wasn't a daycare service. I'm not really sure why
you're trying to insist that it is.

------
rm445
Interesting article, but I can't help feeling that for the author the feeling
of loneliness is a _symptom_ of something underlying. Which makes the
loneliness itself much less interesting.

The reason I say this is, because it affects reaction and treatment. If
someone complains of persistent leg pain, you don't delve too deeply into the
nature of the pain and whether society is sufficiently kind to leg-pain-
sufferers, if it turns out their leg is caught in a bear trap.

The Stephen Fry quote makes that particularly clear. If a well-loved public
figure, by his own admission possessed of good friends and many social
engagements, can feel tremendously lonely - and if the post author, who can
discuss feelings of tremendous loneliness with friends and counsellors yet
still feel lonely, then it doesn't seem worthwhile discussing "public
discourse on the cultural ramifications of technology" or "our growing
dependence on technology to communicate" as the article does. Because the
author, actually being in a state of depression, might well feel just as
lonely if those things were totally different.

~~~
benched
There is no 'right way round' for so-called symptoms or so-called 'underlying'
conditions, because these things are subject to feedback. Positioning in
social contexts affects brain chemistry, brain chemistry affects behavior,
behavior affects positioning in social contexts. To name only a few of the
causal lines that can be drawn. As a long time sufferer of all of these
things, I've found the illness model of depression to be very nearly useless,
sometimes harmful, except during short-lived acute manifestations. I'm aware
that the mileage of others varies.

Comparing the brain to other parts of the body doesn't work. It's like trying
to reason about a CPU by studying a USB port. With other organs, it's
relatively easy to understand function and dysfunction. With the brain, it's
not as clear cut what constitutes normal functioning. Is it normal to be happy
or content in a world where, objectively, there is a lot to feel hopeless
about? What if this brain has been in solitary confinement for eight months?
Do we still expect it to be functioning normally, or look to the chemistry of
the brain to fix the situation? A human is embedded in a society and culture,
and it's very hard to treat the organ that is so profoundly affected by that
embedding in isolation. Not that it is never appropriate to treat it that way,
but I do think the current prevailing attitude does that too much.

~~~
kazagistar
I am a bit confused about terms. It seems like the discussion is about two
related but separate things.

First, there is lonelyness, the social state. This involves not talking to
people, not going to meet new people, and not talking about things you find
meaningful with those people. This is a set of actions: it is either done by
choice (not a problem) or due to some other underlying problem, like a lack of
time/effort, depression, fear of social vulnerability, anxiety, or a lack of
interpersonal skills. The reason we call these things underlying is because
they represent tangible actions that can be taken by the victim of loneliness
or someone else to fix the problem

Then there is loneliness the emotion, which might exist separate of the actual
lack of socialization described above... existential loneliness perhaps... but
most often is cause by the above.

------
noname123
Related but an off-shoot question, people who are "settled down," in your late
20's/30's/40's/50's/60's, have families and various obligations, how do you
deal with loneliness?

As someone who is on the precipice of turning 30 (27 currently), speaking
strictly for myself - I've found that loneliness for me and my older peers is
different from the angst of adolescence a la Holden. Tbh, younger people tend
to think in more black and white terms and very ambitious but most haven't
gone through the "test" of one's vulnerability and limitation. Unfortunately,
we also live in a marketing society that sells products and dreams on the Fear
of Missing Out (FOMO) that exploit the impressionable young people (e.g., the
"MTV" high school memories with the "Coke" concert experience with friends;
the "Ivy League" class room experience, the "Liberal Arts" self-exploration,
the "Sexy-Times" with la-femme-de-Zooey Deschanel and "Peter Thiel/Steve Jobs
entrepreneur" iconoclasm).

Whereas I was a jack-ass when I was 21, thinking I was special and therefore
deserved and expected external tokens of accomplishments at every stage in my
life (I was crestfallen at age 21 after being rejected by YC because I
couldn't post a smug post on FB to snub all of my classmates and friends; and
most importantly, have that as a validation to my insecure self-worth; a
loneliness stemming out of FOMO). My loneliness nowadays is more centered
around the splintering of between mine and my friends and acquaintances' goals
and vision.

Some of my friends are still going at it with early twenties vision of grad
school, startups and traveling, albeit with some bruises and splints. Some of
my friends have fully "embraced" adulthood, complete with jumbo mortgage loans
and X month into pregnancy and parenting books and diapers.
Friendships/liasons have changed from one-on-one interaction to couples or
single "dating" another couple or single. But most alarmingly, how much less I
care and am affected by my peers' ideas and vision because how much I've fully
embraced my own vulnerabilities/personality and focused fully to vest on my
own ideas.

People who have past their 20's, how do you deal with loneliness? Do you focus
on your family or really close friends after twenties, or do you focus on
pursuing your own ideas with a community of likely-minded people, or do you
come up with some kind of philosophical reconciliation?

~~~
firemanx
I'm 31. I was 25 when I got married, which was also the same year the company
I co-founded hit the skids and eventually a brick wall. That first year was
really rough on us (we started with 1 child and had another in the middle of
that year), but we survived and watching that company burn was one of the most
valuable life lessons I've ever had. We've had another two kids since then,
and I've learned a few other things along the way.

Before I was married, all of those fears and anxieties ruled my life. I think
that's partly what attracted me to the startup world and ultimately to
starting that company. I wanted to chase my ambitions and fight that feeling
of loneliness. However, the great lesson I learned from that company, and
ultimately from the last few years of marriage and kids is that you won't be
alone when you choose to value the people you love over achievements you earn,
stuff you buy, or even just stuff you work really hard on. I poured it on with
the 90 and 100 hour weeks the last 6 months of that company and in the end the
company crumbled and my hard work left me with nothing but bitterness toward
my creation (I eventually got past the bitterness). Today I invest that time
in my wife and my kids, and they are my world to me. They're my best friends.
There's no earning their love, but the time I spend with them is never wasted.
I don't get through the week, having prioritized them over other things, and
think to myself "man, I really wish I'd spent an extra 20 hours on that
personal project" that will never do anything for my personal fulfillment
beyond some temporary ego boost.

Now. That's not to say I don't still love the startup and technology world. I
do. And I still have those personal projects. And that professional community.
I also love working hard on stuff that pushes the envelope. But the funny
thing is that ever since I put that part of myself in a bounded box I've
enjoyed it more and been more productive. There isn't the sense of having to
keep up, and yet I'm still able to. Consequently I'm happier at work and since
I don't draw my personal worth from it, I can take setbacks and move on and
still enjoy it.

I don't know that everyone should get married, but it seems to me that, based
on everyone I've ever known, that you best fight loneliness by surrounding
yourself with people who will stick by you regardless of job, religion, social
status , health, or anything else. To me, the question to ask is - if the
world fell apart right now, would the people you prioritize still be with you?

~~~
naradaellis
Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. You've put words to some half-
formed thoughts I've been having since a recently failed relationship. Live
and learn

------
PeterWhittaker
My first year or two of university were somewhat similar, with periods of
significant loneliness, which I can now, many years later, compare to grief in
its intensity and debilitating effect (knowing full well that my recollections
of those affects is hazy at best).

Part of this was the feeling of isolation caused by being in a new place
without the "support network" I had in high school.

"Putting myself out there" didn't help much (I was involved in several groups,
including drama productions, where one literally puts one's self out there).

What helped immensely were one or two intimate relationships, in one case a
summer romance (yeah, I know how cliché that sounds) between second and third
year and in the other a sometimes rocky and difficult two year relationship
over my last two years (fourth and fifth).

Thinking about these relationships Vs friendships Vs acquaintancies prompts me
to speculate that there is a strong positive correlation between the amount of
time one spends with another person and one's sense of well being:
Acquaintances were little blips of goodness that drained away quickly when the
other left (minutes, say?), the feeling of goodness from being with a friend
could last hours or even a day or two, but with highs and lows, but living
together had me feeling good about myself all the time, even after a bad
fight, with amount of time spent with the person directly related to the depth
of the relationship: You don't spend as much time with your acquaintances,
even if you want to, because they have other acquaintances and friends and
lovers, and they want to spend time with them; you spend more time with
friends, because you are their friend too; and you spend so much more time
with lovers because that is the choice you have both made.

In 20/20 hindsight, I am quite glad we didn't have the Internet (it would one
year after leaving U that I learned to spell TCP/IP and another year before I
got my first email address) and that phones calls were so expensive: If I had
had "anchors" elsewhere that I could easily reach and hold on to, I don't know
that I would have stayed where I was.

As it was, I had to "bear down" and "barrel through" until better times came
by. Sure, a different path could have led to just as good a life, but I'd hate
to travel back and take that chance: Things are good, very good.

------
dschiptsov
Because nothing could be accomplished without avoiding constant distractions
which comes from society. When Sartre said his famous "the hell is other
people" he probably meant this too. Others, like Mishima, Rand, Nabokov, Hesse
also emphasized if not loneliness but certain safe distance from so-called
society. It is perfectly ok to be alone from all that socially constructed
reality they created for themselves. Like Tibetans said "the hell is a not a
place, but a consequence of behavior of inhabitants".

So loneliness is required, at least it is more bearable and natiral condition
for those who is labeled as by society as "introvert" or "autist" or other
words they cannot understand. Introversion is an effect, not a cause, and with
good books, like "Catcher" cited by OP one is never alone, and it is a better
condition than being "social animal" before TV set, or with a bottle on the
street.

~~~
auvrw
or just view things as a spectrum rather than a two-state decision. even
tibetan people who have to live in remote areas in order to farm can still get
together with friends and race horses and so on every year. similarly,
software development might require extended periods of focused time, but that
doesn't mean you ought to be socially isolated _all_ the time.

~~~
dschiptsov
All generalizations are wrong, this one is no exception. Let's say that it is
more correct for "individualism" centered Western cultures and makes less
sense for "community" centerd cultures, such as Tibetan's and most of Asian's.
I difenitely could survive without a bunch of selfish assholes, maintaining a
minimal enough interaction with society, while in Tibet, where they live in
clans of relatives and tribes, so you have to be part of your small, isolated
community. But in a broad sense the idea to isolate oneself from pop-culture
and media and construed by it shared social reality, to see things as they are
(to very limited extent, of course) is good one, and all the good writers,
like Pamuk or Marques told us how good it is.

------
einhverfr
This is an interesting article. I found myself agreeing with it most of the
time. At the same time, as someone who has overcome a lonely path, I can't
help but put a lot more emphasis on culture than on the others.

American culture is a lonely culture, as my wife is always pointing out. We
send our kids to college alone. We retire alone. We look at social problems
like poverty as if they are held by the individual alone. Loneliness is the
price of freedom but it is also the price includes lack of real social and
physical support.

When I moved to Indonesia two years ago, things went downhill with my marriage
fast. My wife was always threatening to send me back to the States (every
couple weeks) and I couldn't develop a sense of place in the midst of the
uncertainty. I felt like I was half-way around the world from anyone who cared
about me except for the kids. It was a very dark, depressing, and crippling
place to be (business-wise, personally, and more). And so things continued for
most of two years. Eventually we did overcome our problems (in no small part
due to me eventually deciding I had to ignore her threats).

Here's the basic thing. It doesn't take many people to combat loneliness.
Quality matters far more than quantity. Getting out there and meeting people
is a smallish part of the battle. A much larger issue is building real
friendships with a small number of people.

Having two or three close friends makes a world of difference.

~~~
reneherse
Sounds like if your spouse is threatening to "send" you out of the country a
more significant problem than loneliness might be an emotionally abusive and
dysfunctional relationship. I only say this (as a reality check) because I've
been there, and one can become so numb and codependent that you cease to be
aware that this type of behavior is not loving, not normal, and not what you
deserve.

~~~
einhverfr
One thing one has to learn in an intercultural relationship is how culturally
defined abuse actually is. Additionally one has to understand that far from
what we like to think, patterns in interpersonal relationships are more
cybernetic in nature (i.e. arising from feedback systems) than anything else
and when you cross cultural barriers it takes a lot of work and effort to make
things work.

Was it dysfunctional? Absolutely. Is that a good idea to break up the family
where there are three kids and separate everyone by the diameter of the
planet? Not so much.

What I can also say though is that for all the problems I have learned so much
I could not have learned otherwise by being willing to work on understanding a
perspective of another culture. The cost has been great but the rewards have
as well.

------
wmnwmn
I think we're mainly lonely because we learn to value sex as the primary goal
in interpersonal relationships, thereby devaluing everything else. There is a
linear relationship in western culture between the rise of emphasis on sex,
which at first seemed "liberating", and the decline in feelings of
connectedness with other people. Read some of the older literature which seems
"repressed" by today's standards, and you will see that people had a better
appreciation for life's other blessings, placed a higher value on friendship,
and had more substantial friendships with other people. I don't think it has
much at all to do with technology or the "pace of life", or even materialism;
it's mainly about sex and where it lives in our value system. We don't want to
go back to being repressed, but our current value system needs some
adjustment, which will be difficult because it is a form of addiction. Like
other addictions, it gradually drains meaning from the rest of life.
Ironically the epic glut of pornography could help turn the tide, as people
just overdose and realize how empty the whole thing really is. The recent rise
of mainstream sadistic fantasies like 30 Shades suggests the end of the line
for this kind of thing; what would be next?

------
matryoshka
Loneliness can't be addressed easily via social networks as you are not really
authentic self when you are on them. When you are on Facebook, you want to
project a positive image of yourself so you can get more Likes as a 'way to
go'. On LinkedIn it is professional you and you have to be careful how you
brand yourself there to be viewed by potential employers or customers. Twitter
is not expansive enough to form meaningful connections though it can be done
over time with a small group of people. The best way is still connecting in
person seeing the person's face and body language. 'Find better people' is the
advice to live by.

------
rk17
I think it's a very interesting and well-documented article. Everything is
actually summarized in the 4 minute video half-way through the article, if
you're short on time. Basically our need for self-actualization and the lens
that our social platforms offer (idealized)is killing our social experience,
by emphasizing quantity (connections and likes) over quality (content)and an
easy excuse not to admit you're lonely: but I have x-amount of friends on...

Nice post :D

------
anaphor
Louis C.K. had some good points on this:
[http://youtu.be/5HbYScltf1c](http://youtu.be/5HbYScltf1c)

------
weland
This advice is far better than it sounds:

> “Find better people,” he replied.

I began feeling very much like the author describes in my late high school
years. I was nothing like the unpopular guy stereotype though. Yes, between my
passion for programming and my introversion I was not exactly a lollypop, but
I wasn't the nerd that everyone hated. I was a drummer trying to start a band,
occasionally rebellious towards the teachers, and while I wasn't quite the
most popular person in the school, my girlfriend _was_. I went out regularly
and thought I had a lot of friends.

Truth is, though, I didn't. I felt increasingly lonely and trapped and
misunderstood. My passion for programming was regularly getting at odds with
my social life and I felt stigmatized for not giving my friends the attention
they needed. Instead of talking to them, I gradually moved my coding sprints
later and later in the night which, coupled with some problems I had with my
parents, destroyed my sleep schedule (which has actually been messed up ever
since).

I gradually shut every door I could shut, in everyone's face, until the
loneliness I felt was matched by the lack of human contact; my social life
became bleak, my love life pretty much ended as I gave up fighting for a five-
year relationship that I was, by then, considering hopeless, and got stuck in
a complicated relationship with someone who was about as mentally disturbed as
I was (and, to some degree, still am).

Professionally, things weren't bad, but intellectually, I thought they were.
Initial good results made me hopeful towards a career in academia, which
contributed even more to my reclusiveness, as I spent most of the time I
didn't spend on my undergrad courses doing hopelessly narrow-topic research.
However, I felt my mind degrading every day, perpetually trailing what I
_could_ have achieved if I'd have been, you know, like every normal person.
Having your line of thought interrupted by suicide plans every couple of hours
is not exactly conducive to steady intellectual improvement. About five years
into this, I was battling depression first-hand, and my aversion to therapy
meant I avoided seeking help like the plague. I started smoking and began
drinking more and more heavily every day. I gave up heavy drinking, but I'm
still stuck with the nasty pipe smoking as an occasional relief. I still went
out a lot, but almost always alone, to the extent that the owner of the bar I
became a regular client of got a small table in a corner, with a single chair,
only for me.

"Better people" doesn't sound cliche to me now. Most of my then-friends
haven't spoken to me in a long, long time now, but some of them stayed, even
as I was shutting doors in their faces. Some of them felt powerless to help me
and kept a polite distance from me, and I was hearing from them only on
anniversaries or the occasional gathering when I felt strong enough to bear
human presence. But they never got away, and stuck by, even though they did
all the friendship work by themselves. I never asked them out, rarely asked
how they felt and never called them to see how they were doing (so yeah, in
retrospect I was an asshole!); but somehow, every few months, I'd still see
them for a drink. I still got invited to New Year's Eve parties and, when
things were going really rough, someone who I hadn't seen in months popped up
with a good word.

My love for programming also brought me close to good people. Between my low
self-esteem and my disdain for flipped meritocracy, I was sure I could never
get a job (low self-esteem) in a large, well-established company, and I was
sure I'd end up hating it even if I somehow managed to trick them into hiring
me. I got my first real job in a startup; my programming and electronics
skills were, apparently, good enough for my colleagues to respect me
professionally, and their kindness and good-temper also meant we ended up
getting along as friends -- to the extent that, a long time after the company
got disbanded and we no longer work together, we still go out for drinks.

I don't think I will ever come back to my pre-depression self. I always feel
it lurking in the back of my head, like a shadow that dangles over me, and it
tainted so many things that I no longer see the world like I saw it before. On
the other hand, I'm pretty much a functioning individual now. Some things are
still hard for me, like going to large parties with people I don't know, but I
can do it without breaking down when I get home and spending the rest of the
week hugging the pillow and crying myself to sleep on and off. A lot of things
helped me here; getting back to my old hobbies again, getting a job I loved,
but none of these were as incredibly important as being surrounded by honest
friends was.

What's most incredible is that many of these guys didn't even think they did
anything grand. They were genuinely surprised when I told them how much they
helped me. Many of them felt somewhere along the lines of "I actually felt bad
for calling you so rarely and thought you didn't want to hear too much from me
because I'd been kind of an asshole". To "normal" people, it probably feels
this way, but to someone whose phone rings for weeks at a time only because of
SMS spam and payment reminders from the operator, an SMS with "so what's up
dude?" is incredibly important.

~~~
wiresurfer
A whole lot of what you said resonates with my experience. The whole workplace
being the place where you find genuinely honest "friends" seems to be a
paradox. But its really true. Socializing on the other hand is a hit and miss
thing. Its like random sampling. You may get a bunch of honest friends but a
whole lot of the people at gatherings are busy doing their own piece in the
grander social dance. On a sidenote, social networks as they exist are flawed.
But there are certain micro-interactions out of the realm of a regular social
network that sometimes have more meaning. Take for example your comment.
Striking the same chord at the least makes me feel its not just me :) I have
been lucky enough to have interacted virtually with a bunch of people online
(irc,quora, HN) which has turned into fruitful friendships. There is no
pressure of constant communication but whenever we interact, it starts from
the point where we left last time. Its almost like a breath of fresh air. So i
wouldn't outrightly saw virtual interactions are futile. BTW that SMS bit is
so true. you hit a nerve there :)

------
ff7c11
[http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcre...](http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcreprints/hc09.pdf)

------
rakeshsharmak
This is a wonderful discussion thread. Keep it coming!

------
thenerdfiles
I'm quite lonely day in and out. My manners and Way are generally
nonconformist/self-deprecating.

Thank goodness for childhood schizophrenia, or else I'd have not one singleton
of a friend.

Oh, and thanks Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory too, I guess..

