
The Surprising Reason Why Americans Are So Lonely - haidut
http://euraeka.com/article/oTY0wCZWMjMy1z4ZMOPR1g==--HALPDB8ZifzE1ZQeYewfzQ
======
edw519
Every house on the street I grew up on had a front porch and 4 to 6 people
living in it. Everyone knew everyone and we did everything together. There was
no organized sports; if you wanted to play you just went in the middle of the
street and in 5 minutes there were 10 other kids. If you wanted to take a
shortcut, you just cut though people's yards; no one had a fence.

Every one of my parent's 14 siblings and my 32 first cousins lived within 10
miles. We all saw each other at least once per week.

Our mailman cut our hair, our dry cleaner picked up and delivered, our
principal was also manager of the local swimming pool, and we worshipped in
our neighbor's basement.

We knew the names of every police officer, fireman, cashier, clerk, waitress,
gardner, and handyman in our neighborhood. If you ever needed anything,
_someone_ knew _someone else_ who could help you. We didn't have google, cell
phones, or cable TV; we had lots of other people in our lives all the time.

In college, I lived with 35 others in a fraternity house. We didn't do a whole
lot of planning. There was always someone around to do stuff with.

Today, I don't know the name of a single neighbor. I don't remember the last
time I lived in a house without a fence in back or with a porch in front. My
nearest relative lives 1000 miles away. I know the names of exactly 2
waitresses; guess where I eat out all the time?

Loneliness probably has more to do with the proximity of people in your life
than all these other "factors".

I don't know when things changed, but they sure have. Anyone with experiences
similar to mine?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
It was mostly the same with me. We attended a church 400 yards from my house.
All the neighbors did as well. The neighborhood was like a family -- if you
needed a glass of water you just went in the kitchen of the closest house and
got one. Nobody locked their doors because everybody knew everybody and
somebody was always around checking on what was going on. Kids played outside
until dark, and sometimes later, without much parental supervision. Everybody
knew that everybody else was looking out for the kids.

That's how I thought everybody grew up.

My dad died and my mom remarried and moved off to a retirement community in
Florida. They have about 1200 units which are mostly full in the winter.
Everybody attends the same church, everybody participates in the same
activities, everybody sits out on their porch in the evening. You're never
bored because somebody is always coming by and either talking to you or asking
you to participate in something. If somebody has a problem going to the store,
other people drive them. If somebody has a problem cooking their meals,
neighbors pitch in and help them out.

When my mom died last month, there were a thousand people at her memorial
service. The line of people coming by to give me a hug, cry, and offer their
condolences took almost an hour. These were people who had kids and grandkids
off all over the world, but for them the people in the park _were_ their
family.

There is something in that experience that I want, especially as I grow older.
We all spend a lot of time plugged in and wired up, but we seem to have
forgotten how to sit on the porch as the sun goes down and have a good heart-
to-heart talk about our lives and values.

As cool as technology has become, we're missing something very important.

~~~
heed
>we seem to have forgotten how to sit on the porch as the sun goes down and
have a good heart-to-heart talk about our lives and values.

We haven't forgotten, we've just changed the space. Like right now, in this
thread we're doing exactly what you claim is missing. Whether the porch is
physical or virtual isn't nearly as important as the actual sharing of ideas.

~~~
masterj
>Whether the porch is physical or virtual isn't nearly as important as the
actual sharing of ideas.

That would be like saying that the only important part of sex is the
exchanging of fluids. Yes, the internet is great, but it cannot replace a
strong family or community.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"That would be like saying that the only important part of sex is the
> exchanging of fluids."_

It strikes me as like saying the important parts of sex are the physical
sensations and emotional connection (regardless of where the fluids end up.)
It's dead on.

I have a strong family and a strong community, but much of it is online. I met
my wife on the internet (in 1998, on a website devoted to our favorite video
game); another friend from the same website was a groomsman at our wedding; we
named our son after the website's founder. Members of our online community
have organized prayer groups, attended weddings and funerals of other members,
and helped each other in times of physical, emotional, or financial crisis. I
personally have met with people from our community in Chicago, Vancouver,
Kansas City, Seattle, Denver, Colorado Springs, Provo, and at a hog farm near
Medford, Oregon.

The important part of community is not that we can walk over to each others'
houses. It's that we can share with each other, help each other, take joy in
each others successes, give comfort in failure or tragedy, learn from each
other, and treat one another as friends.

Not every website can live up to this standard of "community". But mine has
for the last twelve years.

------
johnohara
This article taught me about the problems of a small diner in Vermont and its
quest to find a local pork producer raising 300-500 pigs per year. Along the
way I read some comments about suburbia and learned the diner had a jukebox
that played the music of local artists.

Still can't tell you why Americans are so lonely.

~~~
Periodic
I got the same impression. The article felt like two articles hastily joined
in the middle. The first was some musing on the loneliness and disconnected
lives Americans now lead, with some unsupported thoughts as to why.

Then it launched into a description of the problems of a local diner owner.

The article was heavy on the heartstrings, light on the facts.

------
bmm6o
"The page you were looking for doesn't exist. You may have mistyped the
address or the page may have moved."

Wow, that's pretty zen.

~~~
Volscio
Here's the non-scraped link:
[http://www.alternet.org/vision/146623/the_surprising_reason_...](http://www.alternet.org/vision/146623/the_surprising_reason_why_americans_are_so_lonely,_and_why_future_prosperity_means_socializing_with_your_neighbors)

And reddit comments: <http://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/bwsm2/>

------
gizmo
The conclusion of the article is (and I paraphrase) that Americans are so
lonely because they don't gossip anymore while shopping. I'm not buying that.

It wouldn't surprise me if the opposite were true: that by buying everything
from the internet you save time you would otherwise spend in shopping malls...
which you can then invest in meaningful (real life) relationships instead.

~~~
lutorm
The conclusion of the article was that people don't _need_ to meet people
anymore to go about their life. The question is if the time saved by shopping
online ( _if any_ , while it may be more efficient, there's also much more
data you can potentially peruse in deciding your purchases), or in the
supermarket, is actually invested in cultivating relationships or if it goes
into more hours working, for example.

~~~
gizmo
Right, but my point is that even if you interact with people while shopping it
doesn't lead to meaningful relationships, so I think the "correct" choice is
to shop in whichever way is most time efficient.

What you end up doing with the time you save is up to you of course. But no
amount of shopping is going to compensate for a lack of friends and family.

~~~
enjo
I think you're completely correct. This is really a suburban issue more than
anything else. Think about suburbs:

() Each part of your existence is cordoned off into unique zones. There is the
work zone, the shopping zone, and the home zone.

() None of these 'zones' are close enough together to walk. So you get into
your car (with tinted windows!) and drive from zone to zone.

() Your house has a big fence (it's a 'privacy fence').

() Your house is huge. So big that you have rooms dedicated to things like
excercise and 'media'. You don't have to leave your house...ever! You can
excercise at home. No need to go to the movies. That gourmet kitchen can feed
200...

() Look at your street. In suburbia the streets are curvy and twisting... why?
Go stand out on your front sidewalk. Notice how when the street twists it
looks like you only have a handful of neighbors? That's why...

() That subdivision has a name. I bet it's _something_ ranch, or _something
glades_ or some other name designed to make you think you're living far out in
the country away from everything (a great post on the subject:
[http://denverinfill.com/blog/2006/09/guide-to-suburban-
denve...](http://denverinfill.com/blog/2006/09/guide-to-suburban-denver-
subdivision.html))

Everything about suburban life is designed to isolate. You drive in your
tinted car to the giant grocery store. You nod at the cashier, hurry back to
your car and drive home. You park as close to the store as you can.

You'll find that folks in suburban areas are obsessed with security. That's
what their being sold. 'Come live here and you'll be so isolated no one can
ever do anything bad to you ever!!'. Of course the cynic in me takes a trip
back to the 60's and hears 'Come live here and you'll be so isolated you'll
never have to deal with those black people in the cit...ever!!'

So ya... living in that environment you're bound to be unhappy. I've done
that. I've lived it. It sucked.

Contrast that with my current situation:

() Small house with a small fence.

() Nice front porch

() Streets on the city grid.

() Grocery store is a 5 minute walk away

() (lots of) Restaurants, shops, and parks are all within walking distance

() My wife and I own one car, but we almost never use it. Our bikes get us
around quite nicely.

() We both take public transit daily.

It's amazing. When we're walking or riding the bus we are nearly constantly
interacting with other human beings. Walking down the road we'll meet new
folks and pet their dog. More than once we've invited folks inside for a
drink... It's really a pleasant way to live. I'm sure that we're statistically
slightly less safe (our house was broken into once, and cars are occasionally
robbed on our street) but we're 100% more happy.

I've noticed that the kids in the neighborhood (and there are a LOT) are also
much better adjusted and well socialized as well. When we lived in the suburbs
it became comical. We had tons of trouble finding places to eat. We'd go to
$30/plate restaurants that would still have kids running around like it was
Chuck-E-Cheese. I really think that the lack of daily socialization breeds a
child that is fundamentally self-interested.

Urban kids do much better. Sure we've had the occasional problem... but it's
been far less frequent. It just seems like a more natural and overall better
way to live.

~~~
potatolicious
Grew up in a suburb, cannot agree more. You'd have to beat me with a very
large bat to get me to go back to that kind of lifestyle. It's _not_ a way to
live.

It doesn't have to be this way, though. Part of the urban conversation that
happens in America is diluted by the polarizing notion that you either have
the twisty, identical, soulless gigantic suburb, or the gardens of glass and
steel that is high-rise condos. The people on either side see the opposing
extreme as the alternative - but it needn't be so.

Walkable suburbs are _entirely_ feasible - you don't need big concrete high-
rises to be dense and transit-friendly.

~~~
enjo
I totally agree. As a matter of fact I live in a neighborhood that __IS __a
suburb. It's one of the original 'streetcar suburbs' in Denver.

The big differences:

* houses align to the city grid (well a city grid, Denver actually has two.. it's complicated;) ). This is really important as the grid is far more friendly for pedestrian access. * mixed use: There are integrated retail spots throughout the neighborhood. I don't have to leave the confines of my neighborhood to take care of almost anything * Ready access to transit. I have a bus stop 2 bloycks away * Proximity : I'm about 2 miles out of Downtown.

I still have a house (albeit much smaller than out in the burbs). I have two
dogs. I have a yard. So in many ways I have the same trappings as those houses
farther out, just less space.

Really when we talk abut 'suburbs' we're talking about 'exurbs' or extra urban
areas.

That said, it can be very difficult to get this right. Here in Denver our old
Airport gave way to a 'new urban' development called Stapleton. To me it's an
absolute tragedy. The planners took 'walkable' to mean, quite literally, 'able
to easily walked'. They forgot that you have to actually have things to walk
TO. They built a neighborhood that sort of mashes up the two concepts. The
houses are on the grid (for the most part), but the retail centers are highly
zoned off. So they failed to actually integrate the retail into the
neighborhood itself. They sit on the edges of the development. It has nice
wide sidewalks and a really big park, but most people live at a pretty good
distance.

So the results are mixed. You do get a lot of leisure walking going on. On a
day like today (almost 80 degrees and sunny) you'll see a lot of folks out and
about pushing strollers and the like. However, most people find themselves
packing up the car when they want to eat or go to the grocery store.

Contrast that with my neighborhood where half the streets don't have sidewalks
that go all the way through. Yet it's highly trafficked all day and well into
the evening simply because we have lots of places worth walking to.

note: As you can tell, this is one of most favorite topics to absolutely geek
out about:)

------
fauigerzigerk
It seems about once every 20 years or so there's a new wave of this small is
beautiful, re-localization, grow your own food or die idea. Maybe every
generation has to go through that phase before realizing that we're never
going to go back to anything resembling our countryside village past. And I'm
glad we won't.

It's all based on the idea that we're running out of traditional sources of
energy so quickly that we won't be able to innovate ourselves out of it. I
don't believe that for a second. It's wishful thinking by people who will
latch on to any difficulty to make that same argument over and over again.

There are huge amounts of natural gas left and we have nuclear. I don't see
why that wouldn't be sufficient for a smooth transition to more wind and solar
to save us from the horrible prospect of the stifling, oppressive horror that
was the village.

------
tarkin2
I recall the article written by the lady who put her son on the New York
underground.

The media berated her because they were sure other people would do something
bad to him.

I often think this lack of trust, paranoia and fear separates us--leads to
loneliness.

------
jamesbritt
Are Americans so lonely? The article doesn't seem to establish that. There's a
reference to a book, and an assertion, but since I'm not going to read that
before I read the article, it doesn't help.

Saying that people have fewer friends or neighbours doesn't equate to being
more lonely. People may have richer lives with less face-to-face contact
because they can now interact with people who are more in tune with their
beliefs and dreams.

It doesn't help to have lots of neighbours if all of them think you're just
that weird goth kid. But if you can share a virtual space with thousands of
other weird goth kids, you may be better off, and less lonely.

------
petercooper
This is by no means a solely American phenomenon. The article could be as
easily describing modern urban and suburban Britain to a tee.

------
metamemetics
The real reason why Americans are lonely is simply because they stay at home.
Rather than living and working out of cafes and pubs. Doesn't matter whether
its the suburb or city. Compare this to somewhere like Spain where they even
take their children to bars with them.

------
InclinedPlane
I have a car, access to public transit, a cell phone, and the internet. I can
choose to socialize with the people I choose to, rather than the people who
are spatially closest to me through mere happenstance. I don't know my
neighbors much nor do I need to. I have plenty of friends and I am not at all
lonely. I doubt my story is unique in the western world.

------
vishaldpatel
I wonder how many of us complainers about how we're all disconnected actually
try to a) go out an make friends, b) do something for others in the
neighborhood, c) basically get off our asses (and the internets) and go
interact and be a part of the community.

------
Tichy
"Not the kind of money that's looking for a 20 percent annual gain; when that
happens, everything but return gets pushed aside. What Tasch has in mind is a
consistent, sound, 3 or 4 percent return"

Is 20% all that much? The way I see it, one has to strive for gains to
compensate for losses (in bad years). I am pretty sure 3% gain is not enough
to compensate for losses.

In the worst case, your product becomes obsolete from one year to the next.
Happy if you had some healthy years and can invest in creating a new product.

I am all for cosy countryside romanticism, I just don't understand why bad
economics have to be part of the equation.

~~~
gaius
3-4% won't keep you ahead of inflation.

------
code_duck
I don't think it was the fault of "cheap energy". Oil and motor companies
designed our cities to be the way there are, killed dense downtown living
areas and public transportation, on purpose. So, the demise of community
sociality is squarely their fault, a victim of capitalism and the political
influence of money.

------
greenlblue
Certainly the abundance of anonymous services and goods takes out a lot of the
enjoyable social aspects of those things but it also makes many other things
possible. I don't think there has ever been a time in history like this one
where the barriers to entry to whatever you can imagine have been so low.

------
bmm6o
Anyone interested in this topic should read "Bowling Alone". It's pretty
scholarly but very readable.

------
LiveTheDream
Interesting to see a VC firm whose goal is 3-4% returns instead of 20%
returns.

------
pw0ncakes
It's not just cheap oil. The real reason: it's part of our national character,
especially post-1950. We don't care enough about close friendships to have
them.

We have an arrangement where everyone in the white-collar world is expected to
live a lifestyle that makes sense only for the most ambitious-- 40-60+ hour
work weeks, unpaid overtime, a social life based on weak ties ("networking"),
and national job markets. This is fine for the most ambitious 0.1%, but it
shouldn't be _expected_ of the other 99.9% who will never be CEOs.

Because we deny the reality of class, we're in a sort of perennial "gold rush"
mentality. Look at the shitty houses built in suburbia, most of which will be
falling to pieces in 30 years. Isn't this the same level of quality you'd
expect in housing built one mile from a gold mine, on land that will be
abandoned after the mine is exhausted?

Europeans focus more on community and less on individual ambition because they
know that most of them will never be CEOs. Oddly enough, virtually every study
of social mobility has concluded that Europeans have at least as much social
mobility as we do in all dimensions that matter. We sacrifice a lot more, and
don't get much for the sacrifice.

~~~
enjo
It's strange, because my experience is completely counter to that. I'm 30
years old. I live in a relatively dense urban neighborhood in Denver. I have
many close friends that I see on at least a weekly basis and often much more
often than that. My experience is very similar to the one studied in a great
book:

Urban Tribes - <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1582342644>

Maybe it's a generational thing? While the political and social structures
have definitely changed (particularly with regards to church), the end result
is very much the same. I think the 'Generation Y' (god I hate that term) is
showing a very different attitude towards community than our parents did.
They're (we're?) settling into more urban neighborhoods. They value their
friendships and relationships more than the previous generation did. They're
relying on those friendships much longer and postponing starting families.

It really does seem to me that this generation is living _gasp_ a much more
European lifestyle than generations past. Having lived in Europe myself for
several years, I can definitely see the similarities.

~~~
jimbokun
"Maybe it's a generational thing? ... They're (we're?) settling into more
urban neighborhoods."

Maybe it is more an urban vs. suburban thing, more so than generational. Of
course, younger people might be more urban and older people more suburban.

------
zeynel1
The hero of Sartre's Nausea says on page 6 "I live alone, entirely alone. I
never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing...."
[http://books.google.com/books?id=dbCJ40j7t1sC&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=dbCJ40j7t1sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sartre&cd=2#v=onepage&q=alone&f=false)
That was written in 1938. Probably he was alone by choice (not lonely). Now we
are alone (lonely) because technology forces us to be alone?

------
jbarciauskas
I stopped reading at "And they've paid equal, or even greater, attention to
suburbia; in the developed world, after all, that's where most people live."

I don't think this is true. Google failed me but according to
[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo...](http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-P1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-format=US-1)
), the plurality of people in the US live in "urban, urbanized area, central
place" (39%), as opposed to "not in a central place" (29%) or "rural" (21%).
And my experience is that the US is much more suburban than the rest of the
developed world, Europe particularly. Seems a very odd thing to say. Turns
out, most people actually live in cities, and have jobs other than writing
this kind of nonsense.

~~~
henrikschroder
If you stopped reading there, you completely missed the meat of the article,
it wasn't about suburbia at all, it was about getting the size of businesses
right.

