Not at all illusory to my mind. We've never been more disconnected from people as we become ever more connected to the net. And that, is certainly not where I thought we'd end up or were even heading for most of the time I've worked in tech.
Society has had 40 years being persuaded to believe in the cult of the individual and that society and community does not exist, and did not matter anyway. All that real terms GDP growth gives fewer and fewer community services and resources because of reasons - political dogma and artificial commercialisation mostly.
Just about every resource, amenity, hobby and club my parents would recognise, and had locally, has been commercialised, consolidated and centralised. There's now fewer of them, and so they're further and further apart. Now it needs transport, and planning. Pubs, clubs, shops and small music venues are closing in record numbers, and besides who can afford (time or money) to go out any more? So Netflix and chill.
Now add apps that try to make every single human interaction no longer actually need human interaction. No need to talk to someone in a bar, or when meeting friends to get a date, we got Tinder marketing images to swipe, and instant messaging to avoid making a call or visit.
Maybe I'm just getting too old but I miss friends calling every week or so just to talk crap for 30 minutes. That got spaced ever wider - now comparatively rare - everyone's on fucking facebook or working on their instagram image. Calls are far more likely to feel intrusive. The other half can talk for England, but spends a fraction of the time on calls compared to 10 or 20 years ago.
Any more disconnected and there'll be a moat around everyone's houses. Convince me it's all illusory. :)
To offer a counter-point: for me, all those social networks and internet in general facilitated some of the most meaningful friendships of my life. Mind you, I am talking about real-life friendships, not just "internet friends" kind of stuff.
For example, two of my closest friends that I hang out with on the order of multiple times a week (dinners, concerts, sports games, etc.), I would have probably never met them if it wasn't for the common facebook groups. We don't even use FB that much (I log in about once every couple of days for 5-10 minutes at most), but I definitely attribute a chunk of the success of our friendship to FB. That's how we met, that's how we find new events and things to do (oh, your acquaintance X liked that new art exhibit opening on the museum FB page, you would probably be interested in checking that out with your friends!).
Also, I don't know where you live, but in my area, things are only getting better in terms of places for meaningful socialization. New small niche bars, concert venues, and hobby places (hacker spaces/libraries/garage co-ops/hobby-specific clubs/etc.) open up at a regular rate and seem to attract a lot of people, many of which become regulars. I talk to bartenders quite often, and most of them seem to echo that sentiment.
>we got [...] instant messaging to avoid making a call or visit.
Maybe if someone uses messaging as a REPLACEMENT to hanging out in person, they never wanted to hang out in the first place? To me, that sounds like a good thing, because in this scenario, messaging cuts out forced in-person interactions of low quality.
I've made plenty of real-life friends online too - difficult not to when you've transitioned through BBS's and everything since.
Social is the point it got less social, and more about algorithm of outrage and reaction - of the knee-jerk kind, oh, messaging and scheduling. Or sometimes trying to give carefully perfect posed glimpses into imperfect lives. More like movie of the life and marketing themselves than the life. Of course that's simply amplifying the bad tendencies of people as well as good, but it has brought a change in quality too.
If it's just me reaching dinosaur age, well the kids and friends seem far less satisfied with their lot than I ever remember anyone at their age - whilst still claiming to be mainly happy. I'm not even going to try and pick that apart here. :)
> things are only getting better in terms of places for meaningful socialization in my area
High streets are struggling, and it's not just retail - so I'm not sure where you are! Locally, and if the media is to be believed, everywhere that is not central London is losing all those sorts of amenities at similar rates. Libraries rate a special mention - they have been decimated everywhere, including London. Sure, it's not quite a cultural desert, but considering the growth of the town you'd hope there would be more not fewer venues and choices. I can venture further afield to a major city centre and find plenty of bars and restaurants, but even there fewer choices overall. Far more chance of 5 identikit Weatherspoons in place of the interesting, and great, independents.
> they never wanted to hang out in the first place
I suppose I walked into that. :p Thing is, it's not just me - I hear many muttering similarly at work, or when we do meet up, and we are talking on a post of an epidemic of loneliness after all. Everyone seems to be spread more and more thinly. Drowning, not waving?
But you generally know easily enough when people have moved on, lost interest, or are blanking you - that's something qualitatively different.
It's just an anecdotal point, but I've been meeting way more people in real life than online for dating purposes recently.
What's interesting (and a little frustrating) is that most of these people profess that they are introverts who rarely ever go out. You would think the segment of people you meet at bars/clubs would be people who go to bars/clubs and are thus fairly outgoing, but it's not the case.
Granted this is in the context of the queer community, which in some ways got hit very hard by apps/etc; it used to be very hard to meet queer people outside of queer bars (because how else would you reliably know, especially in a world where such identities were usually hidden?).
Speaking personally, it's very deleterious to me if I go even a couple days without talking to people IRL (god forbid I'm WFH), so I sometimes make myself go out. Sort of like going to the gym, I'm sometimes not in the mood but pretty much always feel better afterwards (assuming I don't end up with a terrible hangover ;) ). I think it's worth it for the casual HN reader to see just how well they handle staying in all the time if, indeed, they do.
Hmm, interesting and confusing. Where did all the extroverts go then?
From friends I get the impression the shallow of Tinder has worn a bit thin. Though I've been off the dating market so long, and it's changed so much I have no clue how I'd go about it now, if I found myself needing to.
> it's very deleterious to me if I go even a couple days without talking to people IRL (god forbid I'm WFH)
I think I share some degree of that, which is partly why I miss people just phoning for a chin wag. My one stint working from home had me feeling isolated after the productive early novelty wore off. A week or two? Sure. Ongoing? Hell no. :)
It's one of those things you struggle with until you have to do it a lot. Young people grew up in the age of email and social media so they weren't forced to get good at talking on the phone. Spend a summer selling junk on Craigslist and the problem is solved forever.
Not at all illusory to my mind. We've never been more disconnected from people as we become ever more connected to the net. And that, is certainly not where I thought we'd end up or were even heading for most of the time I've worked in tech.
Society has had 40 years being persuaded to believe in the cult of the individual and that society and community does not exist, and did not matter anyway. All that real terms GDP growth gives fewer and fewer community services and resources because of reasons - political dogma and artificial commercialisation mostly.
Just about every resource, amenity, hobby and club my parents would recognise, and had locally, has been commercialised, consolidated and centralised. There's now fewer of them, and so they're further and further apart. Now it needs transport, and planning. Pubs, clubs, shops and small music venues are closing in record numbers, and besides who can afford (time or money) to go out any more? So Netflix and chill.
Now add apps that try to make every single human interaction no longer actually need human interaction. No need to talk to someone in a bar, or when meeting friends to get a date, we got Tinder marketing images to swipe, and instant messaging to avoid making a call or visit.
Maybe I'm just getting too old but I miss friends calling every week or so just to talk crap for 30 minutes. That got spaced ever wider - now comparatively rare - everyone's on fucking facebook or working on their instagram image. Calls are far more likely to feel intrusive. The other half can talk for England, but spends a fraction of the time on calls compared to 10 or 20 years ago.
Any more disconnected and there'll be a moat around everyone's houses. Convince me it's all illusory. :)