Honestly, I've never had problems talking to random strangers. Some of my best friends were random strangers at first.<p>IMO, the problem has nothing to do with the internet. Instead, the problem has more to do with poorly controlling marketing and homelessness. Political correctness also takes a toll.<p>When I lived in the Bay Area, most of the time I was randomly approached, "on the street," it was from a homeless person. Thus, I was less likely to be friendly to someone when I was in areas with high amounts of homeless people. If the Bay Area took care of the homeless situation better, there would be less people approaching me, and then it would be easier to interact with strangers.<p>But then, what about being in stores, malls, ect? I then need to put up defenses against aggressive marketing. That also makes it hard to be friendly. If we considered unsolicited marketing as insulting, we wouldn't need to keep our defenses up in places of commerce.<p>Even political correctness takes a toll. If I start talking with someone who has a different opinion than me, or is a difference race than me, faux pas get blown out of proportion. No one wants to make friends with someone who's going to scream at them for being a bigot because they lean a little right, or be labeled a libtard because they lean a little left.
For a long time I've been wanting a "Tinder For Platonic Adults" app. I'm not looking for romance or sex, but I want to find nearby matches with similar interests; do you drink, play board games, are you married, how many kids and what age?<p>There are likely tens of matches for me within a 5 minute drive, I just <i>don't know how to find them</i>.<p>I'm a friendly guy and would love to have that friend that feels comfortable stopping by unannounced or that I can share my latest batch of cheesecake with. I'd love to have regular friendly gatherings nearly every weekend. Literally the only thing stopping me is the first step of connecting. Once I'm there I can easily deal with step 2: "dating" the field to find a decent practical match with mutual interest in the relationship.
I think a huge factor is the growing theme of social interaction being unacceptable. Back in the day you could walk up to and make friends with almost anyone, it wasn't weird to interact with strangers, thus making new acquaintances.<p>Modern society stigmatizes that kind of interaction, don't talk to people you don't know if you don't want to be ostracized. You could want to befriend someone in a crowd, but come up with no good ways to go about the situation. See someone wearing a cool jacket and you decide you want to be their friend > Go up and introduce yourself > See almost every single person in the immediate area turn and spectate the interaction, instantly judging you as out of the ordinary. Really stretching the topic, even getting contact information is more difficult these days. 20 years ago you could meet someone, and they'd have no issue giving out their home telephone number. You'd ring them up and you could schedule to see a movie. Nowadays you are considered suspicious if you ask for someones phone number. I know people today that will absolutely not give out their phone number to anyone other than immediate family.If you are their friend and want to contact them, you have to do it over a social app like IG.<p>That and it can be hard to find people you fit in with well due to the rise of the internet and people staying inside. If you are a hermit and enjoy other hermits, you won't find them by going outside. Which means you are then stuck with trying to meet people online, and introducing yourself online is even harder than it is in person and met with the same hostility. I'm talking about guy > guy and girl > girl here. It's a whole different level of hell trying to befriend someone of the opposite sex these days. Most people assume you either want something sexual or unusual, not just friendship.
I've never had a relationship and I think over 30 it's really hard to find one (especially if you never had one so don't have the "how to experience"). Everyone is either already married, or already divorced with kids, or just out of your league. The married part also has another effect: you won't get invited to a lot of events where people socialize, say a kids birthday party where the parents also come together.<p>Also I think it's a personal thing but I don't even try to make contact with anyone because of the whole climate of our society. Obviously it's divided and that's really bad on its own but I think about things like mansplaining. Basically you are reminded everywhere how bad it is and I agree on that but as an anxious person it makes even more less willing to make contact because I always have that thought of what if you are a doing something wrong, you will be accused of something etc.<p>Yeah reading back my comment doesnt really make any sense but... I feel that some people, some of us just meant to be forever alone for good or bad
Incredible how the subtext here is "loneliness requires healthcare" rather than, say, "loneliness requires coordinated social change". Almost as if the goal is "how can we frame loneliness as an illness and reap some sweet insurance money."
Many reasons for this, and many good ones have already been noted, but I haven't seen anyone mention time yet. Americans work a lot. If you don't make friends at work, or you don't maintain friendships from high school or college, you're working on limited time and energy - as are the people you hope to befriend (though you don't know who they are yet). If you have a family, it's even harder.<p>I don't have kids, and while I don't have a ton of friends, I'm lucky to have some good, close friends, who I don't (imo) have enough time for and don't get to see enough.
I'm 21 years old, I grew up online. I started on myspace and chat via gmail, eventually moving to Facebook.<p>Fast forward through an early highschool graduation, and taking most college classes online: I have no idea how on Earth I am to socialize with people in the real world.<p>I quit and deactivated Facebook in January, and since I have felt so truly alone. Each day I ride an uber to my dev job, work mostly by myself, then ride back to my apartment. I speak with my coworkers, but all business, and rarely speak with the drivers because it feels so awkward and strange.<p>To me, it feels like it's going to get worse. I am personally upset that my abilities to connect with other people my age feels so stunted because of the Web. And now, kids in this school district use smartphones in 6th grade.<p>A lot of this is likely bias, my mental health is really suffering, and I've bounced in and out of therapy for awhile. So take it with a grain of salt.
Theory: human relationships can be hard, very hard, and any technology that confuses one into thinking he can enjoy his time without the 'burden' of human interactions is pushing this issue deeper.
There was a related discussion here a few months ago about the difficulty of making friends after a certain age (40?).
Here's my take on it, from someone who immigrated to the US late in his 20s. My point of view is very biased towards the region I live in, which is much more educated and wealthy than most of the US.<p>Let's start with how kids grow up here since I think it affects their social life later in life. American parents are protective. Most kids, even in middle school, have very structured schedule where time with friends is usually not a priority like academics. Playdates are usually organized by the parents and they are usually short and not spontaneous. Kids who don't live in walkable urban areas with good public transit usually depend on their parents to drive them around to friends. I heard that in rural and poor areas it's even worse. People never go to each other house, instead they only meet at the Church.<p>Now let's talk about American adults. Americans seem to love communities. They are pretty involved in their communities which is great. However, they usually stay away from forming deep relationships and exposing themselves. Sometimes it feels like they don't want to be a burden on somebody else. Not sure exactly how to explain it. My impression is that many Americans have friends but usually not very close friends (at least based on my definition of close). Maybe the size of the country and the fact the people move often is also a factor.
I'm curious if this is a direct result of the internet and smartphones. The two make us feel more connected, more global, but I think it makes us more isolated. I miss talking to my friends on the phone, and hanging out in the 90s. Everything, especially how humans interact, is so digital today.
"Decades of research substantiate the devastating effects of social isolation. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and increases the risk of death by 26-45%, which is on par with risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, and lack of exercise."
I was listening to a podcast recently where this topic came up with regards to the social pastime of jury duty. A man was being interviewed who lived during a time before smartphones, and he retold that he really enjoyed going to jury duty because it was a chance for him to get to meet people in his city from all different backgrounds. There was a lot of waiting around, so people always talked to each other out of boredom.<p>Now, whenever you go to jury duty and there's a waiting period of some sort, everyone is of course on their smartphones. The reason for this isn't just for the fact that there might be more interesting things happening on the web than in the quiet courtroom, but instead it's because the smartphone generation can "hang out" with people exactly like them 24/7. To me it seems like a cold optimization of your social graph aided by technology. It does some wonders for loneliness (it's amazing that I can hang out with my friends anywhere in the world at any time and they all have the same interests as me), but it's also causing a lot of deep societal problems. Echo chambers, de-emphasis on local affairs, an ever-widening gap of political viewpoints, and a horrible "grass is always greener" psychological effect.
While loneliness is a real and important problem, there's good reason to be skeptical about it being an "epidemic". The Cigna study is incredibly flawed:<p><a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/09/43-loneliest-number-youll-ever/" rel="nofollow">http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/09/43-loneliest-number-youll...</a><p>Journalists (like David Brooks in the New York Times) are getting it very wrong as well:<p><a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/16/no-no-epidemic-loneliness-dog-bites-man-david-brooks-runs-another-column-based-fake-stats/" rel="nofollow">http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/16/no-no-epidemic-loneliness...</a>
A bit late now, but part of me wonders whether the advances in communication technology have made it too easy to keep in contact with people we already know, and whether that's caused part of this issue.<p>Think about it. In the olden days, if you went to college or moved to a new, somewhat distant town or country, that was it for your current social life. You lost contact with your existing friends, and you had to find new friends at the new location in order to not be lonely again.<p>That lack of communication forced you to meet new people on a regular basis, and likely made college/university a good place for it for so many young people. After all, you couldn't talk to your hometown friends as easily now, and your family was cut off too. You had to meet new people.<p>Smartphones and social media sites and other such things make it so you can easily keep up with the people you already know, and spend all your free time talking to those you're already in contact with. The need for finding new crowds has basically died.
I know there could be a lot of causes for this but one thing I've noticed, which is specific to my location, is that too much cultural homogeneity can lead to loneliness.<p>I remember clearly a time in my life when I was very lonely and having a lot of trouble meeting people. Eventually, I crafted a theory that most of the people in my environment secretly did not want to meet anyone. This was either because they already had busy lives or they just didn't need to know yet another person who was just like them.<p>Shortly thereafter, I went back to university and encountered a lot of exchange students who were perhaps legitimately in need of friends and perhaps also coming from cultures which tended to be much less closed off to casual friendliness. This fixed the loneliness problem for me very quickly. Of course, it must also be acknowledged that the environment in university tends to facilitate social activity.
In NYC, where I live, I would never strike up a conversation with a random stranger. The first thought that crosses my mind is, "oh they're probably on their way to work", or "they seem busy on their phone", etc.<p>Our smartphones, tablets, headphones definitely make us less approachable. But our attitudes towards work is also to blame. There is this culture of being busy in NYC all the time, it's almost as if people take pride in it. This probably shows in our body language too.<p>I feel especially alone on crowded trains. Everybody is staring at their phones or trying really hard to not make eye contact. No wonder a lot of out-of-towners feel NYC is an intimidating place and the people are rude.
We've designed ourselves into isolation. We leave our house in a metal box, arrive at work, then return to our metal box. The most prominent feature of newer houses from the street is the garage, not the door or porch. We live in a subdivision where the nearest store is a five minute drive, so nobody ever uses the sidewalks that are mandated to be there. We move across the country for work, so we aren't close to family. There's no real neutral place where people have to interact together for some reason, so you don't have the accidental meetings that is required to meet people and community.
> 46% of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone<p>I would choose this answer but wouldn't say I'm lonely. 46% is no surprise. What percentage responded usually/always lonely?<p>What is significant are the othet equivalent health risks.
Not too long ago I listened to a really great podcast, The Lonely American Man [<a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys-we-have-a-problem-how-american-masculinity-creates-lonely-men" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2018/03/19/594719471/guys-we-have-a-prob...</a>] that I thought really hit the nail on the head for a lot of men I know. Based on societal norms we men tend to lose our ability to make friends as we grow beyond our teens and turn to our female partners to arrange social activity for us.
A vast radical social experiment, replacing all human values with that of competitive & monomaniacal accumulation of material wealth, turns out to be a poor fit for actual humans. Well gosh.
The country being so politically polarized isn't helping. It's to the point where most only want to socialize with people in the same "tribe". For better or worse.
> Few providers have focused on the loneliest population: 18- to 22-year-olds. While typically a low-risk population, young adults experience rates of loneliness and social isolation far higher than any other age group according to Cigna's recent survey.<p>How is that the case?<p>18-to-22 seems like the easiest stage of adult life to make and keep friends.<p>These are the youngest adults. They go out regularly, meet each other in public venues like clubs and bars, they're often actively dating, especially now with the ubiquity of apps like Tinder.<p>Add to that the fact that they generally either just graduated highschool, or are attending college. College is probably the easiest place to make friends: you spend your entire life there with people your age who are intellectually compatible with you.<p>I don't know how they did that survey, but in my experience 18-22 year olds tend to have the most friends and active social lives of all adult ages.<p>Now, compare that to professionals who often have to relocate for work, and find themselves in a new location where they know <i>nobody</i>. There aren't really many social facilities to help these people make new friends.<p>So I really don't know how they arrived at the conclusion that 18-22s are the loneliest ages. The older people I know, especially in their 30s and 40s, are more prone to social isolation in every respect.
Do people still wonder why drug abuse is pandemic in America? Compound loneliness with poverty ... Are people still wondering? Why the birth rates are low and mortality so high? Seriously are people still wondering? Why we are such a divided society, full of hate and fear of one another. People can't be that fucking dumb in America. Maybe they are because they're still wondering. Why we fight wars we can't win? Why we fight so hard to prevent our neighbors from getting healthcare or education or help of any kind. No seriously, are people still wondering why our kids shoot themselves in schools and then when they don't do that shoot themselves up with heroin or worse? Are you telling me people are so fucking dumb here that they're still wondering about such things? Yeah, it appears the obvious escapes most people's common sense. Only the truly stupid wonder about such things. It's not just loneliness, it's lack of any kind of connection that drives people to do insane things. Yet people still wonder why that kid shot up his school. Are people here really that stupid? Yes they are.
Internet is the culprit - as humans we have replaced interacting in physical world with a digital world and thus the physical world is becoming more and more of a barren place when it comes to social interaction. In modern society, unless it is a dedicated club of some sorts or at a party or if it is pre-arranged, social interactions just don't happen.
Are Americans outliers in loneliness? I know Pinker mentions this in Enlightenment Now, but I feel like it's glossed over a bit since it doesn't really align with his thesis.<p>I'm very interested in the reasons for this, though. Loss of community structures without replacements? (Wider spread families for work, not going to church...)
Those who have had to move locations probably run into this the most. Usually friends formed in school and college are from a time you were young and naive and tend to have the deepest shared bonds.<p>And if you have to leave this behind getting the same level of social connection can be tough. Also some people are extremely friendly by nature, they love being around people and can engage easily, others are more reserved. Work colleagues are usually in a weird space, not strangers but not really friends.<p>Maybe human beings work best in known and close knit communities not urban alienated environments, clearly a lot of our happiness derives from social contexts, and we need that level of connectivity, interaction and support. Sometimes you want to be alone, but the rest of the time you want to be with people who love and care for you. Without it life becomes a bit empty and alienation becomes 'normal'.
Loneliness, in my experience, can be a symptom rather than a problem in and of itself.<p>I define my past loneliness as: Negative feelings, fed by:<p>- feeling bad in the first instance<p>- feeling powerless to improve my state<p>- feeling that others could improve my state, if only they would show sufficient interest in me<p>Gaining power to work on why I was feeling bad in the first instance (through health and lifestyle interventions) has had several effects over the years:<p>- it has improved my state so that I mostly feel good<p>- it has taught me many valuable things to share with others<p>The social aspect of my life has radically changed:<p>- I feel less dependent on others to feel good<p>- I have many things to share with others and enjoy sharing it<p>- My attitude and knowledge attracts others<p>- I am mentally/emotionally stable enough to withstand the ambiguities and stresses that relationships tend to give rise to<p>I don't claim to have solved loneliness, but I have solved <i>my</i> loneliness and I hope some will be helped by this insight.
Being alone is a state, feeling lonely is a symptom that could be triggered by it, but not necessarily. Important distinction here. Warren Buffett spent most of his waking hours reading by himself. He's pushing 90. If you watch his HBO documentary notice how he is very big on shutting his office door and reading for the majority of his workday. If you are not peace when you are alone, there is something else going on that needs attention, listen to it, understand what might trigger that symptom and root cause it. Being with someone else might be a stopgap to your symptom but not a cure.
I don't want to put to fine a point on this...but...good?<p>Loneliness eventually becomes a motivator to find ways to stop being lonely. Usually that means improving yourself and coming to terms with some of your own faults so that you can stop being lonely. Sometimes it means being nicer to people. Sometimes it means making yourself get up the courage to go talk to that girl over there. Sometimes it means trying to get in better shape.<p>There are a lot of side effects from it, but you have to decide you are going to fix it and sometimes that means being lonely enough for it to no longer be tolerable.
I see an article about this issue pop up every month or so. But what’s actually being done about it? Seems like the solutions are not catching up with the possible hurdles that get introduced.
What is the opposite of lonely though? Popular? Not to get all high school angsty, but I bet popular people, of the Instagram famous people variety, are much more popular than they would have been in previous eras given their expanded reach. Perhaps this is the dark side of Internet fame: Increasing real world obscurity for everyone else.<p>In previous eras, simple proximity counted for something. Now, it doesn't matter and is even a negative with all the drama around workplace dating for example.
My startup is trying to solve this problem for older adults. Seniors often feel disconnected and isolated as their social structures change. Ayuda is an service for finding senior-friendly events. We bring artists, educators, musicians and more to an audience they may not have considered before. Events are curated to be social and accessible for older people, not your typical concert in a loud bar.<p>Check us out on www.ayudacare.com if you are interested in what we're about.
I think the increased efficiency brought by technology produced an ever faster pace in work, social life, and just about everything else. It takes time to talk and connect with another person which is getting harder to come by. Most of the time, you're getting swept away doing work, looking at a post that just showed up, reading the latest tweet by the president, etc.
I suspect this is a growth trend largely resultant from intentional self-induced social isolation. This problem is similar, in the brain, to addiction in that the inflicted are incapable of perceiving the problem while the implications are immediately clear to them.
noted this elsewhere - but toplevel - if you are ever in downtown Seattle, feel a bit lonely (work trip?) and want to get lunch or coffee with Someone From The Internet, I am usually up for such a thing on a work day. email in profile, etc.
The title:<p>> Nearly Half of Americans Are Lonely<p>Vs the actual result of the study:<p>> 46% of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone<p>I would have thought everyone feels lonely <i>sometimes</i> and I'm more suprised it is not higher. The title is clickbate.
I've noticed that most people have headphones on when they are out and about. It's a lot harder to strike up casual conversations with people that have headphones on.
Schizos Are Never Alone<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfVowvsqYXg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfVowvsqYXg</a>
I find the smoking refence in the opening paragraph ironic. I'm what i would call a social smoker. I can smoke and (thus far) not get addicted. But I hardly smoke. It's mainly a "oh...you're going for a smoke...mind if I join you...and bum one..." type of "habit."<p>It's away to have a brief moment of QT with someone. Taking it a step further, I wonder how much __good__ bacteria used to be exchanged between smokers, that also doesn't happen anymore.
We are an incredibly divided country—whether by religion, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, language, etc etc. it’s a constant issue of us vs them. Unfortunately, Trump takes complete advantage of this to divide the country daily which only exacerbates the situation. I truly think this lack of ‘community life’ is killing Americans and the cause of a lot of other issues like health problems and suicide.
Another sad downside to people fetishizing work...and the wealth that apparently results.<p>Right now people are just alone and grumbling, but give it another ten years and you will see this morph into alcoholism and/or drug abuse. Only a very few will be happy in a society where every interaction is a dick-measuring contest or chance to argue.<p>It's not too late to move to a hick town, find a spouse, pop out some kids and go to church/temple/mosque (no one gives a shit if you actually believe, it's about being around your neighbors). You will probably end up doing just as well financially as tech workers in SF who are doomed to be lifelong renters. You will definitely be happier.