How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart

Suburbs are structurally lonely (your own castle with as little reliance on others as possible), and only ‘work’ when paired with other sources of community. Those sources are disappearing for a variety of reasons but the transfer from physical -> digital, communal [1] -> personalized, eating out -> eating in [2], public space -> private space, friend time —> media time all add up. We also don’t have strong culture around co-habitation within let alone across families, and a bunch of other culture things that keep us isolated physically and cognitively.

Look at schools and retirement communities for examples of how to design community that keeps us present and with others, then compare to what most experience.

There’s a space between the immediate self/family and the super broad impersonal gov’t and/or hired services (that pave your roads, deliver your food, etc) that is severely under-developed in our modern context. Local interdependency and pooled resources isn’t a thing. My read from talking to several peers in 30s is an openness to explore alternative community structures (eg like a kibbutz) to bring this close community back. I get the sense from many that there’s just something missing and we’re all starting to rediscover the ways communities in the past organized themselves to fill this important place in our lives.

[1] communal being other-oriented or at least aware of others needs versus having our needs ever more optimized and personalized. This causes mindset shift.

[2] there are stats showing rapid increase in delivery over dining in past 10yrs, I believe it’s now majority takeout/delivery these days

There is a skill to running a friend group which regularly does activities together. It isn't a particularly deep or study-intensive skill, but there are things to learn about how to communicate about logistics and activity-preferences. Once you learn that and are able to practice it, having friends becomes much easier.

It does however also depend on meeting people who also have a reasonable level of logistical and calendar-management skill. Not everyone has this skill and not everyone prioritizes exercising it. If you have contacts who cannot unambiguously agree to meet you at a particular time at a particular pizza restaurant, you have to be willing to search out different contacts who do have sufficient skill, caring, and resources.

The non-PC argument here is that diversity directly opposed to community, and I think there's some truth to it. If everyone in an area has lived there for their entire lives, it doesn't really matter if it's apartment buildings, a small high-density European-style town, or suburbs. If the rate of migration in/out is low enough, newcomers assimilate, assuming the society is welcoming and they interact.

There are lots of places where immigration (both within the US and internationally) is very high, and where people often only intend to live for a while for work, so there's not much in the way of community, and people don't make much of an investment in building institutions (beyond their immediate household and workplace).

It's ok in technology or other well-connected professions (because I probably care more about my interactions online and at conferences with the ~200 or so security people from around the world that I closely follow, vs. anyone from my home town or where I've ever physically lived), but for anyone else, it probably sucks a lot. The only culture I've ever seen which seems to deal with that level of constant migration in anything approaching a functional way is the military, and there it's due to an overarching identity, lots of highly artificial forms of identity (the "unit", rivalries, etc.), and lots of traditions and institutions actively encouraged.

The thesis from Sebastian Junger’s book Tribes esplains it best: when a community has a common stressor, that strengthens the social cohesion. An incredible point made was that Israel has the lowest sucide rate of all the third world countries, and guess what he attributes it to? Mandatory draft. The common stressor that every single countryman can empathasize with each other about is war. While it sounds depressing it serves as an example, do we as a nation, state, city or even neighborhood have a common stressor with each other? Antecdotally I find it challenging to think of something like that for my community.

Just an anecdote

I live in SF and it has plenty to do. But last night despite aching to get out of the house I couldn’t.

I don’t have a ton of friends out here and the ones I have are frequently busy with their own projects/life

The typical offered advice is join meetups to meet new people, but a search of meetups going on last night were only for events where you drink heavily (a weekly beer pong tournament for backpackers, that I’ve been to twice only to find it’s a huge rip off and nobody shows up) or for niche groups I don’t fall into (LGBTQA+, Elderly, meetups for specific racial groups)

Every now and then I’ll go out anyway, just go to a bar and see what happens, and maybe 30% of the time I’ll meet cool people, but those relationships never blossom. I’ll text them after and then later in the week to hang that next weekend, and lo and behold they’re busy

I do clubs/exercise classes during the week, but so far, those haven’t blossomed into outside of club/class relationships. Every now and then I’ll ask if it feels right.

My roommates are cool and my age, but much more of the “finance bro” type. I don’t mind that so every now and then I’ll suggest we grab a beer or watch basketball (they’re really into the Warriors) but they usually pass. I think they can tell I’m not quite like them.

In terms of dating, dating in SF is kind of a crap shoot, What with there being something like 2 guys for every girl out here (thank you tech), but when I do get a match on tinder and go on a date it usually goes well, then we’ll go on a few more then I inevitably end up ghosted, or call it off if it’s not working from the other end

Loneliness exists inspite of our efforts not because of it.

I’ve been in this city for over a year now, and despite all of the effort, my friend group hasn’t grown

I'm curious to see if there are any statistics on loneliness and race. I often see the black people in my city sitting on porches and benches in the evening and chatting with each other; it seems like a very nice community and something I wish I could have been a part of growing up. Same thing with the Latino community: in my mom's country, people still practice an open door policy among friends, still gather around the TV and scream at the sports players for hours. There is no white community so to speak: people today would probably say that's racist. But I think a lot of white people remember the "it takes a village" days, the days before we decided to demonize anyone that let their kids out of their sight, when television was just becoming affordable.

I’ve lived in the US my entire life, and I’ve come to feel like American society is one big competition to be more well-off than everyone else. Does anyone else feel this way?

I think this is why I have difficulty making friends.

I do actually feel pretty well settled with some sense of community where I live (Montreal), but one thing I've noticed while applying to jobs is how many jobs are super aggressive about relocating me to NYC or the bay area. They almost don't listen to me when I say I'm not leaving Montreal, like I need some sort of excuse to want to actually stay where I currently am.

The atomisation of society goes back a long way, however, I believe that the era of atomised society we now know was ushered in by Reagan and Thatcher.

What changed then was stranger danger. With schemes such as 'Neighbourhood Watch' (in the UK) people saw strangers as potential threats, just there wanting to break in, steal the VHS player and sell it for heroin. Strangers were not welcomed as visitors, that was not the default.

Much else happened then to destroy community and make it so everyone was out for themselves. In the UK we also had the privatisation of social housing and the privatisation of public transport. The car became king and the poor could end up being those terrifying homeless types that nobody likes to see but take for granted nowadays.

In generations before Thatcher/Reagan there was TV and that apparently destroyed community. True we might not have been going down to the church hall to have a dance or to play board games, however, at least with TV families watched programmes together in the front room. Plus with only a few channels you could talk about TV with people in ways you can't today. There was still a national conversation, even if it was about what David Attenborough had brought to the small screen the night before.

Community is the enemy of consumerism, if people are sat in a public space enjoying company then they are not in their cars going to shops and buying commodity entertainment. But consumerism has kind of died too, people do not shop like they used to as any mall can testify to.

Despite everything that is wrong people are innately wanting to have friends and be part of a community. This will never go away, even if those needs are currently met by proxies in social media and opioids. Although Thatcher grade leaders may want everyone divided and living in an atomised society, human nature will win in the end. Long live the revolution.

People have been ruminating on friendship for a long time. Here is an essay from Samuel Johnson(the guy that wrote the dictionary), 1758. https://www.thoughtco.com/decay-of-friendship-by-samuel-john...

It's easy to point out that this is caused by 'the internet' or 'modern technology' replacing the need for human interaction. We feel less alone but are more selective about our friends, live in smaller echo chambers.

In meatspace there's this thing where you want people to like you if you meet them, possibly enforced by the fact that someone might punch you if you rile them up. On the internet we select our own groups and then with group dynamics we try to be the 'cool kid' which results in maybe racist in-jokes or maybe in radicalization.

I really have no idea how to even begin solving this and if this has to be solved at all. It seems everyone's stance is hardening and we're drawing starker 'us vs them' lines or just aren't interested in others' plights as we can just select the small subset of people that fit with our current mindset.

Is there anything we can do to stop being lonely?

Over the past few months, I have made great progress on developing habits to fight my depression. I wake up very early, hike, work on my side projects, and go to communal hacker spaces sometimes.

However, I and many others still feel very lonely, it's like we all live in seperate bubbles and can't connect deeply. I have no idea what causes this divide. Have humans always felt like this?

I find it strange that I have friends, but I'm always feel alone. I live in a huge city, work has good people that are genuine friends outside of work, but I always feel alone. Everyone talks about meetups and conferences, but I find them to be extremely superficial interactions.

I also only ever see people outside work for social purposes about once a month or two. I've tried going out more, but nothing really ever happens.

I don't get being social/

There is a good reason why people are escaping small towns. If you are even a little bit outside of the mold, such as being into reading instead of cars as a guy, you will be ostracized by a huge part of the community. And may God have mercy on you if you are into the really weird stuff, such as liking programming, tinkering with electronics or anime.

My impression is that many people sneer at the things that are necessary for building relationships or consider them lazy/stupid/etc. Things like doing or not doing thing just because others like it. Things like going home to familly instead of staying late. Coordinating with friends to help each other - you are supposed to be individual. Or just socializing without networking or other practical gain.

You are supposed to work 70 hours a week and change job every two years and be aggressive in pursuing own goals. It makes for a good economy, but also for loneliness as there is no space for trust and relationships building.

I am trying to build real friendships out in the open. If any of you want to make a friend who will listen very carefully to you, talk to me!

https://philosopher.life/#Find%20The%20Others:%5B%5BFind%20T...

I’m highly skeptical. There’s only one piece of data cited in the article. In that data, the only mention of a possible trend is this

> shows that loneliness is worse in each successive generation.

Basically if you read the linked to report, the data show older people are less lonely than younger people right now. That’s not the same as showing loneliness increasing over time. There are many plausible reasons for younger people to be lonelier... it’s just as likely younger groups are always lonely and lose loneliness as they age.

The rest of the article talks about partisanship, which is a different issue entirely. Indeed as we sort ourselves into ideologically similar communities I might expect loneliness to decrease.

I think that we long for genuinely human interaction. The absence of that makes us lonely. But tech-mediated interactions reduce the amount of human interaction. (Having this conversation on HN isn't the same as us having the same conversation at a bar, even if we say the same things.) We get more interaction via tech (across the world, not just in the same room), but much of the human touch gets lost.

But I think the problem is bigger than that. Our philosophy has dehumanized us. It's basically a question of who we think we are.

As a society, we no longer believe in God. We believe in the physical universe - in matter and the laws of physics. That means that all we can be is matter that obeys the laws of physics. That's all we can be, because there is nothing else.

In particular, we can't have any free will or any ability to make a real choice. Matter that obeys the laws of physics doesn't choose anything - it just obeys the laws of physics. We're just machines made of atoms obeying the laws of quantm electrodynamics, which make up biochemicals obeying the laws of biochemistry, which make up neurons obeying the laws of neurology - and nothing more.

We can't love in the real sense of the word - choosing what's best for the one we love - because we can't choose anything. Even the lesser flavors of love are just a matter of biochemicals and neurons just doing their thing.

There's no real beauty in any objective sense - there's just certain things happen to hit our neurons in a certain way.

For that matter, there's no truth, either, and not just in the postmodern sense. If our brains were built by evolution, they were built to give a good enough answer fast enough. They were not built to find actual truth, even were such a thing to exist.

So in this view, free will, love, beauty, and truth - everything we thought of as making us human - are dead. We're just machines, just like the computers on our desks. As more and more people believe this (and start to act like it), it becomes more and more rare to be treated in a genuinely human way. The result is that we are lonely.

It's interesting to me that among the HN readership, the majority of the conversation here is either "This is true because it matches my experience." or "I had a different experience and therefore this is false."

Cities and suburbs (and rural places too, for that matter) all fall on a spectrum, and probably a bell curve. People do too. I think too many of us expect happiness to come from the place we're in magically, as if it takes no effort to find it. You still have to work to connect with people no matter where you live, However, this doesn't invalidate the contribution that certain build environments make to loneliness.

Personally I don't think it's the work/life balance that is different from 60 and 70 years ago the reason of loneliness.

I think it's the combination of the world getting smaller, via technology, and the rise of individualism the increased standard of living gives us.

From one hand, the too small world frightens us, it makes us want to shell ourselves from the big nasty world.

On the other hand, we think we are special and the others around us not worthy of us.

Greece has the exact same problem (which was made worse by the recent crisis), perhaps in different numbers, since family ties are strong here and people don't usually relocate to find work, but it's still a problem.

This is weird to me because I feel like it's easier than ever to have a social life.

Looking on Facebook, Meetup, etc. I can easily find local groups that match my interests. There's a local Ruby group, gaming groups, tennis and other casual sports leagues, and so on. Social media is actually pretty cool for that when used judiciously.

My wife and I -- despite not being particularly glamorous or anything -- actually experience a fair bit of anxiety due to having more social possibilities than we could ever really say "yes" to. We've got long-time friends in the area and I meet a fair number of people that make me think, "I bet I could be pretty good friends with that person, if my slate wasn't full already...."

I think the big change from previous decades is that social interaction is more focused. It's more interest-based.

Yes, there's less of that "sit on your porch in the evening and talk to your neighbors as they walk by" and "get to know your local postal clerk on a first-name basis" kind of thing, and something good has definitely been lost there.

Perhaps the ultimate result to all of this is that all of this is that while it's easier than ever to make friends... it's also easier to fall through the cracks. There's crazy levels of social interaction out there, tailored to your interests, if you reach out and do it... but unlike the old days, it ain't gonna reach out and grab you.

I imagine that in the old days, you sat on your porch/stoop on summer evenings and your neighbors may or may not have strolled by and settled in for a beer or glass of lemonade or whatever, including Fred and Betty from down the street who also might have mentioned that they're looking for more couples to join their bowling league or some such thing.

It's sad that doesn't happen any more, but I bet there were also a lot of nights when nobody strolled by, and perhaps Fred and Betty were jerks anyway and maybe you didn't really want them to stop by. That was also a shit way to find very specific interests like a local Ruby group or a local group of transgender Civil War reenactment aficionados or whatever. So, some things have been lost, and some things gained.

> When people have a hole in their life, they often fill it with angry politics.

Mass psychosis - solution to loneliness.

I didn't read through the full article but I want to comment anyway. I think the problem is much more complex than simply "gig economy". In all likelihood it is a combination of multiple issues that compound on one another. Gig economy certainly plays a part in that compounding effect that causes isolation and loneliness but it is certainly not the only factor. Take a look at an average family today: you have a father and mother who both work jobs, stay late, outsource their parental duties, all just to keep up with the lifestyle they created or the bare minimum to survive. The kids are on their phones, ipads and whatnot and the adults are setting the example at the dinner table (what.. wait, nope there is no dinner table anymore as everyone just eats whenever, and if they do, they are on their devices). The growing isolation at home fosters a behavior that leads to ever more isolated existence in outside relationships. With the media constantly being pumped into our brains, we must have the latest and greatest gadgetry for what? To consume more media and become even lonelier.

The growing class divide, carefully curated media channels and a widening gap in haves vs have nots encourages an us vs them attitude. Combine that with a social media existence that allows you to select which highly tuned group you want to belong to and you've got yourself an information / viewpoint silo that breeds hate.

Then you have an ever-growing selection of consumer products that aims at creating a finely attuned solution to every need but in fact creates a sense of bewilderment and unhappiness.

Of course not all is terrible, as (some) businesses compete, you get better and better products / services (not always) that set a high bar for expectations. When the next burger, 4k TV or haircut is unsatisfactory, the feeling is compounded as we now have so much to compare to. How can anyone be pleasantly surprised when the bar to compare to is perfection?

Take our family again, the kids are going to college and accrue a ton of debt and are left to pay for it after graduation. No problems, unemployment rates are low, just go find a great paying tech job right? Well, now every entry job requires 2 years experience and nobody wants to hire college graduates. Take another dose of depression here and add it to your collective loneliness profile.

Then we have the corporate behemoths that stifle competition and create massive enterprises which control your life. Want to switch internet service? Forget it. No alternatives. Want to complain about a service you don't like? Good luck with that, you'll be connected to India and I'm sure they will put your suggestion in a corporate suggestion box... In some aspects we have too much choice and in others not enough. This of course leads to stress, frustration, anger, and despair - all of which feeds into the pool of depression. If yours isn't full, someone else's is getting there, and once it fills up it starts spilling out.

It doesn't stop there. US in particular is great at fostering a culture where we must blame everything on ourselves. Didn't get a good product? Your fault! You chose it. Didn't get the right president? Your fault! You voted for him. Didn't reach your personal goals after listening to that life coach / feel good guru podcast? Your fault! Don't you know, you're in charge of your own destiny! Forget asking for help, that's for the weak. Oh, but when you do, make sure to see a mental health professional since privacy is important (just don't complain when they share their information with insurance providers who will decide which therapy you should undergo).

Consumption, consumption, consumption. Take advantage of everyone to make an extra buck. Screw over your co-worker for that promotion. Outsource that job to an overseas contract worker - who cares about your fellow neighbor. Speaking of neighbors, why are they making so much noise? Well, don't bother talking to them because you know you won't. How dare you knock on their door and say hello, that's just weird! Nobody does that.

And people wonder why they are lonely...

I can't help but notice that it's written by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute. The AEI is essentially the mouthpiece of large-corporate capitalism. Brooks writes a lot of these articles, if you look at his collection on his website. You take some problem that has in its nature the alienation of people from their meaningful purpose in the world, probably because of the needs of corporate capitalism. Unfortunately, large-scale solutions, such as industrial policy, are not in the allowable repertoire of the AEI, so his proposed solution is for people to ... do something about it. Try harder? Not sure.

Edit - fixed grammar in first sentence.

The increase in loneliness has been associated with the rise in social media. I am trying to build a new type of social network to help reverse this trend, I would love for you all to join me and help grow the community! https://peapods.com

Is this a result of people having lots of direct interactions with mobile phones instead of people these days?

Family and friends are the most important, valuable assets you can own. Don’t compromise those for money.

Probably far too late to comment on this, but it struck me that the relationship between loneliness and privacy is not well explored. Does anyone know where there is any research about this ?

America is being torn apart and loneliness is a side effect.

The culture wars. The gender wars. The importing of people from third world cultures. The inbalanced economy. The stagnant wages. The drug epidemic.

The US is in a long slow decline into a low trust society. I can now buy my way into nice places and largely myself from the effects. But I grew up poor and old my friends and the rest of my family are not so lucky. I’ve seen what happens to the poor and middle class in America and I only see it getting worse for the foreseeable future.

I blame this on the built environment of the US. Nothing is human scale or people oriented. It's commerce and cost oriented. Very few independent shops in most cities. No concept of a high street or village of shops, no public square, nothing.

I'm referring to the post WW2 America. Obviously, you'll find these things in the old core of New England and parts of the South.

the article concludes with the point that it ought to have started with -- you have to be the change you wish to see in the world

No one talks about the irrational fear of talking to strangers. We are lonier because we have been taught to not trust.

Um the people in the confederate States were super neighborly and friendly. Not sure this is the cure-all recipe for avoiding antagonism between factions, or sections as they used to be called.

We seldom sing together.

It's possible that what we're witnessing is behavioural sink[0]. It's been observed in other mammals that overcrowding leads to social degradation and eventual total failure of the population.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

How much of this loneliness is caused by romantic longing? Marriage is increasingly devalued, the age of virginity loss is rising[1], maybe romantic partners just recently had a greater role in keeping these feelings at bay?

1.https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0614-yrbs.html

I used to be lonely, I used to want to belong to a group, I used to want an identity.

Then I realize these desires are causing suffering.

Through meditation and medical marijuana, I've been able to free myself and realize, these are the artifacts of our Tribalistic nature.

But we live in a modern world, access to everything except the ones our ancestors used to value. I've come to enjoy solitary more and more.

The funny thing about this article is that it says political tribes are the reason for American division.

Then the NYT editors choose to award cogent comment status to a list of comments blaming it all on the GOP.

They can’t help themselves.

Fear sells. And the news sell fear.

Something is always tearing america apart. We are always on the brink. The past few months, it's facebook tearing us apart. Last year, it was putin and the russians tearing america apart. The year before that, it was trump/hillary.