[HN Gopher] America's "Friendscape" Crisis
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America's "Friendscape" Crisis
Author : samizdis
Score : 48 points
Date : 2021-07-25 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| chamsom wrote:
| It's harder to make friends in America than any other country
| I've lived in. Anecdotally, I can't even seem to notice a
| difference in between an immigrant vs someone who grew up here.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Modern Americans suck at building and maintaining community.
| Everyone wants to play in the sandbox but no one wants to rake
| it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I would counter that modern Americ _a_ sucks for supporting
| communities.
|
| Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending
| strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent
| traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create
| tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income
| segregated areas.
|
| Similar to college, fixing America starts with deciding that
| everyone doesn't need a single family home in a popular metro.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| The problem isn't that people are wanting too much. It's that
| getting on the property ladder at all, even a small condo in
| a metro where there are jobs, is becoming far, far more
| difficult than for previous generations.
|
| And of course, if people need to work longer and harder to
| achieve what would've been considered fairly modest goals by
| (recent) previous generations in terms of housing, then they
| have less time and energy to devote to friendship and
| community.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My personal read is that a huge amount of that in the last
| decade or so has been a consequence of basement central
| bank rates.
|
| When vast sums of institutional money are freed and chasing
| yield, eventually some of it leaks into residential
| property.
|
| And when a market that was precariously balanced with only
| retail buyers (due to density opposition and building
| economics) now has equal or more investors pile in? Well,
| prices do what they've done.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| If we lower them we have no homes, if we raise them we
| have no jobs.
|
| The fact of the matter is conventional central banking is
| a failure, as is widespread private homeownership in
| metropolitan areas.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| As unpopular as this might be to say, and as environmentally
| unfriendly as it is, I've known my neighbors in every house I
| lived in; even when my friends and I rented a house in
| college, and after I was done with college, and I've rented
| houses with friends. They weren't always thrilled to see
| renters move in, but when we mowed the grass or were
| grilling, etc. you're forced to look over the fence and say
| "hey". Apartments offer a sense of odd anonymity, where very
| few know each other unless they already do, for some reason,
| especially in more urban areas. I was never more anonymous
| than when I lived in a city proper, living in an apartment
| building. The only people who knew my name were my coworkers.
|
| EDIT... atrocious grammar
| ethbr0 wrote:
| One thing I've been confused about, from the time I've
| visited friends and (briefly) lived in big box condo /
| apartment buildings... why aren't there more community
| spaces?
|
| And no, I don't mean "the pool" or "the weight room." I
| mean actual lounge areas. Social areas. Hell, even
| Marriott's Residence Inns do a better job than your average
| building.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| That's something I find odd, but I grew up as an only
| child. I actively avoid speaking to my neighbors for the
| most part and always have. Their business is none of
| mine.
|
| That's not to say I don't have a few close friends, but
| certainly not my next-door neighbors.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| You mean like a bar?
| jbay808 wrote:
| Agreed. I'd love to see more apartment buildings have
| bakeries, cafes, or other public spaces on the ground
| floor. Then you can get to know not only your neighbours
| in your own apartment building, but in shared spaces for
| the surrounding areas too.
| ben_w wrote:
| My apartment (in Germany, not USA) has that. I hope it
| reopens after the pandemic.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| That's unfortunately only true for old (100+ years)
| buildings, most newer developments don't have commercial
| space in the ground floor.
| ben_w wrote:
| Anecdotally it feels like it should be more complex than
| that, as two of the three whose construction I've watched
| to completion since I moved here have ground floor
| commercial space.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I thought about mixed use (commercial on first,
| residential above) when I wrote my previous, and left it
| out, because it seems like a nuanced subject.
|
| In that "Community spaces" is a subset of "businesses an
| owner leasing commercial space would rent to."
|
| I don't think we're talking about a Subway sandwich shop
| on the ground floor being helpful.
| addicted wrote:
| What are needed are more community spaces.
|
| Parks, YMCAs, basketball courts, cafes, etc.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I read in Dublin they built these sorts of appartments
| but then they got banned.
| addicted wrote:
| I doubt close friends are geographically close after
| school.
|
| The lack of close friendships is probably driven more by a
| lack of community activities than not knowing your
| neighbors.
| kiba wrote:
| _Our policies are mostly geared around creating never-ending
| strip malls, endless suburban neighborhoods, and omnipresent
| traffic issues. Because these things most efficiently create
| tax revenue, happy "what my parents had" families, and income
| segregated areas._
|
| I doubt that they are most efficient at generating tax
| revenue, especially when considering density and
| infrastructure maintenance.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yes that is true. They are worse on all counts in the
| medium-long term but we do it anyways.
| addicted wrote:
| They are definitely significantly worse at generating tax
| revenue.
|
| Mixed housing along with ground level commercial spaces
| even in the poorest of downtown districts generate more tax
| revenue.
|
| The problem is when crime and other forms of blight lead to
| people not living or working in those places anymore.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's a tricky argument to say they're better at
| generating tax revenue, if only people changed their
| habits and preferences... ;)
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Robert Putnam has studied this extensively but his findings
| weren't politically correct so he hid them for quite some time.
| Once he finally did release them, he discovered his fears were
| well founded, as he was villainized for his research. So we
| will continue to roam around searching for the cause while
| ignoring what's already in front of us because we simply don't
| want it to be true or are too fearful of what recognizing it
| would mean.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > And the friendship drought could get worse with more people
| working remotely or hybrid-ly.
|
| It may be just a consequence of my circumstances, but work for me
| has never been the place to "make friends" and actually remote
| work enables my social life more, even by just a minuscule
| amount.
|
| In regards to making friends in general. I always find myself the
| odd one out in every environment. At work particularly, I'm
| typically substantially younger than my colleagues some of which
| are old enough to be my parents or grandparents. Not that you
| cannot develop friendships with an age gap like that, but I don't
| think it's advisable. Majority of these people have there own
| life, are in the process of settling down or have their own
| families already. We are simply at different stages of life and
| it's unlikely to result in any true friendships.
|
| I don't really have a social life either, which feels pretty
| faking at my age, but I do try to go out at least once or twice
| in the weekends. Over the years, I've had a number of
| acquaintances I've met, but no friends really. In most of the
| groups I hang out in, I find the same issue as work, though on a
| smaller scale. Still generally to young to develop any sort of
| bond with the people I'm with, but the gap tends to be smaller so
| that there's still some things we can relate on. If I'm not the
| youngest in the room, it seems in the oldest, which is honestly
| an even more uneasy feeling as I have a hard time relating to
| most of my own generation, despite certainly exhibiting some
| characteristics of it.
|
| Some people in this thread have additionally mentioned the
| resource of time as an inhibitor to developing friendships. I can
| understand this. I generally enjoy the occasions I get to go out
| or sometimes stay home and enjoy myself, but there's always an
| uneasy feeling about how afterwards it'll be another week of
| mindless wageslaving before I get a chance to to relax again.
|
| Ultimately, I haven't really made any friends since I was maybe
| 15 or so. This makes sense though, as since adulthood, I've
| basically been divorced from any sort of environment where young
| people find themselves. Having never gone to school I was mostly
| isolated from my peers from 18-24, and while there are many
| people at that age who do not tend to go to school and do well
| socially, I believe that at least a small majority of those
| people tend to choose paths that put them in communities with
| similar people, whereas I've always been out of place,
| demographically speaking, whether that be in impoverished dumps
| or next to moderately wealthy professionals/retirees. Though I am
| now coming around to the age where many of my peers will leave
| school and enter the "real world" I don't think much will come of
| it as I have a bad history of always being in the wrong place at
| the wrong time (doubly so career wise, ha)
| lkrubner wrote:
| If anyone in tech lives in New York City and is looking to meet
| more people, reach out to me. I recently re-started these
| parties:
|
| http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-...
|
| I held them once-a-month for 3 years before the pandemic, and I
| just restarted this month. These parties happen at my rooftop
| terrace at my place on the Upper West Side:
|
| 254 W 98th St
|
| New York NY 10025
|
| It's mostly a tech crowd, but also some folks from the theater
| world, and the publishing world.
|
| Text me if you want to be on the invite list: 434 825 7694
| cryptica wrote:
| There are no real friends in crony-capitalism. Every relationship
| is parasitic. One is either a host or a parasite.
| ben_w wrote:
| By curious juxtaposition, at the time I saw this, it was right
| next to "Americans' life ratings reach record high".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949658
| [deleted]
| bississippi wrote:
| The title no longer matches the article or the article is missing
| ? Mods
| Ajay-p wrote:
| Social media has given us the illusion of unlimited choice and
| availability in our social lives. It's like a drug that makes you
| think the world is at your doorstep, when in reality it's the
| complete opposite. The single greatest thing a person can do to
| improve their social life is to delete their social media
| accounts.
| acwan93 wrote:
| I can't find the video or link, but Aziz Ansari talked about
| this in either his book "Master of None" or one of his
| sketches.
|
| He basically boils it down to we're becoming more non-committal
| because we _think_ something better is going to come, whether
| its the better brunch, the better gathering, the better
| toothbrush (he specifically cites this example) so we can all
| post it on social media. It results in all of us being
| miserable and unable to foster undivided attention.
|
| The best thing you can do really is to not opt-in.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Personally I realized during the Pandemic that a lot of the
| relationships I'd fostered over the course of my adult life were
| lead by a desperate desire for belonging rather than on sober
| considerations such as: do these people respect me at all?; do
| these people care about my inner life at all?; do these people
| share a desire for growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do
| these people have any ambition at all? - these were just drinking
| buddies at best.
|
| I'd always had teachers in grammar and high school telling me
| directly or indirectly I was wasting my potential trying to be
| like the other kids but I only recently understand what they
| meant and what, more importantly, they saw that I didn't, but
| that's what a childhood of deep ostracizing both within and
| without one's family will do.
|
| Much of this thought process has only been possible because I
| enrolled in therapy a few years before the pandemic. Prior to
| this I meandered around life with a desperate, pathetic
| cheerfulness that masked how alone I already was. Alone, not just
| on the basis of deep, meaningful companionship but that I hadn't
| at all cultivated being a friend and ally to myself, such that I
| allowed myself to take on friendships that were not good for my
| growth as person at all, rather caused me to regress to the same
| old childhood tropes and tactics time and time again, unable to
| address the real interpersonal complexity that requires a defined
| and resolved character to decide and navigate; I tried to be
| these other apparently successful types to have some social life
| rather saying NO to what I knew wasn't going to get me where I
| wanted to go and the kind of people I'd probably enjoy beyond
| inebriation and frat-level jokes.
|
| What sucks though is that you spend so much time in these
| relationships you develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome where the
| sense of "love" and "affinity" are really just "this is all I've
| ever known".
|
| Rebuilding at a late age like myself is going to be tough, social
| media can be particular booby trap here I realize, but it seems
| necessary.
| Ajay-p wrote:
| Do you have a hobby? I build model airplanes and collect old
| telephones, when I can afford them. There are rich communities
| behind these and that has given me a social life outside of the
| internet.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _do these people respect me at all?; do these people care
| about my inner life at all?; do these people share a desire for
| growth beyond that of our local maximums?; do these people have
| any ambition at all?_
|
| That's a nice list of traits for a friend to have, but since a
| person will literally go insane if they don't have any human
| contact, I would advise finding better friends first before
| dumping the bad ones.
| imbnwa wrote:
| All of these relationships except for two have all dried up
| and withered long before, it is only with quarantine could I
| understand why.
|
| Also the list was me being too literary in describing the
| majority of these relationships, they answered the questions
| posed in the negative through and through, read: unhealthy
| relationships.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I think it's okay to have friends you don't have a super deep
| relationship with as long as you enjoy being around them.
|
| Like I have quite a few people I'll get together to play board
| games with, and I enjoy their company for that, but we don't do
| a whole lot outside of that (sometimes a dinner or a movie or
| go to a special event, but not too often).
| imbnwa wrote:
| > Like I have quite a few people I'll get together to play
| board games with, and I enjoy their company for that, but we
| don't do a whole lot outside of that
|
| I didn't spell it out clearly enough and got literary, but
| most of these relationships were condescending,
| disrespectful, and somewhat abusive, never mind lacking
| empathy. What your describing is something I actually should
| accede to in my local area with COVID restrictions somewhat
| breaking up and now being vaccinated.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I see a lot of "it's the computers/smartphone!" and "it's corona"
| takes in these kind of articles. However, there is one in the
| article who has the _real_ reason and not a scapegoat:
|
| > "We realize the importance of friendship, and we're just not
| investing the time," he said, adding that it's another way the
| nation is "vulnerable."
|
| Too many people _don 't have_ the resources to invest in
| friendships. Mostly it's time - working two or more jobs to
| survive or putting in 60+ hour workweeks plus insane 2 hour
| commutes doesn't leave much time for anything else than sleep -
| but also, money in general. There are not many places outside of
| a home for people to gather that are affordable and accessible to
| anyone, thanks to gentrification. Shoddy run-down bars that were
| a place for regular people have been replaced by hipster outfits
| that charge ten euros for a coffee.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I've mentioned this in another comment about a month ago but it
| is smartphones. You go to a bar as a regular once or twice a
| week, even people you know on a first name basis whip out their
| phones to talk to friends who aren't even there. Um...hello?
| I'm right next to you, present and willing to communicate,
| taking the initiative and effort to come out. Why are you
| ignoring me for the other person who isn't even there?
|
| Phones have made personal relationships much harder because now
| people can talk to other people not even present far more
| conveniently. It is a double edge sword in it's entirety. It
| makes communication convenient and effortless, but also makes
| personal relationships just as difficult to maintain since you
| can just text instead of meeting up to get to know how
| someone's life has been going.
|
| >Too many people don't have the resources to invest in
| friendships.
|
| I don't believe that for a second. The simple fact that social
| media is alive and well wasting billions of hours of free time
| is more than enough to refute that point altogether. People in
| the past had time for friends and now suddenly they don't? I'd
| argue it's because people are spending more time on their
| phones texting or using social media than they are actually
| physically talking. As I've personally witnessed in many bars.
| I've had great chats with random strangers who were in the
| Gen-X or higher age group more than I have in the millennial
| and younger. Do you know why? They weren't staring at their
| phones the moment the conversation kinda died. Do you know what
| they did? They also tried to talk and bring something up during
| the conversation!
| paperwasp42 wrote:
| Links to the Times articles mentioned in the article:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210423122109/https://www.nytim...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210716143848/https://www.nytim...
| warglebargle wrote:
| I haven't had a friend other than my wife for 10 years and now
| that I have young kids I sometimes feel like I never will. This
| is largely because we don't have a lot of money and therefore
| very little time for hobbies. I also don't use social media.
| Maybe when I retire I'll figure it out? (will I be able to
| retire?)
| Footkerchief wrote:
| Personally, I'm convinced that parasocial relationships are
| outcompeting social relationships. You can risk your ego putting
| yourself out there in real life, or you can let a recommendation
| algorithm serve you content that gives you the feeling of being
| seen and understood without requiring any reciprocal
| vulnerability on your part.
| xg15 wrote:
| The problem is that it's just that - the _feeling_ of being
| seen and understood - the whole point is that there is no
| _actual_ interaction with you. Depending on your life
| situation, you can keep up the delusion for quite a while and
| be happy with it (like the guy who happened an anime character)
| - things get problematic once you require some actual
| understanding and life advice.
|
| Even in interactive context, things are treacherous. Sure, you
| can have this online community who totally get you, who you can
| talk to about anything and get back compassion, support and
| useful advice - but do you have any idea who those people
| actually _are_ , what their life situations are, what values
| they have and what views they are basing that advice on?
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| I think parasocial relationships have mostly been an attempt to
| fill the gap left by the lack of real friendships.
| tolbish wrote:
| Much like junk food being a substitute for a lack of real
| nutrition, what happens when the desire for real nutrition
| atrophies?
| pixl97 wrote:
| Why not both? The hyperreal is a hard landscape to navigate.
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| I put 'mostly' and not 'entirely' because I do think it is
| both.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Do people on both sides of parasocial relationships feel seen
| and understood?
|
| I thought the definition there was people that gave attention
| to someone that doesn't return it?
| detaro wrote:
| Doesn't _really_ return it, but it feels that way for the
| viewer. A TV /Youtube/... personality _feels_ familiar
| because parts of the brain don 't care that the familiar
| tone, repeated in-jokes, ..., all the things that build
| familiarity, are not for the individual viewer specifically.
| Footkerchief wrote:
| My perception is that people on the 'consumer' side of
| parasocial relationships do feel understood, and that that
| feeling is their main motivation for taking part in the
| relationship. The feeling is no less real for being the
| product of automated market research and micro-targeting,
| instead of personal intimacy.
| analognoise wrote:
| "The feeling is no less real for being the product of
| automated market research and micro-targeting, instead of
| personal intimacy."
|
| The most dystopian thing I've read all week.
| cowboysauce wrote:
| The article cites research that shows that the percentage of
| Americans with 10+ close friends have dropped from 33 to 13
| percent since 1990. I wonder how much of that can be attributed
| to a change is what is considered a close friend? Just keeping in
| touch with other people used to be much more difficult and I
| wonder if the proliferation of cell phones and then smartphones
| has raised the bar. I wonder if friendship changed from just
| needing to keep in touch to having to directly support each
| other's emotional needs.
|
| Personally, I can't imagine having that many close friends (and
| how many more non-close friends do you have?). To me it seems
| like it would require an almost obsessive level of effort to
| maintain, like to the extent that it's basically the only thing
| you do outside of work. Which I suppose would have been easier
| without the internet to distract you, but still.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Upper middle class in America is unique. They have EVERYTHING
| that humanity can provide. They have access and ability to do
| anything.
|
| Yet, they are all stuck in the never ending rat race. The
| excessive focus on the rat race leads to less energy and time
| left for friendships. The little time that is left is left only
| for superficial acquaintances. You know, the kind where people
| talk to each other like a sitcom.
|
| Every time I go to Asian countries, I am stunned by how much time
| people (even those with high powered careers) give to family and
| friends. You know, things like casual hanging out in friends
| apartments on weekends, street food time in the evenings,
| experiencing a new restaurant or exploring a new village on a
| short road trip together.
|
| Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of
| "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money. The
| entire cottage industry of self-help is all about spending every
| living moment improving yourself to more material wealth.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| > Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of
| "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money.
|
| It's not that we don't want to, it's that our society's design
| discourages this. For the most part, if you don't have a GOOD
| job in the US, you don't get healthcare or retirement. And even
| the employers at those good jobs can and do fire employees at
| any time, for any reason. Given the cost of healthcare without
| insurance and lack of social safety net, l I don't think it's
| hyperbole to say that for most Americans, even upper middle
| class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death.
| 0235005 wrote:
| I think that people sometimes focus to much on career and are
| leaving a bit the idea on the side. It's kind of sad, but I
| really don't think it's going to be good in the log run. There's
| going to be a breaking point and it's not going to be fun
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| I think the places where the friendships are the hardest all tend
| to be guess cultures[0]. That isn't exactly surprising to me.
| Guess culture should make creating friendships much harder. If
| you may only ask if someone wants to hangout until you are very
| sure they'll say yes, then you'll very rarely ask for that. You'd
| need circumstances with long periods of being 'stuck' together to
| make a friend. Thus you'd expect people to disproportionately
| from work or school.
|
| As someone who believes in the Moral Foundations Theory, I don't
| think it's an accident that the places that are known for low
| friendships tend to be culturally liberal places. Since most
| probably don't know what Moral Foundations Theory is, a quick and
| dirty version is that all moral judgement can be reduced to the
| following core values (or moral foundations) which I copied from
| Wikipedia:
|
| * Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
|
| * Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to
| shared rules; opposite of cheating
|
| * Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation;
| opposite of betrayal
|
| * Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate
| authority; opposite of subversion
|
| * Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods,
| actions; opposite of degradation
|
| I'm also a fan of the tentatively accepted liberty vs oppression
| foundation. I really think it should be renamed to something like
| agency vs domination. Anyways, it would value being able to make
| decision on choices deemed important and rejecting those who
| coerce others.
|
| Anyways, culturally liberal places pick care vs harm as their
| primary value and in some cases have made it the default choice
| for answering moral issues. I think this naturally leads to guess
| culture. You get told as a child, frequently, that saying "no"
| can hurt the askers feelings. You learn to feel bad for saying
| "no", since it violates care vs harm. You realize that the person
| you are about to ask a question to is going to feel bad if they
| say "no". Making them feel bad would be harm, so asking would be
| harm... unless you can figure out if they'd say yes. That's how I
| think a guess culture would develop.
|
| The reason I bring up moral foundations at all is I believe the
| solution is in the last 3 foundations: loyalty, authority, and
| purity. Those 3 are characterized as the group-ish ones. They are
| what separate acquaintances from friends, neighbourhoods from
| communities, and coworkers from a team.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/askers-...
| russellbeattie wrote:
| The reality is that this type of thing takes decades to change,
| so no advice in this thread is going to have much of an effect.
| If you're really interested in making new friends before you die,
| move to another country, or get lucky and marry someone who's
| social or has a big family. If you don't drink alcohol though,
| give it up, as that will basically destroy any chances of anyone
| befriending you as an adult.
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(page generated 2021-07-25 23:02 UTC)