Great piece! Thanks for putting it all together. Direct correlation going from a TV in the corner bar, to one in every house, to one in every room, to one in every pocket, and around every turn.
This was an extremely interesting article that really aligns with my own experience - though I am much older than the young people who are living largely online. I'm 60, and don't have any non-relatives I would consider friends - acquaintances, yes, but not friends. I consider a friend someone you could confide in or talk to about almost anything, and I've rarely had someone like that in my life. This dovetails with my almost total lack of trust in others (another topic of the essay) - if I can't trust someone, I can't truly be their friend. There's my wife and my son, and that's the full list of those I trust.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think so many feel similarly. Although these developments affect those who grew up on the internet the most, it really cuts across generations as well.
I agree. I am also 60 and my small circle of true “friends” are, with only one exception, all people I’ve known for DECADES……long before smartphones and the Internet were a “thing.” Even that one exception was introduced to me by a good friend I’ve known since 1994. Now, I’m as guilty as everyone else of too much screen time. Hell, I’m reading this article and making this comment using my iPad, my only true “constant companion” in my encroaching old age. People are hopeless, I’m afraid. It’s why I still prefer the company of a loyal dog. Dogs beat people by a country mile.
Uncomfortable but what nobody will want to say is that much of this could be driven by multiculturalism. American history is replete with phases of multiculturalism, but the characteristics were different. It may be that Irish and Italians eventually getting along is different in a post modern world of a much broader cultural spectrum. Or rather 'getting along' is the wrong term because Americans do get along, but there's a difference between getting along and feeling of the same community or group.
This is actually a point made in "Bowling Alone" - it cited several studies showing that the more diverse a community, the more likely people were to hole up in their homes watching TV. My understanding is that the situation now is a bit more complex (seems to be happening everywhere) and that other variables are key.
China is experiencing similar issues, in some cases to a much greater degree. Blaming "multiculturalism" (a.k.a. blaming black and brown people) is foolish.
I think your point is reasonable but I would prefer if you wouldn’t imply that the previous commenter has bad motives (racism) while making it.
It’s possible that that is the commenter’s motivation, but also quite likely they’re putting forward a hypothesis in good faith, so it’s best to charitably assume it’s the latter.
Otherwise you could find yourself in a situation where you miss the right hypothesis through fear of looking like you have bad motives!
The bigotry accusation is the blasphemy/heresy charge of our time. Anytime anyone treads near a taboo (as in mentioning that people from different tribes may not always cohere into a stable or trusting community) you will be instantly reflexively accused of racial hate (esp in America).
The idea of innate human tribalism (aka ethnocentrism) has to be ignored or denounced by some people, as it contravenes their sacred beliefs and/or their idea of the Good.
I'm not sure why, but instagram prevents me from linking to your blog (when I tried to share this post) and then removed my story when I tried to direct people to just look up the article. Something something protecting our community.
I know! It is really frustrating and I am trying to fix this because for some reason my blog has been flagged - I think it is because I changed the subdomain of my blog with redirects through substack’s own settings to not break any previous links. I hope I can get this dumb restriction removed ASAP. Really pisses me off.
Oct 24, 2022·edited Oct 24, 2022Liked by Anton Cebalo
Terry Davis’ work is an interesting example of a computer system being built for a completely divergent set of motivations. That it seems crazy, indeed that it likely only could have been realized by an occasionally insane person, highlights the nature of our problem. I doubt if restructuring the internet is the solution here. I doubt if a significant restructuring is even possible without a radical change in the persons designing these systems and the telos of their vocation.
Apr 15, 2023·edited Apr 15, 2023Liked by Anton Cebalo
Fascinating, enlightening, and well-synthesized analysis.
I'm stealing your line: "Rather than bowling alone, Americans are instead browsing alone over 7 hours daily on average and increasing every year."
Finally, I have been lamenting -- especially since 2020 when it seemed to me that half the world went literally insane on a number of issues -- my own observations among contemporary American culture that overlap with some you mention here (to name a few):
. isolation; meaningless; the cheapness & degradation of human dignity & life;
. irrationality & mental illness intent on driving us toward an economic/social/cultural collapse;
. evisceration of trust in, and corruption of, virtually every institution; and
. cowardice, especially among ever-increasingly-emasculated men, responsible for perhaps the leading cause of family dysfunction and societal ills (yet rarely addressed by politicians, "thought leaders," or media) -- the increasing lack of a father in the home.
I am less optimistic than you, especially with the seemingly exponentially-increasing "quickening" pace of dysfunction given the "network effects" of online social media, "AI" Bots, and censorship (e.g. "mass formation psychosis, "social contagion," and innumerable and ever-increasing "existential crisis" hysterias).
To conclude then, I would go a step farther by labeling the state we find ourselves in now as:
(1) "The Social Depression" (instead of Recession); and
(2) Since the Deep State (and their Propagandist Media / Big Tech Censors') Soft Coup against a sitting U.S. President (2016-2020) coupled with (a) permitted Leftist Domestic Terrorism across the country and (b) insane worldwide reaction to the Chinese (and apparently American-funded) bioweapon -- a rightfully-earned "Zero-Trust Society" (instead of "Low-Trust Society") in authority across all levels: social, political, and institutional.
Thanks for the comment. I am generally take the view of path dependence when it comes to historical trends, and this one in particular I do not think is reversible despite my open question at the end. This is not a "social recession" but more akin to a full-blown depression, like you said, or some new permanent reality. But still, internet infrastructure is built in a way that makes it especially pernicious and that is reversible, I think...
I feel like the foundation for a "zero-trust society" has been accumulating in the background for some time, at least since the 1970s in the U.S. But 2020 onward really blew it open. We're only now starting to see its effects on politics and culture and world affairs, and we can speculate on how turbulent it will get in the coming decades as this atomization seeps into every nook and cranny of society
Sex is not necessarily (and frequently isn't) a social activity. E.g. even solitary animals mate.
"One of the most discussed topics online recently has been friendships and loneliness."
Online discussion is a social activity, so it's not surprising a decline in other social activity would be a topic of conversation.
"millions of provincial people came to the major cities to pursue their dreams. Many uprooted themselves only to be poor and unfulfilled"
Outside of infancy it's highly unusual for animals to not have to directly work for their food. Since the industrial revolution a majority of humans no longer work directly for their food, they work on something else and purchase their food. I wonder if this delinking of work and nourishment has something to do with ennui. Oversocialization, and a divorcement from the other two instincts (sexual and self-preservational) may be part of the problems you mention here.
"The number of Americans who claim to have “no close friends at all” "
These people should be polled as to whether they think this is a problem. And studies should be done on these people (with psychological controls who do have friends) to see whether it is a problem. I'm one of them (excepting my spouse), and I don't see it as a problem. But I don't have a control, and none of us completely know ourselves. I wonder what the actual number of "friendless" people is when including relatives, and how many people answering the poll included their spouses.
I also wonder whether the idea of "friendship" that is in people's minds is one of in-person interaction. Are some people not counting online compatriots who they genuinely and frequently enjoy engaging with as friends?
What are the trends in education, employment, and dining out? How many people in the past would gain friends through shared schooling and then go on to a workplace or shared diner with those friends?
People are not homogeneous. General trends impact us all differently.
"Regimes crumble and collapse due to a lack of belief in themselves."
Is this true, or does it take active antipathy? Plenty of people consistently vote for, or otherwise support, the lesser of two evils.
"Skepticism toward the state has evolved into more generalized distrust toward society at large, amplified by the internet."
I completely agree. It would have been nice if a poll broke out attitudes toward employers. The 70s also saw the transition from lifetime employment to job insecurity. This affects people both socially and self-preservationally in a way previously not seen since the industrial revolution's flight to the cities.
Very interesting, especially your conclusion. I've heard Mastodon goes somewhat in the direction of a democratized social internet, though still has primary instances controlled by a single person (instead of being completely distributed). I have not used it though.
"I'm one of them (excepting my spouse), and I don't see it as a problem."
I, like you, saw no problem having my wife be my sole confidant and constant companion. Then, she drowned, at 52.
I ran away and lived in the mountains for 3 1/2 years, finally emerging and settling in Florida with the intention of talking to people. Unfortunately, I have peripheral neuritis in my legs and feet, a failed back surgery, and a herniation in my neck. These stop me from going out and the current conceit of the DEA treating doctors like pushers and their subsequent refusal to give enough meds to do more than take the sting out of my various maladies keeps me uneager to move. So I rarely leave my recliner.
You talk of defining exactly what friendship means and I, too, wonder. I have six adult children, none with kids of their own, and 10 brothers and sisters. One sister and one daughter are "temporarily" living with me and my mother is only 75 minutes away. But none of them come close to what I had with my wife, and I don't mean sex. I am 62 with potentially another 30 or so years left. I still wear my wedding ring.
Hold dear to what you have. It can vanish in a moment.
Re: "The number of Americans who claim to have “no close friends at all” "
If you look at the original study, they did poll to ask their satisfaction with their respective number of friend(s) [Figure 4] [1]. Seems to suggest ~1/3 of the no friend group is okay with the amount of friends they have.
A long long time ago when it first came out I wrote a criticism of it. Since then I've had a bit of a change of heart. But no, this isn't based on that, it's based on readings since then (principally a multi-year study of personality theory and the blindspots of the various personality types, but also a frustration with being a 7-year permatemp and more general frustration with over-management in general).
Lack of eye contact as a cause of social distancing; more people not engaging in street life so the commons withers into a semblance of what it was during the last century. Lack of free play in dense neighborhoods equates to less risk taking in eighteen year olds across class lines.
This is true, and I think the decline in sociability ends up reaffirming largely invisible class divides. Smaller circles means smaller social reach which in turn creates these insular "bubbles."
Recently, there was a study which found that working class representation in the arts has fallen drastically in the past few decades which is a huge loss for culture and its creative output. Unsurprisingly, culture has become more bland and uninspired as people increasingly socialize only with those that reflect themselves and are adjacent to their own social/class position.
If you are interested in "street life" that has some serendipity, I suggest watching a documentary called "Free Time" which I had the pleasure of seeing in a local theater. Filmed between 1958 to 1960, it tells a loose story of New York City street life by compilign scenes of people enjoying their leisure on the city sidewalks. A very fun, panoramic look at the social sphere as it once was.
I am *guessing* that this is the strongest causal link for why people are less sociable and/or have fewer friends without being able to back up with data - Internet has increasing enabled people to get into a niche interests/activities/hobbies that people in close proximity don't share. These niches also shape people's values and world views that can't be aligned with others. It's also possible people just don't have the motivations to make time for consistent social connections because their reward pathways are stronger for these niches. i.e you boredom erasure is a couple taps away versus actually making plans with people who also are also similarly flaky in their motivations.
Online communities thus far are not strong enough or lacks the irl cues to form strong connections. Some manage to meet each other but they are exceptions. Most of the time the cost is too high to meet each other.
I wish someone could do a study on friendships between populations of high internet penetration and low internet penetration.
I know this might seem a bit of a stretch, but I think a part of this is also rooted in the economic situation of the US. We have basically printed our way out of problems for the past 15 years.
While the decline of most of these metrics started well before 2008, I believe that part of the reason there hasn't been the impetus for social change is because there is basically widespread stagnation in the structure of economic relationships which (imo) definitely influence social relationships between people.
But really, we can take a step back at look at what you're describing in a different way. The period of "cheap money" that permeated over the past 12-odd years really divorced financial returns from the greater society. And while the market (esp. useless tech) partied on, the actual base of society and its sociability was succumbing to a deep malaise.
Writer Lauren Berlant had this term "cruel optimism" which has always stuck with me. There has been this great frenzy over technological output, this really narrow "optimism" because the gains were coming, but it has also been exceptionally cruel. Now that optimism is sort of waning, and we're left with maybe just 'cruel.' People are looking at the malaise that was the long 2010s and thinking, "how do we never do that again?"
But yeah, I agree with what you're describing. I'm a late 20 something tech worker, so I've definitely benefitted from it in a large way. I just am now starting to realize though that most of the tech products/work were way more of a result of cheap money (being used for basically no purpose) than actual societal benefit.
Perhaps the best examples of companies that represent this "effect" that we're describing are Airbnb and Uber. Both good financial returns for insiders that I'd argue have had a net negative effect on society in a way that directly relates to the lonelinees/societal malaise you're talking about.
Yeah. But even beyond startups - virtually all social media companies are actively damaging the social sphere because they are openly building addictive and attention-maximizing infrastructure where any pro-social effects are an afterthought
Social engagement online across the board is way down and quality has declined: Google's results have gotten way worse, YouTube has a bunch of recommendation spam when I search something, Instagram is not really for sharing photos anymore but short-form videos for the endless scroll, and Facebook is pretty much unusable esp. after they killed off groups.
The online commons that should have been has gotten comically bad at this point
"Economic" return now is purely financial, which means that people who are seeing their real wages stagnate (or more likely, decline) are effectively getting nothing from society anymore. So they're giving up socially and professional. "Quiet quitting" extends to more than just jobs imo.
Yep, financialization has been something I've been actively reading about for years now. I totally agree. Keep in mind too that amid the rise of finance capital as a main means of corporate profit, actual measured productivity has been zero or even negative in the U.S. and the U.K. That hasn't been the case nearly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Everything is out of wack completely.
Great article and research, thank you. My one comment here is that you didn't mention our society's move towards 'de-facto polygamy' whereby the traditional monogamous relationships have declined in favor of the top tier of men getting sexual access to a very large volume of women, and the bottom several tiers of men getting absolutely nothing and being invisible. This is why there are so many sexless men -- the women in their league for a commitment are busy having sex with men out of their league in hopes that they can get them to commit (which they never do, of course), meanwhile racking up trauma and damage from those heartbreaks and 'alpha-widowing' themselves in the process. There have been many others who have delved into these trends that I would suggest your readers check out: F Roger Devlin's 'Sexual Utopia in Power' on the right, Rob Henderson, Stephen Baskerville.
This problem is only worsening as religious traditions that promote monogamy are fading fast and single-mother households teach women to see men as mere objects for their manipulation and parasitic opportunism. Add the misandrist feminist mainstream and lack of any shame for hypergamous whoring and you've got de-facto polygamy. Women no longer need men for protecting or provisioning, so they are chasing after the charismatic CADs, who make up a mere 10-20% of men and have zero incentives to settle down anyhow. Regular, average men are no longer attractive to women who've slept with 50 'alphas' by the time theyre 28. These women then go on to hate all men because they couldn't secure a man out of their league and rejected those men who were willing to commit in favor of tingles from Chad(s). Most men are invisible to young, fertile women, and very few people are even aware of the problem (other than the men themselves, of course, and the few people who genuinely care about them). This is causing all kinds of social ills, school shootings being perhaps the most spectacular.
Did you really just describe school shootings as “spectacular?” Definition: beautiful in a dramatic way?
And women don’t generally reject regular men dude, there are hordes of hot women dating down because they’re amazing guys who treat them well. You’re just repulsive, no photo needed.
First realization - we're not alone in our aloneness.
The pandemic has reset the individual and societal acceptance of being distant or even isolated. Additionally, polarization of people (religion, politics, open displays of wealth and income) makes relationships that used to be easily made and maintained subject to erosion.
One difference in opinion can lead to loss of friends by unilateral or mutual decision. The lesson learned is that friendship can be both costly and tenuous in this day and age.
Great piece! Thanks for putting it all together. Direct correlation going from a TV in the corner bar, to one in every house, to one in every room, to one in every pocket, and around every turn.
You really phrased that in a satisfying way, must say. Glad you liked the piece!
Not to mention one does go to a bar its walls are plastered with screens in many cases
This was an extremely interesting article that really aligns with my own experience - though I am much older than the young people who are living largely online. I'm 60, and don't have any non-relatives I would consider friends - acquaintances, yes, but not friends. I consider a friend someone you could confide in or talk to about almost anything, and I've rarely had someone like that in my life. This dovetails with my almost total lack of trust in others (another topic of the essay) - if I can't trust someone, I can't truly be their friend. There's my wife and my son, and that's the full list of those I trust.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think so many feel similarly. Although these developments affect those who grew up on the internet the most, it really cuts across generations as well.
I agree. I am also 60 and my small circle of true “friends” are, with only one exception, all people I’ve known for DECADES……long before smartphones and the Internet were a “thing.” Even that one exception was introduced to me by a good friend I’ve known since 1994. Now, I’m as guilty as everyone else of too much screen time. Hell, I’m reading this article and making this comment using my iPad, my only true “constant companion” in my encroaching old age. People are hopeless, I’m afraid. It’s why I still prefer the company of a loyal dog. Dogs beat people by a country mile.
Cats, too! :)
Uncomfortable but what nobody will want to say is that much of this could be driven by multiculturalism. American history is replete with phases of multiculturalism, but the characteristics were different. It may be that Irish and Italians eventually getting along is different in a post modern world of a much broader cultural spectrum. Or rather 'getting along' is the wrong term because Americans do get along, but there's a difference between getting along and feeling of the same community or group.
This is actually a point made in "Bowling Alone" - it cited several studies showing that the more diverse a community, the more likely people were to hole up in their homes watching TV. My understanding is that the situation now is a bit more complex (seems to be happening everywhere) and that other variables are key.
China is experiencing similar issues, in some cases to a much greater degree. Blaming "multiculturalism" (a.k.a. blaming black and brown people) is foolish.
I think your point is reasonable but I would prefer if you wouldn’t imply that the previous commenter has bad motives (racism) while making it.
It’s possible that that is the commenter’s motivation, but also quite likely they’re putting forward a hypothesis in good faith, so it’s best to charitably assume it’s the latter.
Otherwise you could find yourself in a situation where you miss the right hypothesis through fear of looking like you have bad motives!
The bigotry accusation is the blasphemy/heresy charge of our time. Anytime anyone treads near a taboo (as in mentioning that people from different tribes may not always cohere into a stable or trusting community) you will be instantly reflexively accused of racial hate (esp in America).
The idea of innate human tribalism (aka ethnocentrism) has to be ignored or denounced by some people, as it contravenes their sacred beliefs and/or their idea of the Good.
I'm not sure why, but instagram prevents me from linking to your blog (when I tried to share this post) and then removed my story when I tried to direct people to just look up the article. Something something protecting our community.
It's been fixed!!! Finally, somehow.
I know! It is really frustrating and I am trying to fix this because for some reason my blog has been flagged - I think it is because I changed the subdomain of my blog with redirects through substack’s own settings to not break any previous links. I hope I can get this dumb restriction removed ASAP. Really pisses me off.
Likewise, sharing the link even through private/personal messages is completely blocked (the messages don't send). Shame on them.
Given the content of the post, and the fact it's blocked by a monopoly power you discuss, is far too dystopian for me on a Monday.
EDIT: resolved!
I tried to do a URL redirect off my domain, still flagged it as spam, ended up linking to a PDF version that I uploaded to Google Drive. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ao07hLOwJEQMoL6eziTGLIBHH3C9i2K6/view?usp=sharing
Hey, got some good news -- by some magic, it's been fixed!
Terry Davis’ work is an interesting example of a computer system being built for a completely divergent set of motivations. That it seems crazy, indeed that it likely only could have been realized by an occasionally insane person, highlights the nature of our problem. I doubt if restructuring the internet is the solution here. I doubt if a significant restructuring is even possible without a radical change in the persons designing these systems and the telos of their vocation.
FEWER!!!!!!!!!!! FEWER!
Hehe oops. This is why an editor helps.
Fascinating, enlightening, and well-synthesized analysis.
I'm stealing your line: "Rather than bowling alone, Americans are instead browsing alone over 7 hours daily on average and increasing every year."
Finally, I have been lamenting -- especially since 2020 when it seemed to me that half the world went literally insane on a number of issues -- my own observations among contemporary American culture that overlap with some you mention here (to name a few):
. isolation; meaningless; the cheapness & degradation of human dignity & life;
. irrationality & mental illness intent on driving us toward an economic/social/cultural collapse;
. evisceration of trust in, and corruption of, virtually every institution; and
. cowardice, especially among ever-increasingly-emasculated men, responsible for perhaps the leading cause of family dysfunction and societal ills (yet rarely addressed by politicians, "thought leaders," or media) -- the increasing lack of a father in the home.
I am less optimistic than you, especially with the seemingly exponentially-increasing "quickening" pace of dysfunction given the "network effects" of online social media, "AI" Bots, and censorship (e.g. "mass formation psychosis, "social contagion," and innumerable and ever-increasing "existential crisis" hysterias).
To conclude then, I would go a step farther by labeling the state we find ourselves in now as:
(1) "The Social Depression" (instead of Recession); and
(2) Since the Deep State (and their Propagandist Media / Big Tech Censors') Soft Coup against a sitting U.S. President (2016-2020) coupled with (a) permitted Leftist Domestic Terrorism across the country and (b) insane worldwide reaction to the Chinese (and apparently American-funded) bioweapon -- a rightfully-earned "Zero-Trust Society" (instead of "Low-Trust Society") in authority across all levels: social, political, and institutional.
Cheers!
Thanks for the comment. I am generally take the view of path dependence when it comes to historical trends, and this one in particular I do not think is reversible despite my open question at the end. This is not a "social recession" but more akin to a full-blown depression, like you said, or some new permanent reality. But still, internet infrastructure is built in a way that makes it especially pernicious and that is reversible, I think...
I feel like the foundation for a "zero-trust society" has been accumulating in the background for some time, at least since the 1970s in the U.S. But 2020 onward really blew it open. We're only now starting to see its effects on politics and culture and world affairs, and we can speculate on how turbulent it will get in the coming decades as this atomization seeps into every nook and cranny of society
This a great, thought-provoking essay that articulates gut feelings I've had for some time now...
Let me take a look at this at some point over the course of this upcoming week.
Sex is not necessarily (and frequently isn't) a social activity. E.g. even solitary animals mate.
"One of the most discussed topics online recently has been friendships and loneliness."
Online discussion is a social activity, so it's not surprising a decline in other social activity would be a topic of conversation.
"millions of provincial people came to the major cities to pursue their dreams. Many uprooted themselves only to be poor and unfulfilled"
Outside of infancy it's highly unusual for animals to not have to directly work for their food. Since the industrial revolution a majority of humans no longer work directly for their food, they work on something else and purchase their food. I wonder if this delinking of work and nourishment has something to do with ennui. Oversocialization, and a divorcement from the other two instincts (sexual and self-preservational) may be part of the problems you mention here.
"The number of Americans who claim to have “no close friends at all” "
These people should be polled as to whether they think this is a problem. And studies should be done on these people (with psychological controls who do have friends) to see whether it is a problem. I'm one of them (excepting my spouse), and I don't see it as a problem. But I don't have a control, and none of us completely know ourselves. I wonder what the actual number of "friendless" people is when including relatives, and how many people answering the poll included their spouses.
I also wonder whether the idea of "friendship" that is in people's minds is one of in-person interaction. Are some people not counting online compatriots who they genuinely and frequently enjoy engaging with as friends?
What are the trends in education, employment, and dining out? How many people in the past would gain friends through shared schooling and then go on to a workplace or shared diner with those friends?
People are not homogeneous. General trends impact us all differently.
"Regimes crumble and collapse due to a lack of belief in themselves."
Is this true, or does it take active antipathy? Plenty of people consistently vote for, or otherwise support, the lesser of two evils.
"Skepticism toward the state has evolved into more generalized distrust toward society at large, amplified by the internet."
I completely agree. It would have been nice if a poll broke out attitudes toward employers. The 70s also saw the transition from lifetime employment to job insecurity. This affects people both socially and self-preservationally in a way previously not seen since the industrial revolution's flight to the cities.
Very interesting, especially your conclusion. I've heard Mastodon goes somewhat in the direction of a democratized social internet, though still has primary instances controlled by a single person (instead of being completely distributed). I have not used it though.
"I'm one of them (excepting my spouse), and I don't see it as a problem."
I, like you, saw no problem having my wife be my sole confidant and constant companion. Then, she drowned, at 52.
I ran away and lived in the mountains for 3 1/2 years, finally emerging and settling in Florida with the intention of talking to people. Unfortunately, I have peripheral neuritis in my legs and feet, a failed back surgery, and a herniation in my neck. These stop me from going out and the current conceit of the DEA treating doctors like pushers and their subsequent refusal to give enough meds to do more than take the sting out of my various maladies keeps me uneager to move. So I rarely leave my recliner.
You talk of defining exactly what friendship means and I, too, wonder. I have six adult children, none with kids of their own, and 10 brothers and sisters. One sister and one daughter are "temporarily" living with me and my mother is only 75 minutes away. But none of them come close to what I had with my wife, and I don't mean sex. I am 62 with potentially another 30 or so years left. I still wear my wedding ring.
Hold dear to what you have. It can vanish in a moment.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment, Paul. I really feel for you and your last sentence there, couldn't agree more.
Re: "The number of Americans who claim to have “no close friends at all” "
If you look at the original study, they did poll to ask their satisfaction with their respective number of friend(s) [Figure 4] [1]. Seems to suggest ~1/3 of the no friend group is okay with the amount of friends they have.
[1] https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-State-of-American-Friendship.pdf?x91208
Thanks. There were so many links I couldn't even find the original study.
I see you read the Unabomber manifesto.
A long long time ago when it first came out I wrote a criticism of it. Since then I've had a bit of a change of heart. But no, this isn't based on that, it's based on readings since then (principally a multi-year study of personality theory and the blindspots of the various personality types, but also a frustration with being a 7-year permatemp and more general frustration with over-management in general).
Lack of eye contact as a cause of social distancing; more people not engaging in street life so the commons withers into a semblance of what it was during the last century. Lack of free play in dense neighborhoods equates to less risk taking in eighteen year olds across class lines.
This is true, and I think the decline in sociability ends up reaffirming largely invisible class divides. Smaller circles means smaller social reach which in turn creates these insular "bubbles."
Recently, there was a study which found that working class representation in the arts has fallen drastically in the past few decades which is a huge loss for culture and its creative output. Unsurprisingly, culture has become more bland and uninspired as people increasingly socialize only with those that reflect themselves and are adjacent to their own social/class position.
If you are interested in "street life" that has some serendipity, I suggest watching a documentary called "Free Time" which I had the pleasure of seeing in a local theater. Filmed between 1958 to 1960, it tells a loose story of New York City street life by compilign scenes of people enjoying their leisure on the city sidewalks. A very fun, panoramic look at the social sphere as it once was.
Link: https://grasshopperfilm.com/film/free-time/
I am *guessing* that this is the strongest causal link for why people are less sociable and/or have fewer friends without being able to back up with data - Internet has increasing enabled people to get into a niche interests/activities/hobbies that people in close proximity don't share. These niches also shape people's values and world views that can't be aligned with others. It's also possible people just don't have the motivations to make time for consistent social connections because their reward pathways are stronger for these niches. i.e you boredom erasure is a couple taps away versus actually making plans with people who also are also similarly flaky in their motivations.
Online communities thus far are not strong enough or lacks the irl cues to form strong connections. Some manage to meet each other but they are exceptions. Most of the time the cost is too high to meet each other.
I wish someone could do a study on friendships between populations of high internet penetration and low internet penetration.
Loneliness...one of my biggest fears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NES3hSNv6o
I want to die surrounded by all of my friends and family.
Ideally in a plane crash or inescapable house fire. : )
I want to experience people with a sense of humor that get the : ) at the end of my comment.
Sad way you go through life. Sorry things aren't working out for you.
I know this might seem a bit of a stretch, but I think a part of this is also rooted in the economic situation of the US. We have basically printed our way out of problems for the past 15 years.
While the decline of most of these metrics started well before 2008, I believe that part of the reason there hasn't been the impetus for social change is because there is basically widespread stagnation in the structure of economic relationships which (imo) definitely influence social relationships between people.
There is something to that. I talk about the zero-interest rate period and how it broke things in a previous piece: https://novum.substack.com/p/what-if-worldview-zero-interest-rates
But really, we can take a step back at look at what you're describing in a different way. The period of "cheap money" that permeated over the past 12-odd years really divorced financial returns from the greater society. And while the market (esp. useless tech) partied on, the actual base of society and its sociability was succumbing to a deep malaise.
Writer Lauren Berlant had this term "cruel optimism" which has always stuck with me. There has been this great frenzy over technological output, this really narrow "optimism" because the gains were coming, but it has also been exceptionally cruel. Now that optimism is sort of waning, and we're left with maybe just 'cruel.' People are looking at the malaise that was the long 2010s and thinking, "how do we never do that again?"
I will read that article.
But yeah, I agree with what you're describing. I'm a late 20 something tech worker, so I've definitely benefitted from it in a large way. I just am now starting to realize though that most of the tech products/work were way more of a result of cheap money (being used for basically no purpose) than actual societal benefit.
Perhaps the best examples of companies that represent this "effect" that we're describing are Airbnb and Uber. Both good financial returns for insiders that I'd argue have had a net negative effect on society in a way that directly relates to the lonelinees/societal malaise you're talking about.
Yeah. But even beyond startups - virtually all social media companies are actively damaging the social sphere because they are openly building addictive and attention-maximizing infrastructure where any pro-social effects are an afterthought
Social engagement online across the board is way down and quality has declined: Google's results have gotten way worse, YouTube has a bunch of recommendation spam when I search something, Instagram is not really for sharing photos anymore but short-form videos for the endless scroll, and Facebook is pretty much unusable esp. after they killed off groups.
The online commons that should have been has gotten comically bad at this point
I think it's more than social media companies. Every company has been infected with financialization over value. Take BMW now turning car features into subscriptions: https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2022/07/13/bmw-begins-offering-vehicle-features-by-subscription-in-some-markets/.
"Economic" return now is purely financial, which means that people who are seeing their real wages stagnate (or more likely, decline) are effectively getting nothing from society anymore. So they're giving up socially and professional. "Quiet quitting" extends to more than just jobs imo.
Yep, financialization has been something I've been actively reading about for years now. I totally agree. Keep in mind too that amid the rise of finance capital as a main means of corporate profit, actual measured productivity has been zero or even negative in the U.S. and the U.K. That hasn't been the case nearly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Everything is out of wack completely.
The UK (similar story in the US): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/23/statistic-of-decade-award-03-per-cent
Not sure if you've seen it, but you would enjoy this website: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Great article and research, thank you. My one comment here is that you didn't mention our society's move towards 'de-facto polygamy' whereby the traditional monogamous relationships have declined in favor of the top tier of men getting sexual access to a very large volume of women, and the bottom several tiers of men getting absolutely nothing and being invisible. This is why there are so many sexless men -- the women in their league for a commitment are busy having sex with men out of their league in hopes that they can get them to commit (which they never do, of course), meanwhile racking up trauma and damage from those heartbreaks and 'alpha-widowing' themselves in the process. There have been many others who have delved into these trends that I would suggest your readers check out: F Roger Devlin's 'Sexual Utopia in Power' on the right, Rob Henderson, Stephen Baskerville.
This problem is only worsening as religious traditions that promote monogamy are fading fast and single-mother households teach women to see men as mere objects for their manipulation and parasitic opportunism. Add the misandrist feminist mainstream and lack of any shame for hypergamous whoring and you've got de-facto polygamy. Women no longer need men for protecting or provisioning, so they are chasing after the charismatic CADs, who make up a mere 10-20% of men and have zero incentives to settle down anyhow. Regular, average men are no longer attractive to women who've slept with 50 'alphas' by the time theyre 28. These women then go on to hate all men because they couldn't secure a man out of their league and rejected those men who were willing to commit in favor of tingles from Chad(s). Most men are invisible to young, fertile women, and very few people are even aware of the problem (other than the men themselves, of course, and the few people who genuinely care about them). This is causing all kinds of social ills, school shootings being perhaps the most spectacular.
Did you really just describe school shootings as “spectacular?” Definition: beautiful in a dramatic way?
And women don’t generally reject regular men dude, there are hordes of hot women dating down because they’re amazing guys who treat them well. You’re just repulsive, no photo needed.
First realization - we're not alone in our aloneness.
The pandemic has reset the individual and societal acceptance of being distant or even isolated. Additionally, polarization of people (religion, politics, open displays of wealth and income) makes relationships that used to be easily made and maintained subject to erosion.
One difference in opinion can lead to loss of friends by unilateral or mutual decision. The lesson learned is that friendship can be both costly and tenuous in this day and age.
Excellent. Yes, we have to tiptoe and handle carefully opinions with friends, it’s not fun.