Doesn’t this depend on having friends who are off the internet too?
In the before times, I’d go to get drinks with friends and often found they were chronically distracted. If there’s a lull in conversation they pull out their phones. I go to the bathroom and come back and they’re swiping through Tinder.
I got married before the dating apps got popular so I never went down that particular rabbit hole, but I feel like they’ve severely damaged people’s ability to pay attention to where they are and who they’re with.
If there’s a lull in conversation they pull out their phones.
I despise how this behavior has been completely normalized. Especially in the dating sphere. People putting their phones on the table to make sure they never miss notifications is just so fucking disrespectful to the people you're actually with.
> People putting their phones on the table to make sure they never miss notifications is just so fucking disrespectful to the people you're actually with.
FWIW, I don't use my phone while out to eat with another person, but I do put it on the table—on silent!—because it's large enough to be uncomfortable in my front pants pocket(s) while sitting.
Personally I never understood it as disrespectful, because I assume they’ve got some personal shit they might not be able to be uncontactable for. What if someone they know is in the hospital or they’re in some other high priority issue? What if a close friend of theirs is in a tenuous health position? What if they’re checking on their children? And most certainly they’re not going to tell me and frankly I’m not entitled to whatever shit they’ve got going through it we’re just getting to know if we like each other broadly. I think assuming I should have dedicated time to someone who is just seeing if we get along is rather selfish of me- I don’t know their life enough to know if they have other priorities they’re trying to balance.
> What if someone they know is in the hospital or they’re in some other high priority issue? What if a close friend of theirs is in a tenuous health position? What if they’re checking on their children?
Even if any or all of that is true you can still put your phone away. If it's an emergency someone will call you.
It’s also possible you miss a call, so if you check your notifications you’ll see you did. Again, I think this is all super judge mental over something that frankly isn’t my business.
Sure, but we’re not in those times anymore. It’s weird to be like “I’m dating someone so I choose not to pick up it I miss a call from my ailing mother”.
You can always find new friends once you start meeting people off internet. Tbh I find purely online friendships not to last long, especially now as an adult.
Or, perhaps a more charitable reading may be "if you’re not staring at a screen perhaps you’ll meet people while out and form social bonds"?
If you’re very online and you’re lonely being very online then proposing that you change what you’re doing to perhaps get different results is not the same thing as "have you tried not being sad????"
And why do people think someone just going offline will magically start talking to people (where? with whom?)
It's like telling an obese person to go exercise. It is meaningless advice. "Oh but can they figure it out right" Well, if they could maybe they wouldn't be so lonely.
And even more in boomer style "just take your printed CV to McDonalds to get a job" pulling people offline might be just cutting the only social link most of them have, instead of leveraging it.
If you spend all your time just mulling about online, or watching Netflix, or playing a game, then it's not surprising that you are lonely. You are engaging in solo activities that other people can't really join.
It is not anymore surprising that you are overweight if you don't exercise, and especially if you aren't cooking at home ever.
Cut out any drugs, go to bed at a reasonable hour, exercise, get a hobby, eat decently. If you don't know how to do those things or have medical issues preventing you, go to a doctor/therapist/personal trainer/nutritionist/life coach.
No you aren't going to become a social butterfly just because you finally logged off your game, but if you try a few different organized social events (board game meetups, hiking group, whatever) you will probably start talking to a few people.
If you still can't, then you need to talk to a therapist. You probably have either never developed or allowed your social skills to decay and need help to get them back on track.
The rest of your comment is on point and I think it’s good advice, but I wanted to respond to this:
> If you spend all your time […] watching Netflix, or playing a game, then it's not surprising that you are lonely. You are engaging in solo activities that other people can't really join.
The relevant qualifier here is "all your time", and I agree, all your time is bad, but these activities can be plenty social if they’re engaged in for a reasonable amount of time and with an eye toward being social.
Netflix and playing games to be were vital to me keeping a social link with friend when the pandemic started. What worked for me was to do these activities in a group with friends, friends of friends, and family of friends in a group. For example, we treated NetFlix like a book club treats a book store - a source of material to discuss. We picked out movies and series and would discuss them like a book club discussed movies. Hearing the perspective of others and their understanding of the shows/movies was very interesting and it allowed expanding my social circle with people that either had similar interests or were articulate, civil, and respectful about our differences.
Same for gaming - we would run social gaming nights for people that would break off into smaller groups based on gaming preferences. Did that over Discord and it worked great to break the ice and keep socializing.
The key was to use these things as a backdrop to bring people together and drive engagement and let their desire to be social drive relationships. This takes active effort as opposed to binging a show alone or just queuing in another public lobby in a game.
Another key was limiting time. We alternated between games and movie/series discussion every other week, and that gave everyone (especially participants with a busy work schedule or kids) time to set aside a couple of hours to watch/discuss the shows/movies or game.
> but if you try a few different organized social events (board game meetups, hiking group, whatever) you will probably start talking to a few people.
In my experience, actually no. I took up rock climbing about a decade ago, which most people would say is a fairly social activity. I rarely talk to anyone and certainly wouldn't describe anyone I've met at the gym as a friend. You have failed to consider that maybe the reason people are entertaining themselves with solo activities at home is that they are predisposed towards not being very social even when among other people with similar interests.
> If you still can't, then you need to talk to a therapist. You probably have either never developed or allowed your social skills to decay and need help to get them back on track.
Or, maybe I just don't enjoy interacting with strangers very much? It seems pretty insulting to insinuate that just because someone isn't very social it means they are fundamentally flawed.
We are discussing people who are suffering from loneliness.
If you do not suffer from loneliness, this entire thread is not about you.
If you suffer from loneliness and are not socializing successfully, something has gone wrong, somewhere.
Even if you need to see a therapist, you are not fundamentally broken anymore than someone who is physically weak is fundamentally broken. You simply need help with your development.
> And why do people think someone just going offline will magically start talking to people (where? with whom?)
Necessary (but not sufficient) for change in life to occur is for the person wanting change to desire it happen and make effort for it to happen.
To answer where: whatever activity you choose to do with other people, assuming you choose an activity that can be social - typically something based on your interests, and if you're not sure what those are, try a bunch and see which ones you enjoy. Part of building a social circle is developing interests of your own and then finding people who share those interests with you.
To answer with whom: the people that are doing these activities that are there to do them but also be social. There are tons of places out for hobbies and activities where you can meet people, but you have to go to those places, put in the effort with the activities, and be open to making connections with people, and even then, that may not work, but you'll never know unless you try.
Let me give you an example from my life. In my early twenties I was lonely and I spent most of my time forum posting and chatting on IRC/AIM. I was talking to people but not making connections. An acquaintance of mine who had a lot more friends and connections suggested that perhaps I was spending too much time forum posting and chatting and not enough actually out doing things. I resisted this change for about a year, but I found that continuing to do what I was doing wasn't changing my situation. I decided to make a change in my life and to start pursing interests and connections. Weekday, I would go to work (which required me to be online as a computer programmer), but then to limit my online time at home and make an effort to go out and meet people. I didn't go out every night, but I spent some time away from the screen - I got better at cooking, I started reading more, and I focused on discovering new interests.
In some cases, this was having a drink (not necessarily an alcoholic one if you're not into alcohol) in a bar during a football game to meet other football fans. Another was to go bowling once a week which turned into joining a league. Another was to go to a farmer's market to pick up fresh vegetables. The last was joining a local Linux users group. Starting all of these activities, engaging in them with the mind of being social, coupled with learning about myself, led to both personal and professional connections being made - I met my wife, I met a future employer and hopefully startup co-founder, and I met friends that I still bowl with to this day. It was my desire to go to these events, to be open, to talk to people who were open to being talked to, and to meet regulars and connect with them that helped me move forward. I don't want to make it sound like it was all sunshine and roses - it left me tired, some of the activities I tried left me physically sore because I wasn't really fit enough for them, some of the people I met ended up being terrible people and I had to learn to cope with that/cut them out, and I had a few failed relationships along the way which bruised my heart. None of that would have happened if I just stayed on forums and chat and never made an effort to change. There is also the chance that I wouldn't have met people out and doing this, but I never would have had the opportunity if I hadn't tried.
> It's like telling an obese person to go exercise. It is meaningless advice.
If someone is obese and asks for advice on how to become more healthy then suggesting exercise (along with some exercises they can get started with - see above for my analogous answer to that) is not meaningless. If someone is obese, asks you for advice, you give them advice, they don't follow it, and then they complain about how things aren't changing and that it was meaningless that you gave them advice then the obese person might bear some responsibility for their situation not changing.
> And even more in boomer style "just take your printed CV to McDonalds to get a job" pulling people offline might be just cutting the only social link most of them have, instead of leveraging it.
Anyone that is suggesting that you go _completely_ offline is wrong - I am not suggesting that at all! You cannot go _completely_ offline and be productive, educated, and social these days. Many of the social opportunities that I mentioned above these days are organized online, so you will need to be online in some cases to know when they're happening and to keep in contact with the people you meet there. What people are suggesting is that you limit the amount of time you spend online outside of work and the necessary time to find these activities, learn about them, and maintain the connections you make while doing them.
Not entirely sure why you're downvoted. I'm nearly deaf and I fully rely on lipreading. I've basically concluded I will have no social interactions in public until masks go away. I can't even make it through checkout sometimes without frustrating others. No one has the patience to try and bother to communicate with barriers. I can't count the number of times someone has finally screamed "never mind!" and made shooing gestures. Even the bus scares me. It's very hard to tell someone's emotional state both unable to see their face or hear them. I worry about being assaulted.
I know hearing people experience a mild version of the above. It's the most visible aspect of how the pandemic of virus has led to the pandemic of loneliness.
I'm sympathetic to people with hearing impairment. It's a shame that most mask-wearing, at least in my area, is arguably "virtue signaling" as single-layer masks do largely nothing to prevent aerosolized viral transmission. N95s and other serious masks, on the other hand, actually work. So tired of seeing people walking their dogs in the park or bike-riding alone while wearing surgical masks. It literally does nothing except make me think those people are crazy. And this is in a county that is 85%+ vaccinated.
There are many neighborhoods in America that don't have coffee shops, at all. And many that you wouldn't want to be caught dead cycling around in on a pushbike.
On a broader scale, the median wage in America is only ~30k, while the cost of rent and basics far outpaces any increase in wages. So the idea that people would use the time off from their excessive working lives to go hiking is actually a bit insulting.
The comment I responded to reeks of ignorance of the reality of the daily lives of so, so many Americans; who if they have any free time and disposable income it sure as fuck isn't going to be spent hiking up mountains and buying decent hiking gear.
... I visited Pittsburgh last winter, and was struck at the differences between neighborhoods. In Squirrel Hill the coffee shops were open and trading, the sidewalk was free of snow, people got their groceries delivered from Giant Eagle. In Braddock, the sidewalks were cracked to pieces, layered with demonically slippery ice that hadn't seen a grain of salt in years. There wasn't any cafe, or bagel shops, or proper grocery store; there was a dollar store and a bodega with people outside trying to sell me clothes, or threaten me because I only gave them a dollar.
So I dare you, go to your city's equivalent of Braddock and ask them how much they like hiking. Ask them how much free time they have, ask them why they don't socialize in coffee shops. [I'm not shitting on Braddock - I liked it, there were nice people there, and many neighborhoods are far worse.]
The reality is that poverty amplifies loneliness while reducing the ability to socialize, but so many Americans are happy in their little bubbles while huge portions of the country crumble around them.
The world knows how unequal American society is, from welfare to justice to infrastructure; but wealthy Americans seem not to be interested (or to even think of themselves as wealthy). The blissful ignorance of most American's daily struggle is only blissful for the ignorant.
This isn't flamebait or nationalistic prejudice; just my own observations about a country that seems to be racing blindly to an even darker place.
>The reality is that poverty amplifies loneliness while reducing the ability to socialize
Without diminishing how incredibly unequal/bimodal some areas of America are, I wonder if the second part of this statement is statistically backed up.
When I was poor I frequently interacted with different people waiting for the bus, riding the subway, hanging out outside the mobile home park drinking, etc. Now, borderline-rich, I find it much harder to interact with people. I drive alone in a car, live in a luxury condo complex where no one talks to each other, etc. (Although there's also a pandemic going on so apples-to-oranges)
The pandemic has affected the poor's ability to socialize far, far more than the wealthy. Your examples are each of choices you make that poor people do not have.
The stats aren't mixed, they're "u shaped" according to your link. Again, the difference is that the wealthy are lonely by choice; the poor by lack of options.
Also just because a certain subset of the population doesn't have various aspects of the suggestion doesn't mean the suggestion is invalid, or that the spirit of the suggestion, literally "go out", isn't even more broadly applicable. I might even say that your suggestion that lower income people at large can't "go out and do things" is what is disconnected from reality.
> This isn't flamebait
It kinda feels like you're looking to nit-pick/fight though.
Median income was $31,133 in 2019, according to the Census.
Hence my point.
Edit for the response below: Median income is not the same as median household income.
Edit for the edited response: Sure, median wage in real terms is $35k, a whole 4k more annually.
Keep in mind though that 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week; "the most overworked developed nation in the world". That's not out of choice, that's out of fear, propaganda and necessity.
Maybe you're thinking per-capita, which is in the 30s? But that unfortunately includes children, so not exactly what most people would think "Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man, woman, and child in a particular group including those living in group quarters."
Internet in the morning. Have your coffee, catch up on the news, your social.
Then put the internet down for the rest of the day. Go out, ride a bike with a friend, go hike with a friend, go to a coffee shop, library....