It didn’t used to be. At least for me and i don’t recall constantly seeing posts on social media about how lonely and sad everyone was or how to make friends. Now every other magazine article is about how lonely everyone is, nobody gets together, and gen Z doesn’t socialize, drink, or have sex.
Why is there such an epidemic of loneliness and why are people content to be lonely rather than socialize?
Why is so hard to connect? Because people having nothing in common anymore? I used to connect with people over books, movies, hobbies, etc. But now it feels increasingly hard to do that. Most folks I meet don’t care about any of that, they just mostly complain about their lives to you or go on political rants about how unfair the world is.
My friends and my dates no longer seem to watch films, or do much of anything other than spend time on social media? I dont’ use social media so I’m pretty ignorant of it all.
… they asked, online.
Everyone’s expectation of what others need to be to be acceptable socially has skyrocketed while their expectations of what they themselves need to deliver has bottomed out. In dating women only want perfect looking and acting males of higher status and higher income (so much for income inequality) who bring in the majority of the income while also doing at least 50% of the housework. Men expect barbies that never age and also somehow do all the housework and bring in half the salary while on call for sex or gaming 24/7. Friends have to have the exact same income so that they can’t outspend you or become freeloaders while being constantly interesting and available while you can’t be expected to RSVP or even show up if it doesn’t suit you in that moment. There isn’t any common ground because no one should have to settle for less than their every desire, whim, expectation. No one is allowed to expect that much of them and must be willing to take them at their worst. Friends & partners must always do the right thing and never, ever make a mistake.
Somewhere along the line, social media meant people stopped treating each other as humans and instead as a commodity to use to get what they want. Then they look to said social media (exaggeration and all, mine included) to find the answers and find outrage instead.Social media is doing more mental damage to people than ever before, and they still cant stop using it.
The thing is, I dont want to hang out with people in real life that has gotten their minds twisted by social media either. So its reinforcing the idea that its easier to just not hang out with people.
On the other hand, people in real life are actually still acting normal, at least in my life. Young girls say hi, they are not hostile, maybe just a bit more careful to not act too friendly, which is fine since it can be misunderstood by guys.
The online version of people is a lot more horrible.
Where I live people don’t act normal in public anymore. They b asically make internet comments at each other IRL and don’t really interact, at least not in the traditional way I do. I find most people find a legit conversation is ‘scary and weird’. they mostly just want ot make random commentary at you, rather than talk to you.
Yeah thats horrible. Social media has changed how people act in real life for sure. I guess if they are rude to people online, they also feel like its fine to be rude to people in real life.
This guy talks a lot about this topic and I think he is straight on point. Perhaps a bit too negative sometimes but i get it. Its a battle to not get influenced by this. https://youtube.com/@dapperdev
the other thing is people like go out in a group and just sit there on their phones together. it’s wild.
I get ton of feedback now that I am ‘too intense’ because I interact with people and ask them questions rather than just make vague comments at them. 10 years ago most people seemed to enjoy and be flattered that I asked them questions. now direct eye contact and question asking is ‘scary’ to people.
I also notice a big uptick in ‘experts’ as in people who want to lecture me about how stupid and ‘wrong’ I am… often about my hobbies or job… who know absolutely nothing about my hobbies or job.
When I go out, we dont sit on our phones. But im middle aged. Me and my friends talk and make bad jokes and laugh a lot. If someone would sit on their phone, they would get made fun of. :)
It just sounds like you dont have that chemistry together, the one that makes you want to laugh just seeing the other guys.
I dont know what kind of questions you ask, but last time i was out, we talked about how crazy women have become. A lot of laughs there, believe me.
Yes, I have noticed this as well. People’s expectations are sky high an people are generally less grounded than they used to be. I have noticed this especially in the dating context. 10 year ago my dates were pretty chill, even if things didn’t work out we could still have a good time. Now I frequently encounter people who are outright hostile to me because I I am not ‘x enough’ in some arbitrary category in their head, therefore i am a subhuman scum who is ‘wasting’ their time. I’ve been actively insulted and harassed on first dates by such people. It’s truly bizarre.
I agree that most people have commodified other people and it’s gross and alienating. I’m not a wish-fulfillment machine.
Social media and its consequences.
Is it? It gets harder as time passes for each person. Friends become fewer, more busy, and farther apart. It may be that it is objectively harder now. What do I know as an old man? But it feels hard for everybody as they age individually. I have no close homies that I talk to regularly. 30 years ago, I had many.
Yeah, I can’t tell if this is all legit or if Gen Z is sooooooooo vocal and online that they are just expressing what it’s like to get older and see how the world/relationships really work and so many are just bombarded with negativity that they then feel negative.
I’m in my 40s (Millennial) and have social media, but I still manage to meet up with the few friends I have and muster up energy to cook, walk the dog, and clean house. I can unplug and not feel guilty and maybe that is what my difference is?
i can unplug and not feel guilty and maybe that is what my difference is?
This is my big disconnect with people my own age, and younger people. They seem to have anxiety about these things. I don’t care. They get very upset when I don’t text back immediately, as if I am socially rejecting them. When I text back a few hours later, it’s ‘too late’. but if you ask them to meet up face to face they ‘are too busy and have no time’. And yet they will tell you how much time they waste doing nothing. I also talk to people on the phone, and apparently this is ‘rude’ now to call someone up and talk to them for an hour to catch up?
I don’t get any of it. I find all of it very alienating. Like, whatever happened to just going to a movie, getting a bite to eat, and chilling out? That was what I did like 90% of the time. Maybe 10% going to a party or dinner with someone.
Sounds a little… anxious. What’s up with that?
i don’t understand the constant anxiety. but it seems most folks are anxious all the time, probably from the endless social comparison on social media they are doing and the constant need for immediate and positive feedback.
which seems to be why people like AI so much? because it tells you how wonderful you are.
according to a lot of data, it is objectively harder for young people and everyone to be as social as we were in the 2000s, and going back further, like the 1980s, we were even more social.
i don’t agree. my life is way easier as time goes on. the hardest part of my life was my teens and 20s.
Well, yeah me too. But my life being easier (food and money easier to come by) and comforts rarely in question - for me at least - does not equate to easier to make friends.
I’m sure there’s loads of reasons. But something that I notice is even with my good close friends (made in the before-times) it’s sometimes hard to find conversations that are “fun”. Politics has always been depressing, but while Bush era war on terror felt like an outlier, the current shit show feels like somewhat inevitable deathspiral. And it isn’t just a horrible time we need to survive together, until we get back to normal, instead it feels like we started to see how even the “better times” of our history were problematic.
Similarly, or perhaps because of, this gloomy realism in politics, I find it hard to be very exicted about other cultural products. We used to be excited for new tech or new tv, but not only is most modern tech underwhelming, if not outright horrifying, but it also makes me feel like I was dumb to have supported the rise of the Internet and move to an online society, since that seems to just be heading towards dystopia.
So, I think we’re at a (hopefully brief) nadir, where things have been bad and they’re getting worse, which kinda makes it hard to be hopeful or excited about the future. And we also can’t be nostalgic about the past because we see how many terrible things were happening in the background back then.
I’m actually doing OK compared to most people, and am a pretty optimistic person, but this societal pessimism makes it hard to be genuinely excited about stuff, even with friends. Even something as innocent as discussing the weather - is a sunny November a blessed long summer, or a harbinger of climate catastrophe? It’s exhausting and it’s easier to just escape into rewatches and computer games.
yeah i kind of agree. even fun stuff now gets politicized. like i love to read lots of kinds of books. but now people get ‘offended’ at me that i read the ‘wrong’ kinds of books that they don’t like and they feel are ‘wrong’. i don’t get it man. i don’t pick what to read based on it being ‘right’, i read the book then decide if i enjoyed it after i read it.
similar to movies. i see so many people comment negative about a movie now because it doesn’t 100% agree with their political views. on the lemmy the other day i saw a fantasy show get blasted for being ‘too gender essentialist’. like… it’s a fantasy story dude. i’m sorry the dragons aren’t lgbt+ enough for you? it’s so weird to see people politicize every thing. also if you watch older stuff. like mid century movies/books… that same argument comes up that it isn’t ‘progressive’ enough. well progressive didn’t really exist back then like it does today, it’s absurd to expect a movie from 1955 to cater to your politics in 2025 otherwise it’s ‘bad’.
hell i own a dog and a cat and people want to turn that into an argument about politics/culture. my cat and my dog don’t care about politics. they care about treats, walks, and attention. but people want me to have the ‘right’ kind of dog/cat, and feed them the ‘right’ food, and train them the ‘right’ way. it’s insane and i generally do not want to interact with people who think the breed of animal you own is some big deal or that it’s animal abuse unless you are feeding them raw food diet.
It seems to me that dinner and cocktail parties have really fallen out of favor. It makes since to me though. Both my spouse and I work, so neither of us can do the prep work to get our home ready and a meal ready in time to have guests. Hosting norms would also have me pay for the food or drinks which fine once in a blue moon, but not something I could do frequently. I’m one of my few friends with a space that would even make sense to host in, so I’d pretty much be the only one hosting, so the only one spending money. It quickly becomes something I don’t want to do.
There’s also a reduction in affordable third spaces. I get third spaces needing to make money, but it’s so expensive to go out with friends and just hang out.
Everybody, and every corporations jumped on the landlord bandwagon, rents went crazy. Now there is nowhere to go, most small cool places, with live music, or a kitschy theme, have either closed or have become too expensive.
This is bad. At least in the 1990s when the economy was hard, someone could afford to rent out a small place and make a fun bar.
Y’all can come hang at my house. I’ve got snacks.
Cool! I’ve got board games. Not Monopoly.
My house has over 100 games, but only one rule: Never Monopoly.
Can we still play Risk! Or is that too close to home as well?
I’ll bring wine.
I don’t have time for it. I live so far from my friends that it takes me an hour+ if I want to hang out.
My house is always dirty, I don’t have the will to clean.
People are more anxious and have less common friends (low clustering coefficient).
Distance can be mitigated by gaming. It’s dependent on it being more about your socialization with those people though, than an obsession with a game. It’s what we siblings do. And the grandmas play Roblox long distance with their grandkids while FaceTime-ing.
It’s not the social media that’s necessarily bad, it’s how it’s used that can be bad.
Money squeeze, destruction of third spaces , rapant misogyny and racism and so many more reasons.
Gen Z doesn’t respond to phone calls or texts.
Source: My Gen Z neices.
how do they communicate? discord?
The stare.
I was ahead of my time
Zoomer here. Discord is way better than SMS
Lack of money is certainly a chilling factor. Went bowling the other week, and it cost like $30/person. That’s pretty cheap, but not if you’re dead broke. Went out for brunch and a short bar crawl this weekend, and they cost like $50/ea for food and a few drinks. Not that expensive, but also kind of a lot.
You can socialize for cheaper. Had a little get together the other week- I spent like $40 for pizza and snacks, but could’ve probably gone cheaper. The real limiting factor is getting people who will show up.
I imagine it’s hard to bootstrap that, if you have no friends or only sad-sit-home-alone friends.
true, but IMO the less wealthy friends socialize way more than the wealthy ones. but they seem to value their money less as in they aren’t agonizing about prices. i feel like when i go out i just spend less, one drink instead of three, for example. no apps, only entrees, etc.
No money to do anything is my main reason.
And then there’s the feeling that it’s less evil to not participate in American culture. American culture doesn’t feel genuine to me and when I find myself in it I feel like I’m losing myself like the decline of a meth user. Participating in American culture makes me feel like a bad human being.
Ads. Ads everywhere and they’ll all attacking your sense of contentment to sell their shit and all their shit is terrible. Terrible of the environment. Terrible for human ethics. All the big companies are clouding with the fascist government.
I’ve also come to this conclusion. Twas a fun go but now I feel morally bankrupt and no longer want to be accomplice.
Everything is too expensive. People simply can’t afford to do things anymore.
The only mistake in your sentence is “anymore”. The world has always been too expensive for a large part of the population. Most people from the past generations (in North America) never left their home area because they could never afford to travel. Camping was a thing because that was the only vacation many could afford and it was to a campsite within a couple hours drive. People came over for a dinner of hot dogs & chips because no one could afford to host a fancy meal. The house wasn’t spotless because everyone was working during the day but the point was socializing not one-upping each other. Entire wardrobes (winter & summer) fit into half a standard 8’ closet. If one looks at the past through extreme rose coloured glasses they only see the successes and miss the majority’s reality which was often something much less. What to do? Find free stuff to do.
You’re right, people do have rose colored glasses, when it comes to the past.
I’ve added the ‘anymore’ statement because I think that we’ve fallen below a ‘critical mass’.
Bowling isn’t a good example because it isn’t popular anymore, but I’ll use it as an example anyway. If there aren’t a core group of people that can consistently pay to play, the bowling alley goes bankrupt. That hurts the people that, because of a financial constraints, may have gone only occasionally. Even if there are a handful of ultra-wealthy people in a community that can go whenever then want, there are too few of them to really sustain a bowling alley, as they won’t be going everyday.
Hmm, happy to say that I can’t relate.
I’ve always been on the introverted side and with a few social activities per week I’m pretty much maxed out all the time.
Mostly do walk and talk out in the city, maybe stopping somewhere to enjoy a coffee on the terrace. Still making new friends, but now more through kid and dog, rather than school. Keeping in touch and even rekindling some older friendships. There are also a few former colleagues I will meet up with from time to time and additionally my wife’s friends.
Now, in my mid thirties, I’ve even started with a small tabletop gaming gang.
Haven’t been active on social media for nearly 15 years…
Does this not count as social media?
I suppose.
I was more thinking about where you as friends and share things about your life, rather than message boards with strangers.
no. unless you’re using lemmy as a method of bragging about your life accomplishments?
Join your town’s local discord server. If it has two, one is the shit one. If it doesn’t have one, start it. I started a city discord that grew to over 600 members in two years. Is important to delegate as you grow and encourage all members to try organizing and leading events if they like, at least trying once.
If you can’t host, you’ll need to recruit at least one person that can before the ball gets rolling.
If you like discussing books and films, which are some of my favorite things, movie nights are great easy get togethers and if you don’t have a member with a big living room and TV you can all go to the cinema together (but that’s expensive).
A book club can even be done in a voice channel.
If your town has a boardgame cafe, that’s really good to take prospective friend groups.
If you don’t have that option, look for community organizations with a building, such as a progressive church. Unfortunately that will put some members off events, especially members of many minority groups.
Hiking is free and doesn’t require securing a venue.
You can gain a lot of real (not nebulous internet) community, friends, gratitude, and (to put it bluntly) clout.
During the summer y’all can hang out in parks.
If you’re looking for inclusive spiritual community you can look for Unitarian Universalist congregations. They’re all over Europe and North America. They’re based on progressive values instead of Scripture so you bring your own deity/pantheon/no deity. They’re basically a spiritual community for the left from Pagans to Christians/Jews/Muslims to atheists and agnostics and everyone else.
In my area there are a lot of ageing hippies and a lot of millennials and Gen Z looking for community for their children which is a delightful mix. Lots of LGBTQ+ representation as well.
Could be a useful place to look!
i do all of this. it doesn’t make any difference. all it does is lead to shallow boring connections based on whining and commiserating about how life here sucks. people in the book clubs don’t read the books, they also just want to whine about their lives.
every volunteer group i join… just ends up being a group of core people who want to exclude new people for not looking/talking/thinking just like they do and jerking themselves off about how wonderful and perfect they are and then whining how they can’t get new people to join them…
I left my volunteer groups because they became so exclusivist and elitist.
