Ask HN: How can we solve the loneliness epidemic?
Really, that’s it.
You want to play D&D together, you host and DM.
You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing.
You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with.
Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little alarms in your head that go off when you haven’t seen someone in a while, you can use automated reminders.
I have observed my spouse (who is not on social media) do this and she maintains friendships for decades this way. Nowadays she has regular zoom check ins, book clubs, and more, even with people who moved to the other coast. You do now have the tools for this. I have adopted it into my own life with good results.
Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.
You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live. We have a wealth of passive entertainment, often we have all consuming jobs or have more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did. We move to different cities for jobs, and even as suburban sprawl has grown, you’re on average probably further away from people who even live in the same city! You get from place to place in a private box on wheels, or alternatively in a really big box on wheels with a random assortment of people. You don’t see people at church, or market day, or whatever other rituals our ancestors had. On the positive side, you have more tools and leisure than ever before to arrange more voluntary meetings.
1. Hyper-perfect social media / television setting "the best" expectations for an event.
2. Decreased knowledge of how to host a gathering. It's not rocket science, but throwing one the first time can seem daunting. And throwing one well does take skill. E.g. icebreakers, identifying and facilitating the right introductions by highlighting mutual interests, making sure wallflowers have a good time, defusing tensions, food, etc.
3. Decreased American tolerance for and ability to handle awkwardness, and there's always going to be some awkwardness in social interactions.
4. Decreased public/accessible American meeting places. There used to (< 2000) be a plethora of low-cost, broadly-accessible spaces that could serve as training wheels for events (handling food, furnishings, cleaning, etc). They've essentially all been privatized, commercialized, and optimized to turn seats -- think real coffee shops disappearing in favor of Starbucks.
My approach around this is suggesting the idea to people up front and then throwing everyone into a WhatsApp chat and laying down the plan. Anyone who can't join gets removed/leaves. No one expects a whatsapp group to be a refined VIP experience. It's just people getting together and sharing an experience.
Having moved countries and needing to start up a new friend group, things like Meetup or Facebook groups help a lot. There are _many_ people out there who are looking to meet people.
For throwing a party, my general rule of thumb is expect 50% of people to turn up.
Join an organization. For example every city has Toastmasters, most have several. Easy to find, and it is an excellent place to meet people. And you'll learn how to convert social anxiety into social adrenaline.
Do you have a faith? Actually go to church instead of just believing. Are you non-religious? Several strands of Buddhism can be followed as philosophy and practice without adopting any mystical beliefs. Vipassanā (also called Insight) and Zen are a couple of examples.
And how do you turn random people that you met into life-long friends? You can reduce the time investment by a lot. If you call someone on a spaced repetition schedule, you can make them internalize that the door is always open. Without requiring a large commitment on either side. And a spaced repetition schedule is easy to achieve - just think Fibonacci. I'll call you back in 3 days. Then 5. Then 8 (round down to a week). And so on. It feels like a lot of calls at the start. But it slows down fast. Over a lifetime, it is only around 20 calls.
Play around with it. If it was someone you met and hung out with on a cruise, maybe start at a week for that first call. Either way, you're reinforcing the idea that we like to talk, and the door is always open.
You can use a similar idea to keep people who move on from your workplace in your life. People always mean to stay in contact. Then don't. But with structured reinforcement, you can actually make it work.
Overcome any addictions (scrolling, gaming, etc.) that stand in the way would be easier if the goal was clear.
Overcoming attitudes and defensive beliefs (too many cliques, they won't talk to me...) go away when you can either recall a time when you had friends or know others who do.
Convince people it's better (in their own value system) to be social, have friends of all kinds, and let them know their value and meaning increase by being a friend, I think you'd have a hard time stopping people from becoming social.
If you want to fix it:
- More free public spaces (parks with benches, squares)
- More free public events and activities (free concerts, art installations, plays)
- Greater physical proximity (it's hard to make eye contact if everyone drives)
- Wealth distribution (create a society where one's value is not based on their net worth)
- Encourage days off for community service
In other words, provide socially-funded incentives for people to be close to one another physically and remove income as a measure of value.
Community, friends and when spirituality helps.
So, live vigorously in a way that benefits from social relationships and they will necessarily come.
Be useful to others and they often return the favor.
Data from various studies, including those from academic institutions and public health organisations, supports the idea that regular church attendance helps reduce loneliness by fostering social connections, support networks, and a sense of community.
1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3551208/
2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/20...
3. https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/7-76
4. https://www.cardus.ca/research/health/reports/social-isolati...
5. there are plenty more...
also if you allow anecdotal data:
I have been going to a church half a year now, and the sense of community is amazing, made new friends and know more people I could dream of. So there is a way, there is a light. Never felt lonely again since.
people aren't lonely in walkable cities.
Fund free places to hang out.
You must have opinion and they all must align perfectly like mine. Case and point people's behaviors around the 2024 election.
Russian? You better be the most outspoken anti Putin-ist . Jewish? You better be sorry for the Zionists at every turn. Queer? Oh sorry you work for Google and even if your department has nothing to do with the current bads you're bad too, stop stealing from artists with AI. Those are some extreme and blatant examples but ones I've witnessed cause people to get excommunicated no matter how bleeding of a heart they have for the causes people rhetorically crucify them over.
I'm not going to pretend you should be fine if say, a literal unironic nazi is trying to cozy up in your book club, or some clown is constantly bringing up "hot takes" needlessly on your baseball club. But these constant purity tests typically remove all nuance and leave both sides heavily alienated, leaving many to fall into a hedgehog's dilemma of fearing interactions lest they're accused of things they simply are not.
I agree we also need to organize activities, but when social circles are occupied by the other camp with a witchhunt bonus, it is discouraging to try. And recursively encourages political extremism.
Incoming comment: “Not our problem, don’t be a Nazi.”