The fact that 61% of all adults in the US are lonely clearly shows that it has nothing to do with the individual, it's a problem with society

Ppdebatesomental · 2024-03-07T02:55:13+00:00

Great topic imho. This sub likes to think it’s all about dating, but the problems go a lot deeper. We are not only dateless, sexless and lacking in romance, most of us are are fat, friendless and isolated too. And men are suffering more than women.

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/newsletter/2023-10-10/more-than-1-in-7-men-have-no-close-friends-the-way-we-socialize-boys-is-to-blame-group-therapy

drok007 · 2024-03-07T02:34:07+00:00

Maybe it is partly that social media has created weird expectations by making you compare the highlight reel of others to your non curated life while also creating false socialization

My only social media is here, a YouTube account, and 2 hobby forums

All anonymous except several guys from my hobby forum know my name and location

I miss out on some stuff but I like it this way overall

CasseroleTruck · 2024-03-07T02:56:16+00:00

It's a loss of social capital, or at least that's what I learned in Psych. Way back when people used to have poker nights, bowling clubs, spend actual time with friends and more involvement in their communities. The technology we have is a double-edged sword, we're meant to use it as a tool - and it's an extremely powerful convenient one - but we've come to rely on it like a crutch because it's so addictive. Our social media interactions don't replace real-time interactions and quality time but since we're stuck to our screens in the moment our brains will think "oh we sent ________ a few messages today and had a conversation" instead of actually hanging out with them IRL.

There are also things as simple as streaming making it no longer necessary to go to movie theaters or malls. When movies and new albums are released it was once popular just 10 years ago even to make entire events out of release dates eg going to the mall with friends to buy and geek out over the album or go to the movies. Now you can just access that content online immediately. People don't realize how they're being profoundly affected by missing out on all these opportunities for socialization. You see something similar with online shopping, we have less reason to actually touch grass b/c we can do everything from behind a computer or phone. This isn't just about going to to the grocery store. The experiences and observations gleaned from these routine trips over time are invaluable, and being out at the store potentially leads to further interactions and experiences elsewhere.

Finally, it's a meme but porn makes men desensitized and less likely to go out and try to meet women - or express sexual or romantic interest properly and effectively to the women around them in their circles, assuming they even have any. Men become afraid of rejection b/c real-time interactions with women are so rare before we even take into account the insecurities and bdd foisted upon us by shitty internet rabbit holes and misinformation. For both genders, social skill development just becomes stunted or declines, you have the really young generations now who say they don't even know how to react if someone interested approached them in public, even in a nightlife setting. Technology just makes us stupid, fat, lonely, anxious or depressed, and dissatisfied, at least the way we've been going about it. As a whole we cannot be trusted to utilize it responsibly and to our own net benefit.

Nellylocheadbean · 2024-03-07T03:01:13+00:00

I don’t think ppl value each other (community) as much as they used to. Everyone is seen as disposable and combine that with the hedonistic, solipsistic selfish attitude that ppl have due to social media and you get what we have here.

Strange_Public_1897 · 2024-03-07T02:51:59+00:00

Wanna know why? People are so consumed with impressing everyone online, too plugged in, they forgot how to socialize offline.

They don’t live in the moment anymore. They document every moment instead of just existing in it and not sharing it with everyone.

See when people do this? They do this with their romantic relationships too, which is chronically their social media like a journal instead of just periodically sharing the most important or creative parts of their life that matter instead of every single tiny thing they do.

I no longer use social media except for business reasons. I’m rarely on it and I feel better since being less involved.

Plus if people want to chat, people that matter, they’ll reach out to talk by regular means of communication.

If social media disappeared one day, people would be forced out of their house far more and forced to socialize the old fashion way, wouldn’t be able to post experiences anymore online, and wouldn’t need to take photos of things that do not matter.

People would realize their moods and mindsets would improve as well because then negative comparison would disappear too.

Gary_Longbottom · 2024-03-07T02:54:07+00:00

You're right-forget romance there's a huge problem with lack of interpersonal relationships in general. There's a famous book from the 90s, "Bowling Alone", that discussed this issue long before social media. The book notes that somewhat counterintuitively humans become far less social as they urbanize, and all developed nations are becoming increasingly urbanized. It also argues that secularization leads to less socialization and increased loneliness across society.

EulenWatcher · 2024-03-07T02:42:50+00:00

People have become lonelier than they used to be, sure. Both men and women. We spend more time online, less time socializing in real life, we have less friends than generations before us. We also have much easier time to entertain themselves on our own in the confinement of our own homes and kids spend far more time online than they used to. It seems quite a lot of kids and teenagers miss the window to develop their social skills and close friendships and catching up is always harder than just doing something in time.

All of it true and it's a systematic issue. It doesn't seem we'll get any systematic solutions though. Social medias make a lot of money off this problem as well as video games, streaming services etc. I wouldn't hope for the state to make some drastic changes any time soon, so what is left is individual changes and helping yourself and others on your own.

Typical_Samaritan · 2024-03-07T03:22:03+00:00

People give all this bullshit "advice", but in 2020, 61% of all adults in the US reported feeling lonely. And that was before COVID.

You all just do not read... for shit. I won't suggest the numbers are great. But it's not 61% of "all adults". It's 36% of all Americans and 61% of young adults have experienced extreme loneliness within (at the time) the four weeks prior to the questionnaire. And this was DURING the pandemic.

mrcs84usn · 2024-03-07T02:33:21+00:00

But I though that women were “perfectly happy” single!!!

KSD171 · 2024-03-07T13:10:54+00:00

Poor social skills. I’ve noticed most people won’t say anything unless you break the ice first. No one enjoys putting themselves out there because they’re worried too much about expectations backfiring on them or “saying the wrong thing.” AKA overthinking things too much.

Friend connections fade overtime naturally, however, they seem to be fading much quicker now since most people do not like taking the initiative to reach out.

Building on the previous point, there have been psychology studies show that people are afraid of appearing needy, which prevents them from reaching out to friends or new people.

People not being interested in doing anything. There seems to be a lack of interest in meeting up with friends, going out.

The embracing of being a homebody has become more prominent in our culture.

People dressing low effort like wearing sleepwear outside is indication that we’re embracing a meh culture where people barely lift a finger to do anything.

Millennials (which I’m part of) and Gen Z have embraced the “quiet quitting” mentality, which bleeds into everyday life outside of work. This harks on my previous point our society embracing a low effort mentality but at the same time wanting more by doing less.

The encouragement to binge watch TV shows for hours throughout the day has become normalized. I remember the days before streaming where it seemed like every health expert from here to Timbuktu warned about becoming a house potato. Now we’ve pretty much done a 180 and embraced the house potato mentality %100

People are too broke to eat out or do activities that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Independent-Mail-227 · 2024-03-07T02:59:35+00:00

There's a difference between feeling lonely and being alone one comes from a position of privilege the other come from a real life situation.

Wonderful-Team-1315 · 2024-03-07T03:55:58+00:00

Agreeed

shonenhikada · 2024-03-07T05:06:02+00:00

Well yeah, On social media, the average woman gets her dopamine fix of instant gratification when she post up a sexy picture and gets flooded by 50+ likes within 1 hr. She also reconfirmation of her desirability by horny men and women telling her that she is hot. Basically social media is porn for women, so no need to seek that much validation in real life or open to average men's advances, since she gets all her needs online. It's not so different to a past psychology paper that says once you reach a certain amount of friends, you tend to alienate strangers that try to befriend you, since you are already getting all your needs for social interactions met.

Other factors is hookup apps and men dating down. Thanks to social media, rich and/or hot guys have far more reach and access to women than ever before. They can also make contact with these girls indiscriminately, via DMs, without people finding out. Don't believe me? Remember, "Tag Your Sponsor"? where a third party handler released private DMs that IG models were having with rich, Arabs in Dubai and were willing to be flown out to have sex with these men, get shitted on, take part in golden showers and even engage in hebephilia. Well the avg woman isn't getting that but she is getting message from her local Chad, trust fund kids and older men that are financially well off and willing to pretend that they want something serious in order to get easy access to ass.

Examples of DMs that above avg girls (6/10) be getting

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You then get the media which constantly tell women that:

Men are your oppressors and the enemy
Men are rapist that you should be on guard when around
Men don't care about u or see u as birthing machines
30s is the new 20s etc
Raise your standards and if men can't keep up then they need to do better
Put your career and education first because you have all the time in the world to have kids
Being childless and holding out for your dream man is empowering
Living sex and city lifestyle is empowering

Put that all together and a lot of women are not going to be planning long term, live in the moment and have hedonistic lifestyles. They are also going to try to shoot their shot in trying to lock down a top 20% male for LTR until they realize that those men are never going to want anything serious with them and just use them for sex. It's then that standards are begrudgingly lowered and this is why we see a massive drop in single men as we move from our 20s into 30s and beyond.

Last factor at play is not taking into account that women are hypergamous by nature and want to date and potentially marry men better than them in some ways. When you got more women going to college than men, OFs which make some women millionaires, sugar babies, more places having preference to hire a females over males, more social campaigns to give woman high powered positions/jobs for the sake of equality and representation, then you are going to have more disenfranchised men as a result. And given that a man's ability to provide is one of his main "attractive" traits to get women then his inability to do so will result in less women being interested in him. Plus, if women are directly competing with men for jobs then having an avg 9-5 job ain't going to cut it anymore, with a lot of women today wanting men to make 6 figure salaries to even consider being with them.

EricSec · 2024-03-07T02:41:38+00:00

Part of the issue is technology for many people. The ability to connect with people across the globe puts a lot of people in a state where they can get a lot of their emotional support and fun conversations by texting with their old friends from college, high school, etc. However, they rarely ever see these people, so they still feel alone.

And it is difficult to form new friendships, because no new friends can compare to the people that they have decades of history with.

Nevamst · 2024-03-07T10:24:10+00:00

but in 2020 ... And that was before COVID.

Bruh... It's called COVID-19, what do you think the 19 means?

rubberbandshooter13 · 2024-03-07T17:37:23+00:00

I agree with that the problem is with society, but I think it is one of those problems that can be solved on an individual level nonetheless.

ChillDeck · 2024-03-07T20:46:52+00:00

Maybe it's that you are all locked in a metal box for so much of the day, you go to work in it, you go home in it and then you stick on the TV or go on your computer or console.

50 years ago or in walkable city's or places with good transport links you would go to work surrounded by people, have opportunities to bump into friends or acquaintances, on the way back from work you could stop for a drink as you don't need to drive. You don't need to do big ass shops so you end up going more regularly which again increases opportunities to meet people and do stuff.

Walkable neighborhoods also have more stuff to do usually with cafés bars and restaurants being close together and no need to drive between also increases potential interactions. On an individual level this might be a slight positive change but on a communal level it helps everyone

Gerbilzilla · 2024-03-07T21:40:13+00:00

So many people live in Internet World these days. In ages past, people got out more and interacted face-to-face more. Relationships naturally formed back then.

TRTGymBro · 2024-03-07T03:05:09+00:00

Perhaps people wouldn't feel that lonely if they didn't tell themselves all the time that they absolutely need love in order to be happy. However, society bombards us wjth messages to the contrary - all you need is love, love is the most powerful force in the universe, people who need people are the luckiest people - and so on and so forth in every pop song, movie, tv show, book, poem, etc. No wonder people feel miserable if they don't have their perfect dream partner.

Comprehensive-Bed35 · 2024-03-07T05:30:07+00:00

Yeah: it’s called society becoming a gyno-centric catastrophe, where women have privileges like a motherfucker— yet still bitch about how awful life is being surrounded by men that they constantly dehumanize. Video after video after video on YouTube of women stating “fuck men! we don’t need them! men are trash!” Followed by video after video after video of men, saying “the world does need women, and that women are awesome, and that the world without women would totally suck.”

Gee, I wonder why everyone is so lonely……gosh, can’t figure it out.

WeaknessNew · 2024-03-07T07:20:03+00:00

You know why? Because social media has fucked absolutely everything. Everything on social media is fake too, the standards are unrealistic and you have these garbage dating apps that are curated to absolutely fuck you (preferring you pay for their services). Now you got two problems;

The unrealistic standards, therefore people constantly wanting someone top tier, when most of the population is atypically average which there is nothing wrong with.
People replacing you by swiping. Why settle and get a girlfriend or boyfriend when people are willing to give you easy no strings attached sex?
People pushing off marriage because of feminism, and so forth trying to convince people; "marriage is bad" when reality is, nothing is wrong with marriage (besides people rushing into it too quickly, and or dating someone who was never fully compaitible with them to begin with.) When you have people manipulating you saying, "casual sex makes you more empowered, fuck marriage!" You got people being more stingy, not willing to commit. Back in the day love was more sacred because people were going to war, and life was fleeting, and people were dying so people genuinely held on to the people they fell for. Not to mention it was natural. Not on apps, you were meeting people, hanging around with them and if you didn't lock it down, you possibly weren't gonna see them again.

Give it 10 or 20 more years and society is gonna continue to go downhill with social media and how brainwashing it is.

Plus you got shitty apps like Tik Tok with randoms giving poor dating advice, etc.

It's sad. Pre-2016 it was never this bad. Everything is so fake now.

SamanthaNicola · 2024-03-07T07:44:52+00:00

I think we have lost our sense of community for the most part and then to add the Internet on top of that we have modernised and improved over the years but in the time we have also lost something. When I used to listen to my grandparents about how the community was like when they were younger, with the support, comradary and people getting together for a bru and a natter, I wish that we still had that.

krmaml · 2024-03-07T04:31:42+00:00

Women are not lonely.

Please correct this. Women are "single", but not lonely. They have bustling dating lives, hooking up with hot/gorgeous men from time to time, have rosters of fuck buddies, go on casual dates with men who wine and dine them for attention and validation. They are not fucking lonely.

Men are lonely

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Spirited-Reality-651 · 2024-03-07T03:11:51+00:00

Society and human nature…cause human nature is what lead to development of our society…

Tokimonatakanimekat · 2024-03-07T07:47:35+00:00

I say fuck dating and relationship couching, we need healthy solitude training programs

PixelizedPlayer · 2024-03-07T08:05:05+00:00

They have many digital friends but not actual friends. It's society's obsession with the internet world.

obviousredflag · 2024-03-07T09:47:48+00:00

And it has nothing to do with how many people you know, loneliness is defined as a mismatch between a person's wants/needs and their reality.

So, we have the "settling" problem all over again. If i tell you enough times, that not having 10 close friends makes you a failure, you will adapt and see your 4 close friends as a mismatch between a wants and reality.

Same thing goes for looking at hot girls on instagram. You grow unhappy with your relationship and think you should be able to do better, you think your reality doesn't match your needs anymore. You need an instagram hottie. What do you think advertising does? It makes us "lonely" about a product or service, so we see a mismatch between us not having it and the need we feel towards possessing or experiencing it.

Clearly, something has changed on a societal scale that's made it harder for people to make quality connections.

No, that is not so clear. What could have changed is our "need/want". Who says what the lowest level of social contact is that would make you not feel lonely? Is it fixed, or is it affected by your environment? Think about income: people are unhappy when they (think they) make less than their neighbors/peers/social group, regardlless of income level. The poorest in society will always feel shit about that status, even if they'd make 100k.

BlzzdSuxDix · 2024-03-07T13:56:21+00:00

Just bee 🐝 yurself and everything will fall into place

Mr-Yuk · 2024-03-07T18:40:28+00:00

Hmm I have been thinking about this a lot in the last year or so.. I am oddly placed personally in this group too as I do consider myself lonely but it's mainly my own fault. I have several best friends that I live close by too and see regularly and have a pretty broad group of other friends I genuinely love to death but I for some reason don't put in the errort to hang out with people very often. I am a bit of a introvert but ever since covid I kind of lost the initiative to put myself in social situations and I don't really know why. I also for whatever reason lost the initiative to want to date anymore which is odd too and I don't really have a reason to point to for that either

Soul_vaccine · 2024-03-07T18:41:46+00:00

Nobody interacts face to face anymore. Even when in public people act like it’s rude to say hello or try to chat with a stranger. I’m talking not even in a non sexual way. Like people don’t talk to each other period. A group of friends goes to the bar, for the most part stare at their phones and don’t even talk amongst each other, let alone a kind stranger.

Get out there and small talk with each other! Doesn’t need to be super heady life changing discussion.

ChillDeck · 2024-03-07T20:49:44+00:00

Maybe it's that you are all locked in a metal box for so much of the day, you go to work in it, you go home in it and then you stick on the TV or go on your computer or console.

50 years ago or in walkable city's or places with good transport links you would go to work surrounded by people, have opportunities to bump into friends or acquaintances, on the way back from work you could stop for a drink as you don't need to drive. You don't need to do big ass shops so you end up going more regularly which again increases opportunities to meet people and do stuff.

Walkable neighborhoods also have more stuff to do usually with cafés bars and restaurants being close together and no need to drive between also increases potential interactions. On an individual level this might be a slight positive change but on a communal level it helps everyone.

ThisBoringLife · 2024-03-07T23:01:09+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Competitive_Swan_130 · 2024-03-07T23:48:07+00:00

It's not the same exact problem since most people would define loneliness differently. This also means it can't be approached as a societal problem because with different definitions of the problem come different solutions. For some people being lonely has everything to do with the fact that they can't find a significant other, while others are in relationships and,still feel lonely for many reasons, and some people are lonely because they don't have platonic relationships...everybody's situation is different

iSubParMan · 2024-03-08T00:58:43+00:00

I thought I was an outlier.

LittleRainSiaoYu · 2024-03-09T12:00:35+00:00

The more interesting question is why it's so socially unacceptable (even in liberal/leftist circles) to really suggest that a lot of individual problems are really collective and social ones, and mean it.

This goes beyond dating or even social connections, to economics. Even people who think themselves progressive or whatever still will often deep down think that people who for example end up homeless really are somehow bad or at least flawed people just because of this despite how ridiculous rent is now. Even just saying the system isn't working for people (whichever system you're talking about) raises heckles that you're just not trying hard enough and making excuses.

It's wild when you realise that a substantial proportion of people are genuinely loyal and have an emotional attachment towards systems for their own sake, and more than they have affection or loyalty to actual real live people, whether people they know or strangers.

Safinated · 2024-03-07T02:33:23+00:00

Citation needed

MattPayneWrestler · 2024-03-07T09:27:08+00:00

Something has changed. Something that has never existed in all of human history until now. Something that evolution has never adapted to in the history of earth. That thing is called the internet. You realize our brains have evolved to expect to be forced to be part of a social tribe in-person. This was just how it always was on earth until now. For the first time ever in history, the internet has allowed for social and sexual needs to be met without in-person interaction. For the first time ever in the history of the universe, we are now getting the first batch of human adults who were born and raised on the internet.

Defundisraelnow · 2024-03-07T21:22:11+00:00

Society is made up of individuals. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing better. Third spaces do exist despite people saying that they don't. They just never thought to look for them and would rather complain. Sitting on your ass complaining is the American passtime right now

FebruaryEightyNine · 2024-03-07T10:33:19+00:00

Whilst loneliness is definitely a problem, OP is another deluded male clown who seems autistic and seems desperate to convince everyone that nobody is outside. Whilst I won't lie the cost of living crisis has definitely reduced people's leisure expenditure...positing that absolutely no one is enjoying outdoor activities is fucking delusional and sounds like a way to justify sitting indoors and exasperating the problem you're complaining about.

MyLastBestChance · 2024-03-07T03:05:30+00:00

Covid lockdowns began in March of 2020…

apresonly · 2024-03-08T22:17:02+00:00

yes it is late stage capitalism, patriarchy and something we aren't allowed to discuss here

The fact that 61% of all adults in the US are lonely clearly shows that it has nothing to do with the individual, it's a problem with society

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