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Antonomon  2yr ago (novum.substack.com)   Edited 2yr ago   2833 thread views

The Social Recession: By the Numbers

novum.substack.com

Fewer friends, relationships on the decline, delayed adulthood, trust at an all-time low, and many diseases of despair. The prognosis is not great.

In 2000, political scientist Robert Putnam published his book Bowling Alone to much acclaim and was first comprehensive look at the decline of social activities in the United States. Now, however, all those same trends have fallen off a cliff. This particular piece looks at sociability trends across various metrics—friendships, relationships, life milestones, trust, and so on—and gives a bird's eye view of the social state of things in 2022.

A piece that I wrote that really picked up on HackerNews recently with over 300+ comments. Some excellent comments there, I suggest reading it over.

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If you could wave a magic wand to establish some collective norm to improve this situation, what would you do?

Because socializing is (obviously) social, it's easy to imagine that individual interventions will be non- or counter-productive. For example, maybe you think that people lack social ties because they move around so often, and we'd all have better social lives if we all stayed in the towns we grew up in. But if I alone did that, my social life will be even worse than usual because everyone I could've been friends with has moved away.

I suspect there's something about the way we're using technology that makes social life worse for everyone, effectively polluting the social commons. The problem is that we don't know how that's happening. It's like we see the thinning ozone layer, we agree that it's bad, but we don't know that CFCs are causing it.

Because this technology is so new, our cultural evolution hasn't caught up. (Maybe this is what OP's description means by "our transitional period"). At some point someone will figure this out, perhaps by accident. But we're not just genes mutating at random; intentional thought and experimentation have their place as well.

If you could wave a magic wand to establish some collective norm to improve this situation, what would you do?

Unironically, as I say this as a pretty unobservant/lapsed Catholic, make everyone go to church. Alternatively, some substitute secular social club that theoretically fulfils a similar socializing role, but realistically this doesn't work, no matter how much atheists believe they can construct secular equivalents of the social role the religion plays.

I empathize with the article. I think what we're seeing is an increasing atomization among middle class and affluent whites in the USA while tribal identity politics emerges at the same time. Middle and upper class whites are retreating from the social sphere, and from each other, while the interests of niche groups of people are beginning to take precedence on the national stage. I think the article isn't incorrect, but that it is only telling one half of the story: that the atomized nature of mainstream US culture is accelerating while also losing prominence to the groups that don't have the luxury to isolate.

The 2021 documentary "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Adam Curtis lays out a theory on individualism being a fluke of the 20th century which I'm inclined to agree with. I suspect white America will continue to atomize and recede socially and this "social recession" will end when whites begin to be outnumbered by other minority groups with stronger community ties.

Not sure what this piece really adds to the discussion, but it is an important topic. My favorite radical solution is to gradually start disabling the internet for days at a time, on a schedule, so people feel bored enough to go out.

Interesting read. I also enjoyed the comments.

Generally people are less likely to socialize if they (real or perceived) have low social standing. So people who cant keep up with the joneses financially will retreat sooner. I also think obesity plays a role here for the same reason. Im a MD and even though I know the official obesity stats, Im still shocked when I walk around the hospital. The number of really obese young people, who I almost never notice in the city. I think many of them feel so much shame, they retire entirely from social life.

But if obesity rates are so high wouldn't the stigma go away a bit?

The average weight is up, but where the numbers have really gotten stretched is at the upper end. Rates of morbid obesity (defined as a BMI over 40) have increased from essentially 0 to nearly 10%.

Yes, as someone with lower achievement than most twigs in my extended family tree, attending family functions is like spending an afternoon poking myself with the sharp end of paperclip. (Interacting with groups of equal status doesn't feel this way.) I imagine the effect must be much stronger for total fuckups, who are inferior to everyone. This can easily start a vicious cycle, where people with below average prudentia end up plummeting because they need extreme prudentia to break out of the trap.

I'd suggest linking to the article rather than to the home page of your Substack (you did it right on HackerNews).

Oh weird? I could have sworn the link was right. Well, I can't fix it now, sadly.

I disagree. People with friends don't have thirty different messaging conversations active at once.

Rather, what I see is that it's made people boring and unpleasant to bother interacting with in real life. Ever since COVID, every time I try interacting with people, I walk away genuinely disgusted. Tried going to a bonfire mid-summer; The hosts were old friends, they also invited a bunch of the midwestern mid-20-somethings they knew.

The mid-20-somethings barely engaged with the hosts and formed their own little closed circle, like they'd used their invitation as a pretext to annex territory. They randomly played music from a car sound system (songs would start and stop abruptly, volume would change, all suggestions were ignored). They called eachother "White" a lot, loudly, with the same tone small children shout "Cooties," and despite the gathering being 100% white. One of them tried engaging in conversation with me, but it was to solemnly and intensely say that Alex Jones was finally facing justice, which I didn't care about. I actually found out that two of them lived in my hometown, and asked them what it was like living there as a younger person. The dude talked about how the conservatives were in X bar and the liberals in Y, which was not the question that I asked. Then he saw his girlfriend was talking to another dude, and went over to do some Mate Guarding. Another one assumed I was a communist because I was wearing a black denim jacket and tried talking to me about communism. No women there who weren't with a boyfriend.

I'm not uncharismatic. I run RPGs and spent years in Sales, I can command people's attention and draw stuff out of them. But I couldn't bring myself to want to engage with this group at anything beyond arm's length.

They called eachother "White" a lot, loudly, with the same tone small children shout "Cooties," and despite the gathering being 100% white. One of them tried engaging in conversation with me, but it was to solemnly and intensely say that Alex Jones was finally facing justice, which I didn't care about.

I've also seen people constantly and derogatorily throw around the term "White" for no apparent reason despite being white themselves. Current topics are often brought up, and they're discussed with the smallest amount of nuance and often though an extremely progressive lens that literally everyone else in the group is also assumed to hold. I remember an extremely surreal experience where I made a very anodyne comment about preferring the look of American suburbs to their cities (a topic I was not responsible for initially bringing up) and someone in the conversation told me I should never say that again and went on a straight up tirade about how the suburbs were filled with racists and xenophobes who just don't like difference.

There is simply no ability to speak about topics in a universal way - every conversation resembles this extremely charged, self-affirming circlejerk among themselves. And unfortunately, this behaviour exists in abundance among my peers.

in that it allows people who don’t have much going on to feel fine with it

And many don't feel fine with it also, evidenced by the rising rates of anxiety, depression and so on. Lot of hidden pain out there. Additionally, I would suspect many who do feel fine with it in their 20s or 30s may start to grow resentful as they grow older, finding themselves greying with 0 friends whatsoever.

I'm very skeptical of the idea that someone can be truly happy having no friends, relying just on Netflix and consuming stuff online, doesn't matter how much of an introvert you are. I like my alone time, but friends are so important.

I have to agree with the comments on HackerNews about WFH making this worse. I am a deeply socially averse person and I would probably be miserable at the office and even I think staying at home for 8 hrs and literally never seeing most of your coworker's faces for months is a problem.

If you have a social network the extra flexibility is good. If you don't... your chances of building one via work are...slim to say the least. I moved to a new city, basically losing all my connections, so I feel this acutely.

From a career perspective I also doubt it's good to be a face on a monitor to bosses and coworkers, especially if you're entry level like I am.

From a career perspective I also doubt it's good to be a face on a monitor to bosses and coworkers, especially if you're entry level like I am.

I think it depends on whether the company is full remote. At my company there's a new guy I'm familiar with. I have no idea where he live. His manager is in Montana, the other senior guy on his team is in New Orleans, and at most they all met each other once at the offsite. (Probably in 2023 there won't be a $3-5k/person offsite due to cost cutting.) I can't see how it's hurting him.

I suspect it would be different if his manager and half his team were in NYC, while he was just a face on the monitor from wherever. Highly recommend against that if you're entry level.

Yep. It's great for people who are already established, who don't need what the office provides for some people.

I don't agree with Putnam or the article. There are more ways now than ever before and more convenient, thanks to the internet and mobile phones, for people to meet up. A google search shows tons of meetups, same on social media. There is no shortage of ways for people to engage in social activities today. I think rather a lot people are choosing to be alone. Maybe Netflix is more fun than in-person social activities.

Maybe Netflix is more fun than in-person social activities.

I guess this is subjective, but as someone with an active, meat-space social life, it takes time, money and effort to maintain. You can substitute time and effort for money (pasta, red sauce and a screw-top Barbera can go a long way). I know we Americans tend to informally socially segregate by class, but at least my social life bridges that pretty easily. I host a large BBQ with white and blue collar guests every year. It’s amazing what breaking bread together does to bridge divides.

I haven’t found online socializing to be more than a simulacrum for meat-space socializing. Nearly all my friends are current and former teammates from rec sports leagues, current and former coworkers, people I met in young-professionals arts organizations, the bar I used to be a regular at, a book club, etc.

My GF and I are having folks over for dinner, tonight. That involved a more thorough cleaning of the house than we normally do on Saturday morning, a bigger grocery bill to account for the extra food and wine, and starting work in the kitchen at 9:00 this morning to sear the roast and get the slow cooker going.

And, it’s not that we don’t subscribe to multiple streaming services and couldn’t just pop something on tonight and put our feet up. But as others have said, here, it’s instant gratification versus long-term payoff. And, Netflix can be like weed, where you can put a pause on thinking about why you might not be satisfied with how you’re spending your evening.

But hugs, handshakes, smiles, eye contact, laughs, etc. land much differently, in person. As do frank discussions requiring sympathy or empathy.

We try, as much as our schedule, energy levels, and finances allow, to make plans, get people together, host dinner parties, etc. And, while we have not gotten a 1:1 return, the more often we make an effort to be social, the more others do in our direction, as well. And it’s encouraging, how often when we set something up, how many people say, “This was great. We need to do this more often.” You also over time figure out who will reciprocate, socially, and can prioritize spending time with them.

I think so many of us get into a rut once out of school, and there’s nothing making socializing more of a default you have to opt out of.

As someone who went from single and bouncing around family members' homes in fly over country to then having a girlfriend and living in San francisco, I can attest that my social life has blown up but also that it's extremely expensive. I wonder how much being broke factors into sitting around and doing nothing by yourself. Luckily I have not been broke throughout all of this, but I was certainly able to save money and throw it at stocks and whatnot until the last few months in SF.

google search shows tons of meetups, same on social media.

Not everything is what meets the eye, my friend. The internet is also telling me there's hot singles in my area xD

New methods for actively meeting up do not compensate for the passive meetups that occur in a community. Making friends in realspace based on shared activities has been the human default, such as in school, university, work, church and social clubs, and the decline of e.g. church membership and the increase in online time is reflected in a decline in the average number of close friends and in social trust. Seeing lots of meetups online is a sign that there is a desire for community involvement that is not being satisfied in the same way that someone dying in the desert would really want to post about water.

The last time I checked for meetups, they were all either not sufficiently local, mostly old ladies and/or exclusively for women, at inconvenient times, or all of the above. Notice I didn't mention whether or not any of these were remotely interesting. Begars V Choosers and all that. I did see ads for a local axe-throwing place, but even assuming they'd let a blind person throw an axe, the timing was perfect such that the pandemmic killed it.

I mean, I'm writing this at 2:09AM on Sunday morning, having recently woke up. It's a little earlier than I'd normally be up, but I had nothing at all to do last night and wound up asleep way early. I'm not sure I could get an Uber in this town pre-dawn on a Sunday, not sure when busses start (on Sunday), and don't exactly live somewhere walkable. My options even after sunrise are mostly to call some missionaries to ask for a ride to their church, which isn't social activity so much as hymns, testimonials, and discussing the esoteric religious concept of the week. There's a park near me, but it's only open 12:00-5:00PM, and isn't exactly a social option so much as a cheaper alternative to installing a playground in my back yard.

But maybe I haven't checked for meetups recently enough? Everyone insists that meetup is a problem-solver these days, and I'm somewhat out-of-date.

So why not revolt against the modern world, if it is dehumanizing us like this? Or, a more modest proposal, rethink how we develop or interface with technology?

I mean, it seems to be a rather self defeating argument to bring up the fact that we have more ways now than ever to connect when we are standing right next to the fact that we are connecting less and less. And it certainly didn't stand as a valid argument in my household that playing video games was more fun than visiting grandma during Christmas. And whilst I didn't agree with it as a kid, I can certainly agree with and appreciate it now.

So why not revolt against the modern world, if it is dehumanizing us like this? Or, a more modest proposal, rethink how we develop or interface with technology?

There can be market failures, in the sense of meaning individual rationality = collective rationality.

If you're the first one to start a social revolution against, say, social media technology, then your expected costs may exceed your expected benefits: you look weird, possibly dangerous, and there might be high risks from the revolution failing. Thus, it can be irrational for you to start the revolution even if it would be in your interests (and most/all other people's) if everyone was to become a social revolutionary.

In economics jargon, a change can be collectively rational (even Pareto optimal) but not a possible result of individually rational actions (not a Nash equilibrium).

Jon Elster did good work on this idea in the context of Marxist revolutions: it can be rational for the proletariat not to rebel, even if it would be in their best interests.

The term 'revolt against the modern world' is not revolutionary in the marxist sense. It's referential to Evola and a book that carries the name. It's less Karl Marx and more Varg Vikernes.

Yes, but is it different with respect to this market failure, i.e. it can be rational for everyone to change, but irrational for individuals to change?

It can be, but I don't see how that's a relevant... whatever it is. There are an endless amount of things that could be. I don't understand the point you are making. It seems like you are presupposing a framework of economic rationality and I don't understand why or what you think necessitates it. It's not about deducing what others think and seeing if it can or can not fit within some predefined rubric of 'rationality'.

It's like you are extrapolating into a wider context to get away from a question that isn't about anything other than yourself.

It's probably an instant gratification vs long term benefit tradeoff.

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