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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Notes -
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.
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