Most people in the world are profoundly lonely. They'll take whatever parasocial relationships they can get - reaction videos, podcasts of people chatting, Eliza simulating concern.
Google wants to relentlessly monetise your sadness.
The only way out is to try and make connections with real people.
Case in point, why didn't you text your friends to ask them if they remembered those old memes? Why was your first thought to ask a computer rather than a person?
It's like when you're in the pub and and someone asks "who was that guy who was in the movie where…?" you can either chat with your friends and have a good time or be a buzzkill who opens up IMDB and says "Humphrey Bogart".
Irrelevant nitpick, but it's definitely not "most". I'd argue it's only this common in some English speaking countries and maybe a few other Western ones.
The looks I get from American friends when I tell them that yes I do see my (local) friends nearly every day, are quite funny.
> Most people in the world are profoundly lonely.
I've been doing a lot of traveling for the past 3 years and I agree with you that it is `definitely not "most"`. Everywhere people interacting with each other in third spaces and cafes even if it is street food. There are open air markets around the world filled everyday with groups of people interacting with each other. There are parks and squares around the world filled with families sitting together on benches. Around the world there are churches, mosques, and temples filled with families and groups of people.
Most places in the world people will happily make small talk or have a discussion with a stranger even if I only know 100 words of their language.
Sure many or most people in some places are working 10 hours a day 6 days a week but I don't think it is the isolation I see in the United States. It is the same in De'Nang Vietnam or a market in Lima, Peru when I went everyday to get coffee in the morning; it was always the same person working ,any time or day of the week, but they were always friendly and welcoming and interacting with with the same people.
Travel alone in America and the frequency with which strangers will engage you in conversation reveals its diversity. New York and Atlanta are, today, exceptionally friendly. Most of the South is, too, as well as a surmising fraction of rural America. (Boston and Seattle are, in my experience, the worst.)
Phones and tech made those people a lot lonelier then they used to be before. Because before, people in hospital naturally socialized with other people in the hospital. So, a loner stuck in the hospital was less lonely. And before, people naturally went out and socialized with those in their environment. Because they were bored alone inside. That created communities.
I feel like that's selection bias at work. When you're traveling, by definition you aren't going to see or interact with the people who aren't there, who might be at home, feeling lonely.
And I'm not sure interacting with customers as someone who works in a coffee shop or a food stall is really a sign either way. Many (most?) of those relationships are surface-level at best, and while some people might get to know the person who makes their coffee on a more personal level, and actually see them outside of the context of their job, you can't really tell that just by what you see as a traveler.
I'm not saying these workers don't derive satisfaction from any of this, or that it's not meaningful interaction, but these people could still be lonely in their personal lives.
Yup, and this is my age range.
I guess I should have specified, knowing the average age on HN is... just a little higher to say the least.
But to a progressively lower extent it applies to older generations as well.
it's nearly impossible to make friends once you're an adult and everyone's walls had gone up. people just call their superficial acquaintances "friends".
> a real friend is essentially a platonic partner
There are certainly different degrees of friendship. I might only have one such platonic partner and unfortunately we hardly see each other anymore because we live in different cities and have families. Once in a while we talk on the phone, but when we do it's a minimum 2 hour call.
However, I have several people I would still consider close friends. My personal threshold for true friendship is whether I can comfortably talk about private things.
Back to the study. I don't think it uses such a high threshold as 'platonic partnership'. I found the following paragraph really striking:
"What these numbers also reveal is the hidden depth of the crisis. The 17% with zero friends in 2024 — compared to just 1% in 1990"
Do everybody suddenly get higher standards of friendship? Or did people really get lonelier? I find the second more likely.
> The looks I get from American friends when I tell them that yes I do see my (local) friends nearly every day, are quite funny.
How old are you, though, and do you and/or your friends have kids?
When I (an American) was in my 30s, I did see my local friends (nearly) every day. Now into my mid 40s, it's a lot more intermittent, with some people having moved away (and I've failed to make new friends faster than some have moved away). They are still friends, and we communicate over chat/phone, but I only see them at most a couple times a year. Then there are others who now have young children and have become a bit more inward-focused. Not that I don't see them anymore, but I see them less often.
I of course see others on a daily basis: people I know/recognize at my yoga studio, service workers in my neighborhood, the neighbors themselves, but most of them are acquaintances, at best, not friends.
Regardless, I wouldn't say I'm lonely (though I do feel lonely on occasion), even though I can sometimes go a week or more without seeing any of my friends in person. I do worry about it being more difficult to maintain in-person friendships as I've been getting older, and the difficulty in making new friends.
To relate to the topic at hand: I cannot imagine talking to an LLM and thinking of that as a substitute for interacting with friends. Feels super weird and kinda creepy.
Wait wait wait, you are from an older generation, so yes it mostly (older people here do see each other often even when married. moving out? ha) doesn't apply to you.
I am indeed quite a lot younger, and in my personal experience the social skills of many (yes, of course, not all) younger Americans have been absolutely destroyed by the internet and some other things that I can't mention.
edent · · focus · HN ↗
Google wants to relentlessly monetise your sadness.
The only way out is to try and make connections with real people.
Case in point, why didn't you text your friends to ask them if they remembered those old memes? Why was your first thought to ask a computer rather than a person?
It's like when you're in the pub and and someone asks "who was that guy who was in the movie where…?" you can either chat with your friends and have a good time or be a buzzkill who opens up IMDB and says "Humphrey Bogart".
belowavgiq · · focus · HN ↗
dataviz1000 · · focus · HN ↗
I've been doing a lot of traveling for the past 3 years and I agree with you that it is `definitely not "most"`. Everywhere people interacting with each other in third spaces and cafes even if it is street food. There are open air markets around the world filled everyday with groups of people interacting with each other. There are parks and squares around the world filled with families sitting together on benches. Around the world there are churches, mosques, and temples filled with families and groups of people.
Most places in the world people will happily make small talk or have a discussion with a stranger even if I only know 100 words of their language.
Sure many or most people in some places are working 10 hours a day 6 days a week but I don't think it is the isolation I see in the United States. It is the same in De'Nang Vietnam or a market in Lima, Peru when I went everyday to get coffee in the morning; it was always the same person working ,any time or day of the week, but they were always friendly and welcoming and interacting with with the same people.
JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
Travel alone in America and the frequency with which strangers will engage you in conversation reveals its diversity. New York and Atlanta are, today, exceptionally friendly. Most of the South is, too, as well as a surmising fraction of rural America. (Boston and Seattle are, in my experience, the worst.)
lukan · · focus · HN ↗
Because the lonely people you don't see at the market or in a park socialising. They are at home, in front of the TV or now their smartphone.
edent · · focus · HN ↗
You don't see the people trapped inside. Stuck in hospitals. Sat staring at a phone that never rings.
You never talk to people who don't feel comfortable talking to a stranger.
password54321 · · focus · HN ↗
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
kelnos · · focus · HN ↗
And I'm not sure interacting with customers as someone who works in a coffee shop or a food stall is really a sign either way. Many (most?) of those relationships are surface-level at best, and while some people might get to know the person who makes their coffee on a more personal level, and actually see them outside of the context of their job, you can't really tell that just by what you see as a traveler.
I'm not saying these workers don't derive satisfaction from any of this, or that it's not meaningful interaction, but these people could still be lonely in their personal lives.
HPsquared · · focus · HN ↗
You see the people who are out and about in society, not the ones holed up in their caves.
martin- · · focus · HN ↗
No traveler is going to observe me sitting alone in my apartment (hopefully).
JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
EDIT: Correct.
About a fifth of Americans report having zero friends; another fifth report feeling lonely sometimes [1].
[1] <a href="https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-loneliness-statistics/#:~:text=The%202024%20U.S.,loneliness%2C%20with%2014.0%25" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/us-loneliness-statistics...
danilafe · · focus · HN ↗
JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
Yes. Edited for clarity.
The only American demo that is majority lonely is Gen Z (two thirds).
belowavgiq · · focus · HN ↗
spacechild1 · · focus · HN ↗
Wow, that's depressing...
vlyan · · focus · HN ↗
spacechild1 · · focus · HN ↗
There are certainly different degrees of friendship. I might only have one such platonic partner and unfortunately we hardly see each other anymore because we live in different cities and have families. Once in a while we talk on the phone, but when we do it's a minimum 2 hour call.
However, I have several people I would still consider close friends. My personal threshold for true friendship is whether I can comfortably talk about private things.
Back to the study. I don't think it uses such a high threshold as 'platonic partnership'. I found the following paragraph really striking:
"What these numbers also reveal is the hidden depth of the crisis. The 17% with zero friends in 2024 — compared to just 1% in 1990"
Do everybody suddenly get higher standards of friendship? Or did people really get lonelier? I find the second more likely.
kelnos · · focus · HN ↗
How old are you, though, and do you and/or your friends have kids?
When I (an American) was in my 30s, I did see my local friends (nearly) every day. Now into my mid 40s, it's a lot more intermittent, with some people having moved away (and I've failed to make new friends faster than some have moved away). They are still friends, and we communicate over chat/phone, but I only see them at most a couple times a year. Then there are others who now have young children and have become a bit more inward-focused. Not that I don't see them anymore, but I see them less often.
I of course see others on a daily basis: people I know/recognize at my yoga studio, service workers in my neighborhood, the neighbors themselves, but most of them are acquaintances, at best, not friends.
Regardless, I wouldn't say I'm lonely (though I do feel lonely on occasion), even though I can sometimes go a week or more without seeing any of my friends in person. I do worry about it being more difficult to maintain in-person friendships as I've been getting older, and the difficulty in making new friends.
To relate to the topic at hand: I cannot imagine talking to an LLM and thinking of that as a substitute for interacting with friends. Feels super weird and kinda creepy.
belowavgiq · · focus · HN ↗
I am indeed quite a lot younger, and in my personal experience the social skills of many (yes, of course, not all) younger Americans have been absolutely destroyed by the internet and some other things that I can't mention.