As others have mentioned, the decline started long before social media and the Internet. When I was a child, in the 70s, my parents often had other families and couples over for dinner, and we often attended small dinner parties, too.
As an introvert, I absolutely loathed these gatherings and was frustrated by how powerless I was in avoiding them.
Recently, I have been reading over my mother's old letters she wrote to her parents at that time, in which she described the effort and social anxiety that went with this tradition. It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold. Someone invites you over, then that goes into an unspoken balance sheet, and you are required to reciprocate. She often spoke of "owing" dinner to people. I don't think she enjoyed it at all, though there were a few couples I can remember who were good friends of theirs, and those meetups were always a pleasure to listen in on. The rest were simply a drag.
I should note that their life in the 70s (in a middle-class college town) was not some idyllic paradise without the Internet, either. Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu, and days were spent running dreary errands to shop for boring things that we now can get with a click. The rotary-dial telephone that hung in the kitchen was the heartbeat of the house, since replaced by Facebook and smartphones. My parents were always busy and exhausted.
> It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold. ... I don't think she enjoyed it at all, though there were a few couples I can remember who were good friends of theirs, and those meetups were always a pleasure to listen in on. The rest were simply a drag.
It's worth noting that not everything that's good for you is enjoyable, especially in the moment.
Avoiding everything that's a "drag" means staying alone, passively consuming easy media, not exercising, eating hyper-palatble junk food, getting obese and probably depressed, etc.
> I should note that their life in the 70s (in a middle-class college town) was not some idyllic paradise without the Internet, either. Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu, and days were spent running dreary errands to shop for boring things that we now can get with a click. The rotary-dial telephone that hung in the kitchen was the heartbeat of the house, since replaced by Facebook and smartphones.
While I agree that those cloying clickbait articles/videos idealizing random pre-smartphone teen photos and videos are obnoxious (as someone who grew up in that era). I think the modern emphasis on mindlessly reducing "friction" is going to prove ultimately unwise, though probably uncorrected as generational turnover causes people to forget what was lost, and certain degradation gets redefined as "normal" and accepted.
> My parents were always busy and exhausted.
So are modern parents, and all indications are they are more exhausted.
I've been interested in this for quite a while, and have read a fair bit about it as a phenomenon. I think that pursuing comfort and convenience to the point that it's actually harmful is sort of a big factor in a lot of societal change the last several decades in many developed/Western countries. As a European/American dual national I think it's a particularly strong current in American culture, personally.
An accessible intro is Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis, which, while a little pop-sciencey, explores the idea that making our lives more and more comfortable (across various axes) creates a feedback cycle that shrinks our comfort zones, making some of the more rewarding (but potentially challenging/uncomfortable) things in life seem unthinkable.
For me this was a bit of a "once you've seen it you can't unsee it" kind of thing. Letting convenience be your primary metric for success often produces totally unsatisfying results, anywhere from how you build cities to the way you eat a meal.
The arc of the original World of Warcraft (broader social impacts aside) is an interesting microcosm to explore: players continually asked for convenience features that would simplify the most tedious aspects of the game and reduce social friction (organizing groups, traveling etc), but as they made things more convenient over the years, many people found that the game actually began to lose something important. The response culminated in a very successful re-release of the original, inconvenient, game after 15 years.
I think "convenience" is correlated to the actual thing you're gesturing towards, but isn't the actual variable that matters most. "grocery stores being open until midnight" is certainly very convenient, but doesn't seem to remove anything important (except perhaps for late shift grocery store workers). On the other hand, buying your food from a grocery store (versus having to hunt it down and kill it) is certainly more "convenient", but "convenience" isn't the most important dimension where hunting differs from grocery store shopping.
Comfort is also correlated to it, but I don't think it's exactly it either. A/C is very comfortable, and certainly there are psychological and physiological downsides to it. But I don't think there's any major rewarding experiences which A/C makes impossible or unthinkable. Maybe the taste of a cool glass of water after working all day in the hot sun? Some amount of resilience to high heat which makes traveling in hot places slightly more enjoyable? Experiencing the changing seasons more directly and consistently than just seeing a changing set of colors out your window? None of these are exactly trivial, but it doesn't seem like "optimizing for comfort removes all the color from life" is exactly right either.
Maybe it's just that suffering just for suffering's sake doesn't do anything. If you were in the universe where all houses are magically air conditioned 24/7 and offered to build a machine to make them uncomfortably hot for 4 months a year and uncomfortably cold for another 4 months a year, selling on the idea that, you know, variety is the spice of life, a little constant hardship toughens you up, I don't think anybody would buy that on its own.
But clearly people DO seem to go kind of crazy without pressure and challenges, whether you frame it as "convenience" or "comfort" or "eustress deficiency" or whatever. There's an entire category of hobbies and interests that are entirely based around doing uncomfortable or dangerous or stressful things (thrill-seeking). And even things like weightlifting, marathons, saunas, physically stressful things are often pleasurable and seem to obviously build character and resilience outside of just the act of lifting heavy things until it hurts too much to continue. I think weightlifting is a good analogy; hardly anyone would lift weights if there was no extrinsic reward at the end of it (e.g. health, vanity, bragging rights). The important thing isn't the inconvenience and uncomfortableness of lifting weights, it's something else.
Maybe "responsibility"? "self-actualization"? I think that's maybe closer to it.
I certainly don't have all of the answers here, but I do think the somewhat ineffable nature of this concept contributes to how at a business or societal scale we wind up optimizing for the wrong things–it's hard to describe, multi-factorial, hard to measure, so instead we optimize for things that deliver obvious measurable improvements. That line of thinking is how you wind up bulldozing a city center to run a highway through it: travel times fall 80%! The negative side effects are harder to measure.
The AC thing interests me as a topic–purely my opinion, but I do think that living in a very narrow temperature range changes your relationship with the outside world, and there's all sorts of good stuff to be done outside that's much harder to get motivated to do if the delta with what you're used to is too big.
As an anecdote: I mostly disliked hot weather in the past, but years ago when I got hooked on running, I found that I disliked the treadmill more than the heat, so I ran outside through a muggy NYC summer. It was miserable to get started but got a bit easier every year, and over time I've noticed, from the digital thermometer on my desk, that the temperature where I have to stop working and turn the AC on has slowly crept upwards. My running club puts on a 5k summer race series–if you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I'd want to run up a hill in the swampy Brooklyn heat every other Wednesday, I would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea–but today it is genuinely something I love, and has been a highlight of my year for several years now.
All that to say, your point about suffering for suffering's sake stands: I cannot sleep without AC above a certain temperature/humidity, and I don't see any reason to force myself to suffer through restless sweaty nights. On the flip-side, though... I have never had more visceral, euphoric appreciation for the comforts of modern life than after a cold and drizzly backpacking trip where we spent the entire time damp and never really, fully warmed up for multiple days. 20-something years later I have the most vivid memory of getting in a hot shower when we got home.
I find physical exercise, not smoking, and talking to people very enjoyable. These things in particular keep me sane and reassured.
When I was an obese smoker who avoided people, I was stressed out by a lot of other things going on. As soon as those stressors were gone, the bad habits also went away without so much effort.
It's worth considering how many of these perceptions of "discomfort" are caused by other aspects of culture, not nature or nationality or era. All my stress was coming from trying way too hard as an insecure younger person.
I think the examples you listed (doomscrolling, being sedentary, junk food) are related but distinct to ‘avoiding friction’. My perspective is it’s about quality, not the form; even if they correlate.
I don’t enjoy going to the gym, but I love swimming and hiking, and love that. I haven’t worked out in a gym for years, I don’t want to, and I’m quite healthy and reasonably active.
Some people are just introverts, and I think the ‘optimal’ amount of IRL time is different for every individual. Much like my gym vs swimming example; quality social interaction can take many forms; some of my closest and most meaningful friendships over decades have been based on games (voice calls; discord chats; hanging out in person sometimes and going on trips together sometimes), and that works for me; and I don’t think I’m missing anything.
Prioritise genuine human and social interaction, and for introverts, get out of the comfort zone once in a while (being a hermit is not good). But whatever form that takes is secondary to the quality and how it fits your personality and quirks.
> I think the examples you listed (doomscrolling, being sedentary, junk food) are related but distinct to ‘avoiding friction’. My perspective is it’s about quality, not the form; even if they correlate.
> I don’t enjoy going to the gym, but I love swimming and hiking, and love that. I haven’t worked out in a gym for years, I don’t want to, and I’m quite healthy and reasonably active.
But that's a problem of the modern low-friction era. If cars hadn't been invented and you had to walk/carry things everywhere it wouldn't matter. No 10,000 steps nonsense. No what do I enjoy better: weights or swimming or hiking? You'd get a lot of exercise by just going about your life.
> Some people are just introverts, and I think the ‘optimal’ amount of IRL time is different for every individual.
I am an introvert, and a big basis of my comment is the personal realization that my drive to get IRL social time was actually insufficient to give me the amount of IRL social time I needed. I'm a lot happier if it's foisted on me and I have less control.
Avoiding everything that is a drag is almost an axiom for most young people in the modern world... any sort of discomfort is obviously wrong and something to avoid. It's almost a sin to suggest someone should do something that might bring them temporary discomfort even if it's good long term.
Avoiding everything that is a drag is a universal experience for young people in the entire history of the world. The point is that they eventually find value in the toil later on in the process, and when they're older have to drag the next generation into the cycle.
> Avoiding everything that's a "drag" means staying alone, passively consuming easy media, not exercising, eating hyper-palatble junk food, getting obese and probably depressed, etc.
I always wonder if people say these things actually believe it.
Like are there people who really prefer junk food over good food even in the moment, or have to get their will power up to read a good book?
It just seems a sentiment that is so foreign to my exisetence.
Lol, that you are not aware of these people is a concept so foreign to me that I kind of suspect you are joking. There are many people in my life who struggle with both, more people than who don’t..
If you get into a deep enough "convenience" spiral, you lose the physical energy to engage in things like reading a book.
I was once so depressed that I didn't leave my room except to use the bathroom for months, and in that time I developed lethargy so extreme that I couldn't even play causal FPS video games competently. My brain simply didn't work as well, despite having all the calories it needed.
Back in the 80s/90s, when my grandma was alive, we used to have big holiday dinners for the whole big family (I think in total of 10+ people) in her small apartment (about 20 m^2, perhaps even less). It was extremely crowdy and some people used to eat standing outside and chat with each other. But it was also one of my best memories.
30+ years forward, I moved to a new country, and we only have one kid. We haven't had this kind of big dinner for decades since my grandma passed away in the late 90s.
The families are getting smaller and more atomized, so only people who are VERY into big dinners throw them.
I am retired now and lucky to have my (now adult) children living nearby. Every Friday I cook a large pizza dinner for everyone, their spouses, and their children, and any friends they want to invite. I will always be an introvert, but this weekly meal is the highlight of my week.
The difference between this and what my parents did is that I host for my own pleasure and for what it does to bind the family together. I don't expect reciprocal invitations, and no obligation is ever implied (I hope).
This is awesome. I see this as a form of leadership (brings people together, its not easy, not enough people do it, no expectation of reciprocation, etc).
Hopefully it helps the next generation stay connected and maybe your kids pick up this habit when older and it becomes a tradition.
Yeah that's really good, and I agree with the sentiment.
TBH, if I were to retire today, I'd love to do that, too. I only have one son, so probably it's not going to be a big dinner, but I'd also invite friends of the family, too.
My grandma had four kids who all married and gave her ten nephews in total. On new year's eve we had this large dinners where pretty much 20 people gathered (sometimes more, when nephews got old enough to bring their partner OR some other uncle/aunt from other sides of the family joined).
> Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu
That’s just anyone who has small kids. Or works in healthcare, childcare, or any service industry really. It has nothing to do with 1975 vs 2025 (unless you’re one of the small amount of people who work remotely, and you don’t have kids or a spouse who falls into one of the above categories).
Also after a few years you stop getting so many colds.
> Simultaneously, air pollution is down, which lowers symptoms
That’s very likely true.
> one big difference is indoor air ventilation standards improved dramatically, leading to less spread of disease indoors.
I don’t know if this is. In 1975 air conditioning was much less prevalent, so people were much more likely to open windows. Buildings were also much leakier.
And it’s not simple as building ventilation has steadily improved,
so teasing out the impact is almost impossible. In the 80s there was a big push for energy efficiency, so we went from 15 cfm/person in 1973 to 5 in 1981 then back to 20 in 1989.
But building envelopes also got much tighter, so there’s less uncontrolled ventilation.
I think respiratory flu is far less common now than it was. I have had a legit case of the flu only once in my adult life. After spending 15 years teaching in a public school, I had countless colds but never caught the flu. Of course, annual flu vaccines might have helped. Those weren't available in the 70s.
Strep throat was also a very common complaint in the letters. Throat cultures, home visits from the pediatrician, etc., were frequent, especially for my brother. I haven't seen a single case of strep in my extended family since. Maybe just lucky.
Many things have improved over the decades, but we do have an array of exciting tick-borne illnesses to make up for it!
> I think respiratory flu is far less common now than it was. I have had a legit case of the flu only once in my adult life. After spending 15 years teaching in a public school, I had countless colds but never caught the flu.
They’re not far less common in average. Rates have gone down a bit with the annual flu shot, but there’s a few things going on.
-Flu rates vary wildly by year and decade. There were a few big pandemics where a very large percentage of people got the flu.
-There was no way to easily test for the flu, so people said they had it more frequently than they did.
In a given year about 12% of kids will come down with symptomatic influence which is not too far off from what we can estimate that historic numbers were in an average year.
>Strep
I looked up studies on this. Nothing conclusive, but likely no large change.
Recommendations about when to test have changed though because it turns out that if you culture every kid with a runny nose a large percentage of them will come back positive even though their symptoms are viral.
So you’re probably right that you notice fewer diagnosed strep cases, but there aren’t actually fewer symptomatic cases.
I think a lot of people might think influenza is just a more severe cold, and therefore confuse the two, assuming their cold is "The Flu" because it's worse than usual.
There also used to be pretty strong social expectations to host and visit such parties. That was essentially gone by like 1990, for my area, and I always kind of got the feel that everyone was glad to see the expectation disappear.
They can be fun, but I and almost everyone that I'm friends with much prefer to simply visit and hang out with no plans at all. Just be there, maybe chat a bit, maybe ignore each other and read a book for a few hours, maybe find something to eat / do a lightweight potluck. Which rather sucked that COVID ended up shutting down almost all of our communal places to visit for that.
Pretty much my experience. My pre-teen childhood was the 1970s. My parents had dinner parties or cocktail parties at home at least a few times a year, and so did most of their friends. We often had a sitter for the night while they went to these gatherings. Some time towards the end of the decade, and certainly in the 1980s, this pretty much stopped. I asked about it once and my mother said that hosting these gatherings was a lot of work and fewer and fewer of their guests ever reciprocated, so they just stopped hosting as well. I do think that they did it mostly out of obligation or "just the proper thing to do" and not because they particulary enjoyed it.
I wonder if it's all just downstream from class. It used to be that rich people would regularly host feasts for their dependents as a form of patronage. This was then imitated by the gentry and bourgeois: proving that you have a house with a bunch of servants who can serve multi course meals, showing off your etiquette and conspicuous consumption so everybody can see how wealthy and classy you are, just like the real rich people who are generous to their friends and get to flex how cool and rich they are.
Then at some point middle class Americans began copying these sorts of upper-middle class styled parties (again, as a form of class signalling; maybe partially because all the rich people in the movies and on TV and in magazines are doing it, and you want to seem like them), but Americans also fancied themselves as classless egalitarians, so it didn't really keep because the whole "conspicuous consumption" clashes with modern suburban ideals.
> It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold.
understandable, but if you think about it, it's kinda the price of keeping your "social network" alive. people nowadays understand that romantic relationships need maintenance and effort, but don't (yet?) understand that friendship require at least some maintenance as well. i guess that was even true-r before social media when you weren't constantly updated about what happened in friend X, Y and Z's lives.
most people nowadays don't really want to pay that price to keep relationships alive... and it's showing.
> My parents were always busy and exhausted.
what i'm about to write is absolutely anecdotical, but: i don't see people my age (30-40 years old) like super-relaxed either.
Same for me in the 80s. We'd always have the extended family together multiple times a year and frequently at my house. My mom always stressed out over it and it's the only time she yelled at my brother and I for not cleaning enough. I occasionally enjoyed playing with cousins but mostly found it annoying that all these people were using my house.
Nowadays, we definitely get together much less often but also it's usually at a restaurant.
How is the author of this piece going to cite a graph that shows an extreme increase in time spent at home that begins in 2020 and not mention COVID? We had social media in the 2010s. COVID made spending time outdoors/around other people an actual physical danger for over a year, and the psychological effects of that are lingering. Does anyone remember that one political cartoon where the guy is walking down the street, and everyone around him just looks like a virus particle? I think a lot of people consciously or subconsciously still see the world that way. If you don’t believe, reflect on how you would feel about attending a crowded indoor gathering in 2010 vs now, or how much unease you would feel if someone at the table next to you started coughing.
There should be a name for the amnesia people seem to experience for the covid era. For 2 years, more or less, most forms of social activity were frowned upon or (in some states) made outright illegal. I feel strongly that this has affected our collective psyche more than anything since WW2. My sister (10 years my junior) seems to have had an extremely different early-adulthood from me. The lack of reflection on it is strange...
For me it's indeed around COVID where my habits changed. That deserves more attention indeed. Something about the vibe changed. Could be just me, and could be just a coincidence that is happened around COVID. But it's worth considering.
I'd be interested to see how the drop correlates with pets. We got a dog during COVID, she acclimated to a house which never has guests. Now she can't handle guests. Shame on us, perhaps, but anyway there it is.
I don't know if it was me getting older, or caring less about startup scene but I agree, when Meetups started up again it wasn't as fun to stay up late and get together masked up to listen to someone talk about a basic web app or api. The vibes might have come back now that we're not masking, but it's a bigger commitment for me now to go in every week. I also feel like groups put a lot of content upfront to talk about their agenda and org functions when it used to be more of a "you're at the [topic] meeting, here's what we have for you today".
Where I'm from religious observance went down considerably and permanently - it was declining before the pandemic, but it reached a tipping point only in the early 20s.
Apparently everyone was attending mass largely because everyone else was.
The risk absolutely has gone away. Vaccination, acquired immunity, and the general drop in the number of effected people have plummeted COVID cases down to below the noise floor on risk analysis. If you go out and get sick, chances are it's just the flu, just like was true every year before the pandemic.
If you are letting fear of disease get in the way of living a healthy and fulfilling life today, that's an unhealthy trauma response.
>If you go out and get sick, chances are it's just the flu
This is demonstrably untrue.
We in the US are in the 13th covid wave since the pandemic started from tracking wastewater data which is our most accurate way of determining transmission (fortunately at a much smaller peak as of right now than most waves)[1]. The past four years have had far higher covid transmission rates on average than the two years we consider societally "when covid was happening". It does not strictly follow seasonal patterns like the flu, we routinely get summer waves that peak quite highly. The flu does not do this.
Millions of Americans have ME/CFS like symptoms after covid, some extremely severe.[2]
...only lasts 6 months or so, wanes, and a new variant arrives
> the general drop in the number of effected people
Long COVID is severely underdiagnosed
> that's an unhealthy trauma response
The precautionary principle is a rational response, especially what we already know about the widespread systemic damage that repeat COVID infections cause.
The only reliable protection right now is consistent N95 usage in public spaces, and very few people are doing that (though some certainly are, as I see them every day).
The chart cutting off in 2022 makes it hard to glean too much.
I no longer worry at all about attending a crowded indoor gathering - those would be impossible to avoid in NYC - but enjoying “a night in” without kids is a distinctly post-COVID phenomenon for myself and many people I know
> COVID made spending time outdoors/around other people an actual physical danger for over a year, and the psychological effects of that are lingering.
It actually never stopped being a physical danger. The only thing that changed is how long it takes for the damage to unfold.
At the start of COVID, people were rightfully shocked that hospitals and morgues were overflowing, and they reacted accordingly. That's no longer an issue (for now) with these latest strains, but acquiring Long COVID and dealing with its effects is definitely still a real concern.
Long COVID is vastly underdiagnosed. You might not get it until your 4th/5th/6th re-infection. That reinfection might also be asymptomatic, and/or Long COVID doesn't set in until weeks or months afterward, meaning people often don't link the two events. People not taking precautions (majority) are getting re-infected on average once per year since immunity from a previous infection typically wanes after 6 months, and there are about two waves per year for any given area.
Vaccines are of limited utility since they don't prevent transmission. A consistently worn N95 in public spaces is the only reliable means of defense, and everybody in your household needs to do that in public for it to be effective within your household.
I’ve only ever heard people talk about Long Covid online, I’ve never met a single person in real life that has ever claimed to have it or has any of the supposed symptoms. Everyone has been infected 1 or more times at this point. If I was never online I wouldn’t even know it existed and I honestly don’t think it does exist.
I’m not a Covid denier or anything either. I masked up and stayed in during the pandemic, I got the vaccine, etc. I had original first year Covid confirmed by a test, and I’m positive I’ve had it at least once again since then though didn’t get a test confirmation, so I’m 100% positive Covid is real (I feel like this is an obvious statement but I’m sure some people out there believe it’s a hoax or something). However I’ve seen exactly zero evidence other than online anecdotes that Long Covid exists or ever existed.
If it’s “vastly under diagnosed” I should personally know multiple people with it and should likely have family members with it (at least extended family) and yet I don’t. Not a single person. Honestly I think it’s one of those terminally online things that gets repeated a lot but only online.
I have a friend who had to stop his career and move back in with his parents in his 30s. After an infection he was suddenly unable to read or do anything that requires visual fixation without intense pain. It took years to find a doctor that was able to help him at all and he's still not back to normal.
This is an online anecdote so it will make no difference to you if you keep choosing not to believe it. But the idea that it is a purely online phenomenon with no real-world basis is absurd. It's been 6 years and there is a preponderance of evidence. The most common estimate is that it affects 400 million people worldwide.[1] Whether or not people want to talk about this to you in person is a completely different story. Covid is a societal red line that no one wants to bring up.
Post-viral syndrome is a thing common to most (all?) viral infections. For example, I got pretty sick in 2014 with some strange illness, maybe it was a bad flu or perhaps mono. Then for the next few months it'd seemingly resurface and cause little flare-ups of fatigue, nausea and a vague malaise. Just as it seemed to be fading I went on a lengthy post-college trip I around Asia where I'd spend multiple days a week feeling completely at ease hiking all day and partying all night but also had completely random days where I swore I felt like I was coming down with a flu and the littlest things would get my heart to race. When I came home the docs said it seemed like some sort of post-viral reaction then it resolved itself shortly thereafter. Covid doesn't seem to have been special other than that it gets tons of scrutiny and everyone got to experience it at once. Sometimes an overactive immune system will react in a counterproductive way and take a long time to get back to baseline, much like an army regiment that never got word that the war is over.
I actually do know someone irl who got long covid and became significantly disabled. He has to use an electric wheelchair to get around now. It’s a serious situation
A former IRL colleague had long covid issues including hospital stays. They posted about it for a stretch on Twitter but generally didn't talk about it, and then almost everyone I know through Twitter dispersed. Then there are a few people who I only know online but their symptoms are more 'months of brain fog' than being stuck at home or catatonic. So there might be more cases in your network where people are just not vocal about it.
Part of the issue is it's unclear what long covid is, if it's the same thing as chronic fatigue syndrome, and who even knows enough about this to be worth listening to
It's just another post-acute infection syndrome that can occur from pretty much any contagious illness (flu, etc.). Most people reading this have probably experienced this. Ever had a cough that persisted multiple weeks after the rest of your illness went away? That's not because your cold permanently damaged your lungs or even that the virus is still around. It's because your immune system will sometimes get confused and continue to wage war in your throat (or whatever it thought was infected) long after the virus has been eliminated.
> I’ve only ever heard people talk about Long Covid online, I’ve never met a single person in real life that has ever claimed to have it or has any of the supposed symptoms.
Probably for the aforementioned reasons: people aren't making the link.
Long COVID can lead to major bodily dysfunctions including heart disease, stroke, kidney impairment, neurological issues, autoimmune conditions, etc.
People are getting sick more often and not just with COVID, because recurring COVID infections have nuked their immune systems. There are studies proving how it impacts T-cell depletion, etc.
> If it’s “vastly under diagnosed” I should personally know multiple people with it
Are you not aware of your blatant contradiction here?
We still know so little about Long COVID. For all we know, it's just going to be the next (or contemporary) microplastics debate where we just have to live with it until we start really seeing long term effects. But since it's not affecting our ability to make the rich richer, we won't get much serious mainstream support for the issue. Instead focusing on diligent work in labs in the background.
All that said: I don't do it myself, but I don't judge people who choose to mask up regularly when going out in public. It's a semi-normal thing in Asian communities, and I have two close (non-Asian) friends who do it. If nothing else, COVID de-stigmatized that practice here in the US.
As somebody who masks regularly in 2026, I definitely don't judge people who don't. Most people don't know the true risks, and even for those who do, the two lifestyles come with some important tradeoffs that I don't think should be forced on anybody, one way or the other.
I'll take you seriously when I see scientists and doctors masking up and taking the precautions that you COVID truthers still cling to. Go to an infectious disease conference. They don't look like people who think like you.
You'd be surprised how many doctors and scientists would drink, smoke, and use other drugs in spite of being fully versed in what this does to their patients.
Or how many medical professionals continue to be medical professionals while knowing it has an elevated risk of suicide.
It's not hard to find the science backing my claims. As for why doctors don't mask, they're humans too, and just as susceptible to propaganda and competing forces like wanting to "return to normal" or simply having kids in school and assuming getting them to mask is too tall of an order (frankly, it is imo).
Here's a Canadian researcher who still masks and explains how the many 'mistakes' were made in order to convince people to throw caution to the wind:
But that didn't make the threat go away. People just pretended that it did. Group psychology is weird like that. Further compounding matters is the fact that neverending COVID reinfections impacts the part of the brain responsible for executive function, making it that much easier for people to not care. The more common and palatable term is "brain fog." Toxoplasmosis has a similar known reinforcing effect.
Life is a set of tradeoffs. The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
My personal calculation is the reward of enhanced expressiveness when interacting with others is worth the risk of infectious disease in 2026. In 2020, the variables were different!
> The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
Again, it's undercounted. Furthermore, LC is more comparable to AIDS than it is run of the mill influenza in the systems it affects and how. Also, note it took years of denial and lag before people finally acknowledged the long-term damage that AIDS caused. Except here it's not sexually transmitted but instead airborne year round.
Anyway, do you what want. I'm just pointing out most people have been misled, so they can't even make informed decisions. People with LC live with this regret.
Looking at credible sources, it appears that long covid occurs at rates around 1 in 20 to 1 in 30, which is high. It's rational for people who have elevated risk factors to avoid under-ventilated / unmasked gatherings.
The fun thing about science is that it’s not hard to find science backing X claim, and one can keep going on about that, while ignoring all the science backing not X claim.
Yeah that’s the fun thing about science, you can pretend to address things too. Seriously though, there is no way I am trusting some random researcher making a youtube video…like what is that. I am a researcher and I can make nonsense youtube videos about things too and throw some science flair around it for good measure.
Middle aged European here. I still regularly go to parties (dinner and otherwise) and I notice that there are two kinds of people: people who throw parties, and people who don't. This sounds like a truism, but what I mean is: there are people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, drinking parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. Yes, it costs time and money and is a lot of work. But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
It varies a lot depending on people and personality type. What's energizing to you is very exhausting and unfun to others. Extraversion / introversion basically. I don't like having many people over. 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Making a large party could be "type 2 fun" sometimes, ie exhausting and not very fun at the time, but satisfying to look back on as a kind of hard challenge I managed to accomplish, like climbing a cold mountain or so. But few are enough of those.
I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s. I'm also not too sure it's a good thing. I've seen introversion used as an excuse to hermit; extroversion as the sole reason to use drugs.
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
It seems pretty obvious to me that this also existed in older times. It's a pretty well established and reproducible big five trait. There were always people who were lone wolf types, not necessarily hermits but people who like to be alone.
Ask your parents, it was certainly a thing in the 80s too. Even if I think about my grandparents, they didn't constantly have others over. My grandfather was a chill village guy who liked to spend time alone, working in the garden, working in his shed etc. But there were more regular externally forced events, like big weddings, gathering for a pig slaughter, coming together to renovate the house etc.
What changes is the tradeoff threshold.
Now, being alone is more attractive to more people than before. Some liked being alone even in the times when it just meant books or doing some loner hobby like gardening or woodworking or whatnot. But with Netflix and YouTube the tradeoff shifts. Also as people get more flaky, socialization is even mharder, making people more flaky.
So introverts existed before but today mild introverts may act more introvert-like, who earlier would have preferred to err more on the extravert side.
I personally find that I’m often extroverted and sometimes introverted. I think it’s less helpful to think of this as a static character attribute and more of a mood. I think the parent is pointing to the idea that by labeling something this may reinforce it such that introverts become more introverted by finding validation in books like Quiet, for better or worse. It’s a part of an interesting discussion that doesn’t seem to get talked about much at the very least.
I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone. According to that, I'm an introvert, I need my alone time so that I can recenter myself and recover my energy. I do feel drained when being in events with a lot of people.
But, that doesn't stop the fact that I do like people, I like organizing parties (or rather I don't particularly like the organizing but I like the result of having organized parties and having close friends) at my place and regularly invite friends. It's just that after that I'm exhausted and I need some alone time to recover. So being an introvert doesn't imply that you shouldn't make effort to reach out to people or that you won't enjoy being with others. It just means that having some alone time is necessary to recover.
> I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone.
That's the Big 5 meaning, which has some scientific backing. The other one that basically just means social/shy comes from Myers-Briggs, which while popular isn't based on anything and is pretty much just pseudoscience.
I'm an introvert. I occasionally love going to a big conference/event, including regularly speaking at them. I find it incredibly fun, and incredibly exhausting. It's fun and rewarding enough to do anyway despite being exhausting. I know other people who find it energizing.
There are people whose feelings about it vary, but there are also people whose feelings about it are consistent but they do it anyway, and that sometimes gets mistaken for variability.
I feel the same. What I found is that, you need to find what energises you, for me, a dinner party with 2 people would exhaust me. Doing a workshop with 20 people gives me energy (ideas, fun, issues to fix, satisfaction of contributing). As I write this, maybe its that feeling of contribution?
I taught at a community college for a few years and have spoken at conferences. Those engagements are immensely enjoyable and energizing to me because they're performances. The roles of the audience and presenter are clear. I do my thing and the audience does theirs. I get that energy and enjoyment (a ton more of it, actually) performing live music. I walk off a stage jazzed. It's a wonderful high.
The dinner party scenario is absorbs energy. It's not necessarily less enjoyable than performing, but because it's peer-to-peer there's so much more protocol, nuance, and thought than performing. Even if I'm talking with people I know well I don't walk away energized. With people who are new to me it's a lot of work. Like anything it has come easier w/ practice.
Yeah, so this is the thing, i dont really like public talks with these well defined roles (audience / speaker), i really like cooperative workshops. I learn every time! Ofc i am still in a ‘power position’, but I genuinely learn a lot and compliment the participants when they find a clever hack to some issue, its amazing! Its also not about ‘walking off stage’, its about meeting people and building something, or nothing, over time for me.
I don't know that I've ever done a workshop like you describe. It sounds like it'd be a fun thing to try. I'll have to figure out a way to get into something like that.
Sure, but it all depends on whether it's causing you problems or not. There are different ways to life to one's satisfaction. If you're having problems, you should change things up and push through discomfort and friction or just try things. But if you found a balance that works, then it's fine if that involves being alone a lot and just occasionally meeting people. Depends also on phase of life. In college freshman year you probably want to force yourself to go out regardless of how you feel, to establish some contacts and friends. Once you have a circle, it's fine to just live the way you enjoy it actually.
You're making the mistake of supposing that since you are often extroverted you assume that many or even most people must be similar, just on a gradient. This is quite an extroverted think to think, so I believe you :)
I'm here to tell you that you are most certainly wrong on this point. People exist that view this kind of thinking as so bafflingly alien that they can't understand how someone would think it.
Social interactions require enormous expenditure of energy for me. They are not pleasant or energizing, they are rituals that must be accomplished to help me blend into a world that is not designed for me. I am most assuredly not being convinced of this by books I have read.
I think people assume a lot of things based on their own experience.
Some people who are actually somewhat more on the introvert side but force themselves to socialize, think that it's in fact supposed to be a struggle, for everyone, and everyone who seems to enjoy it is to some degree pretending, and is more diligent in putting up with the discomfort, so it's a character quality trait how much you get your act together and endure socialization.
It's like hating blue cheese or certain vegetables or the taste of niche foods. But in fact some people do enjoy the food, and don't eat veggies because they must or have great discipline. In fact this is also true of exercise. It is something that people do enjoy, the pump, the endorphins etc. (Usually it does take getting to a baseline fitness level to make it enjoyable, so it's not a static personality trait.) Similarly with public speaking or working with people all day etc. Some people truly love it and look forward to it. It's not only that they are tough and endure the suffering better. They do like it.
>It seems pretty obvious to me that this also existed in older times. It's a pretty well established and reproducible big five trait.
Parent is not saying there weren't introverts in the 80s. But it wasn't a big thing, and people didn't make it their whole personality, in the numbers they do now.
the last 5-10 years has seen an increasing number of people claiming "i'm an introvert" as a big facet of their personality. it's weird that there isn't a corresponding surge of self-identification as an extrovert (because if there's anybody that would be doing something loudly, it'd be extraverts).
Once I realized my introversion was psychological and mutable, not some fixed aspect of my personality, it changed my life.
We tend to anchor ourselves to labels. Lots of introverts I meet limit themselves in life needlessly because "I'm an introvert!" I see my old self in them.
I see my old self in what you’re saying. I used to be extremely extroverted, spending nearly all my free time socializing, but now I find much more life satisfaction as an introvert. I derive a lasting sense of pleasure and peace from the things I build, especially physical things, while social interactions only created at best a fleeting sense of satisfaction. I also have much more time for reading, contemplation, and enjoying nature.
I get more than enough social time from my partner and a small handful of friends that I see on occasion. I lived quite a full social life, with a huge variety of people and activities, yet surprisingly I don’t find it all that memorable or important in retrospect. It’s a similar feeling to looking back on one of my former careers.
Good on you. But this doesn’t apply to everyone. Hell, I’d even be willing to bet that your case is extremely niche.
Introversion can be a byproduct of so many different things that saying “it’s just a label” is not only absurd by itself, but utterly disrespectful too. It can be a choice too, sure, but that’s not the case for quite a lot of people.
While I believe you're ultimately correct and it's important to recognize that at the macro level, that type of thinking is incredibly caustic and defeatist at the individual level.
We should take every opportunity to make life as fulfilling as possible, even if we don't always succeed due to things outside of our control. (Note: this is an abstract claim for what you want, I'm not saying being extroverted is more fulfilling than being an introvert.)
I personally avoid to think about my self with labels about what "immutable" things "I am". Like "he is tall", "he has Z skin color", "he has 9 fingers", "he has brain type X", "he is thin", etc.
I do care about what values, passions and friends I have, and I have tried to find a set that is consistent.
I do not mind if someone tells me "I am an introvert", even if I do not find it extremely interesting. But if he says "I am introvert and will be unhappy all my life because I can't change that", I can't avoid thinking that he is focusing on something that does not help.
Choice is a spectrum, some things are more choosey than others. My height is not very choosey, what I eat for lunch is somewhat choosey given the choices around me, and what I say is very choosey.
Certainly, what you find comfortable is somewhat choosey. Over time it changes and evolves, from your own experiences. The more you do things, the easier and more comfortable they become.
This is such a clear headed comment, so many people use this introvert trait as an excuse for not making any effort to reach out even to dear friends, to not step out of their own comfort, and to not take any risk.
I believe that all we have in the world are our relationships, maybe hermits are content in their way of life because they never could truly socialize but I don't know about them being fully happy.
What we call shyness to me could be understood as a lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks. Not to put the blame on anyone of course because it does take real hard work for "introverts". But again, it is to big a deal to be an oversight and not try to be better in your own way.
I don't know if it is clear headed. It disregards scientific consensus on introversion / extraversion being a real thing, and it also speaks against the actual experience of many people. Furthermore, you conflate introverts with hermits.
A lot of introverts actually like contact with other people. They often prefer smaller groups and a certain connection, they are more picky. And need some time alone afterwards.
But that doesn't mean they are hermits.
I used to think I like parties. That I have to like it. That something was wrong with me for not liking it. Now I know it is ok to not have fun at a party, and prefer a walk with a good friend or my wife. I am much happier this way.
As someone who had many years of depression, I know social isolation too. And it is just not the same.
That said, I admit it can at the same thing also be true that people cop out of a healthy way to stretch their boundaries or even expend just a little effort by mistakenly labeling themselves as introvert. Such misuse of the label doesn't mean it doesn't refer to a real thing and a real experience.
I think ADHD is a good parallel. I absolutely have it, I’m diagnosed and have had symptoms since childhood.
But even so, I often realise I self-justify not doing something and attribute it to my ADHD, excessively. It becomes a clutch, and I gravitate away from the willpower I do have.
That reminds me, it’s time to reach out to some friends and make weekend plans, even if I’d prefer having a quiet one. I’ve had too many recently :)
Also have ADHD, and yeah, I've realized that it's even easier to fall into a fixed-mindset trap if you actually have a good justification for it.
My current mantra is "I get to decide who I am." Identity is incredibly mutable, but we tend to get stuck with baked in early assumptions. It's so easy to think "I'm not good at this" and sort of silently translate that to "I could never be good at this," when not being good at a thing is everybody's natural state.
Of course, most skills are going to be easier for some people to pick up and harder for others, but that's rarely the determining factor; more often it's who's put in the time and effort.
It's so easy to forget that so many of these things are skills, and to assume that people that are good at them just got lucky, which is not only counterproductive to oneself, it's kind of disrespectful towards the others who worked so hard to get good at them.
> lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks.
I live this. Even today, I have to make myself be social, I have to practice (my first job as a waiter was the best thing to happen to me).
The human engagement muscle atrophies when you indulge "introversion" (for all definitions and causes), and our age of infinite individual delights has tipped the tradeoff towards "alone and easy". I wish the sensitivity toward and acceptance of "neurodivergent" had more recognition that the way humans have been doing things for the last 15000 years might have had some value.
At least since the agricultural revolution (settling happened at various times depending on region, but we are talking thousands of years, up to 12k) up until a couple of hundred years ago most people lived in small communities of a few hundred people, where their great-great-grandparents also lived, huge extended family networks, regular festivities and behaviors tied to and strongly prescribed by farming work seasons and religious customs, semi-arranged marriages, job/land inherited from father to son.
There is nothing "natural" about living in some cramped city, meeting strangers all the time, trying to build connections and everybody leaving within 3-5 years to hundreds of miles away, navigating relationships online, working for big corporations with no stable coworkers, having to mingle with strangers all the time whose reputation, past etc you know nothing of etc.
The point the person above you is trying to make is that they lived in communities, in constant communication and contact with others. The idea of going home and hanging out by yourself is at least as unnatural as cities where you can still build a relatively stable community if you prioritize that sort of thing.
My point is that it was pretty much automatic and built in. It didn't require active effort, planning, etc. As we became less dependent on those around us and more dependent on large-scale systems of commerce and government, we are simply not forced as much. This is the same with having children and marrying. People "back then" did these things on autopilot, not as active choice. Today it requires active choice and deliberation and planning.
We previously were more accepting, eg, if you read the accounts of various socialites trying to include shy, reclusive, or eccentric friends in high society, you see real effort and concern to include them despite the difference in behavior.
We dropped all that social connection/obligation and associated support it provided for various people when we stopped doing things that historic way.
Talking about a thing to virtue signal is not the same as doing a thing.
It might be clear headed in tone but the argument is fundamentally absurd.
People are different. People have different preferences. Everyone’s mind works in different ways. Any argument that can be summed up as “you’re just no trying hard enough” is fundamentally unsound, unhealthy, unhelpful and entirely disrespectful.
I'm not sure, I think there is value in pushing through friction regardless of if you are introverted or not. One thing that is common to all humans is that loneliness correlates strongly with lack of satisfaction in life and being less healthy.
Before we talked as much about introversion and extroversion, people felt more obligated to do certain social events that they can more easily reject nowadays. That does mean it was uncomfortable and they had to push through friction because it's draining for introverts to do social events but being there also helped with making group of friends and staving loneliness. I do think this change in mores is one of the factors that contributes to the so called loneliness epidemics nowadays.
I'm alone most of the time, but I'm not lonely. Its by choice as I need very little socializing. I used to make an effort to be regularly social, but with the covid lockdowns I realized that I was overall happier with very little socialization. I couldn't come up with any benefit for what it costs me to socialize beyond the little that I actually need.
Thinking back, yes I think that is definitely true. Back before maybe 23 I was constantly looking to be out with people. How much care I have for what people think of me has also been decreasing with age. I socialized more than I wanted to meet other people's expectations and fit in.
> I hate exercise. Like I really really really hate it.
> Should I just accept this and live a life without it?
That is entirely up to you. It's your personal life and your time. No one has the right to say what you should or must do with your time.
Just like socialization, it's up to you on how much you do or don't do. Pretending everyone needs to because you like to is stupid.
Socialization is exhausting, I have to do enough of that working. I am not going to on my personal time. I really don't care what other people think of it, or what justification they use to try and make it some sort of requirement, or how much finger waving they're going to do.
i think some people et confronted with their shyness or awkwardness and they see that a social interaction didn't go smoothly and they conclude "oh, that must be because i'm an introvert". and then they stop practicing those social skills and it becomes self-reinforcing.
those people need to know that extraverts are also awkward and shy, but they've practiced their social skills so over time that gets better.
This reply seems extremely conflating and shallow. How can you reach out if you generalise a whole range of personalities like that? Maybe you did not intend that do that but, i feel semi offended by this comment
I'm not too sure about that. Personally I feel like for myself it's tied up with self esteem. I have confidence in my skills, just never when there's strangers watching. Also to maintain the world state in your head and avoid stepping on toes etc.
I can feel my heart rate go up. Sometimes when asking or answering questions in the lecture hall I start quivering. Just the thought of standing up, preparing my question and follow ups can cause this.
You may be right in that it's an excuse. But at the same time there's this disgusting physical reaction and yes it's easier to give in than to stand up.
It's easier to interact with loved ones and close friends because you know they know you and won't judge if you say something wrong etc. But not so for any other interaction.
> I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s.
That doesn't mean it didn't exist then, it means it either wasn't socially acceptable or wasn't understood (or both) then. See also the graphs of left-handedness over time, which were basically flat at the actual level of left-handedness except for a big dip during the century or so when left-handed people were commonly forced to hide it and use their right hands.
In the 80's many schools subjected kids to the Myers-Briggs test and introvert or extrovert was one of the categories it sorted people into. I was found to be introverted which was a bit of a surprise to me. The rest of it felt right to me (I was either INTP or ISTP, I forget which).
As an introvert who grew up in a radically extroverted household, forcing oneself to be an extrovert all the time can be psychologically damaging over time.
I don't think "being extroverted all the time" is the desired outcome that is being demanded.
You don't need to do that to throw a dinner party a couple of times a year.
I'm a shy introvert. I find it really difficult to make friends and to connect with people more than on a superficial basis. I have a few friends with whom I can talk for hours about anything and nothing, but when I meet a stranger I dont know what to do.
That being said, I still found a way to serve my community (my mosque). I am chartering a Toastmasters club to help grow people in their public speaking and leadership skills. It's incredibly fulfilling and also humbling because I'm probably the least accomplished person in the room (I'm a college dropout turned SWE, and there are doctors, medical and otherwise, professors, business owners, and more).
I feel way out of my league but there's so much excitement that I feel like I'd be letting the community down if I decided I don't want to talk to anyone for a while.
So yes, I agree with you. Putting yourself into situations where you may start uncomfortable but then eventually it becomes more uncomfortable to start. You just need the activation energy, i suppose.
I used to be a classic "tech guy." Identified as introverted, said I don't like parties, etc etc. The whole bit. Id' be exhausted after social events, need time alone to cool off, and so on.
At some point my partner told me I should stop saying I'm introverted because she saw me always interacting with people and enjoying it. So I reflected, realized she had a point, and stopped identifying as introverted.
Over time I realized that actually, I love interacting with people, especially closer friends. A "party" can be 4-6 people, it doesn't have to be huge. And sure, after larger events I still need some time to cool down, but stopping identifying as introverted has been a huge improvement overall to my life.
From my memory of the 80’s, the introverts dealt with the stress of dealing with so many people for so long by quietly getting drunk enough to talk to people.
Honestly if this doesn’t sound a “the fuck am I saying?” alarm in your head I don’t know what to tell ya.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. People have different social tendencies. People have always had different social tendencies. And this is way before you even factor in things like neurodivergence possibly tilting one towards preferring isolation or more intimate/lone activities.
It boggles the mind that anyone would think the introversion/extraversion dichotomy a product of modern times.
It’s a little odd how everyone is misreading this comment.
They are not saying that introverted and extroverted characteristics did not exist in people, they are saying that people did not run around proclaiming their introverted or extroverted status in the same way they do today and they didn’t use it to rationalize behaviour to the same extent.
Big 5 traits like extraversion are pretty conclusively genetic and meaningful. Twin studies show strong heritability, and personality studies show meaningful lifetime outcome differences (extraverts earn more, etc).
I think the introvert vs. extrovert thing has become almost a meme. I would definitely describe myself as “generally introverted” but I still very much enjoy many “extroverted” activities. I get the same sense of satisfaction and enjoyment out of throwing a party for people as the OP described. I will not be the center of attention at my own party, but I still enjoy the act of making other people happy. In fact, most likely what will happen is once everything is running smoothly and people are having fun, you’ll find me out on the back deck where it’s quiet talking to only one or two other people.
“Throwing a party” is not an introvert vs. extrovert thing. What you do at the party is.
Humans have a great capacity to convince ourselves of anything, it's the beauty of language! For every decision you want to make, you can always find one quote or idiom supporting it, and another against it. Yes we have to learn from the lessons of history yet every time "it's different this time"!
I agree that everyone should make an effort to exercise and socialize (as well as other difficult but rewarding tasks). But it's undeniable that different people respond to these things differently. Some people feel energized after difficult exercise, others feel drained. Some people find socialization exhilarating, others find it exhausting.
Encouraging someone to push past their comfort zone is helpful. But it seems less helpful to imply that you know more about the bounds of their comfort zones than they do, or that their comfort zone must simply be a cultural construct because it doesn't match yours.
I think the concept has some value, but like most behavioral labels they’ve become so loosely defined and abused that they barely mean anything any more.
I can’t count how many people have chatted my ear off and bounced around the office, engaging other people in spontaneous enthusiastic conversation every day, only later to have them claim they’re introverted. The colloquial usage has expanded to encompass anyone who some times feels like staying home and watching Netflix instead of going out on Friday night. In other words, everyone.
I agree that it also becomes an excuse. I’ve had friends who really enjoy socializing and going to social events and also lament social isolation and loneliness, but being an “introvert” becomes the driving factor in their decision making about what to do on weekends or after work. You can see how much they enjoy social events when they’re basically obligated to attend (weddings, special event parties, immense peer pressure from friends trying to get them out of the house) but when left to their own decisions they’ll decide to stay home and be lazy 10 out of 10 times with “I’m an introvert” as the excuse. I’m excluding people with conditions like social anxiety disorder from this description, before anyone comments with whatabouts.
It gets really bad when they reach their 30s and 40s and they wonder why their friends have stopped sending invites to things (because they never accept) and they complain that dating is impossibly difficult (because they only leave the house for work)
I'm confused because it sounds like you're describing social anxiety, but then saying it's not social anxiety. I have social anxiety so I can't really imagine why somebody would act like that if they didn't.
Imagine if you didn’t feel like running, and you made yourself do it, and after a few K you were like “this sucks, I wish I’d stayed home” and you finish your run and you didn’t enjoy it at all. But people keep telling you how great it is so you keep doing it and you keep hating it and after a while you eventually decide that running is not for you.
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
This is never a popular take but I think you completely nailed it. Anytime I see someone who has framed their world through the extrovert/introvert lens it's always done as justification for antisocial behavior. Lots of buzz phrases like "needing to recharge your batteries" while never admitting that socializing itself is a skill that needs practice to improve at so it doesn't feel like as much work.
A skill, how funny. Thats something only a "mainstream" person can say. You can practice your social skills as much as you want, if you are for some reason not a mainstream person. Because, now, if you go out, and try to "socialize", everyone and their dog will hit on you being special, and ruin your social experience basically forever. Did you ever try to socialize as a disabled person, for instance. You know, the hardest part of that game is to have a "normal" conversion, without random strangers going for the "Oh, now that I meet you, I have this pressing question I always wanted to ask", followed by a very unreflected, many times insulting, question about your disability, and how you cope with it. You will try that for a few months. Maybe even for years. Until you finally grow up, and realize that interacting with mainstream society is useless and will ALWAYS only hurt you in the long run. Sure, you can learn to cope by ignoring certain people, and trying to pick the good parts. But the more you do this, the more you will realize it is a lost game.
So please, don't unnecessarily simplify your analysis. It leaves a lot to be desires.
Oh, you are friends with a disabled person, that of course, is something totally different. I didn't realize I am talking to an enlightened human.
"I am friends with a disabled person" is almost as revealing as "I have experience, I am a social worker." Both types of people usually are so obnoxious, that I try to put distance between them and me as a knee jerk reaction.
Introversion means "finding company tiring". It doesn't mean you don't enjoy company. Most (but not all) introverts find company to be pleasurable for a limited period of time.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Then invite 3 or 4 people over. That's much more than what most people do. Sounds like the optimal party size to me.
You're right. Since I'm an introvert myself, I enjoy organizing events and inviting people over, because as the host, I always have a reason to change locations and get some “space” when the socializing becomes too much for me.
This is true as well. If you are otherwise not very social, being the organizer gives you a clear role and clearer expectations and tasks and reasons for people to start talking to you and vice versa. I find this helpful, as unstructured social environments are harder for me.
Even introverts need social connection (perhaps more so) - research here [1]. Introverts are people who feel they have used energy when interacting socially, rather than gaining energy from social interaction. It's not shyness or anti-social traits.
It will feel like more of a chore for introverts, but it's like a chore you need to do even if it feels bad in the moment, like doing laundry or exercising.
And worse for introverts - people who never invite other people eventually stop getting invited themselves, so to maintain social connection requires introverts to sometimes be the driver of the event.
Its unlike a chore in that there are obvious benefits to doing laundry and exercising. The same isn't true for socializing more than you require. As an introvert I definitely do need some social connection, but I don't need very much of it and I'm happiest being alone most of the time.
> The same isn't true for socializing more than you require.
That seems very much like exercising, no? You need a certain level of exercise to maintain basic physical capability but past that point there are diminishing returns. So if you truly detest exercising (or socializing) then you can stop there and still lead a healthy, functional life.
Sort of. Specifically the amount of exercise needed to maintain basic physical capability is roughly the same for everyone (barring injuries or chronic issues) where as the amount of socialization people need to not feel lonely varies quite significantly. I don't find my minimum amount of socialization to be a chore, but my minimum is quite low. Anything beyond that does feel like a chore.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Even that is a challenge of finding the mental energy to pick the date , see that everyone can come, picking some activity (or if you're hosting - make sure with your wife that the date is fine. What about your kids - you wanna put them in bed before?) etc etc. Some of it is probably no big deal but my brain is making it look big, perhaps because I lean introvert as well. It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
Helps if your friends are uncomplicated. We just chat, drink beer, make or order pizza, cook or bake something else, talk about work and family, sit in the sun, maybe play cards or just listen to music, talk about stories at recent events like concerts, rehash old stories, or updates about other friends, etc. There is no need to make a big deal about any of this.
But this is not a networking or new-friend-making style of party of course. Not even really a party, but fits "inviting people over for dinner".
I think a big problem is that people see this also as a thing where efficiency and productivity is important and they plan complicated activities etc. Similarly to how kids don't get much free time to just play and relax, adults also try to organize activities for themselves when just being together is often enough and the rest follows naturally.
I understand the feeling, what worked for me was "you know what, fuck it, I will just plan it more loosely, let's see what goes wrong or who is unhappy".
Most of the times, everybody is happy even if things are not perfectly planned, and then they thank me for the "effort" (which was minimal, and sometimes can introduce confusions, as I need to adjust the date or the style as more constraints become evident).
I sometimes think it's a problem of my education of engineering as well, because I want everything planned well, think of all exceptional cases, etc.
> It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
I think this gets at the heart of the concern—it’s always easier to find something else distracting to do, but what’s the real cost? I don’t really know how to measure that, other than to say that American society and culture are doing particularly poorly right now.
This is something that has been going for generations and centuries. We are less and less dependent on people near us and more dependent on father-away large-scale systems. Same with extended families, neighborhood communities, etc.
You're right. But I think it's more than just about being an introvert or extrovert.
In the past, boredome created a reason for most people to visit someone, play cards, host friends, or go somewhere.
At present, more and more people (introverts and extroverts) are already turning to social media, streaming, gaming, YouTube, and any other online platforms as these offer modern, instant, unlimited entertainment with almost no coordination or planning.
I am not speaking to you personally, but I think that in general there is a very large trend right now of people who believe they are introverts when really they are suffering an accumulation of social anxiety that life has freed them from the need to work through.
I suspect that for many, if they had less social anxiety, they would actually prefer to socialize more. But the most successful way to reduce an anxiety is through exposure therapy: forcing yourself to do the thing. And in today's world it is much too easy to simply avoid exposing yourself to any socialization.
I see a lot of people who claim to be very introverted. But, also, a lot of those people are unhappy. They may be comfortable, but that's not the same as happy.
I am pretty introverted but over the years I have accumulated a large set of friends. I don’t call all of them at once. But I do sets of 6-10 at a time.
I won’t go to a bar or a club alone. I don’t like it. But a good set of friends in a familiar location like my house (or theirs) makes for a really good time. We definitely try to get together at least once every couple of months.
I think you're spot on about it being type 1/type 2: people have stopped doing a lot of type 2 fun activities, because they have many more type 1 fun activities and because it's no longer socially obligatory to have type 2 fun.
If you do type 2 fun often enough, the level of anxiety drops. Imagine hosting a game night once: you have to ensure all your friends can attend, you agonize over the snacks, over picking the right games to play.
But if you power through and establish a tradition or join an existing one, it becomes simple, e.g.: every Thursday at 7pm you meet for a game of whatever you've been playing last week and a new game the host picked, the host brews tea, the guests bring whatever snacks they want. At the end of the session, you choose which game to play next week: the old one or the new one.
You can't just say "Oh boy am I an introvert." and just leave it at that.
Some people are extroverted picking their nose. Let me explain what I mean. That means they do it in front of others and don't give a fuck, or they might apologise when they get called out, and just do it all over again next minute. That's me. Other people are introverted picking their nose. They go away in private and they go ahead and pick their nose now that nobody is around. They're not necessarily in denial about it, and sometimes you can get them on the topic and compare notes. That's my wife.
I think of my wife and myself as extroverts and we do have a very large social circle. Still we don’t host as often as we wanted, maybe once every two months. One of the reasons is it can get very expensive. The last party we threw was a Sunday brunch for about 15 adults and a handful of kids, and we spent over $500 just in pastries. People still bring stuff but we don’t expect them to. Dinner can get even more expensive particularly if you cook meat dishes these days. Then all the time it takes which also translates into money. To host a dinner party it takes me part of the week shopping and the entire weekend cooking and organizing. So most times is better just to call a couple of friends and go out to a restaurant.
$25 a person just in pastries is pretty astounding. I think I could make it happen with the most expensive bakery (which is imo not the best in town but close to it) and eating little else. So hats off, that’s impressive. Hope they were enjoyed, great pastries are really a delight.
I could see it easily if it's a "catered" order e.g. specific numbers of each type of pastry, packaged carefully, etc. vs. just going down to a retail bakery and buying whatever they made that day and throwing it in a box.
Eh, in this economy I think it's fine to request contribution, either material or monetary. Also once every two months or so is pretty decent, cheers to you
That certainly makes sense at an individual level, but it seems implausible as an explanation of the dramatic shift over the past decades from TFA, unless basic character traits have shifted dramatically over the past decades as well.
Character traits, technology, leisure time, have all changed.
It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.
At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.
But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.
A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.
Depends what you do. I enjoyn hosting big parties because I spend a lot of time cooking for them, which I love doing and everyone appreciates. Then I have the opportunity to interact as much as I want.
I wonder if intro/extra-version is less explanatory than the people-who-enjoy-doing-things-on-vacation vs people-who-enjoy-doing-nothing-on-vacation divide. I'm an introvert who loves throwing parties because I can perform hosting chores if I feel awkward (prep food, do dishes, refill drinks, introduce people).
That said, hiking up a mountain sounds like a great vacation to me, in a type 1 and 2 way. Active recreation is my gratifying form of recreation (balanced of course with some down time after), but I know this sounds like hell to a lot of people. I'm not sure we have a word for this divide as a culture.
I, too, like going to (some) parties, but more often I don't.
I like hosting, but only small groups of people (3-6ish), and I cannot handle more than dozen at my place, though I don't mind going to parties where there are more. It's just that I end up talking with the handful of people I know.
Planning parties is, well, exhausting. Hosting them is exhausting. I'd much rather talk, chat with, go to concerts with, workout with, hike with people, than go to parties or host them.
When it comes to parties, I want to be invited, but don't want to go.
If there's one club I belong to, it's probably the Groucho Marx club. "I woudn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
I used to believe in this dichotomy but not anymore. I've seen ppl go from shutin to extroverts after they have kids. So called introverts never learn how to enjoy socialization so it drains them.
I dont know where it started but we've turned this whole introvert/extrovert stuff into some sort of immutable characteristic.
Reproduction also causes some pretty intense biophysical changes which may well alter personality. It is silly to act like it is just due to reasoning...
Introversion is a skill issue. People who aren’t extroverts are just not as good at socialising, so they find it difficult and tiring, but they could get better and then it would be easy.
I agree about the two groups. I spent years trying to invite some friends to our home for dinner, but we always had "scheduling conflicts." Then one time I suggested going out to a restaurant, and we immediately scheduled it and did it that weekend. I finally figured out that they didn't want to come to our home because they thought that then they would have to recipricate and invite us over, which they didn't want to do.
I think it would be so nice if people just took what I said at face value sometimes… if I invite you over it’s because I want you in my house, not because I secretly want to visit yours.
What I would do is to invite people to a restaurant for a reciprocation to their invitation of us to their home. We would honestly acknowledge that we don’t know how to cook well and don’t plan to improve that before the universe dies.
I know different social circles are different, but have you considered inviting people to your house for takeout? Maybe dining out is what you'd prefer anyway, but if you wanted some sort of games/movie/casual hangout at your place but didn't want to cook, getting takeout could be an appropriate compromise.
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
As someone who has (and occasionally still does) throw parties, I totally do not relate. It's just tiring. I don't have time to mingle with the guests.
I prefer small, simple invitations. Ideally 2 families. Simple food. Not a lot of ceremony. Get together and talk (or play games, or whatever).
Similarly, I've drastically reduced going to bigger parties - at least with some hosts. These are people I like and want to spend time with, but they only throw large parties, and I get virtually no time with them at the party - they're too busy.
What I'm finding is that - as you noticed - people tend to want to be all or nothing. I'm having trouble finding people like me. I want to socialize, but not this way.
When I read the article, I immediately thought of several reasons he hadn't listed. Too tired to go into detail, but some of them are: Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem (4 being the lower bound). Dual income with kids - we barely get enough time with the kids, and throwing a big party means neglecting them much, much more. Several other factors. This really is death by a thousand cuts.
> Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem
I didn't relate to most of what you said, but I definitely see this sentiment. I hosted parties all the time till I got married, albeit not for logistical reasons. She's very unkeen on having people in her space, and carving out space for me was already a sacrifice for her.
Now I wish my friends hosted parties because I'd 100% go.
> Middle aged European here. I still regularly go to parties (dinner and otherwise) and I notice that there are two kinds of people: people who throw parties, and people who don't
Middle aged American here. I go to more social gatherings than I have in any time since college.
I would add a second dimension to your stratification: People who have kids and those who don’t. Once you have kids who enter school age, there are more social opportunity than you have time for. Even many of the people who never threw parties before now host a few cookouts or birthday parties per year.
The events are based on people who attend the same school or whose kids are friends with your kid, so you’re not always hitting it off with all of the other parents as future best friends. However you do get exposed to a lot of new people and each new introduction increases your odds of finding people you connect with.
One realization is that it didn’t actually require having kids to start doing all of this. Inviting people over for a backyard cookout or a simple dinner was always easy. Easier without kids, actually. Most simply don’t make the initiative.
Another problem is the increasing burden that people create for themselves or their friends with social events: Expectations of bringing gifts, showing up with a bottle of wine that isn’t too cheap, dressing nicely, and the biggest event killer of all: Trying to find a date that works for everyone of the guests. Parent get together dispense with all of that. Everyone’s busy with kids. If you show up for 30 minutes in shorts and a T-shirt bearing no gifts and you have to leave early, everyone is just happy you came. A date is sent out and whoever is available can come. If not, we’ll see you next time.
Question for you or anyone else: as a forty-something single person without kids, is it reasonable to try to make friends with this crowd?
Most people my age do have kids, especially given that I'm living somewhere fairly quiet. I like kids and get along with them well -- indeed, to the extent that I'd happily occasionally babysit for free. But parents seem to be living in a different world.
One difficulty is that most parents seem to be deeply invested in their home lives and daily routines, in a way that I find difficult to relate to, which can make small talk difficult. But one way or another, I should probably make some attempts to expand my social life.
Yes this definitely happens. School events, or having a groups of kids who are together on a soccer team, brings a group of parents together. But in my experience they are relationships of convenience. I've never formed any friendships from this that have persisted after the kids got older, dispersed to other schools/teams or went off to college. Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
> Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
That's too bad. I would say most of the other parents I meet aren't people I'd hang out with outside of kid events, but when you go to a lot of events you meet so many other adults that your odds of finding new friends goes up substantially
That’s so interesting because I feel like I always hear the opposite from my friends with kids (in the US) - that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
The way they talk about it, they’re limited to only hanging out with people who similarly have kids, and whose kids get along with their kids. They’re cut off from most of their other friends’ normal social activities, even if they have a really good babysitter, which is a rare luxury. Sometimes they hang out with other parents they don’t even particularly like, just because both of them having kids makes it possible.
I can think of several times in the last year alone where I’ve been looking forward to meeting my friends, only to have our plans ruined upon arriving and realizing that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
idk. I understand how there’s a sort of solidarity and flexibility to the friends you make with fellow parents, but just from the outside, it looks like that’s barely making do with what you’ve got, not free to be socializing the way you actually want to.
> that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
This is only true if you limit your definition of "real" event to one without kids.
The social gatherings I was talking about have people bring their kids.
If you're not a parent and your only experience with parenting is through friends' lamentations about parenting, this probably won't land. What I'm trying to communicate is that the events are different, but they're not bad or unenjoyable. It's actually a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of new people too.
I know a few parents whose kids will only get along with a small number of close friends, but that's a minority. We takes our kids to different parks and they've learned to play with random kids that they've never met and may never see again. This is common for well socialized kids.
> that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
I'm sorry to say, but this seems a lot like a you problem. I don't know why you'd think that wine tasting at a winery would be a kid-friendly event without checking.
Your location might play a part in it. I literally cannot think of a brunch venue, including $100/person places with reservation lists here, that don't allow minors. When making a reservation you tell them how many adults and how many kids, so that should have come up unless this was they were really unfamiliar with going out with kids? Either way, these problems are not frequent. As a parent you do a cursory check of a venue to make a judgment call if it's kid friendly or not.
My wife is an extrovert and I'm an introvert. We are also the party throwers. If we didn't throw parties I don't think our extended family on her side would ever see each other. But even as an introvert, I feel very grateful and energized after hosting people at our home.
Same situation for me - my wife is an extrovert's extrovert, and I am on the introvert side. However, I'm the one who organizes and hosts a quarterly cocktail party. It's a lot work - after every one of these parties I tell myself "I'm not doing those anymore". But I've received so much positive feedback from the attendees that I end up doing it again. It ultimately is very satisfying and worth the effort for me.
I love hosting, especially because I have invested a lot in my cooking skills. However, now inviting someone over means hosting an entire family and my job has evolved into cleaning, doing dishes, and prepping food, while everyone else is having the time of their life (we don't have a large space). Just not so enjoyable, so we have slowly stopped doing them and others rarely host them as well. An alternative is that we now do dinner picnics at the park, way more easier and no one is stuck doing hosting work.
A simple solution to that is to distribute the chores. For larger parties I always ensure I have help. Many people actually like contributing to a party in non-material ways by doing prep work or some cooking, doing the dishes, selecting the music, etc.
Totally agree with this. People are usually pretty eager to help out (particularly the introverts - this can give them a momentary break from socializing, while alos making them feel included).
I'd get more energy from sitting alone in a dark room than by throwing a - or attending a - party...
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy attending (never throwing) parties on occasion, but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.
> but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.
Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting, spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
Usually people feel great afterwards because of the experience and despite it being hard work and taking time to recover from. Parties etc. can be the same.
They can for some, but to be very clear, I don't. I feel mentally drained in a way I absolutely do not enjoy. The experience can be fun during, but the net benefit to me is low enough, and for many types of socialising it's firmly in the negative, that I restrict myself very much in terms of what socialising I consider worthwhile.
As I said, it's very much down to your personality - most of the time I'd rather spend time in peace and quiet alone or with my wife or son (and I need some of that time to be entirely alone)
This is true on some level, and what you describe has been called type 2 fun. But for plenty of people, partying and socializing is really type 1 fun, they find it enjoyable the way some of us find working on programming or other nerd things intrinsically rewarding in the moment, which they may see as unfun but potentially good for you long term.
My point is, yes, sometimes it's good to just ignore the discomfort and push through, but we should also know that it's not how everyone feels about it. Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us. I don't know proportions, but these people exist. Of course plenty of people are somewhere in the middle range, where they enjoy some aspects while hating the rest, and the thing they enjoy about loud clubs is likely about prospects getting laid and similar stuff.
> Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us.
The funny thing is that I used to go clubbing regularly because to me that was not about socialising per se. I'd be happy to go alone into an anonymous mass of people and just dance and switch off. I'd still need time to recover, but not nearly as much as with a group of people I'm expected to talk to.
That's universally held for me in other contexts as well. E.g. I can speak in front of thousands - and have - and not stress out at all. They're a non-descript mass at that point. I'm just talking, not conversing. But if any of them try to corner me to talk to me afterward? That is exhausting.
Call me introvert or not, before doing the exercise I feel a little resistance to do it, but after - feel very energized. For parties: it's diametrically different - feel big boost of dopamine before party, but after - I feel some regrets, so I'm just trying to not think about later.
I don't feel regrets per se, but I do certainly need to recover, while after exercise I feel good. Regular exercise usually makes me more likely to exercise more, while with social functions that's not viable for me.
The result is the only thing about exercise that I enjoy. It's the data, not the feelings. I don't like going to the gym. I don't like doing my exercises. I don't feel better afterwards (usually the opposite: I'm tired and sore). I don't compete or compare myself to anyone else. But I do like seeing that e.g. my bench press is 5 lbs better this week. That's the entire reward for me.
Only a specific subset of people enjoy running a marathon. Hell, as it is a fixed length (and not a fixed duration), it is even worse if you are not at the top of fitness and VO2max: how many people would enjoy running for 6+ hours?
I do think it’s possible to move between categories though. I used to have potlucks and house parties every month in my twenties, but now a decade later I just don’t really have much interest in the idea.
It might just be a rationalization, but the way I justify it is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more what actually matters to me, and being a party host / spending time at parties doesn’t fit that category. I’d rather spend my time doing something else.
I think I had the opposite as I got older. I didn’t really like the bigger parties after something like high school, but now that I’m middle aged I like the idea of uncomplicated social interactions with strangers.
> It might just be a rationalization, but the way I justify it is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more what actually matters to me, and being a party host / spending time at parties doesn’t fit that category. I’d rather spend my time doing something else.
Well it's happening to the vast majority of people all at once, I don't think it's age, at least not only that. I haven't read the whole article yet perhaps he offers ideas on why this is happening but I'm guessing - better alternatives (Netflix), increased individualism etc. Society has changed a lot.
Fair point, although I do think it’s fairly typical generally for people to become less social as they get older, find a partner, get more serious about their career, etc. with the trends aside.
I'm not sure if it's by desire though. Perhaps there is less time to spend with others to build durable bonds or less opportunity to socialize. With many of the people I know it seems that people are eager to socialize again when the kids are out of the house. So it doesn't seem to be older -> less social.
I am not sure that's 100% the case. Sure as children and even through college it's easy to make friends, but as we get older, we certainly are exposed to more people and more opportunities if we choose so.
I think the major problem though is due to the way the world is rapidly shifting, and people's utter mental exhaustion, it's easier to sit and do nothing and become a mindless drone to 'the boob tube' or rather your phone than it is to be with your community.
This isn't something new, it's just becoming more evident, especially as there are less and less communities.
Just think about it, you likely live in some sort of apartment, town house, or suburban area, and how well do you know your neighbors? One apartment/house over, two, three? Or maybe just a friendly nod when you pass, but nothing more.
I don't know that I agree. My dad used to be pretty solitary when he was younger, but now that he's retired, he's constantly socializing and has built a large network of friends (which is really good for his mental health).
1. People work more. In particular, the shift to dual-income households means that women, who traditionally planned most parties before, no longer have time.
2. the shift to "lots of kids, sparse parenting" to "few kids, lots of investment" becomes another time sink focusing families inwards on themselves instead of outwards on the wider community
3. People just have less friends. especially so for a) single b) non college-degree and c) lower-income people. Probably due to #1 and the whole dating app epidemic no one has had a serious conversation about yet.
4. And yes, as you alluded to, it is "more fun to be alone" in the modern day. Less incentive to go out if you don't "feel" lonely nor bored.
I guess I could have just quoted the provided summary, but where's the fun in that?
>In sum: The death of the host is the story of lonely unmarried people and harried married dual-earner households; anxious parents spending more time with their children and less time with friends; and the typical home becoming such a riot of diverting comfort that people no longer have to invite human beings to interrupt their boredom.
Is that it though, parents with no time? Do single people with no kids socialize more than parents once they are past high school and college? Im not so sure.
We used to have parties. But then my wife had a few realisations:
1. "I hate losing sleep, and there are very few things in the world now important to me than a good night's sleep".
This has been a life changer for both of us. I used to be a late owl, but when she started going to bed at 9:30,I did too. We now have competitive "what was your sleep score" in the mornings over breakfast
2. "I do not enjoy conversations with more than 3 other people at the same time"
I don't mind crowds and can "hold forth" with entertaining stories and have fun doing it, but my wife has social anxiety that really only emerged in larger groups. She doesn't even like going to parties or bars, and after a few drinks, leaves me to it.
3. "I don't like getting wasted, and I don't even like getting slightly drunk if it screws up my sleep"
For me it's more medical. While I'm perfectly healthy, I noticed around the age of 45 that red wine gives me palpitations and tachycardia. Lots of beer (especially really nice beer) does the same. My father is 99 years old because he never drank alcohol. I honestly believe a single hangover would actually kill him. But certainly, years of "not kicking the shit out of his insides with booze" have contributed to his long life.
This. It’s also why I started celebrating my birthday and throwing a party. I am not doing it for me, I am an introvert and it is a lot of work, but I am doing it for my guests who have a great time.
(For perfectionists: people always have a good time when there’s some food and drinks and other people. Everything else, even music, is really optional.)
Personal experience and observation so take it for what it's worth: people are more flaky and less committal now.
It used to be if you throw a party and invite a bunch of people, the ones that say they'll come will probably come. Now, you invite a bunch of people, you get mostly a bunch of maybe and half don't show up.
It makes it both harder to plan and have the social risk of a dud of a party. Worst thing you want as a host is people not having a good time.
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
I doubt its that they forget - it probably just isn't gratifying to them. Different people find different things gratifying.
This is my experience exactly. We used to host a monthly board gaming party before we moved and it was very energizing and exhausting at the same time.
After the two kids the games disappeared and it just became a normal party where we could talk and such and a playdate for the our and the other parents kids.
We will probably do it again when we settle into a new home at least I hope.
This is my experience too, and I'm more of an introvert who finds throwing a party both gratifying and exhausting. There are friends who reciprocate and friends who don't, and I don't judge.
I'd like to share my experience throwing parties, and some thoughts on introversion & extroversion.
I held weekly board game nights at my home for a year or two during the latter part of COVID. I loved board games and missed the weekly meetups that stopped happening due to lockdown. I only invited very close friends, all of whom are still very close. And I genuinely ruined my love of board games from how frustrating the experience proved to be. I put in a lot of effort to be a good host and everyone sure seemed to want to play board games, but over and over it was like herding cats once they were over. They were all acting in good faith, and yet that experience burned me out so much and my brain now associates board games with that experience so much that I barely play anymore, and don't enjoy it like I once did.
Now whether you want to use the label "introvert" or not, I was determined to push outside of my comfort zone that was staying in alone. But each of those dozens of nights drained me in a way that that cumulatively has left an emotional scar deep enough to impact my identity (being a person who loves board games was part of who I was, a part I liked)
I suspect that of the ways people will respond to this story, there are two that will be most common
1. What the heck are you talking about? I can't imagine having that experience
and
2. Yeah, that tracks
Whether or not you call those groups extrovert & introvert, and whether you believe such preferences are inherent, learned behavior, or social conditioning, here is a truth:
Trying to change your nature, however you came to have it, comes with a cost and can go wrong.
So for those who consider introversion to be mere choice, I encourage you to be less flippant in how you try to convince people of that.
100% I have been a "party thrower" for years and it is obvious that the bulk of our friend group never hosts an event. I think this is probably the way it's been with humans for a long time though. It is an interesting observation.
I self-identify as an introvert and don't much like social obligations. Nevertheless it's nice every once in a while that my wife drags me into them. If she's not there as a catalyst, I would probably be rotting at home with vitamin D deficiency.
Grateful for people who host and provide social opportunities even though I'm sometimes not outwardly social.
This also depends on the pennies we have to spare. I also as a middle aged and middle class European like to invite friends over, but the youth these days (and many many adults, at least around here) don't have the money to spend on this. Not the only reason, but a substantial one IMO.
there's more than two types, because the type that never throws parties can be subdivided into smaller groups of people who throw parties due to familial requirements - kids, visiting relatives from other countries and so forth.
In the almost 11 years I have owned my home, I just hosted a group for the second time. It was a game night with dinner.
You are right: It was work, it was money. I am not exactly a social butterfly, but even I was able to pull off a gathering of four other people. It was so worth it, because we all had an absolute blast.
It was also very much needed. So I, for one, plan on doing my part to counter this trend.
People might be getting fatter or more unfit. Still there are subcultures where people are fit as all --. The commitment is unreal. The amount they can talk about fitness is truly endless. And if you asked them it would be all about character and social milieu. Things might have changed in the last decades, but that’s at best uninteresting facts to them.
More and more divergence, subcultures, while the mean tends towards a bad direction. And no understanding. Because why don’t they Just Do It?
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc.
Nope. Its a bunch of work and stress and thoroughly beaten by a dull night in. If I want to bring people together, I'll pay for it to be done - e.g. a restaurant.
It depends who you invite. I organized a lot of parties in my youth with some that escalated and that burned me a bit. Now I am very reluctant to organize something and have not done so in a while, but when I do and it works, it is amazing. Helping bringing people together. Connecting, having a good time and people feel grateful for it.
Now with the great late summer, it would be a great time for something like this again, but I just did not felt the energy, but also am a bit sad now to not just make something happen.
The article actually mentions lower income people rarely hosting anything, and simply having less frienships. So it is also in some small part an economic issue.
Absolutely true about the two divisions in people.
I had an introverted girlfriend who enjoyed my tradition of inviting couples over for small dinner parties, but if said couple didn't reciprocate the invitation within some arbitrary period, she would claim they were impolite and we shouldn't invite them anymore.
My view was and is: the number of people happy to be invited to a party is lower than the number of people who are happy to host. It's not rudeness, nor even selfishness; it's sometimes just a flavor of introvert behavior.
If this weren't true, you'd be too busy with invites to think of some friends as "they always throw great parties".
It's almost unbelievable that people like you exist. Attending a gathering is torture enough. Hosting one, repeatedly at that, sounds like living in the ninth circle of hell.
And if you're in the third group, but don't actually accept the invites, you will find yourself in the fourth group. People eventually stop inviting those who never show up.
>people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I have no doubt it might seem that way, but it doesn't seem like an interesting divide because the categorization doesn't really tell you anything about the people. But it's definitely a good rule of to thumb to remember the next time someone feels annoyed that "so and so never throws parties." It's also true when you visit friends in cities you never been. Some are natural and enthusiastic tour guides, some shun such a role.
But my guess is many the "never hosts" threw at least one party in the past and had a terrible experience and decided they suck at it.
I'm also assuming the never people you know are capable of throwing parties in terms of house size etc, and that you accounted for the ineligible in that respect.
I know people who are self-conscious about their messy houses and the idea of maintaining a presentable tidy house for parties would be enough for them to dismiss the idea outright even though they would like to do it in theory.
You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you so much for that, even though I don't directly benefiting from it.
There is an epidemic of disconnection and loneliness, Putnam and others are 100% right. There's an organized effort by some people to isolate humans from each other as much as possible, and they have their own swarm of useful idiots to aide them.
The solution to this problem needs explicit action, this is not something that will take care of itself, or people would adapt to it.
I bought a domain recently, https://clubs.fyi that I will devote to this purpose of human connection[1], if anyone wants to join shoot me an email, there's nothing there yet but there will be stuff in a week or so. :)
1. Not connection in the SF-sense like Facebook, Meetup, etc.
Blame the screens. Screens are blackholes that suck up your time, attention, awareness and senses.
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting. They are a tool and as such value neutral. Is it evil that I can have a weekly video-call with family members on another continent when the alternative would be...simply no contact at all, super expensive phone calls or letters. I don't think so.
I think even with family and friends that live far away, screens are often an excuse as well. Well sorry we aren't going to be able to visit gas is just too much, we can FaceTime instead! And I think it's ignoring the bigger problem, is perhaps you talk to your family members once a week, but do you have your community around you that you talk and do things with 'off screen'? Its easy on the internet to say you do, but the reality is most people would rather doomscroll than be bothered with trying to know their neighbor.
Before screens you visited even less. Well if you compare the 1960s to today - but the 1960s had the phone as well. Compare 1700 to today and you realize quickly that "visiting your sister who married just one village over is a big deal and it couldn't happen often".
I mean... you are substituting your family on a little screen for going out into the real world and making some new friends. I'd argue that, yes, just because you wrap it in "I love my family don't question me" it doesn't change anything.
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
Digital tools are made even more not value neutral by the fact that other humans are actively influencing them even while you're using them, via "the algorithm", "dark design patterns", etc.
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
>Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting.
Most my family is scattered. Screens can be connecting. But it doesn't replace local connection and my experience seems more to delay the inevitable drifting away of such relations due to distance. I suppose it at least tests how much your loved ones care to keep in contact with you.
I agree with you general sentiment but how did you end up in a situation where you feel this way but also wanted to try a VR headset but then also decided to throw it away immediately after trying it seemingly surprised by what the experience was.
It's not only the screen. It's everything about late Capitalism. The families are more atomized. There are less families and kids. Big dinners are usually for big families. It takes a lot of skills and practices to prepare a big dinner for 10-12 people quickly.
I have a friend who is married and have 3 kids. His wife is a SAHM. She didn't know anything about cooking before they got married back in 2011, and nowadays she could easily throw a party for 10-12 people with only half of day of preparation (excluding shopping) -- and that's 10 Chinese dishes she had to cook, not BBQ stuffs. That's crazy for us. I can't imagine how much time it would take us to prepare even 5 dishes. I used to watch she cooking and it was so elegant. She uses the stove to its full, including baking, and still has the leisure to talk to me and cut raw food quickly.
It takes practices. She having 3 kids definitely "helps" with the practice. Nowadays people don't get to practice these things. It's like a myth to us.
I think it's kinda impossible for a two-worker family unless you are really into this kind of stuffs. Otherwise taking care of work and kids is already way too much for us.
People are downvoting because the tone is a bit harsh but he has a point.
While TV has been a thing for a long time, content was limited, and more importantly curated. You couldn't manage your own playlists/subscriptions and almost infinite content on subjects that interest you.
Video games were mostly for kids.
There were no social media feeds optimize to monopolize your attention and make you doomscroll.
Hey even having a TV/widescreen at home has a direct impact on couples sex life...which magically reactivate when the light goes out.
The internet is wonderful for many things but nobody can denies it has an impact on our in person social life.
I remember a college teacher who had 9 siblings humorously answering the question of "how did your parents managed to do it" with "simple: they didn't have a TV set back then".
TVs had already affected our lives tremendously, computers and the internet just went nuts with it.
It is what you make of it. It gives and takes, heat and light, waves for waves, words for words. It lets time stay alive as bits, as long as they don’t rot. In exchange, it suck up your real world time. To use it is to used by it.
We need a new way to use it safely for us and the world writ large.
that's true. and I noticed that was true when I met my internet friends in real life and I noticed the real life interaction made the bond much more valuable and more complex than it was.
even when it's GOOD it's not as good as real life, however, it does take less effort.
I actually doubt it. For one, "blame" implies damage and I'm not sure this is even a real problem. But I actually think it corresponds with rising prosperity (which councides with the rise of technology). People associate with tribes and clans for mutual support and protection and it's just much less necessary now.
When I met my wife, I discovered very quickly that she had savant-level hosting skills. She is an amazing cook, she prioritizes space to dine in our home (we made sure to have a dining table in our NYC apartment) and she thinks carefully about the experience of her guests. It's a quality that I benefit greatly from, and I'm grateful to her for it.
I do agree that this is a very good quality of a wife. I have a friend whose wife is like this and I can't tell you how much effort he saved for himself.
Why is there such a narrow world view apparent on HN as to suggest that this is only a good quality for a human to have? It's a good quality for almost anything to have!
There are more good qualities to look for than anyone can possess. Just make sure your partner has good qualities and encourage them. Then have "a village" where other good qualities that you have have between the two of you cover as much of the rest as possible.
I moved from a rich city social life to a lonely suburban one (I have regrets, there are complicating factors). I met a fellow dad who mentioned a book as we started chatting and I was excited (someone who reads!).
As we talked about this very isolation problem he told me about his neighbors who kept inviting him over and offering to watch the kids for him and how he thought it was just weird and couldn’t trust them. It broke my heart — I could just imagine the neighbors trying to be good to their community and that very behavior is met with distrust.
(I read half the book he mentioned and asked him about it the next time I saw him. Turns out he hadn’t read the book, just heard about it on a podcast. My quest to meet someone who reads continues.)
Here is 3 cheers for my neighbor 50th birthday party that is COSTUME, and to which we got a PRINTED invitation. It is a "come as your favorite SNL character" party. Stylish people, single handedly bucking this indisputably sad trend. Now what character would you come as?
This is very cultural. In Spain essentially no one throws dinner parties in the US style. It's rare to invite social acquaintances to one's home. These things are done - but mainly with family. Part of this is cultural and part reflects that homes are too small to fit many people. Most socializing is done outside, at a bar, cafe, restaurant, park, etc.
But that's also great, meeting in a restaurant or bar. Or perhaps renting a cabinet space in one. Or just going on a picnic or free outdoor concert together. Doesn't need to be someone's home. I feel a lot of these things have shrunk massively.
Yes, I agree. What I'm finding, though, is everyone else in my circle doesn't value meeting in a restaurant. They insist these things should be in a home. Or if it's a restaurant, someone should pay for the whole crowd. And as you can imagine, it eventually becomes a "I do all this effort to invite family X to our home for parties, but they never invite us to their home" - conveniently forgetting that family X does want to spend time with them - just not at their own home.
I also found that they seem to value the tradition and style (quality of food, quality of dinnerware, quality of decoration, etc) much more than the company.
Before marriage, we (guys) would get together often. After marriage, it promptly stopped. And the accounting began.
As I said in another comment, the causes of the decline are plenty, and nothing really dominates. I've given a few reasons here and elsewhere, but I'm sure there are many more. It's a death by a thousand cuts. The reasons I give here are due to a certain sub-clique. It won't apply to others' experiences.
If each pays for their own share, not so expensive. If you host and invite the same number of people, it gets expensive if you get outside food, and a lot of work/time if you cook yourself. Both are more friction than a restaurant, and thus fewer people do it. In a circle of 50, there will be 10-30 who just don't have the energy/budget to host, and eventually the others despise them for never hosting. The steady state outcome is that those people neither host nor get invited.
In my family, not surprisingly it's the wife who wants to host dinners. And because of the (IMO) high standards, it means she's missing for days to over a week. Life pretty much goes on hold in the household during that time. She can't watch the kids, so I have to. We both work and have little time, which really means the kids get neglected - and it's measurable.
If they lowered their standards, this wouldn't be a problem. But they seem to value those standards more than the social mixing.
If hosting was "simple food, no decoration, not the tidiest home", it would happen a lot more.
(Of course, if you host at a restaurant, that's the most expensive).
Article says "The share of adults who say they regularly have friends over has declined 70 percent since 1975", but this may not be an accurate comparison:
> Until 1985, the survey included only married households.
Doesn't that seems like a more accurate measurement? what's the percentage of adults who check "yes" for "friends i'm hoping to hook up with" versus those that say "oooh, you mean actual friends"?
Does it? It means different types of socialising a lot of the time, but couples often merges friend groups and I could definitely see a case for some subset of those friend groups ending up meeting up more regularly. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see data broken down by relationship status.
I've tried to do this in my community: Challenges faced.
- People unwilling to commit to an event > 7 days in advance
- People flaking even when they do
- Unreciprocated $100s of dollars spent is non sustainable, and lowkey feels kinda like buying others friendship
- People in urban places are living in smaller and smaller spaces. Though counterbalanced by many nicer apartment buildings have amenities spaces that help.
- mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
- And IMO the overarching issue in America that creates so many problems -- Everyone is so overworked that they don't have the energy/capactity to do good things: Exercise, and hosting parties being two examples.
> - mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
I was raised in a social environment where mixing circles was normal and it took me a while to realize that that's not how Americans do things. It certainly creates a lot of difficulties connecting with others, and at least for myself I am a lot less motivated to get to know people better when I'm the X or Y buddy they reach out to when the people they actually want to hang out with are unavailable.
> - People unwilling to commit to an event > 7 days in advance
You want N people. Assume 1/2 won't show. Invite 2N people. Either ask people to bring a bit of food, or provide food for 1.5xN and if you get only N then you'll have leftovers.
> - Unreciprocated $100s of dollars spent is non sustainable, and lowkey feels kinda like buying others friendship
If you have the disposable invome for it then it's its own reward, and you're not buying friends: you're helping them make new friends with your other guests, and this is something they'll appreciate about you. They might or might not reciprocate because as we've seen in this thread, many are not into hosting.
> - mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
Mixing is half the point!!
> - And IMO the overarching issue in America that creates so many problems -- Everyone is so overworked that they don't have the energy/capactity to do good things: Exercise, and hosting parties being two examples.
That's what long weekends are for, so host a party on a day in a long weekend.
See my last point, they're too busy/tired. 1/2 the people bring chips and salsa they picked up last minute on the way there.
> Mixing is half the point
People no longer want mixing. Anyone who disagrees about anything they believe is "toxic" or microviolent.
> That's what long weekends are for
People already maxxed want rest, isolation, catchup a breath on the very few long weekends. Those who do happen to have capacity want social media viable things to show off their status to their friends.
> People no longer want mixing. Anyone who disagrees about anything they believe is "toxic" or microviolent.
Well, maybe some are like that. They'll stop coming to your parties, or you'll stop inviting them, or you already know they are like this so you won't even invite them. The rest will keep showing up -- they're the fun ones!
> See my last point, they're too busy/tired. 1/2 the people bring chips and salsa they picked up last minute on the way there.
And that is fine, at least the first time. People learn and will not bring chips and salsa afterwards. Plus, the goal of the shared dinner is to have people over, not to enjoy fancy meals.
See, that's your problem. You don't throw a house party because you want to go to other house parties. You do that because and only because, you want to throw a house party.
I can understand how you'd read that I dont throw house parties from a single HN post. The greater context is I've tried variously over the past decade, spent 1000s on parties, and have found a recurring negative impact on my own well being because I outlay of my resources (mental, energetic, monetary) in a dissipative way that is not poured back into me. I am a zero sum being and so the cost to me is realistically taken away from other places I can maintain my own health, sanity, and other desirable outcomes.
Maybe the truth is I dont want to throw a house party -- I want the outcomes of a house party... Friends, community, being known, meeting someone who might become a friend/spouse, not being alone on isolating holidays (like thanksgiving / christmas / NYE) .
In my twenties I made spaghetti every Saturday night. This started as throwing some Ragu in a pot and adding some spices, and eventually morphed into crushing my own tomatoes and cooking over most of the day. I did this every week over years. A varied group of friends came to eat each week -- no plan, no notice, just come over if you have nothing else going on. It's how I met my wife -- I never would have had the courage to ask her out on a real date, but "I make spaghetti for my friends every Saturday, you should come over," was easier. It's been years and I don't often make spaghetti anymore.
Some of my friends are married with kids, some are married without kids, and some are single. My wife strongly prefers hosting couples and not my indidividual friends, so they dinners are my friend plus his wife/gf who no one knows as well, and I never really like that awkward dynamic where he and I are the only people who really know each other. But she understandably doesn't like 3rd-wheeling it with just me and the friend alone. So we mostly only ever have friends over who are married, unless it's someone we're both friends with.
I think there's this huge gap coming with age. Nobody does that spaghetti thing anymore, good friends after finishing school move elsewhere, responsibilities in many new fields increase and the opportunities to meet hundred candidates decrease exponentially. So even if you'd continue doing the spaghetti, I doubt you'd have too many to feed...
Alternatively, one could hold a social interaction not centered around some form of consumption, and then you don't have to worry about satisfying people's consumptive preferences
Ironically Larry David always seems to be at dinner parties in Curb. Maybe it's a wealthy person activity or maybe it's just comedy gold coming up with a new reason why he pisses off the host and gets kicked out again.
> For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships
I think it’s social pressure and necessity.
When I fail to get my kids a thing they need to school people shrug their shoulders, and I think “I tried” but the pressure on my wife seems to be higher. She judges herself and others judge her harder. Likewise, to meet that pressure she uses her friend group for utility in the same way I might reach out to programmer friends I met at a conf to get a PR merged. She has a bench of mom friends who can pickup her kids and they will expect the same favor in return.
There is a family in our school group where the dad is much more active in that role as connector and planner, but it seems harder for him. I don't think people reach out to him as much for shared favors so he has to try harder. And beyond necessity, they are forming friends. I think the other primary caregivers that are usually women just do not think of him as friend material as quickly or easily as the other mothers. So overall it is harder for him (still do-able just noting a systemic weight).
I found myself taking care of a 10 year old in Taiwan for two weeks (with a group of other students/parents) and that short time was enough for me to do a 180 and really force me to be much more social. I planned things, and socialized. Both because it was fun and it was necessary. I controlled the calendar in totality, bore the risks and rewards and answered to myself. But when we rejoined as a family unit I slipped back into old patterns.
So now I know more what it feels like to have that connection and that symbiotic need. But I'm unsure what to do about it.
Feel like part of the issue is everyone’s self imposed neurosis about not intruding on others. My wife insists on not ever asking to come over to someone’s house - she only wants to be explicitly invited. We invite people over to our place when we can but this leads to us basically never visiting any of our friends because they aren’t the planning type.
I've had plenty of people throughout my life express wanting to come over to my place and hang. There's definitely a social grace of how you'd phrase it, but it's not like it's some alien concept.
Ask vs Guess culture. Look it up, it explains a lot.
Coming from a very WASPy family, I am very much in the Guess culture -- for a long time I wouldn't dream of inviting myself over somewhere -- but I genuinely think taking some cues from Ask culture people makes a lot of things easier and more sociable.
I'm from the south (US Southeast) and I would never invite myself over, but I've been to hang outs at the vast majority of my friends' places. On this topic it's barely even guess culture here - more like assume! We're still a very sociable culture, we're just a somewhat high-context one. For example, we had a friend who never invited us over despite dozens of hangouts at our place and others. We always wondered why he didn't view us as real friends. It's an expectation for close friendships here, even if you've just got a studio or place you share with roommates. Just part of knowing each other.
You'll want to try and expand your circle of friends to include those that are the planning type and will bring variety to the location. Either that, or start changing the location.
If you don't, people will get bored and eventually the group will disband.
Maybe that neurosis explains another phenomena I’ve noticed.
My household hosts a lot and we’ve come to expect a full on 50% flake rate, down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
It means if we invite less than 5 people there are occasions where literally no one shows up. It’s also difficult to plan for when the odds go in the other direction like one news year party where we invited 30 people, expected ~15 and had 29 show up.
> down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
That's insane. Who does that and how does it make you feel and have you told them?
First couple of times I was annoyed. At this point it’s become a common joke that X isn’t coming to the party until they walk through the door.
It’s a mix of people with social anxiety and people who have FOMO and agree to three different events on the same day.
The more polite ones in that second group have done things like shown up in tuxes for a casual party and dipped 10 minutes later for some other event.
No talking to the various people in this category has done anything so they just get treated as nice to haves of they show up and we wait 0 seconds for them for anything scheduled.
If I was going to be more verbose I’d say in the 10-15 years prior to AI there was such a demand for software engineers that people with poor social skills or with unique idiosyncrasies were tolerated so the odds of meeting odd people in software were higher than in the general public.
It may go further back than that but I don’t have experience before the 2010s
Middle-aged, in the US. From my perspective, a lot of the change is due to overbooked children. My wife and I have a group of ~5 couples that we used to get together with regularly. Before any kids, it was ad-hoc, often out somewhere (dinner, bar, whatever). When the first couple had an infant, that changed to pot-lucks at their house (easy to put the kid down for the night). But now that 3 of the couples have kids, 2 of which are in middle-school, it's almost impossible to get the gang together - one of the kids always has some practice or another event. We still get tougher in smaller groups, but less frequently.
This is counter to when I was a kid - it was rare that I had a scheduled sports event on a Friday or Saturday evening. During the day, sure. But 6pm+ on Friday? Basically never. But that seems to be common now. Travel sports, so lots of weekends totally away, or specialized coaching at odd hours, or just a 3rd activity to pad that college application. It's crazy. I honestly have no idea how kids have any fun today (and I say that as somebody who played 2 varsity sports, one instrument, and was an Eagle Scout - but through middle school, I still had plenty of time for just hanging out - it was common to ride my bike for hours on a Sunday - into town, get an ice cream, across the river into DC, and back).
Overbooked children or just mathematical combination? If you have 5 friends each with 1 kid and the kid only does 2 things a week chances are you won’t ever get them all together.
Seems like these parents are prioritizing their kids and probably encouraging things they enjoy doing rather than wine night. Chances are the kids are enjoying life.
I'm sure it's a bit of both, but as I said, when I was a kid in this region, it was uncommon for any Friday night activities for the kids. Weeknights and weekend mornings/afternoons, absolutely. But we're not trying to get together on a random Tuesday.
Sports practice was almost always after school and we would walk/bike by ourselves even in elementary school. All nights were free except for scouting. My kids have practice until 8PM on multiple nights and not centralized where they could walk alone to get there.
In addition for me, when I grew up we had family around. Currently my closest family member is ~600 miles away so they can't pop in to watch the kids.
Where I grew up (and live now) - DC metro - those games are often Friday, but it's not that common for families without high school kids to attend. And by the time the kids are in high school (or even middle school), the parents just drop them and come home. But yeah, unsurprising that these are bigger social events south and mid-west.
I've been reading a 15 year study by a well known (here) sports psychologist. He studied why children played sports, and why they stopped.
The single biggest reason, by far - kids stop playing sports because of parents who come and watch. Turns out parents think winning is important, which robs all the fun out of it.
As a counter anecdote; in high school I played 2 or 3 sports per season. I enjoyed them all immensely, despite the teams being (usually) objectively terrible. No parents ever came to watch (outside the ones offering necessary transport). We'd occasionally go a whole season without winning a single game. No expectations. Just having fun with my mates...
I'm really thankful it was my time, not my parents time.
Some families have multiple children. Those kids are quite frequently of different ages, and thus will have entirely different activities (most high school football teams will not allow 5th graders to play, for example).
Those activities frequently overlap. No, Cub Scouts does not care that the high school basketball game overlaps with the camping trip because Cub Scouts are not in high school. Parents are (still) not able to be in two places at a time.
This means that at least some of the time, the older kid goes to their game without their parents. (Because the younger child frequently cannot.)
If you are able to solve this for those parents, you can be the first $1B single-employee company.
maybe because I don't live in a car-centric country, but I would just bike there myself with my friends, play, and bike home with my friends. From I was a kid until end of high school. Parents would often come to watch, but not always, and the fun was being with my friends anyways so it didn't matter.
Unless it is a final or another very important match for my kid, I understand that this game is for him, an opportunity for him to socialize, to try flirting with his cruch, to enjoy being a silly teenager doing the fucking things teenagers do when not supervised, without me, the fucking helicopter parent, sucking all the life from him to satisfy my narcisistic need to be seen as an "involved parent".
Small kids, of course, are a completely different story. But once they go through puberty, parents need to understand that their role in their kids life needs to change a little bit and their kids fucking need their own space with their friends.
At a typical US high school, not very many of the students are actually playing. For most of them, it's mainly a social event, something to take a date to, or a time to hang out in the bleachers with peers.
Even if you have one child playing (or on the bench, or in the band, or cheerleading) and have come to watch, your other similar-age children will likely not be interested in sitting with you. They will want to sit with their friends, and rightfully so!
I was in marching band (so I played at all the games). Is that not normal?
I guess it's just a generational thing, but my late Gen X mother was simply busy. Army drills twice a month will do that. I also concur with other responses that these were all social events anyway, so it's not like I was yearning for Mom to be there.
High school sports, yes Friday night is the standard time I think across the USA. Has been as long as I can remember, or at least as long as schools had outdoor lighting on the fields.
Wednesday was Peewee/little kid sports, Thursday evening was Jr High sports games, Friday evening was High School sports games, and Saturday was college sports games.
Same - my friends group had weekly (and sometimes more than-weekly) gatherings that all faded away when kids arrived. The group aligned more around kids and new friends met through kids activities.
Humanity's revealed preferences are really, really strong here.
As basically every country on Earth gets richer, two things happen in survey results.
One is that as people get richer they spend more time apart. Household sizes get smaller, the number of social interactions per week goes down, etc.
You'll also see that as countries get richer people say that they report feeling less lonely. Loneliness is less of an issue for the rich countries who live more apart. The correlation between this and GDP is comical. As you get to poorer countries, like clockwork, people report being lonelier in surveys.
The evidence suggests that as people get more choice they decide to see people less and they also feel happier for it and less lonely. So I don't think there's a problem here.
But frankly I wasn't kidding when I said every quality survey shows this.
If you have ever seen an article suggesting that loneliness is higher in the West or in capitalist economies or whatever, you have been 100% misled. That is essentially just a made up narrative that plays well in articles
Those surveys are both about how elderly people in the Nordic countries report being less lonely than those in Mediterranean countries. They discuss things like whether extended families live together, but don’t really touch on people’s social lives more broadly. I’m not sure that you can draw a sweeping generalization from this that wealthier countries prefer less socialization.
Just keep looking up high quality surveys on different loneliness related topics until you are convinced. There are a lot of different ways to ask it. They all point in the same direction.
What exactly am I supposed to be convinced of? That people who have choices about how to spend their time 1) choose to be mostly alone and 2) are happier because of it? This is a pretty strong causative claim that would require a lot of evidence and considerable expertise in interpreting that evidence, neither of which I have.
Even the surveys you sent already suggest that people who live with spouses are much less lonely, which seems to be the opposite of your claim.
Frankly, your claim sounds so insane to me (someone who has a lot of choice in how I spend my time, enjoys the company of others often, and is not lonely) that I think it would require extraordinary evidence to convince me.
Face validity. Someone may have pulled together numbers for this in a study, but this area is a new facet of interpersonal behavior at a macro-economic level, so there won't be much published on the subject yet.
I think the problem is that self-reported scores of loneliness go down, but a lot of the data suggests that our increasing solitude and isolation isn’t good for us, whether we feel lonely or not.
I developed a rich social life simply by saying "yes" to (nearly) every opportunity I was asked.
It takes energy and commitment, just like anything else worthwhile in life. Have the courage to not be good at something, to do it anyway, and to keep doing it.
Many years ago, there weren't so many opportunities, have to make some of your own. (I began my adult life in the midst of the pandemic. I am very aware of how empty the world can feel.) Join clubs, large events, book clubs, art shows, these things exist, you can find them. You won't have many friends at first, but you'll meet a lot of people. I nearly took the LSAT for fun because at some point some kind-of-friends/acquaintances were preparing for law school. Take every opportunity, do anything, figure out what you like, and who you like.
Later on, there is simply not enough time in the day. You can wake up grateful every day that you can do whatever you wish. You will never want for a closer friend. There will always be some challenging adventure you can take. Or a comfortable evening with some close friends. Your friends will show up at your door with gifts, you will see the sunset from some mountain you climbed, you'll run through the rain with your friends and laugh, you'll be familiar with half the rooftops in whatever city you're near, you will have career and social opportunities just because of how many people you know.
And finally, you will have a responsibility to provide good prosocial opportunities for someone else who is figuring out the world.
> Everybody might prefer, in the abstract, a world of dinner parties, neighborhood friendships, and spontaneous gatherings. But on any given Wednesday at 7:45pm., it is easier to look at a screen than to host a party; easier to listen to a podcast while doing yoga than to plan a gathering. This is not so much an individual failure as a coordination failure. Modernity has shifted leisure from activities that require coordination with other people toward activities that can be consumed without the permission or participation of others. Compared to TikTok, a dinner party is a terrible leisure technology.
This extra coordination “friction” is the killer. The lesson is, if you want more dinner parties you have to reduce the extra coordination “friction” to a minimum.
You have to get comfortable with friction. Friction is part of a healthy human life, anything remotely challenging involves friction. Getting ten people together will always be more complicated than staring into a screen.
Adler made the profound observation that people don't suffer from anxiety, they invent and maintain it to avoid their life tasks. Same is true for blaming things on friction. "Oh I've only there wasn't that much friction, I wasn't so busy" etc. Accept the friction, do it anyway.
I think we also need to increase the friction of social media. But yeah, I used to live in the same apartment building as two friends so “hosting a dinner party” was as complex and sending a DM at 4pm to arrange something after work.
I would do this multiple times a week because it was so easy and required minimal coordination.
As a heavy introvert, I've started organizing small get-togethers with the help of my wife. I realized that, past a certain age, I was seeing my friends less and less. There are good friends I might see only once a year, when I did the math regarding life expectancy, I realized that if things continued on that path, I might see certain important people, at best, only another 30 or 35 times in total. So, at the start of the year, I decided to organize a monthly poker night and dinner with my inner circle, and to my surprise, everyone accepted. A few days ago, I ran into a former university classmate, I suggested he'd be welcome at my home for these gatherings, and his eyes lit up at the prospect. Another thing that caught my attention is that my female friends all have active social lives, whereas that is very rare among the men I know (again, past a certain age).
> Another thing that caught my attention is that my female friends all have active social lives, whereas that is very rare among the men I know (again, past a certain age).
Yes, that is a pretty typical thing. Starting around late 20s, pretty much most guys are either part of a steady relationship, usually with kids or permanently without a relationship. The men with families have their own family events and get included in the wife's social and family circle. The guys who do not get paired up are not welcome at those events and wives forbid the partnered up guys to hang out with their single male friends on the other days. To be fair, there is nowadays anyway so much online entertainment, that it probably will be fine in the end.
This is so wildly out of step with my own experience that I wonder what world you are living in. I know both men and women in their 30s going into and out of relationships, I have both single and partnered male friends, and I've never heard of a wife discouraging time with single male friends (single female friends, maybe!).
If you identify as a "permanently" single male who believes that the world is oriented against you in this way, I hope you are able to challenge this belief and move towards a fuller life. Alternatively, if your beliefs accurately reflect the place you are living, then maybe you should live somewhere else.
I'm American and I enjoy hosting at my house. I do it often (imo).
I think some of the stats reviewed in this post are crazy because it is specifically "did it 12+ times in the last year", which means if you only did it 11 times, you simply register as a 'false' according to this modeling.
The graphs with once per year are much more reasonable.
I'm sure these stats still tell you something about life in america, but I feel like this bar is set so extremely high. I'm saying this as someone who LOVES hosting - I don't want to do it 12 times a year. (maybe it's because I set too high of a quality bar for myself?)
I'm surprised at this being correlated w/ intensive parenting. Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents, maybe watch the NFL games. Even when we take turns hosting, we easily get over the 12x a year mark through this.
> Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents
In my social circle, if you're inviting people over, then you need to satisfy:
I'm a parent and while I invite people over (indeed, this last Sunday we had another couple and their kid over) and do this thing, very few of our parent friends appear to do it. Or I guess maybe they do it with each other and just don't invite us, but I think it's rarer than you think.
Yeah, I found this weird. Maybe it's some over-obsessive American thing? Random, no-reason sleepovers, or BBQ-style sunday gatherings, and other "just get together and eat so children can play" activities are fairly common among parents with small kids.
It's certainly not like I remember it in the 80s, but still happens a lot, and my uninformed take is: "community" in the US was never that cohesive, it only took so much to make it fall apart.
Community in the US was largely centered around the church. I think it is an uphill battle getting a large group of people to get together and hang out multiple times a week when they don’t have a very compelling reason outside of the socialization itself to do so (i.e. the threat of eternal damnation)
Seriously. I think the "women in the workforce" thesis is important:
"In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families"
The author states that they dismiss this thesis because "groups have more leisure time now than before" but that's not a valid rebuttal. The problem isn't the amount of leisure time, but the way that leisure time is used. It's easier for a planning and hosting novice to invite friends out than it is to host. If you don't have the skills to host, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you won't host.
I have a 1930s vintage Hood (the milk company) "basic" cookbook. In it's 800 pages, it includes hundreds of pages about how to run the larder of a household including how to understand how a carcass is broken up (and how to do it yourself) so you can chat with some fundamentals with the butcher, rules of thumb for how to stock a brand new kitchen with tools and supplies and also how to plan for an entire month's worth of groceries and using the whole animal to stretch your budget, how to plan and prepare and set a large dinner party, how to preserve your food with several different canning methods, an entire section about coffee and how to be a gentle coffee snob (in the 30s!) and about a hundred pages of printed photos to illustrate those points. The chapter on cookies starts with two pages discussing cookies as an abstract concept!
This tome is just a tiny part of what used to be the "Woman's job". You could construct equivalently large tomes for most other tasks and duties and "Roles", especially the one about managing social networks!
But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems. There was no institution that really worked to push this knowledge to people, as it previously was largely passed down mother to daughter outside of institutions, and no 90s era "home economics" classes didn't even come close, so the chain was broken and a lot of that knowledge just kind of didn't make it to younger generations!
> But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems.
Very true in a lot of domains! When I first became a parent I had to learn a lot about “mental load” or risk my marriage. A lot of women won’t put up with that anymore (rightfully so)
I really didn't like reading your comment, but I can't argue much against it...
All I can say is the consequences of a degrading mental/social health are harder to grasp than a hangover or, for the lack of a better smoking example, lung cancer.
Still I'm also puzzled by the amount of people, even in my own social circle, that "just want to wind down after work" (read: completely fry their brain)
It really doesn’t take massive skill to invite your friends over. It doesn’t have to be this huge production.
And as for time, the average person finds time for hours of short form video and other useless tasks. Which is actually the real problem, social media has sucked up everyone’s time and attention to the point people don’t socialise anymore.
Um, I take after my mother, Gigachad, so yes it does have to be a huge production. Just yesterday I finished the leftovers from a party a week ago.
I know what you mean, but the real issue for most people is time, money, and social connections. Dinner parties were way down before TikTok. Most people I know cannot host at all, either they live with their parents or their apartment is in such rough shape that it would take days of cleaning to be able to invite people over.
People don't get bored anymore. In the past, staying at home alone usually meant being so bored you'd do anything. Sometimes that would mean "doing anything" results in you going through all the effort to start some sort of club because at least failing at that wouldn't be boring
Smoking actually has gone up in the recent few years with younger people, especially women. Not sure if buy the same amount in every country, but an uptick is noticeable.
And yes, this is all down to a few celebrities and influencers who are popular with that crowd showing off the habit in public. A fashion.
> yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon. It is pretty sad.
Fortunately this is very slowly starting to crack. Maybe not from social pressure as it deserves, but litigation is finally starting to catch up with the tech and some recent court rules have started putting some simple yet major compromises on Meta. We're talking "need to remove likes" levels of major.
I think these are still in appeal (or have already settled), but I'm keeping a close eye on this.
> Personally feels insane that people find this surprising or puzzling. (…) This is obviously because of social media or other algorithmic applications.
Facebook was founded over twenty years ago. There are adults in the world who have no recollection of a life before social media. In that sense it shouldn’t be surprising or puzzling, should it?
> It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon.
Remember when young adults were literally shouting online “let China suck up all my data” in response to the proposed TikTok ban? I (and probably you) lived in and can remember a world before the internet was in every part of our lives, but there are adults living now who can’t. It is not obvious to them.
I doubt Social Media would have become as nearly as popular as it did, if the middle-class had the same social life as it had in the 50s.
The people in my life who are always throwing parties, have insteresting hobbies like surfing, playing music or rock climbing are basically minimal users of social networking.
I see this as a manifestation of the loss of teaching effective communication skills. This takes a moment to explain, so please slow down and consider this: before the cultural revolutions of the 1960's, general education included more emphasis on communications conflicts and resolutions of them. For example, every school had a debate team, and the various forms and rules of debate were common knowledge. Yes, this is true. Debate and watching people skilled at argumentative discussion used to be a popular form of entertainment. Then, during the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the best or the "stars of debate" all sided with the youth culture and not the establishment. That then triggered the removal of debate from educations, from entertainment, and from public life. Now, decades later we have the situation that groups of adults cannot form without conflicts and arguments that drive the community creation aspects away. We have created a culture that cannot communicate, because we have stopped teaching basic oral conflict negotiation of any form.
I think people also forget (or don’t even know) that before mobile phones you’d often walk over to someone’s house just to knock on the door to find out if they were in or see what they were doing.
So allied to the lack of dinner parties, there’s fewer reasons to even go to someone’s house any more, you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today.
> I think people also forget (or don’t even know) that before mobile phones you’d often walk over to someone’s house just to knock on the door to find out if they were in or see what they were doing.
We did, and yet people did still often just come over unannounced, to the point that it that the unannounced visit - which was common enough to be believable, but not always welcome - was a frequent plot point in various media.
It was common during my childhood for us to always have something in the cupboard - like a cake or biscuits or chocolate - that we could offer in case someone just dropped by.
It's been decades since I've cared about having anything ready for a possible surprise visitor, as while before I'd feel rude if I didn't have anything, now I'd feel they were rude for not checking in advance as now they rarely have an excuse for not doing so.
> We did, and yet people did still often just come over unannounced, to the point that it that the unannounced visit - which was common enough to be believable, but not always welcome
The question is, what exactly is the relevance of mobile vs. non-mobile phones?
I think it really depends on the walking distance. If someone is your neighbor, there's not a lot of effort saved from calling or texting first.
Going back to the OP, these are two very different things: "you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."
As far as one-to-one communication is concerned, a landland call is just as good as a mobile call or a text. But social media addiction is an entirely different matter. That's not even about announced vs. unannounced visits but rather about living in the real world vs. living in a virtual world.
I explained the relevance of mobile phones to you.
People are not always at home.
Without a mobile phone you had an excuse.
Now you don't really.
It doesn't even matter whether or not you were actually home - there was less of a social expectation to always call because it was a recognised excuse that you "were in the neighborhood" and implicitly had no way to check without dropping by.
I already responded to this point at length here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892375 but in brief: on this interpretation, mobile phones should actually result in more successful drop-bys, because you can call or text when you're "in the neighborhood". Thus, mobile phones are not an excuse to avoid home visits.
You're still missing the point entirely: A lot of those visits are not wanted and weren't wanted to the point that unwanted visits were a trope in media.
Before they would happen because we had no ways to stop them until someone was at the door with a plausible excuse.
> You're still missing the point entirely: A lot of those visits are not wanted
> Before they would happen because we had no ways to stop them
Yes, in a sense, I'm missing that point, because I began with the assumption that more socializing was good, and the dramatic reduction of socializing is to be mourned. If your point is "good riddance to dinner parties", I personally wouldn't agree with that.
Of course individual people differ in their preferences for socialization. However, I don't think it's justified to project personal anti-social feelings onto the majority. You might be annoyed by unexpected visitors, but to others it may be a delightful surprise. When you refer to "A lot of those visits", that's your own personal view and doesn't necessarily represent the views of others. Obviously your visitors didn't feel the same way, otherwise they would have stayed home.
No, my point was not "good riddance to dinner parties". I was explaining to you why the advent of the mobile phone has at least a role in the reduction of socialising by making it easier for people to shut down visits.
It doesn't require people to not want to socialise for it to have that effect. It merely requires a proportion of visits to be unwanted or inconvenient then and there.
> You might be annoyed by unexpected visitors, but to others it may be a delightful surprise.
It might be to some. Even to me sometimes. But it was enough of a nuisance that the unwanted visit - as I've pointed out already - became a significant a trope in fiction, and a part of our cultural fabric. The "we were in the neighbourhood" was e.g. a regular vehicle for visits in TV series that has now largely disappeared except when it is used to highlight someone intentionally sidestepping social norms to impose an unwanted visit.
You dismissed fiction earlier, for no good reason: A widespread trope doesn't arise in a vacuum. It worked as a trope in fiction because it was a real and significant thing.
You've had this explained to you at length now. I struggle to see why you find it hard to understand, so I'm leaning towards thinking you're being intentionally obtuse about it at this point.
> I was explaining to you why the advent of the mobile phone has at least a role in the reduction of socialising by making it easier for people to shut down visits.
I agree that mobile phones have a role in the reduction of socializing.
However, I don't agree with the reason you've given, and I have at least two objections:
1. Mobile phones don't actually shut down unplanned socializing. On the contrary, they make it easier to have unplanned socializing, because they allow you to contact another person no matter when or where either of you happen to be.
2. There's no empirical evidence that a significant number of unexpected visits in the past were unwanted. Surely some were, but not nearly enough IMO to explain the dramatic reduction of in-person socializing.
My theory, in contrast, is that the ubiqiutious internet access of smartphones has addicted people to the practically limitless forms of entertainment and attention-grabbing online, and this internet browsing has usurped in-person socializing as a pastime. This change has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to arrange visits. People have stopped dropping by because they don't want to drop by, not because they can't conveniently drop by.
For the same reason, people have also cut down on non-social activities like reading books. They aren't replacing socializing with book reading.
> You dismissed fiction earlier, for no good reason: A widespread trope doesn't arise in a vacuum.
I dismissed fiction because it deliberately exaggerates for effect, e.g., comedic effect. There may be a grain of truth to it, but fiction by definition is not an accurate reflection of reality.
> I struggle to see why you find it hard to understand,
I'm not struggling to understand. I simply disagree with your analysis.
> so I'm leaning towards thinking you're being intentionally obtuse about it at this point.
You can lean whatever way you want, but you're wrong, and you're also wrong about me "forgetting" the rest of the world when the submitted article is explicitly about the United States: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49894515
True, but back in the day one had to pay for every call, sometimes at per-minute rates: always so for long distance, and in some areas even for local calls. Quite a contrast to today's unlimited-minutes cellular plans (which likely get used little enough that the providers have no trouble offering them).
A key factor in the development of dialup BBS systems in the US was that local calls were usually at least flat-rate, with unlimited service available here and there.
Bringing it back to the topic at hand, back then I recall a number of social events revolving around local BBSes in Champaign-Urbana, and Fidonet's Net 115 in the Chicago area. All that sort of thing vaporized pretty quickly once the internet opened up.
> back in the day one had to pay for every call, sometimes at per-minute rates: always so for long distance, and in some areas even for local calls.
Where and when did you pay per-minute for local calls? Everywhere I lived and traveled within the US back in the day, so to speak, local calls were always unlimited, even in rural areas.
In the Chicago area you had options ranging from fully-metered to unlimited throughout the metro area. In the 1990s, as more people got online, the unlimited plans went away, and the best you got was that calls within eight miles were flat-rate but pay-per-call.
If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.
Like if you’re equidistant between your house and your friends house, it is also simpler to walk to theirs and find them rather than walk home, call them, check they’re in, and then walk to theirs anyway.
Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.
Another example is if you made a plan to meet somewhere at a specific time and the person didn’t turn up. You would have no clue about where they were or what happened even if you found a payphone and called their house and it rang out. You were still s.o.l. for the rest of the day so dealt with it.
> If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.
You seem to be completely changing the situation. In this comment, you're talking about wanting to visit someone at home, whereas in your original comment, you're talking about not wanting to visit someone at home: "there’s fewer reasons to even go to someone’s house any more, you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."
In other words, the mobile phone is a replacement for a home visit rather than a means for a home visit. (On the other hand, a laptop or desktop works just as well or better for checking social media. Indeed I'm currently typing on a laptop.)
It's true that mobile phones can make it easier than landlines to find out if someone is home, but if that's how people were using mobile phones, then you would expect more home visits, or at least more successful home visits.
> Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.
I don't understand this point. Long-distance calls were frequently billed per call, but of course walking is not a replacement for those. Local calls were typically unlimited for a fixed monthly rate.
You seem to be completely autistic and determined to raise disputes where none exist.
Maybe in your suburban sprawl where multiple telephones and multiple cars per household are essential necessities because it’s a 90 minute walk to a shop or a friend’s then one would have unlimited local calls but in huge parts of the rest of the world unlimited calling simply wasn’t a thing.
I can’t imagine you get invited to many dinner parties.
> You’ve broken and disrespected the HN guidelines towards several people throughout this thread
How so? At worst, I said "Um".
Regardless of what you believe I've done, do you not acknowledge that you ought to follow the guidelines, and that personal insults are unacceptable, blatantly cross the line? The guidelines don't say that you get to violate them if someone else does. It may be hypocritical of me—though I disagree with that here—but in any case it's not nonsensical.
> Today it is more widespread, but it used to be highly unusual.
I can't even speak about today, because I haven't had a landline in years. But at least in the US, unlimited local calls were definitely not unusual in the pre-smartphone era.
So, in other words you're writing off the vast majority of the world and forgetting that we're not by any means all in the US here and by no means are all of us talking only about the US.
> I can't even speak about today, because I haven't had a landline in years. But at least in the US, unlimited local calls were definitely not unusual in the pre-smartphone era.
The context I gave was clear: It followed right after pointing out the US is unusual in this respect - the statement referred to that.
It's not clear to me whether you are intentionally obtuse or if you're genuinely struggling to pick up the context here, but either way you are being incredibly obtuse throughout this conversation. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but consider that I'm not the only one here who have picked up on this.
I went thru the thread and I agree with you. Though I am from very different background your examples feel very familiar to me. Meeting some one after phone call/ text create different level of expectation where both parties are more intentional in meeting. Where as going unannounced create far less expectations on either side. Not meet at all as someone is not home, meet for short time as they are heading out soon, have long afternoon gossiping, chatting as it turns out they also had nothing to do in particular that afternoon.
> by no means are all of us talking only about the US.
> It's not clear to me whether you are intentionally obtuse or if you're genuinely struggling to pick up the context here
The submitted HN article is about the US:
"We’re witnessing the death of hosting in America."
The charts in the submitted article are also about Americans exclusively.
So yes, we are in fact talking only about the US, and I am not obtuse or missing the context. I've been aware of the context the entire time.
What did you think we were talking about?
I'm not "writing off the vast majority of the world" or "forgetting" anything. The submitted article just happens to be about the US, not the rest of the world, and the patterns of socializing in other countries may be very different.
I did debate in the 00s though and my experience differed - it was already a highly technical affair that didn’t really require strong communication skills, but rather was more about playing logic tricks to be technically “correct” and saying so much that your opponent couldn’t counter all of it during rebuttals. That was enough to get me into the final playoffs at the national championships, and to this day I’ve been told that I focus too much on being “right” rather than being empathetic or persuasive, so debate was not the social panacea that it might have once been.
Yeah, you describe the ruined debate that was created during the late 70's early 80's and never recovered any of the positive aspects of the former debate skill set.
I went to a school with a debate team in the 2000s, and there were organized national tournaments all the time. And watching social media debaters is still a popular niche past time?
Maybe it's declined since the 50s in favor of football or so on but I'd like to see the numbers.
I really do not think debate team modeled healthy communication. It is mostly about debating as a sport, basically coming up with a sleazy twist argument on the position you do not even believe in. If anything, it makes you greatly prepared to be keyboard warrior of the bad-faith argument kind and teaches you to enjoy it.
I did enjoyed debate team activities btw. The above is what I eventually realized later.
Unless you were in elementary school during or before the early 1960s, you have no experience in what debate used to be and how it was part of the fabric of everyday culture.
The first comment I see saying this. What about the percentage of people who actually own their home? Who can afford a "party"? It does mention dual income but how correlated is this change with the decoupling of economic productivity gains with worker wealth and income?
You might be on to something. I am one of those school nights people. Having people over will kill all "me-time" for that evening - once you get them out of the house, you do the dishes and it's straight to bed, usually. Meaning I had zero time for myself, I was hosting. The idea of having no "me-time" between two work days is hell for me. It was OK in my 20s and 30s, but not now in middle age.
Swede here, I used to host a lot of dinners and parties.
But then i realized that it was mostly me who hosted them and the few times i got invited there was an agreement that guest chip in on the costs or that it was a potluck kind of thing.
Made me regret spending all that time and money on the parties i hosted.
What do you regret exactly? I have found that friendships are rarely balanced in that sense. Sometimes you spend more (effort, worry, money) but it's also for your own benefit.
The neoliberal transactional lifestyle of compartmentalizing everything from work to emotions to social relationships combined with endless entertainment in your pocket makes the social event feel like a drag that you need to get though for the sakes of socializing.
Sounds unfortunate but I don't think there's anything to regret, you spent time and money no one else was spending but you still (hopefully) created positive experiences in return.
Indeed. The way it worked for me if its at home, I am fine with cost of grocery and some drinks, it wasn't that much for me and cooking is fun. On the other hand if party is in restaurant / bar I bailed because cost is too much whether its each paid for their food and drinks or total cost divided by number of people.
I think the default for get-togethers now is a 3rd space, like a bar or a food hall. I'm sure we're all spending more time at home than the 70s and 90s, but it still seems like every couple of weeks I'm going somewhere with friends/acquaintances. Its just not in people's houses.
Apparently around 2004 people started spending more money on food-away-from-home than food-at-home, and it has only increased from there. Dining out seems just much more standard now.
> But in the 1950s and 1960s, tens of millions of women traded their unpaid household management jobs for salaried jobs, and the family social calendar frayed
I don't think it was exactly a "trade". Women were still (and in some relationships still are) the household managers for the most part.
One notable difference: People were much more likely to have a maid, housekeeper, or nanny in 1950. About 1 in 25 households did then, in 1900 it was 1 in 13.
Another interesting thing is that I think the art of hosting is generational in a way. I grew up watching my parents have massive annual parties and friends over all the time. I learned from watching, and picked my apartment layout and arranged the furniture in it to optimize for comfortable conversation and seating for ~8-12 people. I like being the default host, I still have friends over for TTGs or video games a few times a month. Some people are just not good at getting their space comfortable for gatherings (or they don't offer guests drink / snacks). Or they turn it into a spotify jukebox thing where it's hard to talk over the speakers (or their soundtrack is annoying).
Can I offer up one more possible contributor? Maybe it's cliche, but car dependency. I have family and friends in my own medium-sized city, but the thought of driving all the way over there (20 minutes - 1 hour, totally random), or, even worse, forcing them to drive all the way over here by the invitation, is a bit much. Driving home, even worse. You wanna have some drinks (maybe more than "some", lol), but you gotta drive home.
I know in the 70s folks were just as, if not more car dependent, but it kinda worked back then. I only have real experience in the 90s, but even then, I remember my parents having people over, and I never got the impression they came from very far. Sometimes blocks away. They still drove... but it wasn't the same.
There's probably some mathematical relationship between car dependency, time, and urban sprawl too.
Back in the 70s there may have been 1 or 2 affordable neighborhoods in your metro area where people in their late 20s could buy a house -- and they were both probably fairly close to the city center. Nowdays, I'd say those neighborhoods are likely to be farther away from the city center (exurbs) and thus farther away from each other.
I think about this with my hometown friends in the PNW. Growing up we all lived in Bellevue, Redmond, and Kirkland, and now those areas are all too expensive and folks are living in Issaquah, Duvall, Renton, etc.
Live in NYC and my wife and I were just commenting on how when we learn about our friends' lives in the suburbs in our home states they really seem to lack a social life. It's like it just dies in your 30s. This seems to be independent of obvious things like having kids, as the parents I know who live here seem to have similarly rich socialize lives to the DINKs I know.
DUI in the 1970s was just not as much a worry. The BAC limits were higher and enforcement was lax. Driving after a few drinks, as long as you weren't totally blotto, was pretty common.
This may not be shared by other people, but my two cents.
I personally don't like inviting people to my house (or going to other people's houses) because I already spend a good chunk of my day indoors (I work from home). Whenever possible, I prefer to meet outside.
I think the point of the article is more about meeting with others at all, as opposed to it specifically being at home. So hang out with friends outside!
I remember when i was young going out on vacations with school friends and their parents for several days. Also similar to weekends at country houses. The trend was that a couple of parents liked to host the get togethers and didn’t mind 10 adults and 20 children of different ages running around the place
Not sure the kind of size you are talking about but you might be overestimating how much space it takes. My current rental has a back yard about the size of a single car garage and I’ve been able to host a ~50 person bbq with a mix of people standing inside and out.
A night of dinner and bowling. Meet us for dinner, then go bowling. Come for just dinner or just bowling. Late for dinner? Not a problem; order whatever; all separate checks. Show up and watch a little bowling, then leave; no problem, whatever you want. Smaller group goes for drinks after bowling? Have fun?
or
Dinner at my house. Starts at 6pm. Don't be late. What to wear? What to bring? Special diet restrictions? Can't be late. How long to stay? Smoking in back yard? Alcohol on site? So many questions and so much to clean up.
Yes -- the main reason my wife and I stopped doing "Spaghetti Sundays" was because I hated cleaning up the house (for hours and hours!) before the guests showed up.
Just imagine that your family and a friend's family are going to camping today. You tell the other guy, hey, tomorrow morning we are going to prepare a big breakfast for everyone. If you don't mind spending an extra 5 minutes diverting into our driveway (mine is 5 mins away from the freeway), you can have a full breakfast before we go camping. The other guy says Yes that's perfect, and the next morning the whole family roll in, smelling sausage, bacon and fried eggs.
Damn that's something I'd like to do once I get rid of my hemmorhoids.
Restaurants, bars, and other meeting places largely sucked until 2005. Tea and coffee houses barely existed.
I don't ever host anyone in my tiny city apartment, we go out. It would be far worse to "host at home". There a places dedicated to hosting, it's a service, why would we not engage with that service?
Spending 3 hours at Qahwah and then wandering over to Port Sa'id is not some lesser experience than doing it all at home. If anything it's a much better experience
The largest wake-up call for me on this was realizing how little my day-to-day life changed during the COVID lockdowns. I never quite realized that what I thought was normal was isolation by national standards. I spent the majority of my 20s basically getting up, going to work, coming home, showering, gaming, sleeping, then getting up to do it again.
After the vaccines I made massive changes. I'd reconnected with old friends during lockdown and they suggested I move to be closer to them. My employer was supportive so I ended up moving to the Bay, even got a large pay bump along side it.
Now if I have an evening alone it's because it's what I chose to do. I ended up connecting with well over a hundred people through friends-of-friends and there's always someone down to do something. We have dinner parties at least once a month, sometimes its one of us cooking for the others, other times its a potluck about bringing something in season. Because of the group size and meetup frequency, there's no pressure to schedule things where everyone can attend and no one feels left out if the timing just didn't work that time. There's always going to be another time.
I am immeasurably happier. Most of my 20s I went to bed reminiscing about how childhood was more fun, now I rarely think back.
Ironically, this whole thing basically killed my video game hobby. I just don't have much motivation to play them now that I can message one of several group chats any day of the week and go do something with people in real life.
You have to be very deliberate about this I find. The number of people who, for whatever reason, buy into the "introvert" mentality: proudly claiming it online, wearing cancelled plans or lets stay in t-shirts, etc is partly responsible for this I think.
In my experience, if you don't accept the first invitation you're much less likely to get another one for repeat events.
My wife and I are in our mid/late 30s and American and I'd say I we go to a proper party hosted by friends or host one ourselves at least once a month. In a "third place" we probably socialize another 1.5 times a week with friends at places like bars or meeting for dinner. This seems to be the norm around me. What's the difference? We live in NYC. It's very easy for us to get around, there's no drunk-driving and there are of course many opportunities for social activities outside the home. Back in the suburban state I come from I've noticed this is not the norm amongst my friends who still live there.
Also living in a dense urban neighborhood (in another large US city) and I have a similar experience. There are many bars and restaurants in walking distance, but also my friends and I host each other often. We know each other well, so we don’t worry too much about trying to come up with impressive dinners. I have some go-to recipes that I can scale up easily. Dinners are often spontaneous: group texts light up towards the end of the workday and whoever’s available will show up.
I think the real key is that we are all within walking distance of each other. Friends who live a ten-minute drive away (still close!) are also invited but rarely show up. Also, no one has kids yet.
I think the walking distance the key aspect here. I have many friends with kids and they always jump at the chance to get a sitter or the in-laws for a break from parenting.
We're in our early forties with no local partners and yes, compared to all the years we spent in suburbs, living here in NYC makes a tremendous positive difference. We can't overstate how much it's done for our mental health to have found community hangouts we can reach on foot in all of several minutes.
Crucially too, people do not know _how_ to host anymore either, treat guests. A host needs a certain self effacing attentivess.
host also needs to provide an abundance too, there always should be too much food, too muxh drink, more time to stay.
> But when both parents are already inundated with literal white-collar work, it’s hard to add the job of unpaid party planner.
>The trouble with going all in on this explanation—beyond the fact that it embraces a version of learned helplessness for men—is that leisure time has increased overall since the 1950s.
It feels like this doesn't entirely folllow. If the issue is party planning is too similar to work, having more leisure time doesn't fix that.
Like im a computer programmer. I like computer programming and also did it as leisure. When I was employed as a computer programmer it lost most of its appeal as a leisure activity even though in absolute terms i had more free time then before.
I had a slightly older Mexican neighbor who would go out of his way to invite everyone in the apartment complex to watch pay per view fights and cook.
He was actually from Mexico, I suspect from a culture that values community much more. I don’t know Hispanic culture that well, but I’ve also gotten this vibe from former partners.
Long long ago when my black family first moved to California they made sure to co locate in the same area. This was partially due to the realities of segregation, but it also made making dinner for your nephew much easier.
Now the community is obsolete. Replaced by insta validation loops.
I love inviting friends and their partners to my place for parties, board games, movie nights, or just hanging out and listening to music. But over time, I’ve witnessed a huge decline in these gatherings. As soon as someone had a kid, they stopped coming to almost 99% of events - maybe showing up once a year, if that. Getting older didn't help either; once people hit 30, everyone started double - checking if they actually had the time or energy to go out.
Finally, as soon as I had my own kid, parties ended for me too. I stopped hosting and attending altogether (I've only organized one and visited one in the last four years). So yes, I can see this shift happening, and it’s sad. But honestly, I have no idea where I’d even find the time or energy to start doing it again.
Beyond that, I value the time I spend with my child more than any other social interaction. Maybe it's just me, but as a Millennial, the warmth, love, and comfort I have at home with my kid completely fulfill my social needs. I’m simply no longer looking for those warm feelings elsewhere.
Not US, under 40. The depiction of dinner parties makes me think not much was lost.
What I gleam from TV shows is: The wife invited people over to brag about her husband's recent promotion or her children's achievements. Once over, they gossiped about a perceived fault in the other family (did you see the son's long hair? I heard he smokes weed!
Sounds like a suburban nightmare. There surely are other socializing events that were more beneficial; like a weekly bowling club meeting.
I don't even think this is an extrovert/intropvert thing completely, so much as what people are used to/how they were brought up.
Some people are very concerned with appearances and therefore uncomfortable with people in their homes (in either direction - too shabby, or flaunting).
Other people (with some overlap with above) are too OCD? about planning and so they turn hosting into such an ordeal they are overwhelmed by it.
In general I find that while I am an introvert, hosting a group isn't really a big deal. I find 2:2 with another couple to be more draining than a group of 10 in terms of being able to step away and catch a moment of calm. Further, as a host .. I get to select who is coming in the first place!
Families (mine included) are just too busy. Working, commuting, homework, trying to get some exercise in. Any spare time I try to spend it with my children.
I always look at happiness in terms of pillars, social, family, work, spiritual.
Work somehow has taken over everything. It seems culturally engrained.
I know social media is a factor but while we all fall down the rabbit hole occasionally, it doesn't stop anyone organising a get together.
I actually went to a dinner party this past Saturday. It was planned and coordinated by my best friend's wife (of course). It was the only one this year. I'm sure they will be holiday parties, thanks to my sister-in-law, but that was the one dinner party in 2026. My cohort is mostly retired, so it's not from a lack of spare time.
American here married with 2 children. When my kids were young < 10 we would host several parties a year, bbq's in the summer, birthdays and holidays were always at our place. After about 10+ years of this my wife and I realized we were now dreading whatever upcoming party. We felt like a catering company serving food/drinks/entertainment while everyone else enjoyed it. What made it worse was almost always there would be that one person would mistake this for an all night feast and never leave. I hated having to kick people out but I can't sleep the next day away. Thus we stopped. I know this will vary wildly with the kinds of guests you have and yes we stopped inviting the problem people. Now we do very low-key parties usually less than 5 people and are very selective on who we invite. No regrets here.
The church is a huge part of building community and relationships. Its not that you can't find community and relationships outside of church, it just makes it that much easier. I have found that unless you are seeing people at least once a week or every other week with regularity, it is hard to develop a strong friendship. Church on Sundays, community group, and the occasional group party like our annual costumes and cocktails party build a foundation for developing strong individual relationships. I think with the decline of the church a lot of people just don't have things in their life that provide that relational structure. Some definitely do though!
> Something quite deep in the human psyche seems to want desperately to turn off our self-talk and silence our nattering internal monologues by turning up the volume of other characters’ voices.
Over the past few years, rather than seeking to drown out that internal monologue with external entertainment, I've found myself feeding that monologue into Claude to have what I know is an ersatz conversation. And sometimes I work with Claude to write stories around whatever I'm thinking about, basically a form of escapism and sometimes wish fulfillment through personalized fiction. How weird does this make me? Is it inherently unhealthy?
Edit to add: To tie it back to the theme of the article, the result is, of course, the same; I spend more time alone, less time talking with real people.
> More recent data suggests that teenage loneliness might have ticked back up to where it was in the 1980s, and the evidence here is mixed overall, depending on which data sets and cohorts you look at. We don’t yet have enough data to be sure which way the effects go on average, but we do have enough to be sure that those effects are neither large nor universal.
We've been actively working to reverse this, getting to know lots of our neighbors. One thing that splits the difference in terms of planning pain was backyard fires. We like to relax around the fire anyway (even summer nights are cold in the high desert) and we just send out a casual "fire night" message to our friends list. We have snacks and drinks on hand, and people show up or they don't. My wife's east coast and was missing her "stoop-sits" from Philly, and this is our west coast variant.
This summer I went to every pagan group I could and came to the conclusion that, for people who are settled in householder mode, the basic things you can do are (1) have a potluck and (2) have a fire, in that order. Martin Prechtel says "The feast is the only ritual" and even the Christian ministers I know won't argue about it, I mean https://four12global.com/articles/breaking-bread/
The period in my life when I hosted parties was when I was a mostly broke college student and flatsharing (you can get a surprising mileage out of cheap Sangria and snacks).
For most people posting on HN, I would guess, money would not be even in the top-3 of reasons.
I still do this once a month a more frequently, I think Oslo being a small city allows me and my friends to afford this with ease of public transport.
Me and a pal talked about this problem exactly a week ago, we chatted how we just invite more and more friends but sheldomly get invited ourselves, and our conclusion was some people just are not good at hosting. I say that because they never hesitate to attend.
hwoever, my phone contact is fileld with peoples allergies notes, likes/dislikes and similar so I keep the party fit for all. Catering to everyones allergy and everyone seems to have one here in West is mad challenging.
About 8 years ago I joined a meetup of techies that just... meets once a month at a restaurant for dinner; no agenda otherwise.
We stopped meeting for a bit during the pandemic, and then after the pandemic just moved to a group text message.
The big factor is that we all just kinda agree that we're meeting once a month. Because it's at a restaurant, it's super easy and requires almost no planning.
Kinda makes me want to find a place to have a monthly pot-luck with like-minded people.
A few years ago I came across a HN comment by a guy who wrote "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party". I read his comments and then got the book, and it seemed fantastic, smoothing over all the painful issues that happen when you host.
I really wanted to try it out, but moved from the city just after reading it and haven't yet.
I am an emigrant now. When I was still living in my East European country of origin, my wife and I would regularly hold parties. We liked going to other peoples’ places more than hosting but most of our friends would not throw parties themselves, so we had to fill the gap.
To me, the most obvious explanation is that people used to be able to buy houses a lot more easily than before. My wife and I were lucky that we were able to afford one, and because of that I have my friends over a couple times a year to hang out and have dinner (I would do it more often, but we're in a remote part of the city that isn't great to drive in). When we were in an apartment, we didn't even have a dining room or enough seats for anyone other than on the couch.
Yes, and I think that's basically what happens; people go out to eat together instead. The article is talking about the "death of hosting", which refers to having people at your home. Several explanations in the comments here place the blame on things like smartphones, and I'm presenting an alternative explanation.
I would bet these days 80 year olds are having about as many dinner parties as 23 year olds. The topic here isn’t general observations about home ownership, it is whether home ownership rate since 1970 caused a drop in dinner parties by 68%. It didn’t.
Okay, so what age group do you think is actually likely to host dinner parties, and how has home ownership for that age range trended since 1975? I can't speak for the population as a whole, but I'm in my early thirties, and I'm the only one of my friends in my city who owns his own home, and I think that's directly related to why I host more often than they do.
We’re not comparing you to your friends, we’re comparing people today to people in 1975z You said you host a couple a year. The article said people in ‘75 hosted once a month. So you, a homeowner, already reflect this massive drop. The decrease in hosting is over 60% regardless of age, homeownership is UP in the same time period, down 10% in the youngest cohort, not enough to account for the massive drop in dinner parties.
> We’re not comparing you to your friends, we’re comparing people today to people in 1975z You said you host a couple a year. The article said people in ‘75 hosted once a month. So you, a homeowner, already reflect this massive drop.
I also said that the main reason I don't do it more often is that my friends don't live near me. My neighborhood (and several of the ones closest) are mostly populated by other homeowners, whereas my friends live in neighborhoods further away that have mostly people who rent.
> The decrease in hosting is over 60% regardless of age, homeownership is UP in the same time period, down 10% in the youngest cohort, not enough to account for the massive drop in dinner parties.
Nothing in the article would preclude the statistic from being true if young people had massively fewer dinner parties and older people had a modest increase. It doesn't claim that's the case, but it doesn't claim that it's not either. You're presenting it as 60% uniformly across all age groups, and there's no evidence of that in the article.
For us the pandemic boosted our social lives, and we've hosted many parties. It's been super fun to host parties, and I wish we'd been doing it earlier.
I am very surprised at the number of people in this thread who are labelling this time old tradition of inviting people into your home as stressfull, unnecessary, or a waste of their time. To be honest it is quite depressing.
I have a theory that the internet gave antisocial people an outsized voice they lacked before. Poorly socialized people before the internet had little forum to say anything where as now they can overwhelm any forum online while continuing their anti social mentality.
It’s like if you gave your grouchy shut in uncle a megaphone to scream at everyone from his veranda every day nonstop
This is an interesting article and I think it touches on something I've observed as well across my generation which is a lack of participation in society, institutions, and more. This generation and the one after that prefers to "like" a "post" and maybe go vote. Civic institutions? Maybe a token $5 that they were guilt tripped into contributing. By the way why does Europe have all these great museums and nice gardens? Someone paid for it. You spend 10s of thousands of dollars to go look at their stuff. Maybe you should spend that money locally instead so you have your own stuff at home to look at.
We by and large seem to not understand that nobody is going to do these things for us. I'm not sure if it was a parenting failure or just changes in how society prefers to function, but when you look around and see nobody is inviting you to dinner you should conclude that you should be the one to initiate the change. It's the same mentality I see when folks just want the government to do something, or some corporation to do something about climate change for example, but they are unwilling to also simultaneously take their own personal actions. Change starts with you. Nobody is coming to save you. You have to run for office. You have to volunteer at your local community center. You have to take on the leadership role at your church or other place of worship. You have to spend the money and host dinner parties. You have to coordinate these things and yes you have to do it on top of your other responsibilities. Alternatively, you just don't have these things anymore and social media isn't going to replace them.
Also kids - hard to get people together with kids. Not just time constraints (some seem quite strange to me - kids go to bed at 7PM? My parents just let me go to sleep whenever) but also inability to locate, to engage in conversation - mid conversation they stop some kid is doing something and now you kind of realize whatever you were talking about wasn't important to begin with, and more. I'm not criticizing folks for having kids or anything and I think "childfree" movements are extremely cringe and stupid, but having kids in lieu of extra effort, leads to some social isolation from what I've observed.
Then next thing you know you are in your late 40s and you don't have friends anymore.
Of course these are very broad strokes I'm painting. But I think there's quite a bit of truth to it.
I wonder, does this correlate to declining home ownership?
A house party seems to me like a great idea if you actually own the house. But if you don't own the damn place (or, worse, houseshare), you are working full time, and are no longer in your 20s, having people over loses much of its appeal. Especially for larger gatherings.
I did wonder about that. It mentions that lower-income individuals have less friends and thus throw less parties. But part of me wondered if that was precisely because they lacked the space to host anything more than a few friends over. Someone in a $2000/month studio apartment may not have the time nor money to try and host anything to begin with. And given costs these days, even the thought of eating out and meeting with friends is difficult.
#1 Hording: If you've got a house full of crap, and you're deeply ashamed of it, you're not going to be having visitors over, ever. You're also not going to mention it on surveys.
We, the American public, have been collecting shit at a prodigious rate. Many of us pay rent for stuff that won't fit in our home. It's why the storage industry is so reliably profitable.
#2 Paranoia: Otis Toole[1] kidnapped then killed Adam Walsh. His father publicised his kidnapping, and fueled a moral panic that sent American parents deep into paranoia. Kids used to be free range, and were often collectively instructed to "go outside to play, and come inside when the street lights come on". After that event, we're afraid to even let them walk to a friends house a few doors over.
The end of the fairness rule, and the rise of fear based media like Fox news certainly didn't help in the rise of distrust.
#1 is a big reason for our house. The house (and garage) badly needs a significant declutter, but we are both working professionals and don't have the energy to make a significant enough dent, especially since we both have hobbies where we accumulate more stuff all the time as well (especially me, I impulse buy board games and don't cull the ones I'm not playing often enough).
It doesn't help that I design board games too, and have too much of an easy excuse to want to get these games so I can 'research' them.
And because I'm mentally tired all the time after work, that also seems to lower my willpower. And clicking the 'buy' button online is way too easy to do.
We did used to host a monthly game designer playtest night before the pandemic, but our house had a lot less stuff back then. And being stuck in the house during the pandemic with nothing to do but play solo board games and video games (and also the uncertainty if I was even going to make it through the pandemic, since I already had respiratory issues from asthma) definitely accelerated the bad impulse buying habits I already had.
We have made slight dents in it, but the significant declutter probably won't happen until the next time I'm in between jobs, assuming there's at least a month in between jobs.
I was recently introduced to the term "house-shy", for people who don't want anyone else seeing what the inside of their house looks like. I have a few friends who are "house-shy", that I for one reason or another have seen the houses of (often years after becoming friends with them). I think the percentage of Americans who are hoarders or borderline, is underestimated.
If anyone reading this has a job (plumber, A/C repair, etc.) that regularly gives them a glimpse of the inside of people's homes, I would be curious as to their thoughts on this.
I used to host dinners all the time. Since the AI age however I simply don't have time, and I'm in constant threat of needing to work overtime to move myself down the priority list of people to lay off or fire.
The chart for time spent at home exploded after covid, but I didn't see much talk about that. It seems people got comfortable being home alone and it just continued.
It’s just too much work for big dinners. How is that possible for a family of two workers to prepare a big dinner once for maybe 8-10 people once for a while? If I had the time I’d rather spend on sleeping or something else.
There are probably people who are good at this and love to do this, but I think there are fewer and fewer families who are into big dinners.
Dinners don’t necessarily have to be big though. My wife hosts friends over all the time but usually it’s still small intimate affairs, like average 1-2 people (and their kids if they have any) - don’t need to invite everyone at once. Maybe it’s more normal here in Japan to do small groups - when my American friends come visit they always come in giant groups and it makes everything logistically challenging (which my wife also complains about, alongside the fact that it’s impossible to have a deep conversation when 12 people are in the room).
Plus they also don’t have to be polished. Don’t bother cleaning up the house and order a pizza, and everyone will still have a good time. Or just go out to a restaurant and not worry about any of that.
My wife was a volunteer coordinator at our school district. One time she roped me into making food for 150 teachers for teacher appreciation week. I’d much rather do that than prepare for a party in my house regardless of how much or little food I have to prepare. The food prep is the easy part. I can put in AirPods and listen to an audiobook while prepping or cooking things late at night. I can hand over the food and receive compliments via proxy. I don’t have to interact with people at the end and spend hours counting down the minutes until my house is empty and I can relax again.
Year 3626 Edward Gibbon II picks this up like a case study in late Roman Empire decline. He would likely not blame screen overuse, burnout, rising costs/inflation, shyness, loss of communication skills (as mentioned in this chat). These things are symptoms rather than primary causes.
Not all of it, but Americans are working significantly more now than they did in 1975[1]. One would expect compromises to be made to clear space for more work hours.
>In the 1970 book The Harried Leisure Class, the Swedish economist Staffan Burenstam Linder wrote that as a society gets richer, leisure time takes on the frantic quality of work. As rich people feel like their downtime is scarce—as each non-working hour practically shouts, “excuse me! you could be making money, right now!” —the experience of leisure time speeds up.
I think this definitely applies to my friends and I. They could be working on their next DJ session at the club next month or their next TCG tournament deck/strategy, and I could be working on projects that go nowhere. So many hobbies are now just another form of work.
But I think driving and traffic is definitely another problem, especially in the US. No one wants to spend Thursday evening or Saturday 8am in traffic,
Your comment deserves more responses. The observation that leisure becomes work is definitely true for contemporary video games, many of which are stuffed with so many "busywork" features and mini-games that they become tedium, like another job. And since ancient times, the wealthy have hunted for recreation, almost like simulating the need to directly acquire food in the wild that they have lost.
How do gender roles and sexism figure into this? I'm sure it's not the only reason, but it wouldn't surprise me if most of the 'party' work ended up falling on the wife more often than not.
> Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families. But in the 1950s and 1960s, tens of millions of women traded their unpaid household management jobs for salaried jobs, and the family social calendar frayed, as men failed to pick up the slack.
Being stay at home parent is super lonely experience, basically the most lonely occupation you can have. In most jobs, you meet people and you do talk to people without trying to. Fairly often, they are unavoidable whether you want it or not. If you are at home with a kid, you are truly absolutely alone, unless you organize something. Every other guy here on HN complains about Covid being lonely, but it was less lonely and socially easier situation than being stay at home parent.
So, alternative framing is that women stopped organizing these as their need do organize them went down. And men did not had that need in the first place, so it did not changed from their point of view.
And simultaneously, it ceased to be acceptable to be the kind of dad who spends multiple evenings a week with buddies, not really spending time with his kids.
My mother was a stay at home mom and at least from my perspective she never seemed isolated but that seemed to be because there were many other stay at home moms on our block. We basically knew everyone on our block that had kids, which was most of them back then. I distinctly remember all the time we spent at our neighbours' houses for combination play dates and card games. Us kids would play inside or outside and the moms would play cards and socialize. There were always people coming and going and it felt like the entire block was a sort of extended family. I don't remember many organized dinner parties but that could just be from being a small child at the time so we weren't up late and didn't spend time sitting at the "adult table" when there were gatherings (we'd be fed something and then go play with the other kids in the basement or another room).
root cause: young generation wants to rent, not own. Young generation wants high density living and a shift of ownership towards landlords and private equity. As such, entertaining in a walnut sized apartment is a little less practical.
Getting people to buy (their first and only) home is a really important issue. Creating more landlords doesn't not solve housing problems.
Another challenge to hosting dinner parites today is that everybody is on a special diet, count calories, on ozempic because they need to be healthier or have a athletic goal only few people 30 years ago had.
This makes it even more difficult to host because of everybody's needs and regimes they dont buckle on.
My wife developed lactose and gluten intolerance around 40. My 14 year old daughter has been a vegetarian for the last 9 months or so. My other two kids eat vegetables fine, but really prefer meat based dishes. As the primary meal maker in the family I’ve come to dislike making family meals anymore. It’s too much of a chore screening every ingredient and item for dairy wheat and animal products like just basic gelatin and finding alternatives or making dedicated side dishes for certain issues. I used to like making new dishes and trying new things but now it’s a small rotation to keep people fed. We can’t even reliably find a restaurant for us to eat at that would make everyone happy.
I'm not sure how big a deal that really is in a broad sense.
My friend circle in our old city included both Falstaffian omnivores and vegans, and we entertained often. It's not hard to ensure there's food available for folks on a more restrictive diet, and even my friends with UCI racing licenses generally ate like normal people at social events.
Mileage varies, obviously.
(I will say, however, that after having made a vegan "bolognese" once, I have no need to do so again. It was much more effort than the already time-consuming genuine article.)
Home ownership rates are higher than they were in 1975 though and the number of people living in single family homes is close to what it was in 1975 (a little lower but the same as it was in 1955).
So the vast majority of people have more space for entertaining than in 1975.
You don’t need a big house to throw a party. After divorce I decided to relive my teenage years and thrown many parties in a 40m2 apartment. You can easily fit 30 or more people in.
Were houses that much bigger in the 1970s, though? Families definitely were bigger, so there were more people per square meter. I think overall, it's a sociological change, not a financial one. People are just less into hosting parties; too much hassle of cleaning up & preparing food, too many online distractions, etc.
Inviting friends over for dinner is the ONLY way I can get my wife and daughter to clear their stuff from the common areas.
A party with 10 guests is even better.
All three of us are hoarders, to an extent, but I alone am able to go into a cleaning frenzy approximately once or twice a year and get rid of mega-junk. Unfortunately, they don't seem able to do so.
So, I consider dinners still to be a useful tradition, though perhaps the motivations have shifted a bit.
May I suggest a thing my wife and I started doing a couple years ago: the monthly brunch.
First Sunday of the month or whatever, we send out a reminder text, we provide coffee and a little food, people bring way more food than we can eat, and we invite everyone we know, from our different social circles. No pressure.
It’s a moderate amount of work, but it’s very gratifying to bring people together. People have made good friends at our brunch that they hang out with all the time now. It’s been interesting to see how hungry people are for social interaction, some people have driven or taken the subway more than an hour to come. People bring their kids or babies if they have them, age range is from 20s to 60s, it’s very chill.
It’s also a great “next step” when I meet someone I’d like to be friends with: “hey, my wife and I do a monthly brunch, it’s really low-key, you should come!”
For the record, I’m an introvert, but I can tell this is really good for me.
I’ve been there myself - but your actual friends don’t care.
Try easing into it - go on a late afternoon sunset picnic (ironically also on the list) - a blanket, cheese, crackers, cured meat and wine and a portable speaker. Everyone is happy and it’s super cheap, the outdoors is your living room and a couple hours before sunset never disappoints (though depending on where you are the weather might be a challenge).
Parent of an elementary school child in a rural area. People host holiday and birthday parties, but nobody in our extended circle hosts dinner parties. FFS who has time with two working parents and kids who are involved in a lot of activities? Weekdays we barely squeeze in a meal, and weekends are booked.
My parents hosted many dinner and hors d’oeuvre parties, because my mother didn't work outside the home and was available to shoulder all that organization and work.
I gave up throwing parties after the first two years in the States (1998-2000)
Americans throughout treat RSVPs as meaningless, show up if they feel like it, and think it's fine to cancel plans five minutes before the scheduled start.
Unless you're a glutton for punishment, you take the hint at some point.
I was going to spout off my opinion without reading the article but well, yeah they covered the exact reasons why we don't host more: my wife and I are too busy, the kids have taken over too much of the house with toys to clean it fast and elaborate hovering play dates have taken the place of what would have been adult time in decades past. For better or worse, probably better, people also don't seem to want to drink as much anymore and many people have restrictive vegan gluten free diets. It's more about finding parents of kids who are friends with your kids
Another factor is alcohol consumption and the tolerance for drinking and driving. DUI citations were rare when I was young. I rarely see people drinking at parties I go to now.
I still host dinner parties. I even had one last night! But this article does touch on many things
I like hosting. People like attending. But they never do. I'll host several a year, and there are constantly people who say they'll come, and then never do
I'm not at the point no longer inviting people, but I've thought about it before
Every Mormon house I go to is crawling with guests. Family friends, relatives, neighbors. Watching a game, cooking dinner, doing a construction project together, kids in a Nerf-gun war. Most other houses/apartments I go to are sterile, cold, and lonely. That difference is why.
There are a few theories mentioned as to why this is happening, but not this one: throwing dinner parties takes time, and women‘s participation in the workforce has grown steadily.
There are less women with free time on their hands and the need to mingle with people they wouldn’t otherwise encounter, because they’re at home most of the time.
Agreed - my social life has frequent gatherings only because my wife is, despite working and having kids, extremely motivated to meet up with friends. If she didn’t have that motivation we probably wouldn’t be seeing anyone, and if she weren’t working then that could compensate.
It's well known among urban design researchers that the average number of other people one is interacting with on a daily basis has been decreasing ever since the move to the suburbs that started 100 years ago. The movr to the suburbs has been turning Americans into asocial people, generation after generation, in a vicious cycle. If you look at other countries that are still social because they live in denser environments, there's a certain amount of people "naturally" introvert, but much fewer than in the US, where most of it is learned.
I don't particularly like hosting, although I will do so, but I do enjoy gatherings of friends and interesting people over good food and good wine. What my wife and I did was join a dinner club. There are all variety of dinner clubs in almost every major city in the world. We are in our 40s and are the youngest members, because it seems most of the folks who join dinner clubs are older retirees that no longer have large families at home to host dinners with/for, but nonetheless we've found it rewarding.
Given that, though, I do see a bit of a generational divide. It definitely seems like the social circles of people in my generation and younger are larger, but not as deep. I have very good friends who have all moved to different places across the country, I fly to visit them, but the last time all of us were together was at someone's wedding. Contrast this with older generations who often have nearby lifelong friends and close by family, that provides them a smaller but deeper social circle with more opportunities for in-person interaction.
Dinner clubs are great, but not a replacement for the fact my closest friends are spread out all over the country. I don't really have a solve for that. If I were rich, I'd convince everyone to take remote jobs so we could build a "compound" with a bunch of houses all together and be near each other, but the economic realities don't make that possible for any of us.
I’ve sorely wanted to host folks for game nights and shared meals and movies and the like. In fact, in the 2010s I’d play host to folks on the semi-regular since having people in my space is far less energy draining than being a guest in someone else’s.
Since ~2018, I’ve hosted guests three times.
Why the change?
Well, the landlord began charging for garage parking that used to be gratis, forcing cheapskates and broke renters into the visitor spaces. Then they clawed back 25% of guest parking for premium EV charging, meaning even guests with EVs couldn’t park there once they finished charging. Then the landlord stopped enforcing that, meaning folks with EVs can’t charge them because the spots are always full of combustion vehicles. This meant public transit and cycling were the only remaining options for guest access, the former of which required an hour-long detour for my friends to catch a single, specific bus route, while the latter would see them crossing stroads and cycling on state highways with vehicular traffic.
The local logistics are fungible however, and not the sole reason for the drop off. The bigger reason, admittedly, is fatigue. We spend eight hours working, then commute one to two hours each way (~10mi). Include time to prepare for work, make meals, and decompress after, and you’re left with ~1-2hrs a day for free time before having to sleep. Most employers I’ve worked for would side-eye you with disdain for trying to leave early to host an event at home, meaning we don’t feel comfortable asking for the time off in the first place. That doesn’t even include the associated workloads of our guests, who just have to show up almost immediately after work and don’t mind using their very limited free time hanging out in my space.
Then you bake in the fiscal costs - fuel for transit, food to share or prepare, parking and transit fees - and the data harvesting costs (landlord surveillance logging your entry, advertising displays profiling you, Flock camera at the sole neighborhood entrance tracking your entry and exit, etc) and it just doesn’t make fiscal or psychological sense to host at home. That doesn’t even touch on renters having smaller spaces than homeowners making hosting more of a challenge, potential noise complaints about your jovial party from a nosey neighbor getting your lease non-renewed, or the ease of just queuing up for a game remotely (even if it lacks the payoff of a physical visit from another human).
The closest I came to hosting on the regular was that brief window where COVID was managed but before RTO came hammering down. I squeezed in two visits during that time, before mandatory RTO and the insane commutes and shitty job market just kinda sapped all the energy from my circles for anything but basic survival.
Which is all a lengthy way of saying that the problem as I see it is that these events are declining because fewer people are thriving, and more people feel barely able to survive. The excess energy I do have doesn’t go to hosting so much as enjoying social events elsewhere, but that only happens because I am privileged enough to be able to take the next day off from work for recovery without getting fussed at by my employer; nobody else in my circles has that luxury at present.
Maybe you live somewhere extremely shitty but my family's friend groups get together all the time, it's not that hard. Just go over to their place, you just make up 101 excuses not to do it.
Maybe I wasn’t clear: the red carpet has remained deployed the entire time, but since 2018 circumstances have changed for such a large amount of my social circles that hosting events is the exception rather than the norm, specifically because of a lack of time, lack of money, lack of employer flexibility, lack of job prospects, and/or lack of energy. That’s not me making excuses, that’s literally the reasons folks don’t come over for me or most others in my buildings - and those who do visit often only come once, because they get towed for parking in the wrong spot and thus don’t want to return.
Much of the same reasons apply for why I don’t visit others: they’re too tired to host, or lack the space, or have hostile neighbors, or aren’t near public transit, or lack parking, or lack the budget to buy more food, or lack the employer willing to let them work flexibly to make all of the previous issues less problematic.
It’s great that your sample size is able to make it work but clearly mine cannot at present. It’s not a matter of “excuses”, but tangible and logical rationale for why - even when I can cover the logistics and costs myself on their behalf - they’d rather have that hour of free time to themselves for recovery before another fourteen hour day of prep-commute-work-commute-eat.
I can't believe noone has been discussing cost of living as a reason. Food is more expensive, owning a place big enough to invite people over is more expensive, even free time is more expensive. To me, this seems pretty straightforward: people are getting priced out of fun.
Could be, but your income should be going up in unison. If its not, its time to re-evaluate your career. Cost of living adjustments should be keeping pace with inflation, which is also a check-and-balance for business owners, to realize inflating costs to customers isn't necessarily a good thing.
Correct. Anyone who is not in the ownership class is getting scammed. Minimum wage hasn't went up in forever, union participation down, college graduates are getting stiffed at the finish line, etc. Don't be asinine and act like a systemic issue is someone's personal problem. It's like telling someone in medical debt "well, don't drink and you won't get cancer."
That other Abundance guy writes convincingly that our abundant present isn’t that satisfying. This is also self-consciously a bit tilted towards the author’s milieu. Even the Abundant Class are overworked, undersocialized, and too preoccupied with cheap technological thrills.
For example, if you're younger, it's a lot harder to throw a dinner party in your tiny overpriced apartment than it might have been for a previous generation of people who already owned homes in their twenties.
It is also harder to throw a party when both partners in a relationship need to work full time to make ends meet.
It is also harder to throw parties when invitees also are overworked and tired and are habituated to netflix, rather than going out.
If you live in a city, going to a public space is inevitably easier. If you live in a suburb, staying home is inevitably easier.
It's much more plausible to me that these trends are due to underlying material conditions more than they are to some fundamental change in the social attitudes of people (though obviously both can play a role).
What a bummer. We have friends, family, and our friends’ families over all the time. 1-2 days a week. Now part of that is obviously we are fortunate to have the space and (barely) the time for it. Still, I want to encourage those who can to make the effort to use their home as a social hub. It’s incredibly gratifying. We get a lot of joy out of sharing our home with others. Eventually it’s really not that much work - I honestly find it’s easier/more relaxing than going elsewhere sometimes.
Plus when you have kids it’s a lot more convenient than trying to wrangle them at the end of a fun time lol
Can't speak about the USA but here in south of Spain houses tend to be small, weather good and eating outside relatively affordable so people are used to meet outside.
Most of our gatherings are actually at the beach because for most it is just a short walk from home and there are shops very close that sell super cold beers and drinks so you don't even have to carry a huge cooler.
That’s great. Wish I had a good beach nearby. Closes is about an hour but the water really isn’t fit for swimming anymore since about 10-15 years ago. We have to go three hours to get anywhere reasonable
2. Wages have stagnated for decades, unless you're in that magical IT job.
3. It's now a 2 wage earner setup to afford rent or mortgage. And smaller and less hostable residences.
4. The lower your income, the worse your schedule for planning anything. Same with friends.
5. Self-entertainment is a lot cheaper.
Basically, capitalism has squeezed out being able to afford parties, and the time commitment away from "hustling".
Even with 1995-ish, we had Married with Children, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Friends. All these show apartments or houses that a single worker could afford, and fund house/apartment parties. And this is a single person paying for housing.
Sure, those are fictions for TV, but it also shows just how normal and common it was, that low/middle income folks had lots of options and good amount of time. That's just no longer true for most Americans.
When you noticed you were relying on evidence from fiction, instead of verbally acknowledging that that was what you were doing, you should've stopped relying on the "evidence".
It might make sense every now and them to rely on fiction for evidence in domains where it is very hard to obtain any data at all, but in this particular, there is plenty of hard data of what US workers used to earn, what they earn now, what houses and food used to cost and what they cost now.
(I expect that the hard data will fail to support your belief that things have gotten significantly harder economically for the average person.)
Idk man. It could also be that people like you are being jerks. You sound like the people that made me quit going to church, as long as we're on topic. The CPI has been bullshit for years now. People 100% work more than ever, and not for nothing. The average household needs to work more hours per week to afford the same things. This has been obvious for a long time. Hours worked per year, per household peaked in the 1990's at around 2300 hrs, and it's sat around there since then. I wonder what could've happened in the 80's to cause this?
Id agree. Ive dealt with bullies like them before. Doesnt matter what proof you pull out of your ass. You're always wrong, no matter what you say. Reminds me of Upton Sinclair's quote "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it", but more akin to political positions, and active refusal and rebuttal of anything said in opposition to their political view.
I was making a social point that "average TV shows showing families" is a rough reflection of the current happenstance of the age in which they were made. Its not a "proof" or whatever governmental numbers were smoothed over or otherwise faked to make US households look healthier or better.
> The average household needs to work more hours per week to afford the same things.
A weirdness ive seen.. Entertainment equipment like TVs, game consoles, cell phones, and such are cheap compared to the 1970's through early 2000's. Used to be entertainment was EXPENSIVE. But housing? Our house, in the Midwest, in early 2000s, sold for $160k. We bought it in 2022 for $375k. And on GIS, i see the same exact trend everywhere in my county. Other counties that we looked at moving to, similar. Same story as far as I looked.
Also, federal minimum wage has kept the same for what, since 2007? Union participation has plummeted to like 15%. Workers work longer for less money. Can barely afford a shitty apartment (too small to host parties), BUT that $400 70" TV with a game console is cheap.. and it helps you forget poverty and loneliness with artificial plenty (in game), and company (remotely, on a game).
> I wonder what could've happened in the 80's to cause this?
Reagan, Mergers and Acquisitions crisis (and resulting venture capital buying and shredding companies en masse now), stagnating wages, heavy pushing of "Right to Work" laws, and all of this trickle-down that makes me think I'm just a urinal.
Many people seem too pent up in presenting some version of themselves to actually relax (social anxiety), which I partially put down to the decline of drinking, the traditional equalizer. Many people just aren't comfortable in themselves, and alcohol therefore represents a threat to their carefully constructed cardboard cut-out caricature.
Then there's the 'all about me' meme, where people are horrid conversationalists who can't entertain an idea unrelated to self-reporting, with personalization expectations on consumption: little Bobby needs X, little Harry has to Y, little Prescilla can't Z, and woe betide anyone who doesn't do the done diet. Another element of conversation failure is the distinct lack of experience and interests in such a great swathe of the population, who seem to vacillate between survival mode and televisual fiction forays. I've also noticed many people hit their 40s and seem to decide celebrating the bands and foods they followed in their youth may be their most persistent wont and love, with seemingly zero ambition to explore further. Woe betide anyone who would wish to continue learning and exploring, contemplate art, find echoes in history, or seek to discuss pressing global issues and their potential future trajectories.
I always try to teach the young'uns Eleanore Roosevelt's quip: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
The narcissism of food restrictions— and in general— has contributed to this. I love to cook, but it’s dreadful to have to assemble everyone’s restrictions into a meal. How can I make a vegan, gluten free, organic, global , etc meal ?
It’s emblematic of the me-first attitude. Instead of deferential guests , grateful to be welcomed over, everyone demands they are catered to on their terms.
I politely asked my neighbor to take her shoes off before entering, and she complained that I should have warned her of my no shoes policy before coming over.
I offer my guests unopened slippers to wear while they are here, too .
Another reason is nowadays with all the variety of dietary restrictions in vogue, it’s much harder for a host to prepare a meal everyone can share. Potlucks or a bland collection of help-yourself dishes (which often are nothing more than an odd collection of appetizers) is standard fare.
I’m fortunate to have friends in their 60s and 70s where I can still enjoy the traditional dinner experience.
I wouldn't call diagnosing people for actual medical issues we learned about since the 70s an en vogue thing. Other than those, it's pretty much just vegan / non-vegan.
> In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families.
Well yeah, no surprise. Planning takes time and executing even more. Get the house and garden cleaned up, buy supplies, prep and cook/grill everything, clean up everything, restore "normal" functionality of the house again.
> The trouble with going all in on this explanation—beyond the fact that it embraces a version of learned helplessness for men—is that leisure time has increased overall since the 1950s.
Leisure time maybe, but any decent party takes hours of work. Host a dozen people, they're there until at least 2200 if not longer, and then it's hours worth of cleanup work. In ye olde times, that fell under the responsibility of the housewife during the next day, but nowadays? Oh hell no.
On top of that, workloads have gone extremely compressed over the last decades "thanks" to surveillance capitalism squeezing every tiny sliver of time. No more downtimes at the water cooler and coffee machine, it's work work work work work. When you arrive home, you are completely and utterly drained.
As others have mentioned, the decline started long before social media and the Internet. When I was a child, in the 70s, my parents often had other families and couples over for dinner, and we often attended small dinner parties, too.
As an introvert, I absolutely loathed these gatherings and was frustrated by how powerless I was in avoiding them.
Recently, I have been reading over my mother's old letters she wrote to her parents at that time, in which she described the effort and social anxiety that went with this tradition. It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold. Someone invites you over, then that goes into an unspoken balance sheet, and you are required to reciprocate. She often spoke of "owing" dinner to people. I don't think she enjoyed it at all, though there were a few couples I can remember who were good friends of theirs, and those meetups were always a pleasure to listen in on. The rest were simply a drag.
I should note that their life in the 70s (in a middle-class college town) was not some idyllic paradise without the Internet, either. Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu, and days were spent running dreary errands to shop for boring things that we now can get with a click. The rotary-dial telephone that hung in the kitchen was the heartbeat of the house, since replaced by Facebook and smartphones. My parents were always busy and exhausted.
> It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold. ... I don't think she enjoyed it at all, though there were a few couples I can remember who were good friends of theirs, and those meetups were always a pleasure to listen in on. The rest were simply a drag.
It's worth noting that not everything that's good for you is enjoyable, especially in the moment.
Avoiding everything that's a "drag" means staying alone, passively consuming easy media, not exercising, eating hyper-palatble junk food, getting obese and probably depressed, etc.
> I should note that their life in the 70s (in a middle-class college town) was not some idyllic paradise without the Internet, either. Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu, and days were spent running dreary errands to shop for boring things that we now can get with a click. The rotary-dial telephone that hung in the kitchen was the heartbeat of the house, since replaced by Facebook and smartphones.
While I agree that those cloying clickbait articles/videos idealizing random pre-smartphone teen photos and videos are obnoxious (as someone who grew up in that era). I think the modern emphasis on mindlessly reducing "friction" is going to prove ultimately unwise, though probably uncorrected as generational turnover causes people to forget what was lost, and certain degradation gets redefined as "normal" and accepted.
> My parents were always busy and exhausted.
So are modern parents, and all indications are they are more exhausted.
I've been interested in this for quite a while, and have read a fair bit about it as a phenomenon. I think that pursuing comfort and convenience to the point that it's actually harmful is sort of a big factor in a lot of societal change the last several decades in many developed/Western countries. As a European/American dual national I think it's a particularly strong current in American culture, personally.
An accessible intro is Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis, which, while a little pop-sciencey, explores the idea that making our lives more and more comfortable (across various axes) creates a feedback cycle that shrinks our comfort zones, making some of the more rewarding (but potentially challenging/uncomfortable) things in life seem unthinkable.
For me this was a bit of a "once you've seen it you can't unsee it" kind of thing. Letting convenience be your primary metric for success often produces totally unsatisfying results, anywhere from how you build cities to the way you eat a meal.
The arc of the original World of Warcraft (broader social impacts aside) is an interesting microcosm to explore: players continually asked for convenience features that would simplify the most tedious aspects of the game and reduce social friction (organizing groups, traveling etc), but as they made things more convenient over the years, many people found that the game actually began to lose something important. The response culminated in a very successful re-release of the original, inconvenient, game after 15 years.
We are all living overly precious, fragile lives which rathole us into depression and mal-behavior.
Look up universe 25 and mouse utopia experiments. Exactly predicted this.
I think "convenience" is correlated to the actual thing you're gesturing towards, but isn't the actual variable that matters most. "grocery stores being open until midnight" is certainly very convenient, but doesn't seem to remove anything important (except perhaps for late shift grocery store workers). On the other hand, buying your food from a grocery store (versus having to hunt it down and kill it) is certainly more "convenient", but "convenience" isn't the most important dimension where hunting differs from grocery store shopping.
Comfort is also correlated to it, but I don't think it's exactly it either. A/C is very comfortable, and certainly there are psychological and physiological downsides to it. But I don't think there's any major rewarding experiences which A/C makes impossible or unthinkable. Maybe the taste of a cool glass of water after working all day in the hot sun? Some amount of resilience to high heat which makes traveling in hot places slightly more enjoyable? Experiencing the changing seasons more directly and consistently than just seeing a changing set of colors out your window? None of these are exactly trivial, but it doesn't seem like "optimizing for comfort removes all the color from life" is exactly right either.
Maybe it's just that suffering just for suffering's sake doesn't do anything. If you were in the universe where all houses are magically air conditioned 24/7 and offered to build a machine to make them uncomfortably hot for 4 months a year and uncomfortably cold for another 4 months a year, selling on the idea that, you know, variety is the spice of life, a little constant hardship toughens you up, I don't think anybody would buy that on its own.
But clearly people DO seem to go kind of crazy without pressure and challenges, whether you frame it as "convenience" or "comfort" or "eustress deficiency" or whatever. There's an entire category of hobbies and interests that are entirely based around doing uncomfortable or dangerous or stressful things (thrill-seeking). And even things like weightlifting, marathons, saunas, physically stressful things are often pleasurable and seem to obviously build character and resilience outside of just the act of lifting heavy things until it hurts too much to continue. I think weightlifting is a good analogy; hardly anyone would lift weights if there was no extrinsic reward at the end of it (e.g. health, vanity, bragging rights). The important thing isn't the inconvenience and uncomfortableness of lifting weights, it's something else.
Maybe "responsibility"? "self-actualization"? I think that's maybe closer to it.
I certainly don't have all of the answers here, but I do think the somewhat ineffable nature of this concept contributes to how at a business or societal scale we wind up optimizing for the wrong things–it's hard to describe, multi-factorial, hard to measure, so instead we optimize for things that deliver obvious measurable improvements. That line of thinking is how you wind up bulldozing a city center to run a highway through it: travel times fall 80%! The negative side effects are harder to measure.
The AC thing interests me as a topic–purely my opinion, but I do think that living in a very narrow temperature range changes your relationship with the outside world, and there's all sorts of good stuff to be done outside that's much harder to get motivated to do if the delta with what you're used to is too big.
As an anecdote: I mostly disliked hot weather in the past, but years ago when I got hooked on running, I found that I disliked the treadmill more than the heat, so I ran outside through a muggy NYC summer. It was miserable to get started but got a bit easier every year, and over time I've noticed, from the digital thermometer on my desk, that the temperature where I have to stop working and turn the AC on has slowly crept upwards. My running club puts on a 5k summer race series–if you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I'd want to run up a hill in the swampy Brooklyn heat every other Wednesday, I would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea–but today it is genuinely something I love, and has been a highlight of my year for several years now.
All that to say, your point about suffering for suffering's sake stands: I cannot sleep without AC above a certain temperature/humidity, and I don't see any reason to force myself to suffer through restless sweaty nights. On the flip-side, though... I have never had more visceral, euphoric appreciation for the comforts of modern life than after a cold and drizzly backpacking trip where we spent the entire time damp and never really, fully warmed up for multiple days. 20-something years later I have the most vivid memory of getting in a hot shower when we got home.
> It's worth noting that not everything that's good for you is enjoyable, especially in the moment.
100%.. people tend to understand this much better with physical exercise.
Social connections have as much of an impact on mortality as e.g. smoking [1].
Yes, quitting smoking, working out, and talking to people is not pleasant - it is also healthy and good for you.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2910600/
I find physical exercise, not smoking, and talking to people very enjoyable. These things in particular keep me sane and reassured.
When I was an obese smoker who avoided people, I was stressed out by a lot of other things going on. As soon as those stressors were gone, the bad habits also went away without so much effort.
It's worth considering how many of these perceptions of "discomfort" are caused by other aspects of culture, not nature or nationality or era. All my stress was coming from trying way too hard as an insecure younger person.
I think the examples you listed (doomscrolling, being sedentary, junk food) are related but distinct to ‘avoiding friction’. My perspective is it’s about quality, not the form; even if they correlate.
I don’t enjoy going to the gym, but I love swimming and hiking, and love that. I haven’t worked out in a gym for years, I don’t want to, and I’m quite healthy and reasonably active.
Some people are just introverts, and I think the ‘optimal’ amount of IRL time is different for every individual. Much like my gym vs swimming example; quality social interaction can take many forms; some of my closest and most meaningful friendships over decades have been based on games (voice calls; discord chats; hanging out in person sometimes and going on trips together sometimes), and that works for me; and I don’t think I’m missing anything.
Prioritise genuine human and social interaction, and for introverts, get out of the comfort zone once in a while (being a hermit is not good). But whatever form that takes is secondary to the quality and how it fits your personality and quirks.
> I think the examples you listed (doomscrolling, being sedentary, junk food) are related but distinct to ‘avoiding friction’. My perspective is it’s about quality, not the form; even if they correlate.
> I don’t enjoy going to the gym, but I love swimming and hiking, and love that. I haven’t worked out in a gym for years, I don’t want to, and I’m quite healthy and reasonably active.
But that's a problem of the modern low-friction era. If cars hadn't been invented and you had to walk/carry things everywhere it wouldn't matter. No 10,000 steps nonsense. No what do I enjoy better: weights or swimming or hiking? You'd get a lot of exercise by just going about your life.
> Some people are just introverts, and I think the ‘optimal’ amount of IRL time is different for every individual.
I am an introvert, and a big basis of my comment is the personal realization that my drive to get IRL social time was actually insufficient to give me the amount of IRL social time I needed. I'm a lot happier if it's foisted on me and I have less control.
Avoiding everything that is a drag is almost an axiom for most young people in the modern world... any sort of discomfort is obviously wrong and something to avoid. It's almost a sin to suggest someone should do something that might bring them temporary discomfort even if it's good long term.
Avoiding everything that is a drag is a universal experience for young people in the entire history of the world. The point is that they eventually find value in the toil later on in the process, and when they're older have to drag the next generation into the cycle.
> Avoiding everything that's a "drag" means staying alone, passively consuming easy media, not exercising, eating hyper-palatble junk food, getting obese and probably depressed, etc.
I always wonder if people say these things actually believe it.
Like are there people who really prefer junk food over good food even in the moment, or have to get their will power up to read a good book?
It just seems a sentiment that is so foreign to my exisetence.
Lol, that you are not aware of these people is a concept so foreign to me that I kind of suspect you are joking. There are many people in my life who struggle with both, more people than who don’t..
>Like are there people who really prefer junk food over good food even in the moment, or have to get their will power up to read a good book?
Yes these people are more common than not.
If you get into a deep enough "convenience" spiral, you lose the physical energy to engage in things like reading a book.
I was once so depressed that I didn't leave my room except to use the bathroom for months, and in that time I developed lethargy so extreme that I couldn't even play causal FPS video games competently. My brain simply didn't work as well, despite having all the calories it needed.
Back in the 80s/90s, when my grandma was alive, we used to have big holiday dinners for the whole big family (I think in total of 10+ people) in her small apartment (about 20 m^2, perhaps even less). It was extremely crowdy and some people used to eat standing outside and chat with each other. But it was also one of my best memories.
30+ years forward, I moved to a new country, and we only have one kid. We haven't had this kind of big dinner for decades since my grandma passed away in the late 90s.
The families are getting smaller and more atomized, so only people who are VERY into big dinners throw them.
This is a good point.
I am retired now and lucky to have my (now adult) children living nearby. Every Friday I cook a large pizza dinner for everyone, their spouses, and their children, and any friends they want to invite. I will always be an introvert, but this weekly meal is the highlight of my week.
The difference between this and what my parents did is that I host for my own pleasure and for what it does to bind the family together. I don't expect reciprocal invitations, and no obligation is ever implied (I hope).
This is awesome. I see this as a form of leadership (brings people together, its not easy, not enough people do it, no expectation of reciprocation, etc).
Hopefully it helps the next generation stay connected and maybe your kids pick up this habit when older and it becomes a tradition.
Yeah that's really good, and I agree with the sentiment.
TBH, if I were to retire today, I'd love to do that, too. I only have one son, so probably it's not going to be a big dinner, but I'd also invite friends of the family, too.
Yeah i have similar fond memories.
My grandma had four kids who all married and gave her ten nephews in total. On new year's eve we had this large dinners where pretty much 20 people gathered (sometimes more, when nephews got old enough to bring their partner OR some other uncle/aunt from other sides of the family joined).
Yeah my grandma has four kids too, so it was a big family when every kid started to pump out grandkids. :)
> Everyone was constantly falling ill with colds or flu
That’s just anyone who has small kids. Or works in healthcare, childcare, or any service industry really. It has nothing to do with 1975 vs 2025 (unless you’re one of the small amount of people who work remotely, and you don’t have kids or a spouse who falls into one of the above categories).
Also after a few years you stop getting so many colds.
You're likely correct, but one big difference is indoor air ventilation standards improved dramatically, leading to less spread of disease indoors.
Simultaneously, air pollution is down, which lowers symptoms.
So it wouldn't surprise me if respiratory incidence is down. Of course there were also more kids in the 1970s, to your point.
> Simultaneously, air pollution is down, which lowers symptoms
That’s very likely true.
> one big difference is indoor air ventilation standards improved dramatically, leading to less spread of disease indoors.
I don’t know if this is. In 1975 air conditioning was much less prevalent, so people were much more likely to open windows. Buildings were also much leakier.
And it’s not simple as building ventilation has steadily improved, so teasing out the impact is almost impossible. In the 80s there was a big push for energy efficiency, so we went from 15 cfm/person in 1973 to 5 in 1981 then back to 20 in 1989.
But building envelopes also got much tighter, so there’s less uncontrolled ventilation.
The tobacco smoke had to find its way out through natural ventilation or be filered by A/C.
Colds, yes.
I think respiratory flu is far less common now than it was. I have had a legit case of the flu only once in my adult life. After spending 15 years teaching in a public school, I had countless colds but never caught the flu. Of course, annual flu vaccines might have helped. Those weren't available in the 70s.
Strep throat was also a very common complaint in the letters. Throat cultures, home visits from the pediatrician, etc., were frequent, especially for my brother. I haven't seen a single case of strep in my extended family since. Maybe just lucky.
Many things have improved over the decades, but we do have an array of exciting tick-borne illnesses to make up for it!
> I think respiratory flu is far less common now than it was. I have had a legit case of the flu only once in my adult life. After spending 15 years teaching in a public school, I had countless colds but never caught the flu.
They’re not far less common in average. Rates have gone down a bit with the annual flu shot, but there’s a few things going on.
-Flu rates vary wildly by year and decade. There were a few big pandemics where a very large percentage of people got the flu.
-There was no way to easily test for the flu, so people said they had it more frequently than they did.
In a given year about 12% of kids will come down with symptomatic influence which is not too far off from what we can estimate that historic numbers were in an average year.
>Strep
I looked up studies on this. Nothing conclusive, but likely no large change.
Recommendations about when to test have changed though because it turns out that if you culture every kid with a runny nose a large percentage of them will come back positive even though their symptoms are viral.
So you’re probably right that you notice fewer diagnosed strep cases, but there aren’t actually fewer symptomatic cases.
I think a lot of people might think influenza is just a more severe cold, and therefore confuse the two, assuming their cold is "The Flu" because it's worse than usual.
There also used to be pretty strong social expectations to host and visit such parties. That was essentially gone by like 1990, for my area, and I always kind of got the feel that everyone was glad to see the expectation disappear.
They can be fun, but I and almost everyone that I'm friends with much prefer to simply visit and hang out with no plans at all. Just be there, maybe chat a bit, maybe ignore each other and read a book for a few hours, maybe find something to eat / do a lightweight potluck. Which rather sucked that COVID ended up shutting down almost all of our communal places to visit for that.
All of that sounds many times better than just being alone without a community.
Pretty much my experience. My pre-teen childhood was the 1970s. My parents had dinner parties or cocktail parties at home at least a few times a year, and so did most of their friends. We often had a sitter for the night while they went to these gatherings. Some time towards the end of the decade, and certainly in the 1980s, this pretty much stopped. I asked about it once and my mother said that hosting these gatherings was a lot of work and fewer and fewer of their guests ever reciprocated, so they just stopped hosting as well. I do think that they did it mostly out of obligation or "just the proper thing to do" and not because they particulary enjoyed it.
I wonder if it's all just downstream from class. It used to be that rich people would regularly host feasts for their dependents as a form of patronage. This was then imitated by the gentry and bourgeois: proving that you have a house with a bunch of servants who can serve multi course meals, showing off your etiquette and conspicuous consumption so everybody can see how wealthy and classy you are, just like the real rich people who are generous to their friends and get to flex how cool and rich they are.
Then at some point middle class Americans began copying these sorts of upper-middle class styled parties (again, as a form of class signalling; maybe partially because all the rich people in the movies and on TV and in magazines are doing it, and you want to seem like them), but Americans also fancied themselves as classless egalitarians, so it didn't really keep because the whole "conspicuous consumption" clashes with modern suburban ideals.
Thanks for sharing that intimate anecdote. I see that phone on the wall in my own parent's house.
> It was not something my parents enjoyed, but rather an obligation they felt they had to uphold.
understandable, but if you think about it, it's kinda the price of keeping your "social network" alive. people nowadays understand that romantic relationships need maintenance and effort, but don't (yet?) understand that friendship require at least some maintenance as well. i guess that was even true-r before social media when you weren't constantly updated about what happened in friend X, Y and Z's lives.
most people nowadays don't really want to pay that price to keep relationships alive... and it's showing.
> My parents were always busy and exhausted.
what i'm about to write is absolutely anecdotical, but: i don't see people my age (30-40 years old) like super-relaxed either.
Same for me in the 80s. We'd always have the extended family together multiple times a year and frequently at my house. My mom always stressed out over it and it's the only time she yelled at my brother and I for not cleaning enough. I occasionally enjoyed playing with cousins but mostly found it annoying that all these people were using my house.
Nowadays, we definitely get together much less often but also it's usually at a restaurant.
This is such a sad and pathetic interpretation. Please consider you might just be depressed or lazy person and reading this wrong.
How is the author of this piece going to cite a graph that shows an extreme increase in time spent at home that begins in 2020 and not mention COVID? We had social media in the 2010s. COVID made spending time outdoors/around other people an actual physical danger for over a year, and the psychological effects of that are lingering. Does anyone remember that one political cartoon where the guy is walking down the street, and everyone around him just looks like a virus particle? I think a lot of people consciously or subconsciously still see the world that way. If you don’t believe, reflect on how you would feel about attending a crowded indoor gathering in 2010 vs now, or how much unease you would feel if someone at the table next to you started coughing.
There should be a name for the amnesia people seem to experience for the covid era. For 2 years, more or less, most forms of social activity were frowned upon or (in some states) made outright illegal. I feel strongly that this has affected our collective psyche more than anything since WW2. My sister (10 years my junior) seems to have had an extremely different early-adulthood from me. The lack of reflection on it is strange...
> There should be a name for the amnesia people seem to experience for the covid era.
Definitely a widespread trauma response of suppression.
How Hollywood handles its related optics says everything:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/comments/1ncmclw...
For me it's indeed around COVID where my habits changed. That deserves more attention indeed. Something about the vibe changed. Could be just me, and could be just a coincidence that is happened around COVID. But it's worth considering.
I'd be interested to see how the drop correlates with pets. We got a dog during COVID, she acclimated to a house which never has guests. Now she can't handle guests. Shame on us, perhaps, but anyway there it is.
I got a dog in early 2021. It’s drastically reduced the range of activities I can do. I used to just get on planes and go places.
I don't know if it was me getting older, or caring less about startup scene but I agree, when Meetups started up again it wasn't as fun to stay up late and get together masked up to listen to someone talk about a basic web app or api. The vibes might have come back now that we're not masking, but it's a bigger commitment for me now to go in every week. I also feel like groups put a lot of content upfront to talk about their agenda and org functions when it used to be more of a "you're at the [topic] meeting, here's what we have for you today".
Where I'm from religious observance went down considerably and permanently - it was declining before the pandemic, but it reached a tipping point only in the early 20s.
Apparently everyone was attending mass largely because everyone else was.
I noticed that too. It's unreasonable to extrapolate anything from that graph when it only ends at 2022.
The risk has not gone away. What's gone away is our willingness to acknowledge it or do anything about it.
The risk absolutely has gone away. Vaccination, acquired immunity, and the general drop in the number of effected people have plummeted COVID cases down to below the noise floor on risk analysis. If you go out and get sick, chances are it's just the flu, just like was true every year before the pandemic.
If you are letting fear of disease get in the way of living a healthy and fulfilling life today, that's an unhealthy trauma response.
>If you go out and get sick, chances are it's just the flu
This is demonstrably untrue.
We in the US are in the 13th covid wave since the pandemic started from tracking wastewater data which is our most accurate way of determining transmission (fortunately at a much smaller peak as of right now than most waves)[1]. The past four years have had far higher covid transmission rates on average than the two years we consider societally "when covid was happening". It does not strictly follow seasonal patterns like the flu, we routinely get summer waves that peak quite highly. The flu does not do this. Millions of Americans have ME/CFS like symptoms after covid, some extremely severe.[2]
[1]https://www.pmc19.com/ [2]https://academic.oup.com/ooim/article/6/1/iqaf010/8379704?lo...
> Vaccination
...doesn't prevent transmission
> acquired immunity
...only lasts 6 months or so, wanes, and a new variant arrives
> the general drop in the number of effected people
Long COVID is severely underdiagnosed
> that's an unhealthy trauma response
The precautionary principle is a rational response, especially what we already know about the widespread systemic damage that repeat COVID infections cause.
The only reliable protection right now is consistent N95 usage in public spaces, and very few people are doing that (though some certainly are, as I see them every day).
The chart cutting off in 2022 makes it hard to glean too much.
I no longer worry at all about attending a crowded indoor gathering - those would be impossible to avoid in NYC - but enjoying “a night in” without kids is a distinctly post-COVID phenomenon for myself and many people I know
> COVID made spending time outdoors/around other people an actual physical danger for over a year, and the psychological effects of that are lingering.
It actually never stopped being a physical danger. The only thing that changed is how long it takes for the damage to unfold.
At the start of COVID, people were rightfully shocked that hospitals and morgues were overflowing, and they reacted accordingly. That's no longer an issue (for now) with these latest strains, but acquiring Long COVID and dealing with its effects is definitely still a real concern.
Long COVID is vastly underdiagnosed. You might not get it until your 4th/5th/6th re-infection. That reinfection might also be asymptomatic, and/or Long COVID doesn't set in until weeks or months afterward, meaning people often don't link the two events. People not taking precautions (majority) are getting re-infected on average once per year since immunity from a previous infection typically wanes after 6 months, and there are about two waves per year for any given area.
Vaccines are of limited utility since they don't prevent transmission. A consistently worn N95 in public spaces is the only reliable means of defense, and everybody in your household needs to do that in public for it to be effective within your household.
I’ve only ever heard people talk about Long Covid online, I’ve never met a single person in real life that has ever claimed to have it or has any of the supposed symptoms. Everyone has been infected 1 or more times at this point. If I was never online I wouldn’t even know it existed and I honestly don’t think it does exist.
I’m not a Covid denier or anything either. I masked up and stayed in during the pandemic, I got the vaccine, etc. I had original first year Covid confirmed by a test, and I’m positive I’ve had it at least once again since then though didn’t get a test confirmation, so I’m 100% positive Covid is real (I feel like this is an obvious statement but I’m sure some people out there believe it’s a hoax or something). However I’ve seen exactly zero evidence other than online anecdotes that Long Covid exists or ever existed.
If it’s “vastly under diagnosed” I should personally know multiple people with it and should likely have family members with it (at least extended family) and yet I don’t. Not a single person. Honestly I think it’s one of those terminally online things that gets repeated a lot but only online.
I have a friend who had to stop his career and move back in with his parents in his 30s. After an infection he was suddenly unable to read or do anything that requires visual fixation without intense pain. It took years to find a doctor that was able to help him at all and he's still not back to normal. This is an online anecdote so it will make no difference to you if you keep choosing not to believe it. But the idea that it is a purely online phenomenon with no real-world basis is absurd. It's been 6 years and there is a preponderance of evidence. The most common estimate is that it affects 400 million people worldwide.[1] Whether or not people want to talk about this to you in person is a completely different story. Covid is a societal red line that no one wants to bring up.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/ooim/article/6/1/iqaf010/8379704?lo...
Post-viral syndrome is a thing common to most (all?) viral infections. For example, I got pretty sick in 2014 with some strange illness, maybe it was a bad flu or perhaps mono. Then for the next few months it'd seemingly resurface and cause little flare-ups of fatigue, nausea and a vague malaise. Just as it seemed to be fading I went on a lengthy post-college trip I around Asia where I'd spend multiple days a week feeling completely at ease hiking all day and partying all night but also had completely random days where I swore I felt like I was coming down with a flu and the littlest things would get my heart to race. When I came home the docs said it seemed like some sort of post-viral reaction then it resolved itself shortly thereafter. Covid doesn't seem to have been special other than that it gets tons of scrutiny and everyone got to experience it at once. Sometimes an overactive immune system will react in a counterproductive way and take a long time to get back to baseline, much like an army regiment that never got word that the war is over.
I actually do know someone irl who got long covid and became significantly disabled. He has to use an electric wheelchair to get around now. It’s a serious situation
A former IRL colleague had long covid issues including hospital stays. They posted about it for a stretch on Twitter but generally didn't talk about it, and then almost everyone I know through Twitter dispersed. Then there are a few people who I only know online but their symptoms are more 'months of brain fog' than being stuck at home or catatonic. So there might be more cases in your network where people are just not vocal about it.
Part of the issue is it's unclear what long covid is, if it's the same thing as chronic fatigue syndrome, and who even knows enough about this to be worth listening to
> it's unclear what long covid is
It's just another post-acute infection syndrome that can occur from pretty much any contagious illness (flu, etc.). Most people reading this have probably experienced this. Ever had a cough that persisted multiple weeks after the rest of your illness went away? That's not because your cold permanently damaged your lungs or even that the virus is still around. It's because your immune system will sometimes get confused and continue to wage war in your throat (or whatever it thought was infected) long after the virus has been eliminated.
> I’ve only ever heard people talk about Long Covid online, I’ve never met a single person in real life that has ever claimed to have it or has any of the supposed symptoms.
Probably for the aforementioned reasons: people aren't making the link.
Long COVID can lead to major bodily dysfunctions including heart disease, stroke, kidney impairment, neurological issues, autoimmune conditions, etc.
People are getting sick more often and not just with COVID, because recurring COVID infections have nuked their immune systems. There are studies proving how it impacts T-cell depletion, etc.
> If it’s “vastly under diagnosed” I should personally know multiple people with it
Are you not aware of your blatant contradiction here?
We still know so little about Long COVID. For all we know, it's just going to be the next (or contemporary) microplastics debate where we just have to live with it until we start really seeing long term effects. But since it's not affecting our ability to make the rich richer, we won't get much serious mainstream support for the issue. Instead focusing on diligent work in labs in the background.
All that said: I don't do it myself, but I don't judge people who choose to mask up regularly when going out in public. It's a semi-normal thing in Asian communities, and I have two close (non-Asian) friends who do it. If nothing else, COVID de-stigmatized that practice here in the US.
I appreciate that.
As somebody who masks regularly in 2026, I definitely don't judge people who don't. Most people don't know the true risks, and even for those who do, the two lifestyles come with some important tradeoffs that I don't think should be forced on anybody, one way or the other.
I'll take you seriously when I see scientists and doctors masking up and taking the precautions that you COVID truthers still cling to. Go to an infectious disease conference. They don't look like people who think like you.
You'd be surprised how many doctors and scientists would drink, smoke, and use other drugs in spite of being fully versed in what this does to their patients.
Or how many medical professionals continue to be medical professionals while knowing it has an elevated risk of suicide.
It's not hard to find the science backing my claims. As for why doctors don't mask, they're humans too, and just as susceptible to propaganda and competing forces like wanting to "return to normal" or simply having kids in school and assuming getting them to mask is too tall of an order (frankly, it is imo).
Here's a Canadian researcher who still masks and explains how the many 'mistakes' were made in order to convince people to throw caution to the wind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCft7qu1Iv4
For the US version, this is a decent timeline of events:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
The best part was after that extended disinformation campaign, lawmakers asked people what they wanted to do, then told them what they wanted to hear:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240802024326/https://docs.hous...
But that didn't make the threat go away. People just pretended that it did. Group psychology is weird like that. Further compounding matters is the fact that neverending COVID reinfections impacts the part of the brain responsible for executive function, making it that much easier for people to not care. The more common and palatable term is "brain fog." Toxoplasmosis has a similar known reinforcing effect.
Life is a set of tradeoffs. The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
My personal calculation is the reward of enhanced expressiveness when interacting with others is worth the risk of infectious disease in 2026. In 2020, the variables were different!
> The actual occurrence of Long Covid (which can also occur with influenza and other infections) is rare.
Again, it's undercounted. Furthermore, LC is more comparable to AIDS than it is run of the mill influenza in the systems it affects and how. Also, note it took years of denial and lag before people finally acknowledged the long-term damage that AIDS caused. Except here it's not sexually transmitted but instead airborne year round.
Anyway, do you what want. I'm just pointing out most people have been misled, so they can't even make informed decisions. People with LC live with this regret.
Looking at credible sources, it appears that long covid occurs at rates around 1 in 20 to 1 in 30, which is high. It's rational for people who have elevated risk factors to avoid under-ventilated / unmasked gatherings.
The fun thing about science is that it’s not hard to find science backing X claim, and one can keep going on about that, while ignoring all the science backing not X claim.
Actually, the linked researcher addresses exactly that, but not in the way you seem receptive to.
Yeah that’s the fun thing about science, you can pretend to address things too. Seriously though, there is no way I am trusting some random researcher making a youtube video…like what is that. I am a researcher and I can make nonsense youtube videos about things too and throw some science flair around it for good measure.
Nobody's stopping you from playing the SARS equivalent of russian roulette, and you'll clearly find every excuse to do so.
Wow lol, picture perfect comment, in 2026 too.
Whatever you say, boss.
https://www.ajpmfocus.org/article/S2773-0654(25)00146-4/full...
Middle aged European here. I still regularly go to parties (dinner and otherwise) and I notice that there are two kinds of people: people who throw parties, and people who don't. This sounds like a truism, but what I mean is: there are people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, drinking parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. Yes, it costs time and money and is a lot of work. But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
It varies a lot depending on people and personality type. What's energizing to you is very exhausting and unfun to others. Extraversion / introversion basically. I don't like having many people over. 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Making a large party could be "type 2 fun" sometimes, ie exhausting and not very fun at the time, but satisfying to look back on as a kind of hard challenge I managed to accomplish, like climbing a cold mountain or so. But few are enough of those.
I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s. I'm also not too sure it's a good thing. I've seen introversion used as an excuse to hermit; extroversion as the sole reason to use drugs.
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
It seems pretty obvious to me that this also existed in older times. It's a pretty well established and reproducible big five trait. There were always people who were lone wolf types, not necessarily hermits but people who like to be alone.
Ask your parents, it was certainly a thing in the 80s too. Even if I think about my grandparents, they didn't constantly have others over. My grandfather was a chill village guy who liked to spend time alone, working in the garden, working in his shed etc. But there were more regular externally forced events, like big weddings, gathering for a pig slaughter, coming together to renovate the house etc.
What changes is the tradeoff threshold.
Now, being alone is more attractive to more people than before. Some liked being alone even in the times when it just meant books or doing some loner hobby like gardening or woodworking or whatnot. But with Netflix and YouTube the tradeoff shifts. Also as people get more flaky, socialization is even mharder, making people more flaky.
So introverts existed before but today mild introverts may act more introvert-like, who earlier would have preferred to err more on the extravert side.
I personally find that I’m often extroverted and sometimes introverted. I think it’s less helpful to think of this as a static character attribute and more of a mood. I think the parent is pointing to the idea that by labeling something this may reinforce it such that introverts become more introverted by finding validation in books like Quiet, for better or worse. It’s a part of an interesting discussion that doesn’t seem to get talked about much at the very least.
I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone. According to that, I'm an introvert, I need my alone time so that I can recenter myself and recover my energy. I do feel drained when being in events with a lot of people.
But, that doesn't stop the fact that I do like people, I like organizing parties (or rather I don't particularly like the organizing but I like the result of having organized parties and having close friends) at my place and regularly invite friends. It's just that after that I'm exhausted and I need some alone time to recover. So being an introvert doesn't imply that you shouldn't make effort to reach out to people or that you won't enjoy being with others. It just means that having some alone time is necessary to recover.
> I like the definition of extrovert and introvert that says that extroverts are regain their energy by being in group whereas introverts regains there by being alone.
That's the Big 5 meaning, which has some scientific backing. The other one that basically just means social/shy comes from Myers-Briggs, which while popular isn't based on anything and is pretty much just pseudoscience.
I'm an introvert. I occasionally love going to a big conference/event, including regularly speaking at them. I find it incredibly fun, and incredibly exhausting. It's fun and rewarding enough to do anyway despite being exhausting. I know other people who find it energizing.
There are people whose feelings about it vary, but there are also people whose feelings about it are consistent but they do it anyway, and that sometimes gets mistaken for variability.
I feel the same. What I found is that, you need to find what energises you, for me, a dinner party with 2 people would exhaust me. Doing a workshop with 20 people gives me energy (ideas, fun, issues to fix, satisfaction of contributing). As I write this, maybe its that feeling of contribution?
Here's how I feel about it, FWIW:
I taught at a community college for a few years and have spoken at conferences. Those engagements are immensely enjoyable and energizing to me because they're performances. The roles of the audience and presenter are clear. I do my thing and the audience does theirs. I get that energy and enjoyment (a ton more of it, actually) performing live music. I walk off a stage jazzed. It's a wonderful high.
The dinner party scenario is absorbs energy. It's not necessarily less enjoyable than performing, but because it's peer-to-peer there's so much more protocol, nuance, and thought than performing. Even if I'm talking with people I know well I don't walk away energized. With people who are new to me it's a lot of work. Like anything it has come easier w/ practice.
Yeah, so this is the thing, i dont really like public talks with these well defined roles (audience / speaker), i really like cooperative workshops. I learn every time! Ofc i am still in a ‘power position’, but I genuinely learn a lot and compliment the participants when they find a clever hack to some issue, its amazing! Its also not about ‘walking off stage’, its about meeting people and building something, or nothing, over time for me.
I don't know that I've ever done a workshop like you describe. It sounds like it'd be a fun thing to try. I'll have to figure out a way to get into something like that.
… or community?
Sure, but it all depends on whether it's causing you problems or not. There are different ways to life to one's satisfaction. If you're having problems, you should change things up and push through discomfort and friction or just try things. But if you found a balance that works, then it's fine if that involves being alone a lot and just occasionally meeting people. Depends also on phase of life. In college freshman year you probably want to force yourself to go out regardless of how you feel, to establish some contacts and friends. Once you have a circle, it's fine to just live the way you enjoy it actually.
You're making the mistake of supposing that since you are often extroverted you assume that many or even most people must be similar, just on a gradient. This is quite an extroverted think to think, so I believe you :)
I'm here to tell you that you are most certainly wrong on this point. People exist that view this kind of thinking as so bafflingly alien that they can't understand how someone would think it.
Social interactions require enormous expenditure of energy for me. They are not pleasant or energizing, they are rituals that must be accomplished to help me blend into a world that is not designed for me. I am most assuredly not being convinced of this by books I have read.
I think people assume a lot of things based on their own experience.
Some people who are actually somewhat more on the introvert side but force themselves to socialize, think that it's in fact supposed to be a struggle, for everyone, and everyone who seems to enjoy it is to some degree pretending, and is more diligent in putting up with the discomfort, so it's a character quality trait how much you get your act together and endure socialization.
It's like hating blue cheese or certain vegetables or the taste of niche foods. But in fact some people do enjoy the food, and don't eat veggies because they must or have great discipline. In fact this is also true of exercise. It is something that people do enjoy, the pump, the endorphins etc. (Usually it does take getting to a baseline fitness level to make it enjoyable, so it's not a static personality trait.) Similarly with public speaking or working with people all day etc. Some people truly love it and look forward to it. It's not only that they are tough and endure the suffering better. They do like it.
>It seems pretty obvious to me that this also existed in older times. It's a pretty well established and reproducible big five trait.
Parent is not saying there weren't introverts in the 80s. But it wasn't a big thing, and people didn't make it their whole personality, in the numbers they do now.
the last 5-10 years has seen an increasing number of people claiming "i'm an introvert" as a big facet of their personality. it's weird that there isn't a corresponding surge of self-identification as an extrovert (because if there's anybody that would be doing something loudly, it'd be extraverts).
Once I realized my introversion was psychological and mutable, not some fixed aspect of my personality, it changed my life.
We tend to anchor ourselves to labels. Lots of introverts I meet limit themselves in life needlessly because "I'm an introvert!" I see my old self in them.
I see my old self in what you’re saying. I used to be extremely extroverted, spending nearly all my free time socializing, but now I find much more life satisfaction as an introvert. I derive a lasting sense of pleasure and peace from the things I build, especially physical things, while social interactions only created at best a fleeting sense of satisfaction. I also have much more time for reading, contemplation, and enjoying nature.
I get more than enough social time from my partner and a small handful of friends that I see on occasion. I lived quite a full social life, with a huge variety of people and activities, yet surprisingly I don’t find it all that memorable or important in retrospect. It’s a similar feeling to looking back on one of my former careers.
Good on you. But this doesn’t apply to everyone. Hell, I’d even be willing to bet that your case is extremely niche.
Introversion can be a byproduct of so many different things that saying “it’s just a label” is not only absurd by itself, but utterly disrespectful too. It can be a choice too, sure, but that’s not the case for quite a lot of people.
While I believe you're ultimately correct and it's important to recognize that at the macro level, that type of thinking is incredibly caustic and defeatist at the individual level.
We should take every opportunity to make life as fulfilling as possible, even if we don't always succeed due to things outside of our control. (Note: this is an abstract claim for what you want, I'm not saying being extroverted is more fulfilling than being an introvert.)
I personally avoid to think about my self with labels about what "immutable" things "I am". Like "he is tall", "he has Z skin color", "he has 9 fingers", "he has brain type X", "he is thin", etc.
I do care about what values, passions and friends I have, and I have tried to find a set that is consistent.
I do not mind if someone tells me "I am an introvert", even if I do not find it extremely interesting. But if he says "I am introvert and will be unhappy all my life because I can't change that", I can't avoid thinking that he is focusing on something that does not help.
Choice is a spectrum, some things are more choosey than others. My height is not very choosey, what I eat for lunch is somewhat choosey given the choices around me, and what I say is very choosey.
Certainly, what you find comfortable is somewhat choosey. Over time it changes and evolves, from your own experiences. The more you do things, the easier and more comfortable they become.
Maybe it applies to you too. Have you tried ?
This is such a clear headed comment, so many people use this introvert trait as an excuse for not making any effort to reach out even to dear friends, to not step out of their own comfort, and to not take any risk.
I believe that all we have in the world are our relationships, maybe hermits are content in their way of life because they never could truly socialize but I don't know about them being fully happy.
What we call shyness to me could be understood as a lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks. Not to put the blame on anyone of course because it does take real hard work for "introverts". But again, it is to big a deal to be an oversight and not try to be better in your own way.
I don't know if it is clear headed. It disregards scientific consensus on introversion / extraversion being a real thing, and it also speaks against the actual experience of many people. Furthermore, you conflate introverts with hermits.
A lot of introverts actually like contact with other people. They often prefer smaller groups and a certain connection, they are more picky. And need some time alone afterwards.
But that doesn't mean they are hermits.
I used to think I like parties. That I have to like it. That something was wrong with me for not liking it. Now I know it is ok to not have fun at a party, and prefer a walk with a good friend or my wife. I am much happier this way.
As someone who had many years of depression, I know social isolation too. And it is just not the same.
That said, I admit it can at the same thing also be true that people cop out of a healthy way to stretch their boundaries or even expend just a little effort by mistakenly labeling themselves as introvert. Such misuse of the label doesn't mean it doesn't refer to a real thing and a real experience.
I think ADHD is a good parallel. I absolutely have it, I’m diagnosed and have had symptoms since childhood.
But even so, I often realise I self-justify not doing something and attribute it to my ADHD, excessively. It becomes a clutch, and I gravitate away from the willpower I do have.
That reminds me, it’s time to reach out to some friends and make weekend plans, even if I’d prefer having a quiet one. I’ve had too many recently :)
Also have ADHD, and yeah, I've realized that it's even easier to fall into a fixed-mindset trap if you actually have a good justification for it.
My current mantra is "I get to decide who I am." Identity is incredibly mutable, but we tend to get stuck with baked in early assumptions. It's so easy to think "I'm not good at this" and sort of silently translate that to "I could never be good at this," when not being good at a thing is everybody's natural state.
Of course, most skills are going to be easier for some people to pick up and harder for others, but that's rarely the determining factor; more often it's who's put in the time and effort.
It's so easy to forget that so many of these things are skills, and to assume that people that are good at them just got lucky, which is not only counterproductive to oneself, it's kind of disrespectful towards the others who worked so hard to get good at them.
> lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks.
I live this. Even today, I have to make myself be social, I have to practice (my first job as a waiter was the best thing to happen to me).
The human engagement muscle atrophies when you indulge "introversion" (for all definitions and causes), and our age of infinite individual delights has tipped the tradeoff towards "alone and easy". I wish the sensitivity toward and acceptance of "neurodivergent" had more recognition that the way humans have been doing things for the last 15000 years might have had some value.
At least since the agricultural revolution (settling happened at various times depending on region, but we are talking thousands of years, up to 12k) up until a couple of hundred years ago most people lived in small communities of a few hundred people, where their great-great-grandparents also lived, huge extended family networks, regular festivities and behaviors tied to and strongly prescribed by farming work seasons and religious customs, semi-arranged marriages, job/land inherited from father to son.
There is nothing "natural" about living in some cramped city, meeting strangers all the time, trying to build connections and everybody leaving within 3-5 years to hundreds of miles away, navigating relationships online, working for big corporations with no stable coworkers, having to mingle with strangers all the time whose reputation, past etc you know nothing of etc.
The point the person above you is trying to make is that they lived in communities, in constant communication and contact with others. The idea of going home and hanging out by yourself is at least as unnatural as cities where you can still build a relatively stable community if you prioritize that sort of thing.
My point is that it was pretty much automatic and built in. It didn't require active effort, planning, etc. As we became less dependent on those around us and more dependent on large-scale systems of commerce and government, we are simply not forced as much. This is the same with having children and marrying. People "back then" did these things on autopilot, not as active choice. Today it requires active choice and deliberation and planning.
We previously were more accepting, eg, if you read the accounts of various socialites trying to include shy, reclusive, or eccentric friends in high society, you see real effort and concern to include them despite the difference in behavior.
We dropped all that social connection/obligation and associated support it provided for various people when we stopped doing things that historic way.
Talking about a thing to virtue signal is not the same as doing a thing.
It might be clear headed in tone but the argument is fundamentally absurd.
People are different. People have different preferences. Everyone’s mind works in different ways. Any argument that can be summed up as “you’re just no trying hard enough” is fundamentally unsound, unhealthy, unhelpful and entirely disrespectful.
I'm not sure, I think there is value in pushing through friction regardless of if you are introverted or not. One thing that is common to all humans is that loneliness correlates strongly with lack of satisfaction in life and being less healthy.
Before we talked as much about introversion and extroversion, people felt more obligated to do certain social events that they can more easily reject nowadays. That does mean it was uncomfortable and they had to push through friction because it's draining for introverts to do social events but being there also helped with making group of friends and staving loneliness. I do think this change in mores is one of the factors that contributes to the so called loneliness epidemics nowadays.
I'm alone most of the time, but I'm not lonely. Its by choice as I need very little socializing. I used to make an effort to be regularly social, but with the covid lockdowns I realized that I was overall happier with very little socialization. I couldn't come up with any benefit for what it costs me to socialize beyond the little that I actually need.
Hasn't your need for socializing changed over time? It sure has for me.
Thinking back, yes I think that is definitely true. Back before maybe 23 I was constantly looking to be out with people. How much care I have for what people think of me has also been decreasing with age. I socialized more than I wanted to meet other people's expectations and fit in.
People may be different, but that doesn’t mean we should accept it all the time.
I hate exercise. Like I really really really hate it.
Should I just accept this and live a life without it?
I don’t think it’s such a stretch to say that socialisation is similar.
> I hate exercise. Like I really really really hate it. > Should I just accept this and live a life without it?
That is entirely up to you. It's your personal life and your time. No one has the right to say what you should or must do with your time.
Just like socialization, it's up to you on how much you do or don't do. Pretending everyone needs to because you like to is stupid.
Socialization is exhausting, I have to do enough of that working. I am not going to on my personal time. I really don't care what other people think of it, or what justification they use to try and make it some sort of requirement, or how much finger waving they're going to do.
i think some people et confronted with their shyness or awkwardness and they see that a social interaction didn't go smoothly and they conclude "oh, that must be because i'm an introvert". and then they stop practicing those social skills and it becomes self-reinforcing.
those people need to know that extraverts are also awkward and shy, but they've practiced their social skills so over time that gets better.
This reply seems extremely conflating and shallow. How can you reach out if you generalise a whole range of personalities like that? Maybe you did not intend that do that but, i feel semi offended by this comment
The expression "80% of life is just showing up" seemed like such a useless cliche to me, until I tried it.
I'm not too sure about that. Personally I feel like for myself it's tied up with self esteem. I have confidence in my skills, just never when there's strangers watching. Also to maintain the world state in your head and avoid stepping on toes etc.
I can feel my heart rate go up. Sometimes when asking or answering questions in the lecture hall I start quivering. Just the thought of standing up, preparing my question and follow ups can cause this.
You may be right in that it's an excuse. But at the same time there's this disgusting physical reaction and yes it's easier to give in than to stand up.
It's easier to interact with loved ones and close friends because you know they know you and won't judge if you say something wrong etc. But not so for any other interaction.
> I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s.
That doesn't mean it didn't exist then, it means it either wasn't socially acceptable or wasn't understood (or both) then. See also the graphs of left-handedness over time, which were basically flat at the actual level of left-handedness except for a big dip during the century or so when left-handed people were commonly forced to hide it and use their right hands.
In the 80's many schools subjected kids to the Myers-Briggs test and introvert or extrovert was one of the categories it sorted people into. I was found to be introverted which was a bit of a surprise to me. The rest of it felt right to me (I was either INTP or ISTP, I forget which).
As an introvert who grew up in a radically extroverted household, forcing oneself to be an extrovert all the time can be psychologically damaging over time.
It's also a source of chronic fatigue.
I don't think "being extroverted all the time" is the desired outcome that is being demanded. You don't need to do that to throw a dinner party a couple of times a year.
I'm a shy introvert. I find it really difficult to make friends and to connect with people more than on a superficial basis. I have a few friends with whom I can talk for hours about anything and nothing, but when I meet a stranger I dont know what to do.
That being said, I still found a way to serve my community (my mosque). I am chartering a Toastmasters club to help grow people in their public speaking and leadership skills. It's incredibly fulfilling and also humbling because I'm probably the least accomplished person in the room (I'm a college dropout turned SWE, and there are doctors, medical and otherwise, professors, business owners, and more).
I feel way out of my league but there's so much excitement that I feel like I'd be letting the community down if I decided I don't want to talk to anyone for a while.
So yes, I agree with you. Putting yourself into situations where you may start uncomfortable but then eventually it becomes more uncomfortable to start. You just need the activation energy, i suppose.
I used to be a classic "tech guy." Identified as introverted, said I don't like parties, etc etc. The whole bit. Id' be exhausted after social events, need time alone to cool off, and so on.
At some point my partner told me I should stop saying I'm introverted because she saw me always interacting with people and enjoying it. So I reflected, realized she had a point, and stopped identifying as introverted.
Over time I realized that actually, I love interacting with people, especially closer friends. A "party" can be 4-6 people, it doesn't have to be huge. And sure, after larger events I still need some time to cool down, but stopping identifying as introverted has been a huge improvement overall to my life.
From my memory of the 80’s, the introverts dealt with the stress of dealing with so many people for so long by quietly getting drunk enough to talk to people.
With less people, this happens less nowadays.
> but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s
Honestly if this doesn’t sound a “the fuck am I saying?” alarm in your head I don’t know what to tell ya.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. People have different social tendencies. People have always had different social tendencies. And this is way before you even factor in things like neurodivergence possibly tilting one towards preferring isolation or more intimate/lone activities.
It boggles the mind that anyone would think the introversion/extraversion dichotomy a product of modern times.
It’s a little odd how everyone is misreading this comment.
They are not saying that introverted and extroverted characteristics did not exist in people, they are saying that people did not run around proclaiming their introverted or extroverted status in the same way they do today and they didn’t use it to rationalize behaviour to the same extent.
Big 5 traits like extraversion are pretty conclusively genetic and meaningful. Twin studies show strong heritability, and personality studies show meaningful lifetime outcome differences (extraverts earn more, etc).
GP appears to be using the Myers-Briggs definition instead of the Big 5 definition. It's popular but has no backing like Big 5.
MB extraversion correlates basically the same as Big 5. They are more similar than different
I think the introvert vs. extrovert thing has become almost a meme. I would definitely describe myself as “generally introverted” but I still very much enjoy many “extroverted” activities. I get the same sense of satisfaction and enjoyment out of throwing a party for people as the OP described. I will not be the center of attention at my own party, but I still enjoy the act of making other people happy. In fact, most likely what will happen is once everything is running smoothly and people are having fun, you’ll find me out on the back deck where it’s quiet talking to only one or two other people.
“Throwing a party” is not an introvert vs. extrovert thing. What you do at the party is.
Humans have a great capacity to convince ourselves of anything, it's the beauty of language! For every decision you want to make, you can always find one quote or idiom supporting it, and another against it. Yes we have to learn from the lessons of history yet every time "it's different this time"!
I agree that everyone should make an effort to exercise and socialize (as well as other difficult but rewarding tasks). But it's undeniable that different people respond to these things differently. Some people feel energized after difficult exercise, others feel drained. Some people find socialization exhilarating, others find it exhausting.
Encouraging someone to push past their comfort zone is helpful. But it seems less helpful to imply that you know more about the bounds of their comfort zones than they do, or that their comfort zone must simply be a cultural construct because it doesn't match yours.
The cultural idea of "introversion" tends to be a bit different than the psychological idea as far as i understand.
e.g. It is not supposed to be about how much you like socializing or how good you are at it.
I think the concept has some value, but like most behavioral labels they’ve become so loosely defined and abused that they barely mean anything any more.
I can’t count how many people have chatted my ear off and bounced around the office, engaging other people in spontaneous enthusiastic conversation every day, only later to have them claim they’re introverted. The colloquial usage has expanded to encompass anyone who some times feels like staying home and watching Netflix instead of going out on Friday night. In other words, everyone.
I agree that it also becomes an excuse. I’ve had friends who really enjoy socializing and going to social events and also lament social isolation and loneliness, but being an “introvert” becomes the driving factor in their decision making about what to do on weekends or after work. You can see how much they enjoy social events when they’re basically obligated to attend (weddings, special event parties, immense peer pressure from friends trying to get them out of the house) but when left to their own decisions they’ll decide to stay home and be lazy 10 out of 10 times with “I’m an introvert” as the excuse. I’m excluding people with conditions like social anxiety disorder from this description, before anyone comments with whatabouts.
It gets really bad when they reach their 30s and 40s and they wonder why their friends have stopped sending invites to things (because they never accept) and they complain that dating is impossibly difficult (because they only leave the house for work)
I'm confused because it sounds like you're describing social anxiety, but then saying it's not social anxiety. I have social anxiety so I can't really imagine why somebody would act like that if they didn't.
Imagine if you didn’t feel like running, and you made yourself do it, and after a few K you were like “this sucks, I wish I’d stayed home” and you finish your run and you didn’t enjoy it at all. But people keep telling you how great it is so you keep doing it and you keep hating it and after a while you eventually decide that running is not for you.
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
This is never a popular take but I think you completely nailed it. Anytime I see someone who has framed their world through the extrovert/introvert lens it's always done as justification for antisocial behavior. Lots of buzz phrases like "needing to recharge your batteries" while never admitting that socializing itself is a skill that needs practice to improve at so it doesn't feel like as much work.
> socializing itself is a skill that needs practice to improve at so it doesn't feel like as much work
So is playing basketball.
A skill, how funny. Thats something only a "mainstream" person can say. You can practice your social skills as much as you want, if you are for some reason not a mainstream person. Because, now, if you go out, and try to "socialize", everyone and their dog will hit on you being special, and ruin your social experience basically forever. Did you ever try to socialize as a disabled person, for instance. You know, the hardest part of that game is to have a "normal" conversion, without random strangers going for the "Oh, now that I meet you, I have this pressing question I always wanted to ask", followed by a very unreflected, many times insulting, question about your disability, and how you cope with it. You will try that for a few months. Maybe even for years. Until you finally grow up, and realize that interacting with mainstream society is useless and will ALWAYS only hurt you in the long run. Sure, you can learn to cope by ignoring certain people, and trying to pick the good parts. But the more you do this, the more you will realize it is a lost game.
So please, don't unnecessarily simplify your analysis. It leaves a lot to be desires.
I am friends with and know disabled people that enjoy socializing, some far more than I do. I guess they never grew up.
Oh, you are friends with a disabled person, that of course, is something totally different. I didn't realize I am talking to an enlightened human.
"I am friends with a disabled person" is almost as revealing as "I have experience, I am a social worker." Both types of people usually are so obnoxious, that I try to put distance between them and me as a knee jerk reaction.
Introversion means "finding company tiring". It doesn't mean you don't enjoy company. Most (but not all) introverts find company to be pleasurable for a limited period of time.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Then invite 3 or 4 people over. That's much more than what most people do. Sounds like the optimal party size to me.
You're right. Since I'm an introvert myself, I enjoy organizing events and inviting people over, because as the host, I always have a reason to change locations and get some “space” when the socializing becomes too much for me.
This is true as well. If you are otherwise not very social, being the organizer gives you a clear role and clearer expectations and tasks and reasons for people to start talking to you and vice versa. I find this helpful, as unstructured social environments are harder for me.
Even introverts need social connection (perhaps more so) - research here [1]. Introverts are people who feel they have used energy when interacting socially, rather than gaining energy from social interaction. It's not shyness or anti-social traits.
It will feel like more of a chore for introverts, but it's like a chore you need to do even if it feels bad in the moment, like doing laundry or exercising.
And worse for introverts - people who never invite other people eventually stop getting invited themselves, so to maintain social connection requires introverts to sometimes be the driver of the event.
[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10328046/
Its unlike a chore in that there are obvious benefits to doing laundry and exercising. The same isn't true for socializing more than you require. As an introvert I definitely do need some social connection, but I don't need very much of it and I'm happiest being alone most of the time.
> The same isn't true for socializing more than you require.
That seems very much like exercising, no? You need a certain level of exercise to maintain basic physical capability but past that point there are diminishing returns. So if you truly detest exercising (or socializing) then you can stop there and still lead a healthy, functional life.
Sort of. Specifically the amount of exercise needed to maintain basic physical capability is roughly the same for everyone (barring injuries or chronic issues) where as the amount of socialization people need to not feel lonely varies quite significantly. I don't find my minimum amount of socialization to be a chore, but my minimum is quite low. Anything beyond that does feel like a chore.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Even that is a challenge of finding the mental energy to pick the date , see that everyone can come, picking some activity (or if you're hosting - make sure with your wife that the date is fine. What about your kids - you wanna put them in bed before?) etc etc. Some of it is probably no big deal but my brain is making it look big, perhaps because I lean introvert as well. It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
Helps if your friends are uncomplicated. We just chat, drink beer, make or order pizza, cook or bake something else, talk about work and family, sit in the sun, maybe play cards or just listen to music, talk about stories at recent events like concerts, rehash old stories, or updates about other friends, etc. There is no need to make a big deal about any of this.
But this is not a networking or new-friend-making style of party of course. Not even really a party, but fits "inviting people over for dinner".
I think a big problem is that people see this also as a thing where efficiency and productivity is important and they plan complicated activities etc. Similarly to how kids don't get much free time to just play and relax, adults also try to organize activities for themselves when just being together is often enough and the rest follows naturally.
I understand the feeling, what worked for me was "you know what, fuck it, I will just plan it more loosely, let's see what goes wrong or who is unhappy".
Most of the times, everybody is happy even if things are not perfectly planned, and then they thank me for the "effort" (which was minimal, and sometimes can introduce confusions, as I need to adjust the date or the style as more constraints become evident).
I sometimes think it's a problem of my education of engineering as well, because I want everything planned well, think of all exceptional cases, etc.
> It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
I think this gets at the heart of the concern—it’s always easier to find something else distracting to do, but what’s the real cost? I don’t really know how to measure that, other than to say that American society and culture are doing particularly poorly right now.
This is something that has been going for generations and centuries. We are less and less dependent on people near us and more dependent on father-away large-scale systems. Same with extended families, neighborhood communities, etc.
You're right. But I think it's more than just about being an introvert or extrovert. In the past, boredome created a reason for most people to visit someone, play cards, host friends, or go somewhere. At present, more and more people (introverts and extroverts) are already turning to social media, streaming, gaming, YouTube, and any other online platforms as these offer modern, instant, unlimited entertainment with almost no coordination or planning.
> but my brain is making it look big
100%
You can say naaa fuck it and open Youtube when your friends are over, as well as putting your kids to bed when they're there. It's fine!
I am not speaking to you personally, but I think that in general there is a very large trend right now of people who believe they are introverts when really they are suffering an accumulation of social anxiety that life has freed them from the need to work through.
I suspect that for many, if they had less social anxiety, they would actually prefer to socialize more. But the most successful way to reduce an anxiety is through exposure therapy: forcing yourself to do the thing. And in today's world it is much too easy to simply avoid exposing yourself to any socialization.
I see a lot of people who claim to be very introverted. But, also, a lot of those people are unhappy. They may be comfortable, but that's not the same as happy.
I am pretty introverted but over the years I have accumulated a large set of friends. I don’t call all of them at once. But I do sets of 6-10 at a time.
I won’t go to a bar or a club alone. I don’t like it. But a good set of friends in a familiar location like my house (or theirs) makes for a really good time. We definitely try to get together at least once every couple of months.
I think you're spot on about it being type 1/type 2: people have stopped doing a lot of type 2 fun activities, because they have many more type 1 fun activities and because it's no longer socially obligatory to have type 2 fun.
If you do type 2 fun often enough, the level of anxiety drops. Imagine hosting a game night once: you have to ensure all your friends can attend, you agonize over the snacks, over picking the right games to play.
But if you power through and establish a tradition or join an existing one, it becomes simple, e.g.: every Thursday at 7pm you meet for a game of whatever you've been playing last week and a new game the host picked, the host brews tea, the guests bring whatever snacks they want. At the end of the session, you choose which game to play next week: the old one or the new one.
Extroverted what, though? Introverted what?
You can't just say "Oh boy am I an introvert." and just leave it at that.
Some people are extroverted picking their nose. Let me explain what I mean. That means they do it in front of others and don't give a fuck, or they might apologise when they get called out, and just do it all over again next minute. That's me. Other people are introverted picking their nose. They go away in private and they go ahead and pick their nose now that nobody is around. They're not necessarily in denial about it, and sometimes you can get them on the topic and compare notes. That's my wife.
I think of my wife and myself as extroverts and we do have a very large social circle. Still we don’t host as often as we wanted, maybe once every two months. One of the reasons is it can get very expensive. The last party we threw was a Sunday brunch for about 15 adults and a handful of kids, and we spent over $500 just in pastries. People still bring stuff but we don’t expect them to. Dinner can get even more expensive particularly if you cook meat dishes these days. Then all the time it takes which also translates into money. To host a dinner party it takes me part of the week shopping and the entire weekend cooking and organizing. So most times is better just to call a couple of friends and go out to a restaurant.
$25 a person just in pastries is pretty astounding. I think I could make it happen with the most expensive bakery (which is imo not the best in town but close to it) and eating little else. So hats off, that’s impressive. Hope they were enjoyed, great pastries are really a delight.
I could see it easily if it's a "catered" order e.g. specific numbers of each type of pastry, packaged carefully, etc. vs. just going down to a retail bakery and buying whatever they made that day and throwing it in a box.
Eh, in this economy I think it's fine to request contribution, either material or monetary. Also once every two months or so is pretty decent, cheers to you
That certainly makes sense at an individual level, but it seems implausible as an explanation of the dramatic shift over the past decades from TFA, unless basic character traits have shifted dramatically over the past decades as well.
Character traits, technology, leisure time, have all changed.
It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.
At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.
But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.
A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.
Depends what you do. I enjoyn hosting big parties because I spend a lot of time cooking for them, which I love doing and everyone appreciates. Then I have the opportunity to interact as much as I want.
I wonder if intro/extra-version is less explanatory than the people-who-enjoy-doing-things-on-vacation vs people-who-enjoy-doing-nothing-on-vacation divide. I'm an introvert who loves throwing parties because I can perform hosting chores if I feel awkward (prep food, do dishes, refill drinks, introduce people).
That said, hiking up a mountain sounds like a great vacation to me, in a type 1 and 2 way. Active recreation is my gratifying form of recreation (balanced of course with some down time after), but I know this sounds like hell to a lot of people. I'm not sure we have a word for this divide as a culture.
We’re all tired of introverts claiming they get to do nothing in society because it’s so hard for them.
Honestly. Put up or shut up.
It me. 100% me.
I, too, like going to (some) parties, but more often I don't. I like hosting, but only small groups of people (3-6ish), and I cannot handle more than dozen at my place, though I don't mind going to parties where there are more. It's just that I end up talking with the handful of people I know.
Planning parties is, well, exhausting. Hosting them is exhausting. I'd much rather talk, chat with, go to concerts with, workout with, hike with people, than go to parties or host them.
When it comes to parties, I want to be invited, but don't want to go.
If there's one club I belong to, it's probably the Groucho Marx club. "I woudn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I used to believe in this dichotomy but not anymore. I've seen ppl go from shutin to extroverts after they have kids. So called introverts never learn how to enjoy socialization so it drains them.
I dont know where it started but we've turned this whole introvert/extrovert stuff into some sort of immutable characteristic.
Having kids gives people instant common experiences and things to talk about.
Reproduction also causes some pretty intense biophysical changes which may well alter personality. It is silly to act like it is just due to reasoning...
Introversion is a skill issue. People who aren’t extroverts are just not as good at socialising, so they find it difficult and tiring, but they could get better and then it would be easy.
I agree about the two groups. I spent years trying to invite some friends to our home for dinner, but we always had "scheduling conflicts." Then one time I suggested going out to a restaurant, and we immediately scheduled it and did it that weekend. I finally figured out that they didn't want to come to our home because they thought that then they would have to recipricate and invite us over, which they didn't want to do.
I think it would be so nice if people just took what I said at face value sometimes… if I invite you over it’s because I want you in my house, not because I secretly want to visit yours.
What I would do is to invite people to a restaurant for a reciprocation to their invitation of us to their home. We would honestly acknowledge that we don’t know how to cook well and don’t plan to improve that before the universe dies.
I know different social circles are different, but have you considered inviting people to your house for takeout? Maybe dining out is what you'd prefer anyway, but if you wanted some sort of games/movie/casual hangout at your place but didn't want to cook, getting takeout could be an appropriate compromise.
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
As someone who has (and occasionally still does) throw parties, I totally do not relate. It's just tiring. I don't have time to mingle with the guests.
I prefer small, simple invitations. Ideally 2 families. Simple food. Not a lot of ceremony. Get together and talk (or play games, or whatever).
Similarly, I've drastically reduced going to bigger parties - at least with some hosts. These are people I like and want to spend time with, but they only throw large parties, and I get virtually no time with them at the party - they're too busy.
What I'm finding is that - as you noticed - people tend to want to be all or nothing. I'm having trouble finding people like me. I want to socialize, but not this way.
When I read the article, I immediately thought of several reasons he hadn't listed. Too tired to go into detail, but some of them are: Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem (4 being the lower bound). Dual income with kids - we barely get enough time with the kids, and throwing a big party means neglecting them much, much more. Several other factors. This really is death by a thousand cuts.
> Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem
I didn't relate to most of what you said, but I definitely see this sentiment. I hosted parties all the time till I got married, albeit not for logistical reasons. She's very unkeen on having people in her space, and carving out space for me was already a sacrifice for her.
Now I wish my friends hosted parties because I'd 100% go.
I think 2 families counts as a dinner party.
It could. But I also mentioned "Simple food, not a lot of ceremony." :-)
2 families over with simple food is still the hosting talked about in the article.
Oh I get it. The point is my social circle doesn't. They want "good" food, and ceremony.
> Middle aged European here. I still regularly go to parties (dinner and otherwise) and I notice that there are two kinds of people: people who throw parties, and people who don't
Middle aged American here. I go to more social gatherings than I have in any time since college.
I would add a second dimension to your stratification: People who have kids and those who don’t. Once you have kids who enter school age, there are more social opportunity than you have time for. Even many of the people who never threw parties before now host a few cookouts or birthday parties per year.
The events are based on people who attend the same school or whose kids are friends with your kid, so you’re not always hitting it off with all of the other parents as future best friends. However you do get exposed to a lot of new people and each new introduction increases your odds of finding people you connect with.
One realization is that it didn’t actually require having kids to start doing all of this. Inviting people over for a backyard cookout or a simple dinner was always easy. Easier without kids, actually. Most simply don’t make the initiative.
Another problem is the increasing burden that people create for themselves or their friends with social events: Expectations of bringing gifts, showing up with a bottle of wine that isn’t too cheap, dressing nicely, and the biggest event killer of all: Trying to find a date that works for everyone of the guests. Parent get together dispense with all of that. Everyone’s busy with kids. If you show up for 30 minutes in shorts and a T-shirt bearing no gifts and you have to leave early, everyone is just happy you came. A date is sent out and whoever is available can come. If not, we’ll see you next time.
Question for you or anyone else: as a forty-something single person without kids, is it reasonable to try to make friends with this crowd?
Most people my age do have kids, especially given that I'm living somewhere fairly quiet. I like kids and get along with them well -- indeed, to the extent that I'd happily occasionally babysit for free. But parents seem to be living in a different world.
One difficulty is that most parents seem to be deeply invested in their home lives and daily routines, in a way that I find difficult to relate to, which can make small talk difficult. But one way or another, I should probably make some attempts to expand my social life.
Yes this definitely happens. School events, or having a groups of kids who are together on a soccer team, brings a group of parents together. But in my experience they are relationships of convenience. I've never formed any friendships from this that have persisted after the kids got older, dispersed to other schools/teams or went off to college. Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
> Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
That's too bad. I would say most of the other parents I meet aren't people I'd hang out with outside of kid events, but when you go to a lot of events you meet so many other adults that your odds of finding new friends goes up substantially
That’s so interesting because I feel like I always hear the opposite from my friends with kids (in the US) - that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
The way they talk about it, they’re limited to only hanging out with people who similarly have kids, and whose kids get along with their kids. They’re cut off from most of their other friends’ normal social activities, even if they have a really good babysitter, which is a rare luxury. Sometimes they hang out with other parents they don’t even particularly like, just because both of them having kids makes it possible.
I can think of several times in the last year alone where I’ve been looking forward to meeting my friends, only to have our plans ruined upon arriving and realizing that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
idk. I understand how there’s a sort of solidarity and flexibility to the friends you make with fellow parents, but just from the outside, it looks like that’s barely making do with what you’ve got, not free to be socializing the way you actually want to.
> that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
This is only true if you limit your definition of "real" event to one without kids.
The social gatherings I was talking about have people bring their kids.
If you're not a parent and your only experience with parenting is through friends' lamentations about parenting, this probably won't land. What I'm trying to communicate is that the events are different, but they're not bad or unenjoyable. It's actually a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of new people too.
I know a few parents whose kids will only get along with a small number of close friends, but that's a minority. We takes our kids to different parks and they've learned to play with random kids that they've never met and may never see again. This is common for well socialized kids.
> that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
I'm sorry to say, but this seems a lot like a you problem. I don't know why you'd think that wine tasting at a winery would be a kid-friendly event without checking.
Your location might play a part in it. I literally cannot think of a brunch venue, including $100/person places with reservation lists here, that don't allow minors. When making a reservation you tell them how many adults and how many kids, so that should have come up unless this was they were really unfamiliar with going out with kids? Either way, these problems are not frequent. As a parent you do a cursory check of a venue to make a judgment call if it's kid friendly or not.
My wife is an extrovert and I'm an introvert. We are also the party throwers. If we didn't throw parties I don't think our extended family on her side would ever see each other. But even as an introvert, I feel very grateful and energized after hosting people at our home.
I relate to this. My extravert wife throws the parties. I’m the introvert. I enjoy parties at our place so much more than at other peoples.
Same situation for me - my wife is an extrovert's extrovert, and I am on the introvert side. However, I'm the one who organizes and hosts a quarterly cocktail party. It's a lot work - after every one of these parties I tell myself "I'm not doing those anymore". But I've received so much positive feedback from the attendees that I end up doing it again. It ultimately is very satisfying and worth the effort for me.
I love hosting, especially because I have invested a lot in my cooking skills. However, now inviting someone over means hosting an entire family and my job has evolved into cleaning, doing dishes, and prepping food, while everyone else is having the time of their life (we don't have a large space). Just not so enjoyable, so we have slowly stopped doing them and others rarely host them as well. An alternative is that we now do dinner picnics at the park, way more easier and no one is stuck doing hosting work.
A simple solution to that is to distribute the chores. For larger parties I always ensure I have help. Many people actually like contributing to a party in non-material ways by doing prep work or some cooking, doing the dishes, selecting the music, etc.
Totally agree with this. People are usually pretty eager to help out (particularly the introverts - this can give them a momentary break from socializing, while alos making them feel included).
I'd get more energy from sitting alone in a dark room than by throwing a - or attending a - party...
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy attending (never throwing) parties on occasion, but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.
It's very much down to different personalities.
> but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.
Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting, spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
Usually people feel great afterwards because of the experience and despite it being hard work and taking time to recover from. Parties etc. can be the same.
> Parties etc. can be the same.
They can for some, but to be very clear, I don't. I feel mentally drained in a way I absolutely do not enjoy. The experience can be fun during, but the net benefit to me is low enough, and for many types of socialising it's firmly in the negative, that I restrict myself very much in terms of what socialising I consider worthwhile.
As I said, it's very much down to your personality - most of the time I'd rather spend time in peace and quiet alone or with my wife or son (and I need some of that time to be entirely alone)
This is true on some level, and what you describe has been called type 2 fun. But for plenty of people, partying and socializing is really type 1 fun, they find it enjoyable the way some of us find working on programming or other nerd things intrinsically rewarding in the moment, which they may see as unfun but potentially good for you long term.
My point is, yes, sometimes it's good to just ignore the discomfort and push through, but we should also know that it's not how everyone feels about it. Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us. I don't know proportions, but these people exist. Of course plenty of people are somewhere in the middle range, where they enjoy some aspects while hating the rest, and the thing they enjoy about loud clubs is likely about prospects getting laid and similar stuff.
> Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us.
The funny thing is that I used to go clubbing regularly because to me that was not about socialising per se. I'd be happy to go alone into an anonymous mass of people and just dance and switch off. I'd still need time to recover, but not nearly as much as with a group of people I'm expected to talk to.
That's universally held for me in other contexts as well. E.g. I can speak in front of thousands - and have - and not stress out at all. They're a non-descript mass at that point. I'm just talking, not conversing. But if any of them try to corner me to talk to me afterward? That is exhausting.
Call me introvert or not, before doing the exercise I feel a little resistance to do it, but after - feel very energized. For parties: it's diametrically different - feel big boost of dopamine before party, but after - I feel some regrets, so I'm just trying to not think about later.
I don't feel regrets per se, but I do certainly need to recover, while after exercise I feel good. Regular exercise usually makes me more likely to exercise more, while with social functions that's not viable for me.
> Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting,
Those don't make me feel great afterwards either. I'd just feel I spend half a day just to end up where I already was.
> spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
These would give me a good feeling. The result is what gives me the dopamine hit.
The result is the only thing about exercise that I enjoy. It's the data, not the feelings. I don't like going to the gym. I don't like doing my exercises. I don't feel better afterwards (usually the opposite: I'm tired and sore). I don't compete or compare myself to anyone else. But I do like seeing that e.g. my bench press is 5 lbs better this week. That's the entire reward for me.
Only a specific subset of people enjoy running a marathon. Hell, as it is a fixed length (and not a fixed duration), it is even worse if you are not at the top of fitness and VO2max: how many people would enjoy running for 6+ hours?
I do think it’s possible to move between categories though. I used to have potlucks and house parties every month in my twenties, but now a decade later I just don’t really have much interest in the idea.
It might just be a rationalization, but the way I justify it is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more what actually matters to me, and being a party host / spending time at parties doesn’t fit that category. I’d rather spend my time doing something else.
I think I had the opposite as I got older. I didn’t really like the bigger parties after something like high school, but now that I’m middle aged I like the idea of uncomplicated social interactions with strangers.
> It might just be a rationalization, but the way I justify it is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more what actually matters to me, and being a party host / spending time at parties doesn’t fit that category. I’d rather spend my time doing something else.
Well it's happening to the vast majority of people all at once, I don't think it's age, at least not only that. I haven't read the whole article yet perhaps he offers ideas on why this is happening but I'm guessing - better alternatives (Netflix), increased individualism etc. Society has changed a lot.
Fair point, although I do think it’s fairly typical generally for people to become less social as they get older, find a partner, get more serious about their career, etc. with the trends aside.
I'm not sure if it's by desire though. Perhaps there is less time to spend with others to build durable bonds or less opportunity to socialize. With many of the people I know it seems that people are eager to socialize again when the kids are out of the house. So it doesn't seem to be older -> less social.
I am not sure that's 100% the case. Sure as children and even through college it's easy to make friends, but as we get older, we certainly are exposed to more people and more opportunities if we choose so.
I think the major problem though is due to the way the world is rapidly shifting, and people's utter mental exhaustion, it's easier to sit and do nothing and become a mindless drone to 'the boob tube' or rather your phone than it is to be with your community.
This isn't something new, it's just becoming more evident, especially as there are less and less communities.
Just think about it, you likely live in some sort of apartment, town house, or suburban area, and how well do you know your neighbors? One apartment/house over, two, three? Or maybe just a friendly nod when you pass, but nothing more.
I don't know that I agree. My dad used to be pretty solitary when he was younger, but now that he's retired, he's constantly socializing and has built a large network of friends (which is really good for his mental health).
I think you are agreeing with me. Retired = not worried about career. People aged late 20s to say, mid-50s tend to be very career-focused.
The main bullet points I get for reasons involve
1. People work more. In particular, the shift to dual-income households means that women, who traditionally planned most parties before, no longer have time.
2. the shift to "lots of kids, sparse parenting" to "few kids, lots of investment" becomes another time sink focusing families inwards on themselves instead of outwards on the wider community
3. People just have less friends. especially so for a) single b) non college-degree and c) lower-income people. Probably due to #1 and the whole dating app epidemic no one has had a serious conversation about yet.
4. And yes, as you alluded to, it is "more fun to be alone" in the modern day. Less incentive to go out if you don't "feel" lonely nor bored.
I guess I could have just quoted the provided summary, but where's the fun in that?
>In sum: The death of the host is the story of lonely unmarried people and harried married dual-earner households; anxious parents spending more time with their children and less time with friends; and the typical home becoming such a riot of diverting comfort that people no longer have to invite human beings to interrupt their boredom.
Is that it though, parents with no time? Do single people with no kids socialize more than parents once they are past high school and college? Im not so sure.
We used to have parties. But then my wife had a few realisations:
1. "I hate losing sleep, and there are very few things in the world now important to me than a good night's sleep".
This has been a life changer for both of us. I used to be a late owl, but when she started going to bed at 9:30,I did too. We now have competitive "what was your sleep score" in the mornings over breakfast
2. "I do not enjoy conversations with more than 3 other people at the same time"
I don't mind crowds and can "hold forth" with entertaining stories and have fun doing it, but my wife has social anxiety that really only emerged in larger groups. She doesn't even like going to parties or bars, and after a few drinks, leaves me to it.
3. "I don't like getting wasted, and I don't even like getting slightly drunk if it screws up my sleep"
For me it's more medical. While I'm perfectly healthy, I noticed around the age of 45 that red wine gives me palpitations and tachycardia. Lots of beer (especially really nice beer) does the same. My father is 99 years old because he never drank alcohol. I honestly believe a single hangover would actually kill him. But certainly, years of "not kicking the shit out of his insides with booze" have contributed to his long life.
This. It’s also why I started celebrating my birthday and throwing a party. I am not doing it for me, I am an introvert and it is a lot of work, but I am doing it for my guests who have a great time.
(For perfectionists: people always have a good time when there’s some food and drinks and other people. Everything else, even music, is really optional.)
I used to throw parties not long ago. At least once a week, often more than that. Anywhere between 5 and 35 people.
Then I became a single father and I haven't thrown a single party since then.
Damn I miss throwing parties.
Personal experience and observation so take it for what it's worth: people are more flaky and less committal now.
It used to be if you throw a party and invite a bunch of people, the ones that say they'll come will probably come. Now, you invite a bunch of people, you get mostly a bunch of maybe and half don't show up.
It makes it both harder to plan and have the social risk of a dud of a party. Worst thing you want as a host is people not having a good time.
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
I doubt its that they forget - it probably just isn't gratifying to them. Different people find different things gratifying.
This is my experience exactly. We used to host a monthly board gaming party before we moved and it was very energizing and exhausting at the same time.
After the two kids the games disappeared and it just became a normal party where we could talk and such and a playdate for the our and the other parents kids.
We will probably do it again when we settle into a new home at least I hope.
Thanks you for this comment.
I’m bad at throwing parties and I’m a bad cook.
So instead I invite friends/family to stay over. Even with kids.
Thats also very gratofying, play some board games, sit next to the fire and then have breakfast together.
Best way to copē with the world at it’s current state.
(Also a European here, mildly affectrd ny war)
This is my experience too, and I'm more of an introvert who finds throwing a party both gratifying and exhausting. There are friends who reciprocate and friends who don't, and I don't judge.
I think people who throw parties are invited to parties.
People who don't throw parties might want to think about this. :)
I'd like to share my experience throwing parties, and some thoughts on introversion & extroversion.
I held weekly board game nights at my home for a year or two during the latter part of COVID. I loved board games and missed the weekly meetups that stopped happening due to lockdown. I only invited very close friends, all of whom are still very close. And I genuinely ruined my love of board games from how frustrating the experience proved to be. I put in a lot of effort to be a good host and everyone sure seemed to want to play board games, but over and over it was like herding cats once they were over. They were all acting in good faith, and yet that experience burned me out so much and my brain now associates board games with that experience so much that I barely play anymore, and don't enjoy it like I once did.
Now whether you want to use the label "introvert" or not, I was determined to push outside of my comfort zone that was staying in alone. But each of those dozens of nights drained me in a way that that cumulatively has left an emotional scar deep enough to impact my identity (being a person who loves board games was part of who I was, a part I liked)
I suspect that of the ways people will respond to this story, there are two that will be most common
1. What the heck are you talking about? I can't imagine having that experience
and
2. Yeah, that tracks
Whether or not you call those groups extrovert & introvert, and whether you believe such preferences are inherent, learned behavior, or social conditioning, here is a truth:
Trying to change your nature, however you came to have it, comes with a cost and can go wrong.
So for those who consider introversion to be mere choice, I encourage you to be less flippant in how you try to convince people of that.
100% I have been a "party thrower" for years and it is obvious that the bulk of our friend group never hosts an event. I think this is probably the way it's been with humans for a long time though. It is an interesting observation.
> Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
Every culture with a tradition of being a welcoming host has a saying along the lines of, “the pleasure is in the preparation”.
For those of us that live that life, it’s hard to imagine it any other way.
I self-identify as an introvert and don't much like social obligations. Nevertheless it's nice every once in a while that my wife drags me into them. If she's not there as a catalyst, I would probably be rotting at home with vitamin D deficiency.
Grateful for people who host and provide social opportunities even though I'm sometimes not outwardly social.
This also depends on the pennies we have to spare. I also as a middle aged and middle class European like to invite friends over, but the youth these days (and many many adults, at least around here) don't have the money to spend on this. Not the only reason, but a substantial one IMO.
This seems to be the divide between introverts and extroverts.
My wife and I have hosted dinner parties a few times. I have never gotten the same sense of gratification that you have.
there's more than two types, because the type that never throws parties can be subdivided into smaller groups of people who throw parties due to familial requirements - kids, visiting relatives from other countries and so forth.
I got tired just reading this comment.
In the almost 11 years I have owned my home, I just hosted a group for the second time. It was a game night with dinner.
You are right: It was work, it was money. I am not exactly a social butterfly, but even I was able to pull off a gathering of four other people. It was so worth it, because we all had an absolute blast.
It was also very much needed. So I, for one, plan on doing my part to counter this trend.
People might be getting fatter or more unfit. Still there are subcultures where people are fit as all --. The commitment is unreal. The amount they can talk about fitness is truly endless. And if you asked them it would be all about character and social milieu. Things might have changed in the last decades, but that’s at best uninteresting facts to them.
More and more divergence, subcultures, while the mean tends towards a bad direction. And no understanding. Because why don’t they Just Do It?
Edit: But I hear that Europe is a large country.
> But I hear that Europe is a large country
Some say it isn't even a country /s
asabiyyah is a vital component to the survival of civilization
> But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc.
Nope. Its a bunch of work and stress and thoroughly beaten by a dull night in. If I want to bring people together, I'll pay for it to be done - e.g. a restaurant.
It depends who you invite. I organized a lot of parties in my youth with some that escalated and that burned me a bit. Now I am very reluctant to organize something and have not done so in a while, but when I do and it works, it is amazing. Helping bringing people together. Connecting, having a good time and people feel grateful for it.
Now with the great late summer, it would be a great time for something like this again, but I just did not felt the energy, but also am a bit sad now to not just make something happen.
> It depends who you invite.
True. If I invite nobody it about matches the night in.
The article actually mentions lower income people rarely hosting anything, and simply having less frienships. So it is also in some small part an economic issue.
Absolutely true about the two divisions in people.
I had an introverted girlfriend who enjoyed my tradition of inviting couples over for small dinner parties, but if said couple didn't reciprocate the invitation within some arbitrary period, she would claim they were impolite and we shouldn't invite them anymore.
My view was and is: the number of people happy to be invited to a party is lower than the number of people who are happy to host. It's not rudeness, nor even selfishness; it's sometimes just a flavor of introvert behavior.
If this weren't true, you'd be too busy with invites to think of some friends as "they always throw great parties".
I can feel equally socially energised meeting people outside and I don't have to spend hours cleaning up after!
It's almost unbelievable that people like you exist. Attending a gathering is torture enough. Hosting one, repeatedly at that, sounds like living in the ninth circle of hell.
Thanks for your service to humanity.
One thing you may not have thought about is that not everyone has a big enough social circle to throw parties.
I'd love to throw amazing parties, but I can't reliably expect more than 2-3 people to show up, so I don't try.
alright, where do I rsvp?
There's a third and fourth group. People who get invited to these parties and people who are never invited to parties
And if you're in the third group, but don't actually accept the invites, you will find yourself in the fourth group. People eventually stop inviting those who never show up.
>people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I have no doubt it might seem that way, but it doesn't seem like an interesting divide because the categorization doesn't really tell you anything about the people. But it's definitely a good rule of to thumb to remember the next time someone feels annoyed that "so and so never throws parties." It's also true when you visit friends in cities you never been. Some are natural and enthusiastic tour guides, some shun such a role.
But my guess is many the "never hosts" threw at least one party in the past and had a terrible experience and decided they suck at it.
I'm also assuming the never people you know are capable of throwing parties in terms of house size etc, and that you accounted for the ineligible in that respect.
I know people who are self-conscious about their messy houses and the idea of maintaining a presentable tidy house for parties would be enough for them to dismiss the idea outright even though they would like to do it in theory.
You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you so much for that, even though I don't directly benefiting from it.
There is an epidemic of disconnection and loneliness, Putnam and others are 100% right. There's an organized effort by some people to isolate humans from each other as much as possible, and they have their own swarm of useful idiots to aide them.
The solution to this problem needs explicit action, this is not something that will take care of itself, or people would adapt to it.
I bought a domain recently, https://clubs.fyi that I will devote to this purpose of human connection[1], if anyone wants to join shoot me an email, there's nothing there yet but there will be stuff in a week or so. :)
1. Not connection in the SF-sense like Facebook, Meetup, etc.
>there will be stuff in a week or so
AI is amazing. https://clubs.fyi/.
(I already had the backend but vibecoded a frontend in about an hour)
Blame the screens. Screens are blackholes that suck up your time, attention, awareness and senses.
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting. They are a tool and as such value neutral. Is it evil that I can have a weekly video-call with family members on another continent when the alternative would be...simply no contact at all, super expensive phone calls or letters. I don't think so.
I think even with family and friends that live far away, screens are often an excuse as well. Well sorry we aren't going to be able to visit gas is just too much, we can FaceTime instead! And I think it's ignoring the bigger problem, is perhaps you talk to your family members once a week, but do you have your community around you that you talk and do things with 'off screen'? Its easy on the internet to say you do, but the reality is most people would rather doomscroll than be bothered with trying to know their neighbor.
Before screens you visited even less. Well if you compare the 1960s to today - but the 1960s had the phone as well. Compare 1700 to today and you realize quickly that "visiting your sister who married just one village over is a big deal and it couldn't happen often".
Tools are not value neutral. Tools shape the user
I mean... you are substituting your family on a little screen for going out into the real world and making some new friends. I'd argue that, yes, just because you wrap it in "I love my family don't question me" it doesn't change anything.
> They are a tool and as such value neutral.
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
Digital tools are made even more not value neutral by the fact that other humans are actively influencing them even while you're using them, via "the algorithm", "dark design patterns", etc.
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
>Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting.
Most my family is scattered. Screens can be connecting. But it doesn't replace local connection and my experience seems more to delay the inevitable drifting away of such relations due to distance. I suppose it at least tests how much your loved ones care to keep in contact with you.
I agree with you general sentiment but how did you end up in a situation where you feel this way but also wanted to try a VR headset but then also decided to throw it away immediately after trying it seemingly surprised by what the experience was.
He might have started feeling that way only after trying the VR headset.
My hunch is they have an agenda and is willing to lie to spice up the story.
If they are not a clanker.
> My hunch is they have an agenda and is willing to lie to spice up the story.
What do you think it is? Be clear.
> If they are not a clanker.
Probably not: "I was trying a VR headset the other days".
Or, it's because no one can afford spaces to host company:
https://fortune.com/2026/06/22/1-in-3-young-adults-living-wi...
People have had parties in parents basements, tenements, city parks, open fields, caves, for all of human history
Yeah, pretty much. Seems now dinner party means it has to be some kind of gala event.
It's not only the screen. It's everything about late Capitalism. The families are more atomized. There are less families and kids. Big dinners are usually for big families. It takes a lot of skills and practices to prepare a big dinner for 10-12 people quickly.
I have a friend who is married and have 3 kids. His wife is a SAHM. She didn't know anything about cooking before they got married back in 2011, and nowadays she could easily throw a party for 10-12 people with only half of day of preparation (excluding shopping) -- and that's 10 Chinese dishes she had to cook, not BBQ stuffs. That's crazy for us. I can't imagine how much time it would take us to prepare even 5 dishes. I used to watch she cooking and it was so elegant. She uses the stove to its full, including baking, and still has the leisure to talk to me and cut raw food quickly.
It takes practices. She having 3 kids definitely "helps" with the practice. Nowadays people don't get to practice these things. It's like a myth to us.
I think it's kinda impossible for a two-worker family unless you are really into this kind of stuffs. Otherwise taking care of work and kids is already way too much for us.
People are downvoting because the tone is a bit harsh but he has a point.
While TV has been a thing for a long time, content was limited, and more importantly curated. You couldn't manage your own playlists/subscriptions and almost infinite content on subjects that interest you.
Video games were mostly for kids.
There were no social media feeds optimize to monopolize your attention and make you doomscroll.
Hey even having a TV/widescreen at home has a direct impact on couples sex life...which magically reactivate when the light goes out.
The internet is wonderful for many things but nobody can denies it has an impact on our in person social life.
I remember a college teacher who had 9 siblings humorously answering the question of "how did your parents managed to do it" with "simple: they didn't have a TV set back then".
TVs had already affected our lives tremendously, computers and the internet just went nuts with it.
I would say that TV is the same in concept, just to a different degree.
Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye?
It is what you make of it. It gives and takes, heat and light, waves for waves, words for words. It lets time stay alive as bits, as long as they don’t rot. In exchange, it suck up your real world time. To use it is to used by it.
We need a new way to use it safely for us and the world writ large.
This has been going on since at least the mid 1970s if the graphs in the article are anything to go by. How will you blame the screens then?
To play devils advocate screens could start with color television.
I guess there was television then?
that's true. and I noticed that was true when I met my internet friends in real life and I noticed the real life interaction made the bond much more valuable and more complex than it was.
even when it's GOOD it's not as good as real life, however, it does take less effort.
I actually doubt it. For one, "blame" implies damage and I'm not sure this is even a real problem. But I actually think it corresponds with rising prosperity (which councides with the rise of technology). People associate with tribes and clans for mutual support and protection and it's just much less necessary now.
When I met my wife, I discovered very quickly that she had savant-level hosting skills. She is an amazing cook, she prioritizes space to dine in our home (we made sure to have a dining table in our NYC apartment) and she thinks carefully about the experience of her guests. It's a quality that I benefit greatly from, and I'm grateful to her for it.
Just want to chime in that I have had the same experience and am similarly appreciative!
Tell her that again man, I'm sure it warms her heart
I do agree that this is a very good quality of a wife. I have a friend whose wife is like this and I can't tell you how much effort he saved for himself.
If a husband has the same quality it would be very good too. It is not something only a wife can possess!
Let's say it's a good quality for a partner, or, anyone!
Why is there such a narrow world view apparent on HN as to suggest that this is only a good quality for a human to have? It's a good quality for almost anything to have!
There are more good qualities to look for than anyone can possess. Just make sure your partner has good qualities and encourage them. Then have "a village" where other good qualities that you have have between the two of you cover as much of the rest as possible.
Yeah, I would 100% not be in a relationship with a man who cannot cook and host.
True! But in an ideal partnership each partner brings something that the other needs.
I moved from a rich city social life to a lonely suburban one (I have regrets, there are complicating factors). I met a fellow dad who mentioned a book as we started chatting and I was excited (someone who reads!).
As we talked about this very isolation problem he told me about his neighbors who kept inviting him over and offering to watch the kids for him and how he thought it was just weird and couldn’t trust them. It broke my heart — I could just imagine the neighbors trying to be good to their community and that very behavior is met with distrust.
(I read half the book he mentioned and asked him about it the next time I saw him. Turns out he hadn’t read the book, just heard about it on a podcast. My quest to meet someone who reads continues.)
That guy really ought to read How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard.
Here is 3 cheers for my neighbor 50th birthday party that is COSTUME, and to which we got a PRINTED invitation. It is a "come as your favorite SNL character" party. Stylish people, single handedly bucking this indisputably sad trend. Now what character would you come as?
This is very cultural. In Spain essentially no one throws dinner parties in the US style. It's rare to invite social acquaintances to one's home. These things are done - but mainly with family. Part of this is cultural and part reflects that homes are too small to fit many people. Most socializing is done outside, at a bar, cafe, restaurant, park, etc.
But that's also great, meeting in a restaurant or bar. Or perhaps renting a cabinet space in one. Or just going on a picnic or free outdoor concert together. Doesn't need to be someone's home. I feel a lot of these things have shrunk massively.
Yes, I agree. What I'm finding, though, is everyone else in my circle doesn't value meeting in a restaurant. They insist these things should be in a home. Or if it's a restaurant, someone should pay for the whole crowd. And as you can imagine, it eventually becomes a "I do all this effort to invite family X to our home for parties, but they never invite us to their home" - conveniently forgetting that family X does want to spend time with them - just not at their own home.
I also found that they seem to value the tradition and style (quality of food, quality of dinnerware, quality of decoration, etc) much more than the company.
Before marriage, we (guys) would get together often. After marriage, it promptly stopped. And the accounting began.
As I said in another comment, the causes of the decline are plenty, and nothing really dominates. I've given a few reasons here and elsewhere, but I'm sure there are many more. It's a death by a thousand cuts. The reasons I give here are due to a certain sub-clique. It won't apply to others' experiences.
Restaurants are expensive. When you have important things to pay for, spaffing hundreds on a meal feels like a massive waste of money.
If each pays for their own share, not so expensive. If you host and invite the same number of people, it gets expensive if you get outside food, and a lot of work/time if you cook yourself. Both are more friction than a restaurant, and thus fewer people do it. In a circle of 50, there will be 10-30 who just don't have the energy/budget to host, and eventually the others despise them for never hosting. The steady state outcome is that those people neither host nor get invited.
In my family, not surprisingly it's the wife who wants to host dinners. And because of the (IMO) high standards, it means she's missing for days to over a week. Life pretty much goes on hold in the household during that time. She can't watch the kids, so I have to. We both work and have little time, which really means the kids get neglected - and it's measurable.
If they lowered their standards, this wouldn't be a problem. But they seem to value those standards more than the social mixing.
If hosting was "simple food, no decoration, not the tidiest home", it would happen a lot more.
(Of course, if you host at a restaurant, that's the most expensive).
Same here in Japan
That's because you don't eat dinner until 10pm
More likely because Spain has the highest percentage of apartment dwellers in Europe.
..as the American 20-something influencers on TikTok want you to know.
Article says "The share of adults who say they regularly have friends over has declined 70 percent since 1975", but this may not be an accurate comparison:
> Until 1985, the survey included only married households.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDB_Needham_Life_Style_Surveys
Quite frustrating as I can’t quite pin down how they adjust for this or whether there’s some massive discontinuity between ‘75 and ‘85
Doesn't that seems like a more accurate measurement? what's the percentage of adults who check "yes" for "friends i'm hoping to hook up with" versus those that say "oooh, you mean actual friends"?
Does it? It means different types of socialising a lot of the time, but couples often merges friend groups and I could definitely see a case for some subset of those friend groups ending up meeting up more regularly. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see data broken down by relationship status.
Someone is projecting.
A percentage of people going to say "Yes" and not mean the same thing as I mean when I say that.
That's all I'm saying.
I've tried to do this in my community: Challenges faced.
- People unwilling to commit to an event > 7 days in advance
- People flaking even when they do
- Unreciprocated $100s of dollars spent is non sustainable, and lowkey feels kinda like buying others friendship
- People in urban places are living in smaller and smaller spaces. Though counterbalanced by many nicer apartment buildings have amenities spaces that help.
- mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
- And IMO the overarching issue in America that creates so many problems -- Everyone is so overworked that they don't have the energy/capactity to do good things: Exercise, and hosting parties being two examples.
> - mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
I was raised in a social environment where mixing circles was normal and it took me a while to realize that that's not how Americans do things. It certainly creates a lot of difficulties connecting with others, and at least for myself I am a lot less motivated to get to know people better when I'm the X or Y buddy they reach out to when the people they actually want to hang out with are unavailable.
> - People unwilling to commit to an event > 7 days in advance
You want N people. Assume 1/2 won't show. Invite 2N people. Either ask people to bring a bit of food, or provide food for 1.5xN and if you get only N then you'll have leftovers.
> - Unreciprocated $100s of dollars spent is non sustainable, and lowkey feels kinda like buying others friendship
If you have the disposable invome for it then it's its own reward, and you're not buying friends: you're helping them make new friends with your other guests, and this is something they'll appreciate about you. They might or might not reciprocate because as we've seen in this thread, many are not into hosting.
> - mixing circles -- people are often isolating their friend groups into niches (pickelball friends, church friends, D&D friends...)
Mixing is half the point!!
> - And IMO the overarching issue in America that creates so many problems -- Everyone is so overworked that they don't have the energy/capactity to do good things: Exercise, and hosting parties being two examples.
That's what long weekends are for, so host a party on a day in a long weekend.
> Either ask people to bring a bit of food
See my last point, they're too busy/tired. 1/2 the people bring chips and salsa they picked up last minute on the way there.
> Mixing is half the point
People no longer want mixing. Anyone who disagrees about anything they believe is "toxic" or microviolent.
> That's what long weekends are for
People already maxxed want rest, isolation, catchup a breath on the very few long weekends. Those who do happen to have capacity want social media viable things to show off their status to their friends.
> People no longer want mixing. Anyone who disagrees about anything they believe is "toxic" or microviolent.
Well, maybe some are like that. They'll stop coming to your parties, or you'll stop inviting them, or you already know they are like this so you won't even invite them. The rest will keep showing up -- they're the fun ones!
> > Either ask people to bring a bit of food
> See my last point, they're too busy/tired. 1/2 the people bring chips and salsa they picked up last minute on the way there.
And that is fine, at least the first time. People learn and will not bring chips and salsa afterwards. Plus, the goal of the shared dinner is to have people over, not to enjoy fancy meals.
With this attitude...
> Unreciprocated $100s of dollars spent [...]
See, that's your problem. You don't throw a house party because you want to go to other house parties. You do that because and only because, you want to throw a house party.
I can understand how you'd read that I dont throw house parties from a single HN post. The greater context is I've tried variously over the past decade, spent 1000s on parties, and have found a recurring negative impact on my own well being because I outlay of my resources (mental, energetic, monetary) in a dissipative way that is not poured back into me. I am a zero sum being and so the cost to me is realistically taken away from other places I can maintain my own health, sanity, and other desirable outcomes.
Maybe the truth is I dont want to throw a house party -- I want the outcomes of a house party... Friends, community, being known, meeting someone who might become a friend/spouse, not being alone on isolating holidays (like thanksgiving / christmas / NYE) .
In my twenties I made spaghetti every Saturday night. This started as throwing some Ragu in a pot and adding some spices, and eventually morphed into crushing my own tomatoes and cooking over most of the day. I did this every week over years. A varied group of friends came to eat each week -- no plan, no notice, just come over if you have nothing else going on. It's how I met my wife -- I never would have had the courage to ask her out on a real date, but "I make spaghetti for my friends every Saturday, you should come over," was easier. It's been years and I don't often make spaghetti anymore.
Some of my friends are married with kids, some are married without kids, and some are single. My wife strongly prefers hosting couples and not my indidividual friends, so they dinners are my friend plus his wife/gf who no one knows as well, and I never really like that awkward dynamic where he and I are the only people who really know each other. But she understandably doesn't like 3rd-wheeling it with just me and the friend alone. So we mostly only ever have friends over who are married, unless it's someone we're both friends with.
I think there's this huge gap coming with age. Nobody does that spaghetti thing anymore, good friends after finishing school move elsewhere, responsibilities in many new fields increase and the opportunities to meet hundred candidates decrease exponentially. So even if you'd continue doing the spaghetti, I doubt you'd have too many to feed...
- "Sorry, but I'm on a low-carb diet, no carbs and especially not after 3pm"
- "Do you use gluten-free pasta? I think I have a gluten allergy."
- "Why always ethnic food like pasta? What's wrong with white people food, like Cheeseburgers?"
People have become too complicated.
You mean it brings together friends and filters out annoying people? You're pointing out a feature, not a bug.
My best friends are all annoying in various ways.
I don't mind accommodating best friends' diets.
Yeah, serving a lot of dishes is part of the fun.
> - "Why always ethnic food like pasta? What's wrong with white people food, like Cheeseburgers?"
You respond with "that's what I'm making, you're welcome to bring anything yourself to add to it".
Covers dietary issues along with a decent dose of "STFU and show up". People are complicated but you also give too much of a shit.
I don't know anyone in the US who thinks of spaghetti as ethnic food. Maybe in 1930.
"Doughnuts? I told you, I don't like ethnic food!"
And again since 2016
Nobody has changed their views on spaghetti. Maybe tacos...
Filtering these people is a feature not a bug.
Alternatively, one could hold a social interaction not centered around some form of consumption, and then you don't have to worry about satisfying people's consumptive preferences
there's lots of people out there who will be more than happy to eat free food at a friend's house. You are overthinking it.
I think figuring out how to make everybody happy is fun. You end up exploring options you never otherwise would.
"Eh" (the Larry David "eh")
Ironically Larry David always seems to be at dinner parties in Curb. Maybe it's a wealthy person activity or maybe it's just comedy gold coming up with a new reason why he pisses off the host and gets kicked out again.
Overall interesting piece.
> For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships
I think it’s social pressure and necessity.
When I fail to get my kids a thing they need to school people shrug their shoulders, and I think “I tried” but the pressure on my wife seems to be higher. She judges herself and others judge her harder. Likewise, to meet that pressure she uses her friend group for utility in the same way I might reach out to programmer friends I met at a conf to get a PR merged. She has a bench of mom friends who can pickup her kids and they will expect the same favor in return.
There is a family in our school group where the dad is much more active in that role as connector and planner, but it seems harder for him. I don't think people reach out to him as much for shared favors so he has to try harder. And beyond necessity, they are forming friends. I think the other primary caregivers that are usually women just do not think of him as friend material as quickly or easily as the other mothers. So overall it is harder for him (still do-able just noting a systemic weight).
I found myself taking care of a 10 year old in Taiwan for two weeks (with a group of other students/parents) and that short time was enough for me to do a 180 and really force me to be much more social. I planned things, and socialized. Both because it was fun and it was necessary. I controlled the calendar in totality, bore the risks and rewards and answered to myself. But when we rejoined as a family unit I slipped back into old patterns.
So now I know more what it feels like to have that connection and that symbiotic need. But I'm unsure what to do about it.
Feel like part of the issue is everyone’s self imposed neurosis about not intruding on others. My wife insists on not ever asking to come over to someone’s house - she only wants to be explicitly invited. We invite people over to our place when we can but this leads to us basically never visiting any of our friends because they aren’t the planning type.
I think it’s harsh to publicly describe your wife as neurotic for following basic etiquette
That's not "basic etiquette".
I've had plenty of people throughout my life express wanting to come over to my place and hang. There's definitely a social grace of how you'd phrase it, but it's not like it's some alien concept.
Ask vs Guess culture. Look it up, it explains a lot.
Coming from a very WASPy family, I am very much in the Guess culture -- for a long time I wouldn't dream of inviting myself over somewhere -- but I genuinely think taking some cues from Ask culture people makes a lot of things easier and more sociable.
I'm from the south (US Southeast) and I would never invite myself over, but I've been to hang outs at the vast majority of my friends' places. On this topic it's barely even guess culture here - more like assume! We're still a very sociable culture, we're just a somewhat high-context one. For example, we had a friend who never invited us over despite dozens of hangouts at our place and others. We always wondered why he didn't view us as real friends. It's an expectation for close friendships here, even if you've just got a studio or place you share with roommates. Just part of knowing each other.
You'll want to try and expand your circle of friends to include those that are the planning type and will bring variety to the location. Either that, or start changing the location.
If you don't, people will get bored and eventually the group will disband.
Maybe that neurosis explains another phenomena I’ve noticed.
My household hosts a lot and we’ve come to expect a full on 50% flake rate, down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
It means if we invite less than 5 people there are occasions where literally no one shows up. It’s also difficult to plan for when the odds go in the other direction like one news year party where we invited 30 people, expected ~15 and had 29 show up.
> down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
That's insane. Who does that and how does it make you feel and have you told them?
First couple of times I was annoyed. At this point it’s become a common joke that X isn’t coming to the party until they walk through the door.
It’s a mix of people with social anxiety and people who have FOMO and agree to three different events on the same day.
The more polite ones in that second group have done things like shown up in tuxes for a casual party and dipped 10 minutes later for some other event.
No talking to the various people in this category has done anything so they just get treated as nice to haves of they show up and we wait 0 seconds for them for anything scheduled.
> That's insane.
You meet a lot of weird people in software
> You meet a lot of weird people in software
That's not a software-engineer attribute. I live in another major software hub on the east coast and people are not like this over here.
We're not prepared to say exactly why they are weird.
If I was going to be more verbose I’d say in the 10-15 years prior to AI there was such a demand for software engineers that people with poor social skills or with unique idiosyncrasies were tolerated so the odds of meeting odd people in software were higher than in the general public.
It may go further back than that but I don’t have experience before the 2010s
Middle-aged, in the US. From my perspective, a lot of the change is due to overbooked children. My wife and I have a group of ~5 couples that we used to get together with regularly. Before any kids, it was ad-hoc, often out somewhere (dinner, bar, whatever). When the first couple had an infant, that changed to pot-lucks at their house (easy to put the kid down for the night). But now that 3 of the couples have kids, 2 of which are in middle-school, it's almost impossible to get the gang together - one of the kids always has some practice or another event. We still get tougher in smaller groups, but less frequently.
This is counter to when I was a kid - it was rare that I had a scheduled sports event on a Friday or Saturday evening. During the day, sure. But 6pm+ on Friday? Basically never. But that seems to be common now. Travel sports, so lots of weekends totally away, or specialized coaching at odd hours, or just a 3rd activity to pad that college application. It's crazy. I honestly have no idea how kids have any fun today (and I say that as somebody who played 2 varsity sports, one instrument, and was an Eagle Scout - but through middle school, I still had plenty of time for just hanging out - it was common to ride my bike for hours on a Sunday - into town, get an ice cream, across the river into DC, and back).
Overbooked children or just mathematical combination? If you have 5 friends each with 1 kid and the kid only does 2 things a week chances are you won’t ever get them all together.
Seems like these parents are prioritizing their kids and probably encouraging things they enjoy doing rather than wine night. Chances are the kids are enjoying life.
I'm sure it's a bit of both, but as I said, when I was a kid in this region, it was uncommon for any Friday night activities for the kids. Weeknights and weekend mornings/afternoons, absolutely. But we're not trying to get together on a random Tuesday.
Sports practice was almost always after school and we would walk/bike by ourselves even in elementary school. All nights were free except for scouting. My kids have practice until 8PM on multiple nights and not centralized where they could walk alone to get there.
In addition for me, when I grew up we had family around. Currently my closest family member is ~600 miles away so they can't pop in to watch the kids.
> it was rare that I had a scheduled sports event on a Friday or Saturday evening
When I grew up in the South, football & basketball games were Friday & Saturday nights. Apparently this was common[1].
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Night_Lights_(TV_series...
Where I grew up (and live now) - DC metro - those games are often Friday, but it's not that common for families without high school kids to attend. And by the time the kids are in high school (or even middle school), the parents just drop them and come home. But yeah, unsurprising that these are bigger social events south and mid-west.
what kind of shitty parents just drop their kids off at their high school football or basketball game and then just leave to not watch them play?
I've been reading a 15 year study by a well known (here) sports psychologist. He studied why children played sports, and why they stopped.
The single biggest reason, by far - kids stop playing sports because of parents who come and watch. Turns out parents think winning is important, which robs all the fun out of it.
As a counter anecdote; in high school I played 2 or 3 sports per season. I enjoyed them all immensely, despite the teams being (usually) objectively terrible. No parents ever came to watch (outside the ones offering necessary transport). We'd occasionally go a whole season without winning a single game. No expectations. Just having fun with my mates...
I'm really thankful it was my time, not my parents time.
Some families have multiple children. Those kids are quite frequently of different ages, and thus will have entirely different activities (most high school football teams will not allow 5th graders to play, for example).
Those activities frequently overlap. No, Cub Scouts does not care that the high school basketball game overlaps with the camping trip because Cub Scouts are not in high school. Parents are (still) not able to be in two places at a time.
This means that at least some of the time, the older kid goes to their game without their parents. (Because the younger child frequently cannot.)
If you are able to solve this for those parents, you can be the first $1B single-employee company.
Oh, here come Judge Judgerson McJudge with their authoritative definition of shitty parents.
People who have means sometimes are not able to see other people's contraints.
I meant kids that go to watch the game.
The football team has ~40 kids and basketball has ~12. The school has ~2000. At least in my area.
maybe because I don't live in a car-centric country, but I would just bike there myself with my friends, play, and bike home with my friends. From I was a kid until end of high school. Parents would often come to watch, but not always, and the fun was being with my friends anyways so it didn't matter.
Unless it is a final or another very important match for my kid, I understand that this game is for him, an opportunity for him to socialize, to try flirting with his cruch, to enjoy being a silly teenager doing the fucking things teenagers do when not supervised, without me, the fucking helicopter parent, sucking all the life from him to satisfy my narcisistic need to be seen as an "involved parent".
Small kids, of course, are a completely different story. But once they go through puberty, parents need to understand that their role in their kids life needs to change a little bit and their kids fucking need their own space with their friends.
At a typical US high school, not very many of the students are actually playing. For most of them, it's mainly a social event, something to take a date to, or a time to hang out in the bleachers with peers.
Even if you have one child playing (or on the bench, or in the band, or cheerleading) and have come to watch, your other similar-age children will likely not be interested in sitting with you. They will want to sit with their friends, and rightfully so!
I was in marching band (so I played at all the games). Is that not normal?
I guess it's just a generational thing, but my late Gen X mother was simply busy. Army drills twice a month will do that. I also concur with other responses that these were all social events anyway, so it's not like I was yearning for Mom to be there.
High school sports, yes Friday night is the standard time I think across the USA. Has been as long as I can remember, or at least as long as schools had outdoor lighting on the fields.
Wednesday was Peewee/little kid sports, Thursday evening was Jr High sports games, Friday evening was High School sports games, and Saturday was college sports games.
Same - my friends group had weekly (and sometimes more than-weekly) gatherings that all faded away when kids arrived. The group aligned more around kids and new friends met through kids activities.
A culture where people with 2–3 kids are already swamped with work and obligations.
But how come the fertility rates are low? they ask.
Humanity's revealed preferences are really, really strong here.
As basically every country on Earth gets richer, two things happen in survey results.
One is that as people get richer they spend more time apart. Household sizes get smaller, the number of social interactions per week goes down, etc.
You'll also see that as countries get richer people say that they report feeling less lonely. Loneliness is less of an issue for the rich countries who live more apart. The correlation between this and GDP is comical. As you get to poorer countries, like clockwork, people report being lonelier in surveys.
The evidence suggests that as people get more choice they decide to see people less and they also feel happier for it and less lonely. So I don't think there's a problem here.
Do you have data for this? This contradicts common sense and every datapoint I’ve seen so far that isolation is a rapidly rising issue.
Here are some good high quality surveys:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5547349/
https://ourworldindata.org/lonely-not-alone
But frankly I wasn't kidding when I said every quality survey shows this.
If you have ever seen an article suggesting that loneliness is higher in the West or in capitalist economies or whatever, you have been 100% misled. That is essentially just a made up narrative that plays well in articles
Those surveys are both about how elderly people in the Nordic countries report being less lonely than those in Mediterranean countries. They discuss things like whether extended families live together, but don’t really touch on people’s social lives more broadly. I’m not sure that you can draw a sweeping generalization from this that wealthier countries prefer less socialization.
Just keep looking up high quality surveys on different loneliness related topics until you are convinced. There are a lot of different ways to ask it. They all point in the same direction.
What exactly am I supposed to be convinced of? That people who have choices about how to spend their time 1) choose to be mostly alone and 2) are happier because of it? This is a pretty strong causative claim that would require a lot of evidence and considerable expertise in interpreting that evidence, neither of which I have.
Even the surveys you sent already suggest that people who live with spouses are much less lonely, which seems to be the opposite of your claim.
Frankly, your claim sounds so insane to me (someone who has a lot of choice in how I spend my time, enjoys the company of others often, and is not lonely) that I think it would require extraordinary evidence to convince me.
Face validity. Someone may have pulled together numbers for this in a study, but this area is a new facet of interpersonal behavior at a macro-economic level, so there won't be much published on the subject yet.
I think the problem is that self-reported scores of loneliness go down, but a lot of the data suggests that our increasing solitude and isolation isn’t good for us, whether we feel lonely or not.
Good article on this a few days ago that I’ve been thinking about a lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812533
I developed a rich social life simply by saying "yes" to (nearly) every opportunity I was asked.
It takes energy and commitment, just like anything else worthwhile in life. Have the courage to not be good at something, to do it anyway, and to keep doing it.
Many years ago, there weren't so many opportunities, have to make some of your own. (I began my adult life in the midst of the pandemic. I am very aware of how empty the world can feel.) Join clubs, large events, book clubs, art shows, these things exist, you can find them. You won't have many friends at first, but you'll meet a lot of people. I nearly took the LSAT for fun because at some point some kind-of-friends/acquaintances were preparing for law school. Take every opportunity, do anything, figure out what you like, and who you like.
Later on, there is simply not enough time in the day. You can wake up grateful every day that you can do whatever you wish. You will never want for a closer friend. There will always be some challenging adventure you can take. Or a comfortable evening with some close friends. Your friends will show up at your door with gifts, you will see the sunset from some mountain you climbed, you'll run through the rain with your friends and laugh, you'll be familiar with half the rooftops in whatever city you're near, you will have career and social opportunities just because of how many people you know.
And finally, you will have a responsibility to provide good prosocial opportunities for someone else who is figuring out the world.
It is possible.
> Everybody might prefer, in the abstract, a world of dinner parties, neighborhood friendships, and spontaneous gatherings. But on any given Wednesday at 7:45pm., it is easier to look at a screen than to host a party; easier to listen to a podcast while doing yoga than to plan a gathering. This is not so much an individual failure as a coordination failure. Modernity has shifted leisure from activities that require coordination with other people toward activities that can be consumed without the permission or participation of others. Compared to TikTok, a dinner party is a terrible leisure technology.
This extra coordination “friction” is the killer. The lesson is, if you want more dinner parties you have to reduce the extra coordination “friction” to a minimum.
You have to get comfortable with friction. Friction is part of a healthy human life, anything remotely challenging involves friction. Getting ten people together will always be more complicated than staring into a screen.
Adler made the profound observation that people don't suffer from anxiety, they invent and maintain it to avoid their life tasks. Same is true for blaming things on friction. "Oh I've only there wasn't that much friction, I wasn't so busy" etc. Accept the friction, do it anyway.
I think we also need to increase the friction of social media. But yeah, I used to live in the same apartment building as two friends so “hosting a dinner party” was as complex and sending a DM at 4pm to arrange something after work.
I would do this multiple times a week because it was so easy and required minimal coordination.
As a heavy introvert, I've started organizing small get-togethers with the help of my wife. I realized that, past a certain age, I was seeing my friends less and less. There are good friends I might see only once a year, when I did the math regarding life expectancy, I realized that if things continued on that path, I might see certain important people, at best, only another 30 or 35 times in total. So, at the start of the year, I decided to organize a monthly poker night and dinner with my inner circle, and to my surprise, everyone accepted. A few days ago, I ran into a former university classmate, I suggested he'd be welcome at my home for these gatherings, and his eyes lit up at the prospect. Another thing that caught my attention is that my female friends all have active social lives, whereas that is very rare among the men I know (again, past a certain age).
> Another thing that caught my attention is that my female friends all have active social lives, whereas that is very rare among the men I know (again, past a certain age).
Yes, that is a pretty typical thing. Starting around late 20s, pretty much most guys are either part of a steady relationship, usually with kids or permanently without a relationship. The men with families have their own family events and get included in the wife's social and family circle. The guys who do not get paired up are not welcome at those events and wives forbid the partnered up guys to hang out with their single male friends on the other days. To be fair, there is nowadays anyway so much online entertainment, that it probably will be fine in the end.
This is so wildly out of step with my own experience that I wonder what world you are living in. I know both men and women in their 30s going into and out of relationships, I have both single and partnered male friends, and I've never heard of a wife discouraging time with single male friends (single female friends, maybe!).
If you identify as a "permanently" single male who believes that the world is oriented against you in this way, I hope you are able to challenge this belief and move towards a fuller life. Alternatively, if your beliefs accurately reflect the place you are living, then maybe you should live somewhere else.
>and wives forbid the partnered up guys to hang out with their single male friends on the other days
Sounds pretty mean!
It's not mean, it's practical. Household chores need doing, men would go and spend money on alcohol, might get into fights and so on.
Or worse, they could get into golf
I'm American and I enjoy hosting at my house. I do it often (imo).
I think some of the stats reviewed in this post are crazy because it is specifically "did it 12+ times in the last year", which means if you only did it 11 times, you simply register as a 'false' according to this modeling.
The graphs with once per year are much more reasonable.
I'm sure these stats still tell you something about life in america, but I feel like this bar is set so extremely high. I'm saying this as someone who LOVES hosting - I don't want to do it 12 times a year. (maybe it's because I set too high of a quality bar for myself?)
I'm surprised at this being correlated w/ intensive parenting. Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents, maybe watch the NFL games. Even when we take turns hosting, we easily get over the 12x a year mark through this.
> Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents
In my social circle, if you're inviting people over, then you need to satisfy:
1. Neat + Tidy house
2. Good food, and lots of it
Both take time, and not for tired parents.
(To be clear: These are not my expectations...)
I'm a parent and while I invite people over (indeed, this last Sunday we had another couple and their kid over) and do this thing, very few of our parent friends appear to do it. Or I guess maybe they do it with each other and just don't invite us, but I think it's rarer than you think.
Yeah, I found this weird. Maybe it's some over-obsessive American thing? Random, no-reason sleepovers, or BBQ-style sunday gatherings, and other "just get together and eat so children can play" activities are fairly common among parents with small kids.
It's certainly not like I remember it in the 80s, but still happens a lot, and my uninformed take is: "community" in the US was never that cohesive, it only took so much to make it fall apart.
Community in the US was largely centered around the church. I think it is an uphill battle getting a large group of people to get together and hang out multiple times a week when they don’t have a very compelling reason outside of the socialization itself to do so (i.e. the threat of eternal damnation)
It is by no means exclusive to America.
Personally feels insane that people find this surprising or puzzling.
You wouldn't be surprised if everyone was smoking and smoking rate was going up massively and then we had a surge of people getting cancer.
This is obviously because of social media or other algorithmic applications. It literally herds people.
It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon. It is pretty sad.
If you think about the second/third order effects that it will have, it is massively worse than alcohol/drugs.
Social Media brought a decline between 1975 and 1995? It surely plays a role (at least as a confounder), but can't be the sole cause.
Seriously. I think the "women in the workforce" thesis is important:
"In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families"
The author states that they dismiss this thesis because "groups have more leisure time now than before" but that's not a valid rebuttal. The problem isn't the amount of leisure time, but the way that leisure time is used. It's easier for a planning and hosting novice to invite friends out than it is to host. If you don't have the skills to host, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you won't host.
I have a 1930s vintage Hood (the milk company) "basic" cookbook. In it's 800 pages, it includes hundreds of pages about how to run the larder of a household including how to understand how a carcass is broken up (and how to do it yourself) so you can chat with some fundamentals with the butcher, rules of thumb for how to stock a brand new kitchen with tools and supplies and also how to plan for an entire month's worth of groceries and using the whole animal to stretch your budget, how to plan and prepare and set a large dinner party, how to preserve your food with several different canning methods, an entire section about coffee and how to be a gentle coffee snob (in the 30s!) and about a hundred pages of printed photos to illustrate those points. The chapter on cookies starts with two pages discussing cookies as an abstract concept!
This tome is just a tiny part of what used to be the "Woman's job". You could construct equivalently large tomes for most other tasks and duties and "Roles", especially the one about managing social networks!
But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems. There was no institution that really worked to push this knowledge to people, as it previously was largely passed down mother to daughter outside of institutions, and no 90s era "home economics" classes didn't even come close, so the chain was broken and a lot of that knowledge just kind of didn't make it to younger generations!
> But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems.
Very true in a lot of domains! When I first became a parent I had to learn a lot about “mental load” or risk my marriage. A lot of women won’t put up with that anymore (rightfully so)
I really didn't like reading your comment, but I can't argue much against it...
All I can say is the consequences of a degrading mental/social health are harder to grasp than a hangover or, for the lack of a better smoking example, lung cancer.
Still I'm also puzzled by the amount of people, even in my own social circle, that "just want to wind down after work" (read: completely fry their brain)
That doesn't explain the declines before that. It requires a lot of domestic skills and time to host a good party.
It really doesn’t take massive skill to invite your friends over. It doesn’t have to be this huge production.
And as for time, the average person finds time for hours of short form video and other useless tasks. Which is actually the real problem, social media has sucked up everyone’s time and attention to the point people don’t socialise anymore.
Um, I take after my mother, Gigachad, so yes it does have to be a huge production. Just yesterday I finished the leftovers from a party a week ago.
I know what you mean, but the real issue for most people is time, money, and social connections. Dinner parties were way down before TikTok. Most people I know cannot host at all, either they live with their parents or their apartment is in such rough shape that it would take days of cleaning to be able to invite people over.
People don't get bored anymore. In the past, staying at home alone usually meant being so bored you'd do anything. Sometimes that would mean "doing anything" results in you going through all the effort to start some sort of club because at least failing at that wouldn't be boring
and energy which a lot of people in my social groups always seem too exhausted for
yeah the time is a big one, in a double career household who is doing all the prep work?
> Personally feels insane that people find this surprising or puzzling.
Who finds this surprising or puzzling? I do not see this sentiment in the article or in the comments here. Are you making up people to get mad at?
Smoking actually has gone up in the recent few years with younger people, especially women. Not sure if buy the same amount in every country, but an uptick is noticeable.
And yes, this is all down to a few celebrities and influencers who are popular with that crowd showing off the habit in public. A fashion.
> yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon. It is pretty sad.
Fortunately this is very slowly starting to crack. Maybe not from social pressure as it deserves, but litigation is finally starting to catch up with the tech and some recent court rules have started putting some simple yet major compromises on Meta. We're talking "need to remove likes" levels of major.
I think these are still in appeal (or have already settled), but I'm keeping a close eye on this.
> Personally feels insane that people find this surprising or puzzling. (…) This is obviously because of social media or other algorithmic applications.
Facebook was founded over twenty years ago. There are adults in the world who have no recollection of a life before social media. In that sense it shouldn’t be surprising or puzzling, should it?
> It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon.
Remember when young adults were literally shouting online “let China suck up all my data” in response to the proposed TikTok ban? I (and probably you) lived in and can remember a world before the internet was in every part of our lives, but there are adults living now who can’t. It is not obvious to them.
this predates social media significantly, aligns more with both partners in married couples working
and why wouldn't it? we went from 40 hours of one person being able to support a household, now it's more assumed to be 80 hours from two people
our time has been stolen from us
productivity has increased, but so have working hours, people in the workforce, commuting time, etc
I doubt Social Media would have become as nearly as popular as it did, if the middle-class had the same social life as it had in the 50s.
The people in my life who are always throwing parties, have insteresting hobbies like surfing, playing music or rock climbing are basically minimal users of social networking.
I see this as a manifestation of the loss of teaching effective communication skills. This takes a moment to explain, so please slow down and consider this: before the cultural revolutions of the 1960's, general education included more emphasis on communications conflicts and resolutions of them. For example, every school had a debate team, and the various forms and rules of debate were common knowledge. Yes, this is true. Debate and watching people skilled at argumentative discussion used to be a popular form of entertainment. Then, during the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the best or the "stars of debate" all sided with the youth culture and not the establishment. That then triggered the removal of debate from educations, from entertainment, and from public life. Now, decades later we have the situation that groups of adults cannot form without conflicts and arguments that drive the community creation aspects away. We have created a culture that cannot communicate, because we have stopped teaching basic oral conflict negotiation of any form.
I think people also forget (or don’t even know) that before mobile phones you’d often walk over to someone’s house just to knock on the door to find out if they were in or see what they were doing.
So allied to the lack of dinner parties, there’s fewer reasons to even go to someone’s house any more, you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today.
> I think people also forget (or don’t even know) that before mobile phones you’d often walk over to someone’s house just to knock on the door to find out if they were in or see what they were doing.
Um, we had phones before mobile phones.
We did, and yet people did still often just come over unannounced, to the point that it that the unannounced visit - which was common enough to be believable, but not always welcome - was a frequent plot point in various media.
It was common during my childhood for us to always have something in the cupboard - like a cake or biscuits or chocolate - that we could offer in case someone just dropped by.
It's been decades since I've cared about having anything ready for a possible surprise visitor, as while before I'd feel rude if I didn't have anything, now I'd feel they were rude for not checking in advance as now they rarely have an excuse for not doing so.
> We did, and yet people did still often just come over unannounced, to the point that it that the unannounced visit - which was common enough to be believable, but not always welcome
The question is, what exactly is the relevance of mobile vs. non-mobile phones?
I think it really depends on the walking distance. If someone is your neighbor, there's not a lot of effort saved from calling or texting first.
Going back to the OP, these are two very different things: "you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."
As far as one-to-one communication is concerned, a landland call is just as good as a mobile call or a text. But social media addiction is an entirely different matter. That's not even about announced vs. unannounced visits but rather about living in the real world vs. living in a virtual world.
> was a frequent plot point in various media.
I'm not sure that citing fiction is useful.
I explained the relevance of mobile phones to you.
People are not always at home.
Without a mobile phone you had an excuse.
Now you don't really.
It doesn't even matter whether or not you were actually home - there was less of a social expectation to always call because it was a recognised excuse that you "were in the neighborhood" and implicitly had no way to check without dropping by.
I already responded to this point at length here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892375 but in brief: on this interpretation, mobile phones should actually result in more successful drop-bys, because you can call or text when you're "in the neighborhood". Thus, mobile phones are not an excuse to avoid home visits.
You're still missing the point entirely: A lot of those visits are not wanted and weren't wanted to the point that unwanted visits were a trope in media.
Before they would happen because we had no ways to stop them until someone was at the door with a plausible excuse.
> You're still missing the point entirely: A lot of those visits are not wanted
> Before they would happen because we had no ways to stop them
Yes, in a sense, I'm missing that point, because I began with the assumption that more socializing was good, and the dramatic reduction of socializing is to be mourned. If your point is "good riddance to dinner parties", I personally wouldn't agree with that.
Of course individual people differ in their preferences for socialization. However, I don't think it's justified to project personal anti-social feelings onto the majority. You might be annoyed by unexpected visitors, but to others it may be a delightful surprise. When you refer to "A lot of those visits", that's your own personal view and doesn't necessarily represent the views of others. Obviously your visitors didn't feel the same way, otherwise they would have stayed home.
No, my point was not "good riddance to dinner parties". I was explaining to you why the advent of the mobile phone has at least a role in the reduction of socialising by making it easier for people to shut down visits.
It doesn't require people to not want to socialise for it to have that effect. It merely requires a proportion of visits to be unwanted or inconvenient then and there.
> You might be annoyed by unexpected visitors, but to others it may be a delightful surprise.
It might be to some. Even to me sometimes. But it was enough of a nuisance that the unwanted visit - as I've pointed out already - became a significant a trope in fiction, and a part of our cultural fabric. The "we were in the neighbourhood" was e.g. a regular vehicle for visits in TV series that has now largely disappeared except when it is used to highlight someone intentionally sidestepping social norms to impose an unwanted visit.
You dismissed fiction earlier, for no good reason: A widespread trope doesn't arise in a vacuum. It worked as a trope in fiction because it was a real and significant thing.
You've had this explained to you at length now. I struggle to see why you find it hard to understand, so I'm leaning towards thinking you're being intentionally obtuse about it at this point.
> I was explaining to you why the advent of the mobile phone has at least a role in the reduction of socialising by making it easier for people to shut down visits.
I agree that mobile phones have a role in the reduction of socializing.
However, I don't agree with the reason you've given, and I have at least two objections:
1. Mobile phones don't actually shut down unplanned socializing. On the contrary, they make it easier to have unplanned socializing, because they allow you to contact another person no matter when or where either of you happen to be.
2. There's no empirical evidence that a significant number of unexpected visits in the past were unwanted. Surely some were, but not nearly enough IMO to explain the dramatic reduction of in-person socializing.
My theory, in contrast, is that the ubiqiutious internet access of smartphones has addicted people to the practically limitless forms of entertainment and attention-grabbing online, and this internet browsing has usurped in-person socializing as a pastime. This change has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to arrange visits. People have stopped dropping by because they don't want to drop by, not because they can't conveniently drop by.
For the same reason, people have also cut down on non-social activities like reading books. They aren't replacing socializing with book reading.
> You dismissed fiction earlier, for no good reason: A widespread trope doesn't arise in a vacuum.
I dismissed fiction because it deliberately exaggerates for effect, e.g., comedic effect. There may be a grain of truth to it, but fiction by definition is not an accurate reflection of reality.
> I struggle to see why you find it hard to understand,
I'm not struggling to understand. I simply disagree with your analysis.
> so I'm leaning towards thinking you're being intentionally obtuse about it at this point.
You can lean whatever way you want, but you're wrong, and you're also wrong about me "forgetting" the rest of the world when the submitted article is explicitly about the United States: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49894515
> Um, we had phones before mobile phones.
True, but back in the day one had to pay for every call, sometimes at per-minute rates: always so for long distance, and in some areas even for local calls. Quite a contrast to today's unlimited-minutes cellular plans (which likely get used little enough that the providers have no trouble offering them).
A key factor in the development of dialup BBS systems in the US was that local calls were usually at least flat-rate, with unlimited service available here and there.
Bringing it back to the topic at hand, back then I recall a number of social events revolving around local BBSes in Champaign-Urbana, and Fidonet's Net 115 in the Chicago area. All that sort of thing vaporized pretty quickly once the internet opened up.
> back in the day one had to pay for every call, sometimes at per-minute rates: always so for long distance, and in some areas even for local calls.
Where and when did you pay per-minute for local calls? Everywhere I lived and traveled within the US back in the day, so to speak, local calls were always unlimited, even in rural areas.
In the Chicago area you had options ranging from fully-metered to unlimited throughout the metro area. In the 1990s, as more people got online, the unlimited plans went away, and the best you got was that calls within eight miles were flat-rate but pay-per-call.
> In the Chicago area you had options
Interesting. This may be due to the size of Chicago.
I didn't see such varied options, not even in Minneapolis.
*> Where and when did you pay per-minute for local calls?
Almost everywhere outside the US, Canada and New Zealand.
My question was directed toward someone who is clearly in the United States.
And indeed, the subtitle of the HN submitted article is "We’re witnessing the death of hosting in America."
I know.
So please explain the relevance of mobile phones.
Where I lived, suburban United States, landlines were ubiquitous, and we used them all the time.
If you’re at home, you can answer the landline.
If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.
Like if you’re equidistant between your house and your friends house, it is also simpler to walk to theirs and find them rather than walk home, call them, check they’re in, and then walk to theirs anyway.
Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.
Another example is if you made a plan to meet somewhere at a specific time and the person didn’t turn up. You would have no clue about where they were or what happened even if you found a payphone and called their house and it rang out. You were still s.o.l. for the rest of the day so dealt with it.
> If you’re the person who is out, then you don’t have a landline to call. Or then have to make the decision while out to go and find a payphone and have correct change and put in money to make a call to see if the person is in, while the clock is frantically ticking on the call.
You seem to be completely changing the situation. In this comment, you're talking about wanting to visit someone at home, whereas in your original comment, you're talking about not wanting to visit someone at home: "there’s fewer reasons to even go to someone’s house any more, you can just text them… or not even bother and check their socials to see what impression of a life they’re presenting today."
In other words, the mobile phone is a replacement for a home visit rather than a means for a home visit. (On the other hand, a laptop or desktop works just as well or better for checking social media. Indeed I'm currently typing on a laptop.)
It's true that mobile phones can make it easier than landlines to find out if someone is home, but if that's how people were using mobile phones, then you would expect more home visits, or at least more successful home visits.
> Also if you weren’t the person who paid the phone bill, it was often presented to you as a more parsimonious solution to use your feet rather than the telephone.
I don't understand this point. Long-distance calls were frequently billed per call, but of course walking is not a replacement for those. Local calls were typically unlimited for a fixed monthly rate.
You seem to be completely autistic and determined to raise disputes where none exist.
Maybe in your suburban sprawl where multiple telephones and multiple cars per household are essential necessities because it’s a 90 minute walk to a shop or a friend’s then one would have unlimited local calls but in huge parts of the rest of the world unlimited calling simply wasn’t a thing.
I can’t imagine you get invited to many dinner parties.
> You seem to be completely autistic
> I can’t imagine you get invited to many dinner parties.
Please read and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You’ve broken and disrespected the HN guidelines towards several people throughout this thread so it’s nonsensical to go invoking them at others.
> You’ve broken and disrespected the HN guidelines towards several people throughout this thread
How so? At worst, I said "Um".
Regardless of what you believe I've done, do you not acknowledge that you ought to follow the guidelines, and that personal insults are unacceptable, blatantly cross the line? The guidelines don't say that you get to violate them if someone else does. It may be hypocritical of me—though I disagree with that here—but in any case it's not nonsensical.
nah he's right, you seem rather maladjusted.
> Local calls were typically unlimited for a fixed monthly rate.
Mostly in the US. Today it is more widespread, but it used to be highly unusual.
> Mostly in the US.
Yes, I'm referring to the US.
> Today it is more widespread, but it used to be highly unusual.
I can't even speak about today, because I haven't had a landline in years. But at least in the US, unlimited local calls were definitely not unusual in the pre-smartphone era.
> Yes, I'm referring to the US.
So, in other words you're writing off the vast majority of the world and forgetting that we're not by any means all in the US here and by no means are all of us talking only about the US.
> I can't even speak about today, because I haven't had a landline in years. But at least in the US, unlimited local calls were definitely not unusual in the pre-smartphone era.
The context I gave was clear: It followed right after pointing out the US is unusual in this respect - the statement referred to that.
It's not clear to me whether you are intentionally obtuse or if you're genuinely struggling to pick up the context here, but either way you are being incredibly obtuse throughout this conversation. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but consider that I'm not the only one here who have picked up on this.
I went thru the thread and I agree with you. Though I am from very different background your examples feel very familiar to me. Meeting some one after phone call/ text create different level of expectation where both parties are more intentional in meeting. Where as going unannounced create far less expectations on either side. Not meet at all as someone is not home, meet for short time as they are heading out soon, have long afternoon gossiping, chatting as it turns out they also had nothing to do in particular that afternoon.
> by no means are all of us talking only about the US.
> It's not clear to me whether you are intentionally obtuse or if you're genuinely struggling to pick up the context here
The submitted HN article is about the US:
"We’re witnessing the death of hosting in America."
The charts in the submitted article are also about Americans exclusively.
So yes, we are in fact talking only about the US, and I am not obtuse or missing the context. I've been aware of the context the entire time.
What did you think we were talking about?
I'm not "writing off the vast majority of the world" or "forgetting" anything. The submitted article just happens to be about the US, not the rest of the world, and the patterns of socializing in other countries may be very different.
I did debate in the 00s though and my experience differed - it was already a highly technical affair that didn’t really require strong communication skills, but rather was more about playing logic tricks to be technically “correct” and saying so much that your opponent couldn’t counter all of it during rebuttals. That was enough to get me into the final playoffs at the national championships, and to this day I’ve been told that I focus too much on being “right” rather than being empathetic or persuasive, so debate was not the social panacea that it might have once been.
Yeah, you describe the ruined debate that was created during the late 70's early 80's and never recovered any of the positive aspects of the former debate skill set.
I went to a school with a debate team in the 2000s, and there were organized national tournaments all the time. And watching social media debaters is still a popular niche past time?
Maybe it's declined since the 50s in favor of football or so on but I'd like to see the numbers.
Debate used to be prime time entertainment, and Sunday was not all sports, it was political news debating, without any name calling either.
I really do not think debate team modeled healthy communication. It is mostly about debating as a sport, basically coming up with a sleazy twist argument on the position you do not even believe in. If anything, it makes you greatly prepared to be keyboard warrior of the bad-faith argument kind and teaches you to enjoy it.
I did enjoyed debate team activities btw. The above is what I eventually realized later.
Unless you were in elementary school during or before the early 1960s, you have no experience in what debate used to be and how it was part of the fabric of everyday culture.
In my experience, most people are overworked, stressed and exhausted.
I don't find it surprising at all that social activities have been declining. It sounds like normal mammal behavior in fact.
The first comment I see saying this. What about the percentage of people who actually own their home? Who can afford a "party"? It does mention dual income but how correlated is this change with the decoupling of economic productivity gains with worker wealth and income?
Home ownership in the US is higher now than in the 70s https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
Along with inflation adjusted (real) disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
Not American.
One big thing I feel contributing to this is a lack of time.
And the more strange unusual thing, many folks basically have "school nights", they don't do anything because they're going to work the next day.
Perhaps work becoming more mentally intensive makes this more difficult.
You might be on to something. I am one of those school nights people. Having people over will kill all "me-time" for that evening - once you get them out of the house, you do the dishes and it's straight to bed, usually. Meaning I had zero time for myself, I was hosting. The idea of having no "me-time" between two work days is hell for me. It was OK in my 20s and 30s, but not now in middle age.
Swede here, I used to host a lot of dinners and parties.
But then i realized that it was mostly me who hosted them and the few times i got invited there was an agreement that guest chip in on the costs or that it was a potluck kind of thing.
Made me regret spending all that time and money on the parties i hosted.
What do you regret exactly? I have found that friendships are rarely balanced in that sense. Sometimes you spend more (effort, worry, money) but it's also for your own benefit.
The neoliberal transactional lifestyle of compartmentalizing everything from work to emotions to social relationships combined with endless entertainment in your pocket makes the social event feel like a drag that you need to get though for the sakes of socializing.
Sounds unfortunate but I don't think there's anything to regret, you spent time and money no one else was spending but you still (hopefully) created positive experiences in return.
Freeloaders. It tells you something about the relationships that those "friends" choose to build.
If the only friends you have are those you have to pay, when the money's gone, are they likely to stick around? (Likely not)
But if they do, then maybe you've found a true friendship.
> Freeloaders. It tells you something about the relationships that those "friends" choose to build.
What a wonderfully American comment..... the very idea that somebody is financially benefiting who dosn't 'deserve' it is an athema to your society.
Maybe OP's friends simply had less money (the horror!)? Or perhaps they had more children, so less time to cook and less time to spend with friends?
Not everything in life is zero-sum monney game. After all, have you ever wondered why children climb trees?
Indeed. The way it worked for me if its at home, I am fine with cost of grocery and some drinks, it wasn't that much for me and cooking is fun. On the other hand if party is in restaurant / bar I bailed because cost is too much whether its each paid for their food and drinks or total cost divided by number of people.
i really started to loathe potlucks. i'd rather not be invited tbh.
I think the default for get-togethers now is a 3rd space, like a bar or a food hall. I'm sure we're all spending more time at home than the 70s and 90s, but it still seems like every couple of weeks I'm going somewhere with friends/acquaintances. Its just not in people's houses.
Apparently around 2004 people started spending more money on food-away-from-home than food-at-home, and it has only increased from there. Dining out seems just much more standard now.
> But in the 1950s and 1960s, tens of millions of women traded their unpaid household management jobs for salaried jobs, and the family social calendar frayed
I don't think it was exactly a "trade". Women were still (and in some relationships still are) the household managers for the most part.
One notable difference: People were much more likely to have a maid, housekeeper, or nanny in 1950. About 1 in 25 households did then, in 1900 it was 1 in 13.
Another interesting thing is that I think the art of hosting is generational in a way. I grew up watching my parents have massive annual parties and friends over all the time. I learned from watching, and picked my apartment layout and arranged the furniture in it to optimize for comfortable conversation and seating for ~8-12 people. I like being the default host, I still have friends over for TTGs or video games a few times a month. Some people are just not good at getting their space comfortable for gatherings (or they don't offer guests drink / snacks). Or they turn it into a spotify jukebox thing where it's hard to talk over the speakers (or their soundtrack is annoying).
> unpaid household management jobs
Such a drab, dystopian, ultra-capitalist, and essentially dishonest description of the homemaker role.
Can I offer up one more possible contributor? Maybe it's cliche, but car dependency. I have family and friends in my own medium-sized city, but the thought of driving all the way over there (20 minutes - 1 hour, totally random), or, even worse, forcing them to drive all the way over here by the invitation, is a bit much. Driving home, even worse. You wanna have some drinks (maybe more than "some", lol), but you gotta drive home.
I know in the 70s folks were just as, if not more car dependent, but it kinda worked back then. I only have real experience in the 90s, but even then, I remember my parents having people over, and I never got the impression they came from very far. Sometimes blocks away. They still drove... but it wasn't the same.
There's probably some mathematical relationship between car dependency, time, and urban sprawl too.
Back in the 70s there may have been 1 or 2 affordable neighborhoods in your metro area where people in their late 20s could buy a house -- and they were both probably fairly close to the city center. Nowdays, I'd say those neighborhoods are likely to be farther away from the city center (exurbs) and thus farther away from each other.
I think about this with my hometown friends in the PNW. Growing up we all lived in Bellevue, Redmond, and Kirkland, and now those areas are all too expensive and folks are living in Issaquah, Duvall, Renton, etc.
Live in NYC and my wife and I were just commenting on how when we learn about our friends' lives in the suburbs in our home states they really seem to lack a social life. It's like it just dies in your 30s. This seems to be independent of obvious things like having kids, as the parents I know who live here seem to have similarly rich socialize lives to the DINKs I know.
DUI in the 1970s was just not as much a worry. The BAC limits were higher and enforcement was lax. Driving after a few drinks, as long as you weren't totally blotto, was pretty common.
This may not be shared by other people, but my two cents.
I personally don't like inviting people to my house (or going to other people's houses) because I already spend a good chunk of my day indoors (I work from home). Whenever possible, I prefer to meet outside.
I think the point of the article is more about meeting with others at all, as opposed to it specifically being at home. So hang out with friends outside!
When I was growing up, a good deal of these sorts of parties involved backyards, barbecues, and swimming pools. Rarely did we spend time indoors.
This might explain the decline then, as with the price of housing going up less people can afford a place that has a backyard (let alone a pool!)
I remember when i was young going out on vacations with school friends and their parents for several days. Also similar to weekends at country houses. The trend was that a couple of parents liked to host the get togethers and didn’t mind 10 adults and 20 children of different ages running around the place
None of my friends have a backyard big enough to host a BBQ
Not sure the kind of size you are talking about but you might be overestimating how much space it takes. My current rental has a back yard about the size of a single car garage and I’ve been able to host a ~50 person bbq with a mix of people standing inside and out.
A night of dinner and bowling. Meet us for dinner, then go bowling. Come for just dinner or just bowling. Late for dinner? Not a problem; order whatever; all separate checks. Show up and watch a little bowling, then leave; no problem, whatever you want. Smaller group goes for drinks after bowling? Have fun?
or
Dinner at my house. Starts at 6pm. Don't be late. What to wear? What to bring? Special diet restrictions? Can't be late. How long to stay? Smoking in back yard? Alcohol on site? So many questions and so much to clean up.
> So many questions and so much to clean up.
Yes -- the main reason my wife and I stopped doing "Spaghetti Sundays" was because I hated cleaning up the house (for hours and hours!) before the guests showed up.
The house gets that messy in one week, consistently? What kind of cleaning up are we talking about here?
I actually love and fancy about big breakfasts.
Just imagine that your family and a friend's family are going to camping today. You tell the other guy, hey, tomorrow morning we are going to prepare a big breakfast for everyone. If you don't mind spending an extra 5 minutes diverting into our driveway (mine is 5 mins away from the freeway), you can have a full breakfast before we go camping. The other guy says Yes that's perfect, and the next morning the whole family roll in, smelling sausage, bacon and fried eggs.
Damn that's something I'd like to do once I get rid of my hemmorhoids.
Restaurants, bars, and other meeting places largely sucked until 2005. Tea and coffee houses barely existed.
I don't ever host anyone in my tiny city apartment, we go out. It would be far worse to "host at home". There a places dedicated to hosting, it's a service, why would we not engage with that service?
Spending 3 hours at Qahwah and then wandering over to Port Sa'id is not some lesser experience than doing it all at home. If anything it's a much better experience
The largest wake-up call for me on this was realizing how little my day-to-day life changed during the COVID lockdowns. I never quite realized that what I thought was normal was isolation by national standards. I spent the majority of my 20s basically getting up, going to work, coming home, showering, gaming, sleeping, then getting up to do it again.
After the vaccines I made massive changes. I'd reconnected with old friends during lockdown and they suggested I move to be closer to them. My employer was supportive so I ended up moving to the Bay, even got a large pay bump along side it.
Now if I have an evening alone it's because it's what I chose to do. I ended up connecting with well over a hundred people through friends-of-friends and there's always someone down to do something. We have dinner parties at least once a month, sometimes its one of us cooking for the others, other times its a potluck about bringing something in season. Because of the group size and meetup frequency, there's no pressure to schedule things where everyone can attend and no one feels left out if the timing just didn't work that time. There's always going to be another time.
I am immeasurably happier. Most of my 20s I went to bed reminiscing about how childhood was more fun, now I rarely think back.
Ironically, this whole thing basically killed my video game hobby. I just don't have much motivation to play them now that I can message one of several group chats any day of the week and go do something with people in real life.
This is why I joined the masons. It’s a dinner party every month with interesting people I would never have met otherwise.
You have to be very deliberate about this I find. The number of people who, for whatever reason, buy into the "introvert" mentality: proudly claiming it online, wearing cancelled plans or lets stay in t-shirts, etc is partly responsible for this I think.
In my experience, if you don't accept the first invitation you're much less likely to get another one for repeat events.
My wife and I are in our mid/late 30s and American and I'd say I we go to a proper party hosted by friends or host one ourselves at least once a month. In a "third place" we probably socialize another 1.5 times a week with friends at places like bars or meeting for dinner. This seems to be the norm around me. What's the difference? We live in NYC. It's very easy for us to get around, there's no drunk-driving and there are of course many opportunities for social activities outside the home. Back in the suburban state I come from I've noticed this is not the norm amongst my friends who still live there.
Also living in a dense urban neighborhood (in another large US city) and I have a similar experience. There are many bars and restaurants in walking distance, but also my friends and I host each other often. We know each other well, so we don’t worry too much about trying to come up with impressive dinners. I have some go-to recipes that I can scale up easily. Dinners are often spontaneous: group texts light up towards the end of the workday and whoever’s available will show up.
I think the real key is that we are all within walking distance of each other. Friends who live a ten-minute drive away (still close!) are also invited but rarely show up. Also, no one has kids yet.
I think the walking distance the key aspect here. I have many friends with kids and they always jump at the chance to get a sitter or the in-laws for a break from parenting.
True, but kids do make spontaneity harder.
We're in our early forties with no local partners and yes, compared to all the years we spent in suburbs, living here in NYC makes a tremendous positive difference. We can't overstate how much it's done for our mental health to have found community hangouts we can reach on foot in all of several minutes.
Crucially too, people do not know _how_ to host anymore either, treat guests. A host needs a certain self effacing attentivess. host also needs to provide an abundance too, there always should be too much food, too muxh drink, more time to stay.
> But when both parents are already inundated with literal white-collar work, it’s hard to add the job of unpaid party planner.
>The trouble with going all in on this explanation—beyond the fact that it embraces a version of learned helplessness for men—is that leisure time has increased overall since the 1950s.
It feels like this doesn't entirely folllow. If the issue is party planning is too similar to work, having more leisure time doesn't fix that.
Like im a computer programmer. I like computer programming and also did it as leisure. When I was employed as a computer programmer it lost most of its appeal as a leisure activity even though in absolute terms i had more free time then before.
1. More women work
2. More remote communication
3. Fewer friends through church
4. Fewer friends through kid’s school
5. Kids have more homework and more structure activity than they used to.
6. Less need for entertainment
I had a slightly older Mexican neighbor who would go out of his way to invite everyone in the apartment complex to watch pay per view fights and cook.
He was actually from Mexico, I suspect from a culture that values community much more. I don’t know Hispanic culture that well, but I’ve also gotten this vibe from former partners.
Long long ago when my black family first moved to California they made sure to co locate in the same area. This was partially due to the realities of segregation, but it also made making dinner for your nephew much easier.
Now the community is obsolete. Replaced by insta validation loops.
No need to suspect ;)
Family and community are highly valued and protected in their culture. Something Americans have lost their way from.
I wonder if another factor is how many people move around the country.
For families with kids, forming deep friendships as an adult can be a logistical challenge.
Many people have no current relationship with friends they made in college or high school
I love inviting friends and their partners to my place for parties, board games, movie nights, or just hanging out and listening to music. But over time, I’ve witnessed a huge decline in these gatherings. As soon as someone had a kid, they stopped coming to almost 99% of events - maybe showing up once a year, if that. Getting older didn't help either; once people hit 30, everyone started double - checking if they actually had the time or energy to go out.
Finally, as soon as I had my own kid, parties ended for me too. I stopped hosting and attending altogether (I've only organized one and visited one in the last four years). So yes, I can see this shift happening, and it’s sad. But honestly, I have no idea where I’d even find the time or energy to start doing it again.
Beyond that, I value the time I spend with my child more than any other social interaction. Maybe it's just me, but as a Millennial, the warmth, love, and comfort I have at home with my kid completely fulfill my social needs. I’m simply no longer looking for those warm feelings elsewhere.
Not US, under 40. The depiction of dinner parties makes me think not much was lost.
What I gleam from TV shows is: The wife invited people over to brag about her husband's recent promotion or her children's achievements. Once over, they gossiped about a perceived fault in the other family (did you see the son's long hair? I heard he smokes weed!
Sounds like a suburban nightmare. There surely are other socializing events that were more beneficial; like a weekly bowling club meeting.
Fun dinner parties with no conflict or drama don't make for good TV. You should try watching less TV and going to, or hosting, more dinner parties.
I don't even think this is an extrovert/intropvert thing completely, so much as what people are used to/how they were brought up.
Some people are very concerned with appearances and therefore uncomfortable with people in their homes (in either direction - too shabby, or flaunting).
Other people (with some overlap with above) are too OCD? about planning and so they turn hosting into such an ordeal they are overwhelmed by it.
In general I find that while I am an introvert, hosting a group isn't really a big deal. I find 2:2 with another couple to be more draining than a group of 10 in terms of being able to step away and catch a moment of calm. Further, as a host .. I get to select who is coming in the first place!
Families (mine included) are just too busy. Working, commuting, homework, trying to get some exercise in. Any spare time I try to spend it with my children.
I always look at happiness in terms of pillars, social, family, work, spiritual. Work somehow has taken over everything. It seems culturally engrained.
I know social media is a factor but while we all fall down the rabbit hole occasionally, it doesn't stop anyone organising a get together.
I actually went to a dinner party this past Saturday. It was planned and coordinated by my best friend's wife (of course). It was the only one this year. I'm sure they will be holiday parties, thanks to my sister-in-law, but that was the one dinner party in 2026. My cohort is mostly retired, so it's not from a lack of spare time.
American here married with 2 children. When my kids were young < 10 we would host several parties a year, bbq's in the summer, birthdays and holidays were always at our place. After about 10+ years of this my wife and I realized we were now dreading whatever upcoming party. We felt like a catering company serving food/drinks/entertainment while everyone else enjoyed it. What made it worse was almost always there would be that one person would mistake this for an all night feast and never leave. I hated having to kick people out but I can't sleep the next day away. Thus we stopped. I know this will vary wildly with the kinds of guests you have and yes we stopped inviting the problem people. Now we do very low-key parties usually less than 5 people and are very selective on who we invite. No regrets here.
The church is a huge part of building community and relationships. Its not that you can't find community and relationships outside of church, it just makes it that much easier. I have found that unless you are seeing people at least once a week or every other week with regularity, it is hard to develop a strong friendship. Church on Sundays, community group, and the occasional group party like our annual costumes and cocktails party build a foundation for developing strong individual relationships. I think with the decline of the church a lot of people just don't have things in their life that provide that relational structure. Some definitely do though!
> Something quite deep in the human psyche seems to want desperately to turn off our self-talk and silence our nattering internal monologues by turning up the volume of other characters’ voices.
Over the past few years, rather than seeking to drown out that internal monologue with external entertainment, I've found myself feeding that monologue into Claude to have what I know is an ersatz conversation. And sometimes I work with Claude to write stories around whatever I'm thinking about, basically a form of escapism and sometimes wish fulfillment through personalized fiction. How weird does this make me? Is it inherently unhealthy?
Edit to add: To tie it back to the theme of the article, the result is, of course, the same; I spend more time alone, less time talking with real people.
> It's too much fun to be home alone
This reminded me of the insurance company TV ad:
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/S7KX/geico-cancelled-plans
> Americans are unhappier than ever
For a slightly different take, the great Experimental History blog wrote about this (in a way...) too:
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/there-is-no-epidemic-...
> More recent data suggests that teenage loneliness might have ticked back up to where it was in the 1980s, and the evidence here is mixed overall, depending on which data sets and cohorts you look at. We don’t yet have enough data to be sure which way the effects go on average, but we do have enough to be sure that those effects are neither large nor universal.
We've been actively working to reverse this, getting to know lots of our neighbors. One thing that splits the difference in terms of planning pain was backyard fires. We like to relax around the fire anyway (even summer nights are cold in the high desert) and we just send out a casual "fire night" message to our friends list. We have snacks and drinks on hand, and people show up or they don't. My wife's east coast and was missing her "stoop-sits" from Philly, and this is our west coast variant.
I think this trend will only accelerate with AI until all of us live on our own little islands. I think it'll mostly be good.
https://www.hackyexperiments.com/blog/machines-of-loving-emb...
This summer I went to every pagan group I could and came to the conclusion that, for people who are settled in householder mode, the basic things you can do are (1) have a potluck and (2) have a fire, in that order. Martin Prechtel says "The feast is the only ritual" and even the Christian ministers I know won't argue about it, I mean https://four12global.com/articles/breaking-bread/
For me it was the lack of space. I now have a bigger home and even have friends overnight. Appartment living sucks.
Money. In the 70s, a single income family could afford to host. Who has money for that these days?
The period in my life when I hosted parties was when I was a mostly broke college student and flatsharing (you can get a surprising mileage out of cheap Sangria and snacks).
For most people posting on HN, I would guess, money would not be even in the top-3 of reasons.
I still do this once a month a more frequently, I think Oslo being a small city allows me and my friends to afford this with ease of public transport.
Me and a pal talked about this problem exactly a week ago, we chatted how we just invite more and more friends but sheldomly get invited ourselves, and our conclusion was some people just are not good at hosting. I say that because they never hesitate to attend.
hwoever, my phone contact is fileld with peoples allergies notes, likes/dislikes and similar so I keep the party fit for all. Catering to everyones allergy and everyone seems to have one here in West is mad challenging.
About 8 years ago I joined a meetup of techies that just... meets once a month at a restaurant for dinner; no agenda otherwise.
We stopped meeting for a bit during the pandemic, and then after the pandemic just moved to a group text message.
The big factor is that we all just kinda agree that we're meeting once a month. Because it's at a restaurant, it's super easy and requires almost no planning.
Kinda makes me want to find a place to have a monthly pot-luck with like-minded people.
A few years ago I came across a HN comment by a guy who wrote "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party". I read his comments and then got the book, and it seemed fantastic, smoothing over all the painful issues that happen when you host.
I really wanted to try it out, but moved from the city just after reading it and haven't yet.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32879851
I am an emigrant now. When I was still living in my East European country of origin, my wife and I would regularly hold parties. We liked going to other peoples’ places more than hosting but most of our friends would not throw parties themselves, so we had to fill the gap.
To me, the most obvious explanation is that people used to be able to buy houses a lot more easily than before. My wife and I were lucky that we were able to afford one, and because of that I have my friends over a couple times a year to hang out and have dinner (I would do it more often, but we're in a remote part of the city that isn't great to drive in). When we were in an apartment, we didn't even have a dining room or enough seats for anyone other than on the couch.
Surely you could still meet people outside of home while living in a small apartment? At least that’s what everyone here in Japan does.
Yes, and I think that's basically what happens; people go out to eat together instead. The article is talking about the "death of hosting", which refers to having people at your home. Several explanations in the comments here place the blame on things like smartphones, and I'm presenting an alternative explanation.
The percentage of Americans who own their own homes has gone up 1% since 1970 so that isn’t it.
Yeah right, 80 year olds hosting dinner parties.
I would bet these days 80 year olds are having about as many dinner parties as 23 year olds. The topic here isn’t general observations about home ownership, it is whether home ownership rate since 1970 caused a drop in dinner parties by 68%. It didn’t.
Okay, so what age group do you think is actually likely to host dinner parties, and how has home ownership for that age range trended since 1975? I can't speak for the population as a whole, but I'm in my early thirties, and I'm the only one of my friends in my city who owns his own home, and I think that's directly related to why I host more often than they do.
We’re not comparing you to your friends, we’re comparing people today to people in 1975z You said you host a couple a year. The article said people in ‘75 hosted once a month. So you, a homeowner, already reflect this massive drop. The decrease in hosting is over 60% regardless of age, homeownership is UP in the same time period, down 10% in the youngest cohort, not enough to account for the massive drop in dinner parties.
> We’re not comparing you to your friends, we’re comparing people today to people in 1975z You said you host a couple a year. The article said people in ‘75 hosted once a month. So you, a homeowner, already reflect this massive drop.
I also said that the main reason I don't do it more often is that my friends don't live near me. My neighborhood (and several of the ones closest) are mostly populated by other homeowners, whereas my friends live in neighborhoods further away that have mostly people who rent.
> The decrease in hosting is over 60% regardless of age, homeownership is UP in the same time period, down 10% in the youngest cohort, not enough to account for the massive drop in dinner parties.
Nothing in the article would preclude the statistic from being true if young people had massively fewer dinner parties and older people had a modest increase. It doesn't claim that's the case, but it doesn't claim that it's not either. You're presenting it as 60% uniformly across all age groups, and there's no evidence of that in the article.
For us the pandemic boosted our social lives, and we've hosted many parties. It's been super fun to host parties, and I wish we'd been doing it earlier.
I am very surprised at the number of people in this thread who are labelling this time old tradition of inviting people into your home as stressfull, unnecessary, or a waste of their time. To be honest it is quite depressing.
This is HN. The land of eternal futile optimizations.
I have a theory that the internet gave antisocial people an outsized voice they lacked before. Poorly socialized people before the internet had little forum to say anything where as now they can overwhelm any forum online while continuing their anti social mentality.
It’s like if you gave your grouchy shut in uncle a megaphone to scream at everyone from his veranda every day nonstop
This is an interesting article and I think it touches on something I've observed as well across my generation which is a lack of participation in society, institutions, and more. This generation and the one after that prefers to "like" a "post" and maybe go vote. Civic institutions? Maybe a token $5 that they were guilt tripped into contributing. By the way why does Europe have all these great museums and nice gardens? Someone paid for it. You spend 10s of thousands of dollars to go look at their stuff. Maybe you should spend that money locally instead so you have your own stuff at home to look at.
We by and large seem to not understand that nobody is going to do these things for us. I'm not sure if it was a parenting failure or just changes in how society prefers to function, but when you look around and see nobody is inviting you to dinner you should conclude that you should be the one to initiate the change. It's the same mentality I see when folks just want the government to do something, or some corporation to do something about climate change for example, but they are unwilling to also simultaneously take their own personal actions. Change starts with you. Nobody is coming to save you. You have to run for office. You have to volunteer at your local community center. You have to take on the leadership role at your church or other place of worship. You have to spend the money and host dinner parties. You have to coordinate these things and yes you have to do it on top of your other responsibilities. Alternatively, you just don't have these things anymore and social media isn't going to replace them.
Also kids - hard to get people together with kids. Not just time constraints (some seem quite strange to me - kids go to bed at 7PM? My parents just let me go to sleep whenever) but also inability to locate, to engage in conversation - mid conversation they stop some kid is doing something and now you kind of realize whatever you were talking about wasn't important to begin with, and more. I'm not criticizing folks for having kids or anything and I think "childfree" movements are extremely cringe and stupid, but having kids in lieu of extra effort, leads to some social isolation from what I've observed.
Then next thing you know you are in your late 40s and you don't have friends anymore.
Of course these are very broad strokes I'm painting. But I think there's quite a bit of truth to it.
I wonder, does this correlate to declining home ownership?
A house party seems to me like a great idea if you actually own the house. But if you don't own the damn place (or, worse, houseshare), you are working full time, and are no longer in your 20s, having people over loses much of its appeal. Especially for larger gatherings.
I did wonder about that. It mentions that lower-income individuals have less friends and thus throw less parties. But part of me wondered if that was precisely because they lacked the space to host anything more than a few friends over. Someone in a $2000/month studio apartment may not have the time nor money to try and host anything to begin with. And given costs these days, even the thought of eating out and meeting with friends is difficult.
They missed two big causes.
#1 Hording: If you've got a house full of crap, and you're deeply ashamed of it, you're not going to be having visitors over, ever. You're also not going to mention it on surveys.
We, the American public, have been collecting shit at a prodigious rate. Many of us pay rent for stuff that won't fit in our home. It's why the storage industry is so reliably profitable.
#2 Paranoia: Otis Toole[1] kidnapped then killed Adam Walsh. His father publicised his kidnapping, and fueled a moral panic that sent American parents deep into paranoia. Kids used to be free range, and were often collectively instructed to "go outside to play, and come inside when the street lights come on". After that event, we're afraid to even let them walk to a friends house a few doors over.
The end of the fairness rule, and the rise of fear based media like Fox news certainly didn't help in the rise of distrust.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottis_Toole#Murder_of_Adam_Wal...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-by-one_error
#1 is a big reason for our house. The house (and garage) badly needs a significant declutter, but we are both working professionals and don't have the energy to make a significant enough dent, especially since we both have hobbies where we accumulate more stuff all the time as well (especially me, I impulse buy board games and don't cull the ones I'm not playing often enough).
It doesn't help that I design board games too, and have too much of an easy excuse to want to get these games so I can 'research' them.
And because I'm mentally tired all the time after work, that also seems to lower my willpower. And clicking the 'buy' button online is way too easy to do.
We did used to host a monthly game designer playtest night before the pandemic, but our house had a lot less stuff back then. And being stuck in the house during the pandemic with nothing to do but play solo board games and video games (and also the uncertainty if I was even going to make it through the pandemic, since I already had respiratory issues from asthma) definitely accelerated the bad impulse buying habits I already had.
We have made slight dents in it, but the significant declutter probably won't happen until the next time I'm in between jobs, assuming there's at least a month in between jobs.
I was recently introduced to the term "house-shy", for people who don't want anyone else seeing what the inside of their house looks like. I have a few friends who are "house-shy", that I for one reason or another have seen the houses of (often years after becoming friends with them). I think the percentage of Americans who are hoarders or borderline, is underestimated.
If anyone reading this has a job (plumber, A/C repair, etc.) that regularly gives them a glimpse of the inside of people's homes, I would be curious as to their thoughts on this.
for people not having a home calling job, get a glimpse by peering into people's cars. you will see horrors beyond comprehension.
I used to host dinners all the time. Since the AI age however I simply don't have time, and I'm in constant threat of needing to work overtime to move myself down the priority list of people to lay off or fire.
Did I miss it?
The chart for time spent at home exploded after covid, but I didn't see much talk about that. It seems people got comfortable being home alone and it just continued.
I live in the Bay Area, and I've noticed that within Asian and Latino communities there is a great amount of socializing.
Maybe it's the culture or because you are an immigrant in another land, that you feel that bond.
But it's very apparent.
no, it's the culture even when they're not immigrants
It’s just too much work for big dinners. How is that possible for a family of two workers to prepare a big dinner once for maybe 8-10 people once for a while? If I had the time I’d rather spend on sleeping or something else.
There are probably people who are good at this and love to do this, but I think there are fewer and fewer families who are into big dinners.
Dinners don’t necessarily have to be big though. My wife hosts friends over all the time but usually it’s still small intimate affairs, like average 1-2 people (and their kids if they have any) - don’t need to invite everyone at once. Maybe it’s more normal here in Japan to do small groups - when my American friends come visit they always come in giant groups and it makes everything logistically challenging (which my wife also complains about, alongside the fact that it’s impossible to have a deep conversation when 12 people are in the room).
Plus they also don’t have to be polished. Don’t bother cleaning up the house and order a pizza, and everyone will still have a good time. Or just go out to a restaurant and not worry about any of that.
My wife was a volunteer coordinator at our school district. One time she roped me into making food for 150 teachers for teacher appreciation week. I’d much rather do that than prepare for a party in my house regardless of how much or little food I have to prepare. The food prep is the easy part. I can put in AirPods and listen to an audiobook while prepping or cooking things late at night. I can hand over the food and receive compliments via proxy. I don’t have to interact with people at the end and spend hours counting down the minutes until my house is empty and I can relax again.
Year 3626 Edward Gibbon II picks this up like a case study in late Roman Empire decline. He would likely not blame screen overuse, burnout, rising costs/inflation, shyness, loss of communication skills (as mentioned in this chat). These things are symptoms rather than primary causes.
I would think that in 1600 years, it would be more like Edward Gibbon CC or such.
Not all of it, but Americans are working significantly more now than they did in 1975[1]. One would expect compromises to be made to clear space for more work hours.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060
Isn't this kind of obvious?
Parties (any kind) are entertainment and they compete with other forms of entertainment.
We have way more options to amuse ourselves now than a few decades ago.
>In the 1970 book The Harried Leisure Class, the Swedish economist Staffan Burenstam Linder wrote that as a society gets richer, leisure time takes on the frantic quality of work. As rich people feel like their downtime is scarce—as each non-working hour practically shouts, “excuse me! you could be making money, right now!” —the experience of leisure time speeds up.
I think this definitely applies to my friends and I. They could be working on their next DJ session at the club next month or their next TCG tournament deck/strategy, and I could be working on projects that go nowhere. So many hobbies are now just another form of work.
But I think driving and traffic is definitely another problem, especially in the US. No one wants to spend Thursday evening or Saturday 8am in traffic,
Your comment deserves more responses. The observation that leisure becomes work is definitely true for contemporary video games, many of which are stuffed with so many "busywork" features and mini-games that they become tedium, like another job. And since ancient times, the wealthy have hunted for recreation, almost like simulating the need to directly acquire food in the wild that they have lost.
How do gender roles and sexism figure into this? I'm sure it's not the only reason, but it wouldn't surprise me if most of the 'party' work ended up falling on the wife more often than not.
That was the first reason given in the article: more dual-income households, less free time for women to organize and cook.
Well, uh, time to clean my glasses, it seems.
Lots of focus on the negatives, but it's rather uplifting to see that fathers are spending 4x as much time with their kids.
> Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families. But in the 1950s and 1960s, tens of millions of women traded their unpaid household management jobs for salaried jobs, and the family social calendar frayed, as men failed to pick up the slack.
Being stay at home parent is super lonely experience, basically the most lonely occupation you can have. In most jobs, you meet people and you do talk to people without trying to. Fairly often, they are unavoidable whether you want it or not. If you are at home with a kid, you are truly absolutely alone, unless you organize something. Every other guy here on HN complains about Covid being lonely, but it was less lonely and socially easier situation than being stay at home parent.
So, alternative framing is that women stopped organizing these as their need do organize them went down. And men did not had that need in the first place, so it did not changed from their point of view.
And simultaneously, it ceased to be acceptable to be the kind of dad who spends multiple evenings a week with buddies, not really spending time with his kids.
My mother was a stay at home mom and at least from my perspective she never seemed isolated but that seemed to be because there were many other stay at home moms on our block. We basically knew everyone on our block that had kids, which was most of them back then. I distinctly remember all the time we spent at our neighbours' houses for combination play dates and card games. Us kids would play inside or outside and the moms would play cards and socialize. There were always people coming and going and it felt like the entire block was a sort of extended family. I don't remember many organized dinner parties but that could just be from being a small child at the time so we weren't up late and didn't spend time sitting at the "adult table" when there were gatherings (we'd be fed something and then go play with the other kids in the basement or another room).
> If you are at home with a kid, you are truly absolutely alone, unless you organize something.
There are parks, splash pads, playgrounds—plenty of places where parents naturally gather without needing to be organized.
You meet other parents at those and then organize play dates or social events I would think, though?
You absolutely can, but you can also just show up and meet the people that are there.
> Until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at their home every month.
Television.
root cause: young generation wants to rent, not own. Young generation wants high density living and a shift of ownership towards landlords and private equity. As such, entertaining in a walnut sized apartment is a little less practical.
Getting people to buy (their first and only) home is a really important issue. Creating more landlords doesn't not solve housing problems.
Another challenge to hosting dinner parites today is that everybody is on a special diet, count calories, on ozempic because they need to be healthier or have a athletic goal only few people 30 years ago had.
This makes it even more difficult to host because of everybody's needs and regimes they dont buckle on.
This is really true, people used to have to figure what was a dietary preference vs a dietary requirement.
I was just planning a dinner party a while ago and the Venn diagram of what foods I could make was truly vexing.
I will move heaven and earth and scrub pots and pans for someone with Celiac, but working around people’s mere preferences is irritating.
prior generations would just eat around it or suck it up.
My wife developed lactose and gluten intolerance around 40. My 14 year old daughter has been a vegetarian for the last 9 months or so. My other two kids eat vegetables fine, but really prefer meat based dishes. As the primary meal maker in the family I’ve come to dislike making family meals anymore. It’s too much of a chore screening every ingredient and item for dairy wheat and animal products like just basic gelatin and finding alternatives or making dedicated side dishes for certain issues. I used to like making new dishes and trying new things but now it’s a small rotation to keep people fed. We can’t even reliably find a restaurant for us to eat at that would make everyone happy.
just tell the kids no. only the wife has a good reason
I'm not sure how big a deal that really is in a broad sense.
My friend circle in our old city included both Falstaffian omnivores and vegans, and we entertained often. It's not hard to ensure there's food available for folks on a more restrictive diet, and even my friends with UCI racing licenses generally ate like normal people at social events.
Mileage varies, obviously.
(I will say, however, that after having made a vegan "bolognese" once, I have no need to do so again. It was much more effort than the already time-consuming genuine article.)
Maybe it helps that 50 years ago people could actually afford to buy things like big houses where to throw parties at.
Take a look at this graph https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/housing1.png?...
Housing prices also more than doubled in real terms in the period of that graph https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QUSR628BIS
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49892107
Says nothing about affordability
Home ownership rates are higher than they were in 1975 though and the number of people living in single family homes is close to what it was in 1975 (a little lower but the same as it was in 1955).
So the vast majority of people have more space for entertaining than in 1975.
You don’t need a big house to throw a party. After divorce I decided to relive my teenage years and thrown many parties in a 40m2 apartment. You can easily fit 30 or more people in.
Were houses that much bigger in the 1970s, though? Families definitely were bigger, so there were more people per square meter. I think overall, it's a sociological change, not a financial one. People are just less into hosting parties; too much hassle of cleaning up & preparing food, too many online distractions, etc.
Its a pain in the ass to host something and id rather see my friends at a bar/restaurant.
A graph about social changes that cuts off at 2022 is beyond worthless.
Inviting friends over for dinner is the ONLY way I can get my wife and daughter to clear their stuff from the common areas.
A party with 10 guests is even better.
All three of us are hoarders, to an extent, but I alone am able to go into a cleaning frenzy approximately once or twice a year and get rid of mega-junk. Unfortunately, they don't seem able to do so.
So, I consider dinners still to be a useful tradition, though perhaps the motivations have shifted a bit.
American pie
I feel like my house is never clean/tidy enough.
(title sounds like tim robinson' new project)
May I suggest a thing my wife and I started doing a couple years ago: the monthly brunch.
First Sunday of the month or whatever, we send out a reminder text, we provide coffee and a little food, people bring way more food than we can eat, and we invite everyone we know, from our different social circles. No pressure.
It’s a moderate amount of work, but it’s very gratifying to bring people together. People have made good friends at our brunch that they hang out with all the time now. It’s been interesting to see how hungry people are for social interaction, some people have driven or taken the subway more than an hour to come. People bring their kids or babies if they have them, age range is from 20s to 60s, it’s very chill.
It’s also a great “next step” when I meet someone I’d like to be friends with: “hey, my wife and I do a monthly brunch, it’s really low-key, you should come!”
For the record, I’m an introvert, but I can tell this is really good for me.
This is a charming idea and I am inspired to try it. We just need more face time (vs. Facetime) in our lives.
I get caught in the comparison game, the thief of joy.
I don’t want ask my rich well off friends around cause of my humble existence.
I’ve been there myself - but your actual friends don’t care.
Try easing into it - go on a late afternoon sunset picnic (ironically also on the list) - a blanket, cheese, crackers, cured meat and wine and a portable speaker. Everyone is happy and it’s super cheap, the outdoors is your living room and a couple hours before sunset never disappoints (though depending on where you are the weather might be a challenge).
Don't take a percent change of a percent change.
Parent of an elementary school child in a rural area. People host holiday and birthday parties, but nobody in our extended circle hosts dinner parties. FFS who has time with two working parents and kids who are involved in a lot of activities? Weekdays we barely squeeze in a meal, and weekends are booked.
My parents hosted many dinner and hors d’oeuvre parties, because my mother didn't work outside the home and was available to shoulder all that organization and work.
I gave up throwing parties after the first two years in the States (1998-2000)
Americans throughout treat RSVPs as meaningless, show up if they feel like it, and think it's fine to cancel plans five minutes before the scheduled start.
Unless you're a glutton for punishment, you take the hint at some point.
I remember a pot luck dinner where I was the only guest that brought food. The invitation was clear, just ignored.
I was going to spout off my opinion without reading the article but well, yeah they covered the exact reasons why we don't host more: my wife and I are too busy, the kids have taken over too much of the house with toys to clean it fast and elaborate hovering play dates have taken the place of what would have been adult time in decades past. For better or worse, probably better, people also don't seem to want to drink as much anymore and many people have restrictive vegan gluten free diets. It's more about finding parents of kids who are friends with your kids
Another factor is alcohol consumption and the tolerance for drinking and driving. DUI citations were rare when I was young. I rarely see people drinking at parties I go to now.
I still host dinner parties. I even had one last night! But this article does touch on many things
I like hosting. People like attending. But they never do. I'll host several a year, and there are constantly people who say they'll come, and then never do
I'm not at the point no longer inviting people, but I've thought about it before
In the end you get tired of always hosting and never getting invited back.
Too many people are passive and have a follower or consumer attitude to everything in life. Anything outside of the routine is impossible to consider.
Why is church in there?
Every Mormon house I go to is crawling with guests. Family friends, relatives, neighbors. Watching a game, cooking dinner, doing a construction project together, kids in a Nerf-gun war. Most other houses/apartments I go to are sterile, cold, and lonely. That difference is why.
There are a few theories mentioned as to why this is happening, but not this one: throwing dinner parties takes time, and women‘s participation in the workforce has grown steadily.
There are less women with free time on their hands and the need to mingle with people they wouldn’t otherwise encounter, because they’re at home most of the time.
Agreed - my social life has frequent gatherings only because my wife is, despite working and having kids, extremely motivated to meet up with friends. If she didn’t have that motivation we probably wouldn’t be seeing anyone, and if she weren’t working then that could compensate.
I am surprised i had to scroll this far to see the whole thing was powered by women’s unpaid labor.
> Intensive parenting leaves less time for hosting
How do you successfully get your time back from your toddler?
It's well known among urban design researchers that the average number of other people one is interacting with on a daily basis has been decreasing ever since the move to the suburbs that started 100 years ago. The movr to the suburbs has been turning Americans into asocial people, generation after generation, in a vicious cycle. If you look at other countries that are still social because they live in denser environments, there's a certain amount of people "naturally" introvert, but much fewer than in the US, where most of it is learned.
> Between 1975 and 1998, the share of Americans who gave or attended a monthly dinner party declined by half.
Interesting. I would have assumed the correlation is with the rise of the internt and smartphones, but it looks like the drop precedes that.
I don't particularly like hosting, although I will do so, but I do enjoy gatherings of friends and interesting people over good food and good wine. What my wife and I did was join a dinner club. There are all variety of dinner clubs in almost every major city in the world. We are in our 40s and are the youngest members, because it seems most of the folks who join dinner clubs are older retirees that no longer have large families at home to host dinners with/for, but nonetheless we've found it rewarding.
Given that, though, I do see a bit of a generational divide. It definitely seems like the social circles of people in my generation and younger are larger, but not as deep. I have very good friends who have all moved to different places across the country, I fly to visit them, but the last time all of us were together was at someone's wedding. Contrast this with older generations who often have nearby lifelong friends and close by family, that provides them a smaller but deeper social circle with more opportunities for in-person interaction.
Dinner clubs are great, but not a replacement for the fact my closest friends are spread out all over the country. I don't really have a solve for that. If I were rich, I'd convince everyone to take remote jobs so we could build a "compound" with a bunch of houses all together and be near each other, but the economic realities don't make that possible for any of us.
Midlife millennial American here.
I’ve sorely wanted to host folks for game nights and shared meals and movies and the like. In fact, in the 2010s I’d play host to folks on the semi-regular since having people in my space is far less energy draining than being a guest in someone else’s.
Since ~2018, I’ve hosted guests three times.
Why the change?
Well, the landlord began charging for garage parking that used to be gratis, forcing cheapskates and broke renters into the visitor spaces. Then they clawed back 25% of guest parking for premium EV charging, meaning even guests with EVs couldn’t park there once they finished charging. Then the landlord stopped enforcing that, meaning folks with EVs can’t charge them because the spots are always full of combustion vehicles. This meant public transit and cycling were the only remaining options for guest access, the former of which required an hour-long detour for my friends to catch a single, specific bus route, while the latter would see them crossing stroads and cycling on state highways with vehicular traffic.
The local logistics are fungible however, and not the sole reason for the drop off. The bigger reason, admittedly, is fatigue. We spend eight hours working, then commute one to two hours each way (~10mi). Include time to prepare for work, make meals, and decompress after, and you’re left with ~1-2hrs a day for free time before having to sleep. Most employers I’ve worked for would side-eye you with disdain for trying to leave early to host an event at home, meaning we don’t feel comfortable asking for the time off in the first place. That doesn’t even include the associated workloads of our guests, who just have to show up almost immediately after work and don’t mind using their very limited free time hanging out in my space.
Then you bake in the fiscal costs - fuel for transit, food to share or prepare, parking and transit fees - and the data harvesting costs (landlord surveillance logging your entry, advertising displays profiling you, Flock camera at the sole neighborhood entrance tracking your entry and exit, etc) and it just doesn’t make fiscal or psychological sense to host at home. That doesn’t even touch on renters having smaller spaces than homeowners making hosting more of a challenge, potential noise complaints about your jovial party from a nosey neighbor getting your lease non-renewed, or the ease of just queuing up for a game remotely (even if it lacks the payoff of a physical visit from another human).
The closest I came to hosting on the regular was that brief window where COVID was managed but before RTO came hammering down. I squeezed in two visits during that time, before mandatory RTO and the insane commutes and shitty job market just kinda sapped all the energy from my circles for anything but basic survival.
Which is all a lengthy way of saying that the problem as I see it is that these events are declining because fewer people are thriving, and more people feel barely able to survive. The excess energy I do have doesn’t go to hosting so much as enjoying social events elsewhere, but that only happens because I am privileged enough to be able to take the next day off from work for recovery without getting fussed at by my employer; nobody else in my circles has that luxury at present.
Maybe you live somewhere extremely shitty but my family's friend groups get together all the time, it's not that hard. Just go over to their place, you just make up 101 excuses not to do it.
This person listed many tangible reasons hosting is not doable.
If you have no open parking spots and no public transit to your place, then you are not hosting people except those who are within a walkable route.
Maybe I wasn’t clear: the red carpet has remained deployed the entire time, but since 2018 circumstances have changed for such a large amount of my social circles that hosting events is the exception rather than the norm, specifically because of a lack of time, lack of money, lack of employer flexibility, lack of job prospects, and/or lack of energy. That’s not me making excuses, that’s literally the reasons folks don’t come over for me or most others in my buildings - and those who do visit often only come once, because they get towed for parking in the wrong spot and thus don’t want to return.
Much of the same reasons apply for why I don’t visit others: they’re too tired to host, or lack the space, or have hostile neighbors, or aren’t near public transit, or lack parking, or lack the budget to buy more food, or lack the employer willing to let them work flexibly to make all of the previous issues less problematic.
It’s great that your sample size is able to make it work but clearly mine cannot at present. It’s not a matter of “excuses”, but tangible and logical rationale for why - even when I can cover the logistics and costs myself on their behalf - they’d rather have that hour of free time to themselves for recovery before another fourteen hour day of prep-commute-work-commute-eat.
You should move to a different apartment. That's the only language landlords understand.
I can't believe noone has been discussing cost of living as a reason. Food is more expensive, owning a place big enough to invite people over is more expensive, even free time is more expensive. To me, this seems pretty straightforward: people are getting priced out of fun.
Could be, but your income should be going up in unison. If its not, its time to re-evaluate your career. Cost of living adjustments should be keeping pace with inflation, which is also a check-and-balance for business owners, to realize inflating costs to customers isn't necessarily a good thing.
If you're not getting that, you're being scammed.
Correct. Anyone who is not in the ownership class is getting scammed. Minimum wage hasn't went up in forever, union participation down, college graduates are getting stiffed at the finish line, etc. Don't be asinine and act like a systemic issue is someone's personal problem. It's like telling someone in medical debt "well, don't drink and you won't get cancer."
That other Abundance guy writes convincingly that our abundant present isn’t that satisfying. This is also self-consciously a bit tilted towards the author’s milieu. Even the Abundant Class are overworked, undersocialized, and too preoccupied with cheap technological thrills.
Material conditions certainly affect this too.
For example, if you're younger, it's a lot harder to throw a dinner party in your tiny overpriced apartment than it might have been for a previous generation of people who already owned homes in their twenties.
It is also harder to throw a party when both partners in a relationship need to work full time to make ends meet.
It is also harder to throw parties when invitees also are overworked and tired and are habituated to netflix, rather than going out.
If you live in a city, going to a public space is inevitably easier. If you live in a suburb, staying home is inevitably easier.
It's much more plausible to me that these trends are due to underlying material conditions more than they are to some fundamental change in the social attitudes of people (though obviously both can play a role).
What a bummer. We have friends, family, and our friends’ families over all the time. 1-2 days a week. Now part of that is obviously we are fortunate to have the space and (barely) the time for it. Still, I want to encourage those who can to make the effort to use their home as a social hub. It’s incredibly gratifying. We get a lot of joy out of sharing our home with others. Eventually it’s really not that much work - I honestly find it’s easier/more relaxing than going elsewhere sometimes.
Plus when you have kids it’s a lot more convenient than trying to wrangle them at the end of a fun time lol
Can't speak about the USA but here in south of Spain houses tend to be small, weather good and eating outside relatively affordable so people are used to meet outside.
Most of our gatherings are actually at the beach because for most it is just a short walk from home and there are shops very close that sell super cold beers and drinks so you don't even have to carry a huge cooler.
That’s great. Wish I had a good beach nearby. Closes is about an hour but the water really isn’t fit for swimming anymore since about 10-15 years ago. We have to go three hours to get anywhere reasonable
yeah because capitalists left no time for middle class.
My guesses:
1. Everything costs more. A lot more.
2. Wages have stagnated for decades, unless you're in that magical IT job.
3. It's now a 2 wage earner setup to afford rent or mortgage. And smaller and less hostable residences.
4. The lower your income, the worse your schedule for planning anything. Same with friends.
5. Self-entertainment is a lot cheaper.
Basically, capitalism has squeezed out being able to afford parties, and the time commitment away from "hustling".
Even with 1995-ish, we had Married with Children, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Friends. All these show apartments or houses that a single worker could afford, and fund house/apartment parties. And this is a single person paying for housing.
Sure, those are fictions for TV, but it also shows just how normal and common it was, that low/middle income folks had lots of options and good amount of time. That's just no longer true for most Americans.
>Sure, those are fictions for TV
When you noticed you were relying on evidence from fiction, instead of verbally acknowledging that that was what you were doing, you should've stopped relying on the "evidence".
It might make sense every now and them to rely on fiction for evidence in domains where it is very hard to obtain any data at all, but in this particular, there is plenty of hard data of what US workers used to earn, what they earn now, what houses and food used to cost and what they cost now.
(I expect that the hard data will fail to support your belief that things have gotten significantly harder economically for the average person.)
Idk man. It could also be that people like you are being jerks. You sound like the people that made me quit going to church, as long as we're on topic. The CPI has been bullshit for years now. People 100% work more than ever, and not for nothing. The average household needs to work more hours per week to afford the same things. This has been obvious for a long time. Hours worked per year, per household peaked in the 1990's at around 2300 hrs, and it's sat around there since then. I wonder what could've happened in the 80's to cause this?
Id agree. Ive dealt with bullies like them before. Doesnt matter what proof you pull out of your ass. You're always wrong, no matter what you say. Reminds me of Upton Sinclair's quote "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it", but more akin to political positions, and active refusal and rebuttal of anything said in opposition to their political view.
I was making a social point that "average TV shows showing families" is a rough reflection of the current happenstance of the age in which they were made. Its not a "proof" or whatever governmental numbers were smoothed over or otherwise faked to make US households look healthier or better.
> The average household needs to work more hours per week to afford the same things.
A weirdness ive seen.. Entertainment equipment like TVs, game consoles, cell phones, and such are cheap compared to the 1970's through early 2000's. Used to be entertainment was EXPENSIVE. But housing? Our house, in the Midwest, in early 2000s, sold for $160k. We bought it in 2022 for $375k. And on GIS, i see the same exact trend everywhere in my county. Other counties that we looked at moving to, similar. Same story as far as I looked.
Also, federal minimum wage has kept the same for what, since 2007? Union participation has plummeted to like 15%. Workers work longer for less money. Can barely afford a shitty apartment (too small to host parties), BUT that $400 70" TV with a game console is cheap.. and it helps you forget poverty and loneliness with artificial plenty (in game), and company (remotely, on a game).
> I wonder what could've happened in the 80's to cause this?
Reagan, Mergers and Acquisitions crisis (and resulting venture capital buying and shredding companies en masse now), stagnating wages, heavy pushing of "Right to Work" laws, and all of this trickle-down that makes me think I'm just a urinal.
Many people seem too pent up in presenting some version of themselves to actually relax (social anxiety), which I partially put down to the decline of drinking, the traditional equalizer. Many people just aren't comfortable in themselves, and alcohol therefore represents a threat to their carefully constructed cardboard cut-out caricature.
Then there's the 'all about me' meme, where people are horrid conversationalists who can't entertain an idea unrelated to self-reporting, with personalization expectations on consumption: little Bobby needs X, little Harry has to Y, little Prescilla can't Z, and woe betide anyone who doesn't do the done diet. Another element of conversation failure is the distinct lack of experience and interests in such a great swathe of the population, who seem to vacillate between survival mode and televisual fiction forays. I've also noticed many people hit their 40s and seem to decide celebrating the bands and foods they followed in their youth may be their most persistent wont and love, with seemingly zero ambition to explore further. Woe betide anyone who would wish to continue learning and exploring, contemplate art, find echoes in history, or seek to discuss pressing global issues and their potential future trajectories.
I always try to teach the young'uns Eleanore Roosevelt's quip: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
Other good quotes here (fortune implementation): https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
The narcissism of food restrictions— and in general— has contributed to this. I love to cook, but it’s dreadful to have to assemble everyone’s restrictions into a meal. How can I make a vegan, gluten free, organic, global , etc meal ?
It’s emblematic of the me-first attitude. Instead of deferential guests , grateful to be welcomed over, everyone demands they are catered to on their terms.
I politely asked my neighbor to take her shoes off before entering, and she complained that I should have warned her of my no shoes policy before coming over.
I offer my guests unopened slippers to wear while they are here, too .
Another reason is nowadays with all the variety of dietary restrictions in vogue, it’s much harder for a host to prepare a meal everyone can share. Potlucks or a bland collection of help-yourself dishes (which often are nothing more than an odd collection of appetizers) is standard fare.
I’m fortunate to have friends in their 60s and 70s where I can still enjoy the traditional dinner experience.
I wouldn't call diagnosing people for actual medical issues we learned about since the 70s an en vogue thing. Other than those, it's pretty much just vegan / non-vegan.
It’s amazing how dietary restrictions and medical issues track with political affiliation. Who knew?
What does political affiliation have to do with this specifically? Also, I'm sure there's ample source material to cement this claim?
> In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families.
Well yeah, no surprise. Planning takes time and executing even more. Get the house and garden cleaned up, buy supplies, prep and cook/grill everything, clean up everything, restore "normal" functionality of the house again.
> The trouble with going all in on this explanation—beyond the fact that it embraces a version of learned helplessness for men—is that leisure time has increased overall since the 1950s.
Leisure time maybe, but any decent party takes hours of work. Host a dozen people, they're there until at least 2200 if not longer, and then it's hours worth of cleanup work. In ye olde times, that fell under the responsibility of the housewife during the next day, but nowadays? Oh hell no.
On top of that, workloads have gone extremely compressed over the last decades "thanks" to surveillance capitalism squeezing every tiny sliver of time. No more downtimes at the water cooler and coffee machine, it's work work work work work. When you arrive home, you are completely and utterly drained.
Personally, I need my weekend just to recover.