[HN Gopher] Who Americans spend their time with, by age
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Who Americans spend their time with, by age
Author : EOO_OWID
Score : 400 points
Date : 2020-12-11 14:03 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org)
| xwdv wrote:
| This puts me more at ease about choosing to have children later
| in life. If I wait till late 30s, perhaps then I could push the
| curve a bit farther toward the end of my useful life, and spend
| less time alone.
| souprock wrote:
| Having kids later in life is a good idea, but don't forget to
| also have children earlier in life. That may bring you great
| grand children and beyond.
| xwdv wrote:
| Too late for that, already in early thirties. Aren't great
| grand children overrated anyway? My grandmother was a great
| grandmother and aside from the early toddler years the kids
| didn't really give a fuck tbh. We don't live in a society
| where a great elder is looked upon with any kind of prestige,
| so why aspire to it? Hell, not even most adult children care.
| They'd rather shovel you off somewhere where they don't have
| to deal with your old people problems or antiquated views.
|
| The only thing that will keep you respected in old age is
| your lucidity, wealth and power, and a sharp wit. Spending
| more time with your young children in late life could help
| cultivate those things out of necessity.
| [deleted]
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I wonder what are the strategies folks can adopt to see that they
| don't become victims of loneliness.
| souprock wrote:
| Nothing is certain. It helps to be a likable and outgoing
| person. It helps to make a huge family.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| I think it's just a matter of being proactive with your social
| life. Take and create opportunities to meet people.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| Finding comfort in solitude... Don't ask me how -- I haven't
| figured it out yet -- but I understand it's a thing.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| Somewhat ironically, I think the important thing here is to
| learn to be more comfortable spending time alone.
|
| The pandemic has surprised me with both how much people are
| unable to just be alone for awhile, and related to this, how
| much they have a difficult time being with partners and family
| without larger social distractions.
|
| Being able to be alone, at least in my experience, helps you to
| be with other people in a sincerely intimate way. People that
| struggle the most with their partners during the pandemic seem
| to be people who need socialization to distract from their own
| relationship problems.
|
| If two people can be "alone together" in a room for awhile,
| they can still refresh, and restore their energy. This allows
| them to be more supportive and close when they need
| socialization because they aren't exhausted.
|
| Loneliness is being forced to deal with your fear of being
| alone, without every taking the time to be comfortable being
| alone.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I don't know if this is the sort of thing most people can use
| mental jiu jitsu to dodge out of. Social connection is a
| drive most might not be able to satisfy without actual social
| connection.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| I'm not recommending people become recluses, I'm
| recommending that now, when you have social connections,
| you practice taking time to enjoy being alone, and not just
| being distracted alone. Take a long walk by yourself, spend
| sometime reading in a quiet room, mediate if you enjoy it,
| go for a bike ride by yourself, when social spaces up
| again, practice going to the bar or to slowly drink a
| coffee by yourself, get dinner by yourself more often.
|
| And to make it clear, my point isn't "be more alone" but
| rather than "being comfortable being alone helps us
| maintain social connections better".
| alextheparrot wrote:
| > This allows them to be more supportive and close when
| they need socialization because they aren't exhausted.
|
| This part picks out an important detail, which is that if
| you're capable of being alone social connection isn't
| always load-bearing for your happiness and fulfillment. I
| don't think this conflicts with the drive you mentioned,
| just that being okay without allows you to be more picky of
| how you are with.
|
| It is similar to the difference between cooking whatever
| when you're starving and finding richness and depth in
| being able to develop your craft for higher-order
| fulfillment. This premise, of course, relies on there being
| the availability of or willingness to build a larder
| containing the necessary materials.
| munificent wrote:
| _> if you're capable of being alone social connection
| isn't always load-bearing for your happiness and
| fulfillment._
|
| I don't disagree with you, but I do think it's worth
| considering that maybe we are happiest when social
| connection _is_ load-bearing.
|
| A life where no one needs you and you need no one is a
| life with no stakes at all. When I think back on the
| experiences in my life that were the most meaningful,
| that made me feel my life was deeply worth living, it's
| almost always times where I did something important for
| someone or someone did something important for me. At the
| very least, it's times where a meaningful experience was
| _shared_ with people I care about.
|
| There is a trend in the world (and all over this thread)
| that the ultimate goal of life is invulnerabtily. To
| _subtract_ everything that could _possibly_ hurt you. I
| get that. I do that too. But I have learned in the past
| couple of years how high a cost that carries.
|
| If you never expose your soft spots to anyone, you never
| experience the absolutely profound joy and connection of
| having someone who sees you, warts and all, and earns
| your trusts and loves you completely.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Loneliness is a feeling, not a state of being alone. It tends
| to go alongside feelings of not being understood, not having
| anyone that you can relate to, and feeling ignored: It is also
| a sign of depression. This is why so many folks will be lonely
| while surrounded by people, yet not so much when physically
| alone.
|
| I've generally been at my most lonely when my life was unhappy.
| I went through a short spout of it again after I moved
| countries, but in all reality, that one was different and I had
| some knowledge it'd pass (and it was more positive: I chose
| this, unlike when I was younger).
|
| I have hobbies and such, and this should serve me well into my
| old age, so long as I'm able to do things. I vary myself and
| try to keep decent mental health. (Oddly, age itself has helped
| with this: I'm 42 now).
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| What I find interesting is time spent with coworkers. It's about
| equal to time spent with partner throughout most of adulthood,
| and it's significantly higher than time spent with friends.
| Unsurprisingly, time spent with coworkers drops precipitously at
| retirement age, but perhaps surprisingly, time spent with friends
| does _not_ then increase to compensate.
|
| A lot of people in the comments are talking about children, but
| coworkers seem pretty crucial according to the charts.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The post-Covid remote utopia so many seem to be excited about
| is going to be hard for a lot of workers. Work, lunch, happy
| hour, bowling, league sports. Now they all have is Slack.
| intotheabyss wrote:
| What's wrong with spending less time with co-workers? These
| are people you have to spend time with, regardless if you
| like them or not. I would personally much rather not spend
| time with people I didn't choose to spend time with.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| IMO, most people aren't very good at building their own
| tribes outside of church, school and work.
|
| Building bubbles of "Like" only is probably not an optimal
| societal outcome either.
| Kalium wrote:
| I think it may perhaps not be a question of "right" or
| "wrong". It will probably be a jarring change for many
| people as it affects major chunks of their regular social
| contact.
| munificent wrote:
| _> but perhaps surprisingly, time spent with friends does not
| then increase to compensate._
|
| Yeah, one way to look at this data is that having kids and
| working is massively disruptful to maintaining your friend
| network, but working and parenting are both time limited. When
| those expire they leave nothing in their absence.
| orky56 wrote:
| Time spent with coworkers is just time spent at work. It's not
| voluntary so time spent away from work once retirement hits
| isn't about transferring all of it to friends. Retirement
| includes time for hobbies which can be solitary without the
| connotation of loneliness or a social pariah.
| durnygbur wrote:
| TIL I could easily be profiled as an >70 years old American. The
| society I live in is not particularly outgoing, friendly,
| outdoorsy, rich, or accommodating.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Starting from about age 20, most of a given day an average
| American spends alone (except for those who have kids, for whom
| for a few years the situation is different).
|
| Would be very interesting to find statistics obtained by similar
| methods for others locations.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Missing time spent with computer.
| pk455 wrote:
| I'd love to see this data but for men vs women
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| I'm 38, and very lonely lately (not just COVID) and seeing that
| "time spent alone" increases starting at age 38 really makes me
| depressed.
| ketzo wrote:
| Hey, it's an average -- be the exception! My mom has an
| incredibly close circle of friends, none of whom knew each
| other before they were 45.
| ridaj wrote:
| Related:
| https://www.unm.edu/~reubenjthomas/xkcdHowFriendsMeet.jpg
|
| Paper:
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07311214198283...
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I cannot wait until the nursing home lan parties. During pandemic
| I have rekindled relationships with 2-3 friends, some out of
| state, and we've played games at least 2x a week. The opportunity
| for casual interaction (via discord) while focusing on another
| task (the challenging game), perfectly mimics the environment to
| build deep longlasting relationships through shared struggle,
| trust building, communication, feedback, and so on.
| ragazzina wrote:
| >I cannot wait until the nursing home lan parties.
|
| I've seen this sentiment a lot on the internet, but after
| having visited many nursing homes, I don't think it will ever
| happen. Maybe nursing homes are different in the US, maybe I've
| seen the wrong kind of nursing home.
| rement wrote:
| I would guess nursing homes haven't developed LAN parties
| because the people who grew up doing LAN parties are
| currently in their 30s and 40s. Not quite nursing home age
| yet.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yes, bridge and board games and television dominate.
| Because those folks played bridge and board games and
| watched television.
| abetlen wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're from outside North America, but I
| don't think nursing homes here are likely to have LAN parties
| unless we make some big medical breathroughs in the next few
| decades.
|
| According to this survey of Canadian nursing homes, around
| 87% of residents suffer from some kind of cognitive
| impairment such as dementia, alzheimer's, or stroke related
| trauma [1].
|
| Even assuming that you still have any friends around by the
| time your in a nursing home, the odds that neither of you
| suffer from cognitive impairment is about 1.7% (someone let
| me know if that math is wrong).
|
| [1]: https://www.cihi.ca/en/dementia-in-canada/dementia-care-
| acro...
| OJFord wrote:
| > According to this survey of Canadian nursing homes,
| around 87% of residents suffer from some kind of cognitive
| impairment such as dementia, alzhymer's, or stroke related
| trauma [1].
|
| That sounded extraordinarily high to me, and I think
| because of the subtle difference in implication (not that
| what you said isn't correct) between your 'such as', and
| [1]'s 'including'.
|
| In the table below, by far the highest 'characteristic'
| (82%) is 'Dependence in ADLs (Activities of Daily Living
| Hierarchy Scale >=3)'. 'Dependence in Activities of Daily
| Living' is basically a description of why anyone would be
| in assisted living in the first place.
|
| But also, there's 'cognitive impairment', and there's
| _cognitive impairment_ , as it were. I don't think if you
| populated a table with 'reasons residents aren't gaming'
| that 'dementia et al.' would be high on the list, and the
| games those that were played wouldn't be shooters & GTA so
| much as puzzlers and adventure type games. At least, my
| grandfather enjoyed Spyro, Zelda, Animal Farm, that sort of
| thing.
| abetlen wrote:
| I may be misreading that, but isn't the table saying that
| 82% of residents _with_ dementia require assitance in
| their daily living activities?
|
| From having spent time volunteering at a nursing home,
| that 87% number is not far off from my experience. I'd
| add that they tended to put volunteers with people who
| had _less_ severe forms of cognitive impairment.
|
| That being said, you would occasionally meet people who
| seemed mentally impervious to aging, I had the pleasure
| to speak with an 87 year old computer programmer who was
| still actively using all kinds of technology. He talked
| to me about punch card programming accounting systems on
| IBM 1401's and dealing with technology skeptical
| secretaries who would double check every computer
| calculation by hand.
| jjice wrote:
| I had this experience as well. Two friends of mine and I hop on
| Discord and watch a few episodes of a show or a movie once or
| twice a week. It's been fantastic, especially earlier in the
| pandemic when I was in a distant city.
| chinhodado wrote:
| I wonder how this data changes in Asian countries. I would expect
| the end section (time spend in later years) to be vastly
| different, although that may be changing.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I find it fascinating that time with children goes up
| significantly while time alone stays steady 20s to 40s... that in
| no way mimics my life :D
|
| I've had a ton of "quality me time" when single; and a fair
| amount once I got married; and have absolutely zero since we got
| the little ones :)
| tmearnest wrote:
| The end of time spent with partner curve makes me sad. It's
| interesting how easy it is to read a story into this plot.
| grumple wrote:
| Interesting. Totally anecdotal here, but here are my thoughts:
|
| As I get older, I see less value in friendships, mostly because I
| realize that many of my friendships didn't serve me and added a
| lot of stress to my life (and distracted from time that could
| have been spent on career / legacy). Meanwhile, time invested in
| my personal life, hobbies, and career pays off in spades -
| spending a few months getting better at algorithms helped me
| double my wages with my next job jump. It is interesting how
| social we are with friends at a young age, then most decide on a
| constant - but low - amount of time spent with friends.
| munificent wrote:
| _> added a lot of stress to my life _
|
| A sick side effect of the US's consumer culture is that we
| define most of our experiences in terms of pleasure and pain,
| which is a shallow and unhelpful way to intepret it.
|
| A couple of years ago, a dear friend died suddenly. I flew
| across the country to her memorial service. Her husband asked
| if anyone wanted to say anything. I'm very shy and not
| spontaneous, but I found myself getting up in front of a
| hundred people and talking about her and their marriage while
| tears poured down my face. I've never done anything like that
| before, and I honestly couldn't even really tell you what I
| said.
|
| In the calculus of pleasure and pain, this was a miserable
| experience. Grieving for my friend and her absolutely destroyed
| husband. Terrified of public speaking, inexplicably ashamed to
| be crying in front of others, sobbing in sadness. If this
| experience was a blister-packed product I bought off Amazon, it
| would get a zero-star review.
|
| But it is one of the most meaningful, important experiences of
| my life. Of course it sucked, but the fact that it sucked shows
| _how much it was worth it._
|
| The question is not whether your friends add stress. All
| friends will, even the best ones. In fact, the best ones will
| often add the most, as you empathize with their struggles and
| experience them as your own. The question is whether the stress
| is meaningful and worth it. Obviously, cut out toxic people who
| bring you down for no benefit. But avoiding all close
| friendships because they can hurt means losing the opportunity
| to have all of the deep difficult but meaningful experiences
| that make life worth it.
| throwmylifawy wrote:
| Yeah I agree, it is funny hearing younger people claim that all
| of their friends are their best friends and as they get older
| their relationships dwindle. I suspect that it is crucial for
| young people to have more relationships in order to socialize
| them during early development. Once you hit your 40's having
| too many relationships becomes a burden.
| t-writescode wrote:
| And yet so many people on the internet mourn the difficulty
| of acquiring friends in their 30s, so perhaps having too many
| relationships is a good problem to have, given how hard it is
| to find someone.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I'll actually blame the internet for this.
|
| In the 1980s if you wanted to meet someone you had to build
| a social circle and do things. Even though I don't like
| clubs, my friends would pull me to them , and occasionally
| I'd meet someone.
|
| I'm not on social media/ online dating because I found it
| to be a stressful time suck.
|
| Now you have an entire generation who see social circles as
| optional. So they sit inside all day swipping right , and
| when they find they've been chatting with Bots all day,
| they lash out on Reddit.
|
| The best part of going out with my friends was always
| spending time with them. It wasn't a matter of go to club 3
| times == find partner. Chilling with your friends, even
| just the Uber home , is its own reward.
|
| At the same time you definitely can invest time in real
| social activities. A colleague of mine, who's married
| casually remarked all the guys in her tennis class have
| phds. You want to be a PhD, or another high income
| individual who spends his or her free time in tennis class,
| not an angry net citizen who complains about liberals all
| day on Reddit.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| As I get older, the _more_ value I see with friendships, even
| though many of them have added stress to my life. Some of the
| ones that I 've had are of immeasurable importance and are
| worth the horror and the slog of the less interesting ones.
|
| I already make more than enough to really worry about anything,
| so the constant increase in money hasn't driven me for a good 6
| years. What I miss, though, are the good friendships I've had
| along the way.
| cgs wrote:
| I said the same thing, then covid helped me realize the people
| I have been trying to befriend I don't actually like all that
| much! Being really picky about who you spend your precious time
| with and for what reasons makes a big difference. Friendships
| (with the right people) can really enrich your life.
| rochak wrote:
| Huh. My experience has been the opposite. I used to just focus
| on my skills but that ended up with me doing things on my own
| and not getting to enjoy the things I thought I would. With
| time, I noticed this and have started spending time with other
| people to look at things from their perspective and experience
| new things. This has been a better experience for me.
| rm445 wrote:
| I don't know how old you are, but based on the comment it seems
| likely you haven't travelled all the way along the journey yet.
| People can be retired and alone a long time - it seems such a
| potentially lonely existence that it's worth taking some
| actions earlier in life to reduce the possibility. I don't know
| whether the best way would be cultivating friendships or
| focusing on family.
| watwut wrote:
| Older people do complain about loneliness and isolation. Stay
| at home moms complain about loneliness and isolation a lot.
|
| By that I want to say that neither is young person issues. It
| is much easier for younger people to get enough socialization
| in school, work or whatever. It gets harder when people get
| older and have family obligations.
| burlesona wrote:
| The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases
| with age. There are many many reasons for it, but one thing I
| think is especially sad is how much this is a consequence of our
| built environment. If you live in a village with multiple
| generations of a family around, it's much easier for grandparents
| to be involved day too day in helping with little things in the
| village, especially keeping an eye on the kids roaming around.
| This is also true in the more traditional urban neighborhoods
| with walking-oriented life (safety from cars) and a wide mix of
| housing types etc.
|
| But (to varying degrees) most of the new construction around the
| world since WW2 has been oriented around driving and separation
| of land uses, and as a result when you age you end up living in a
| nice little garden home far removed from any day to day life
| going on. And once it gets hard for you to drive... then you
| really end up spending a ton of time alone.
|
| I don't think there's an easy fix for this, and that makes me
| sad.
| mattlondon wrote:
| > I don't think there's an easy fix for this, and that makes me
| sad.
|
| This sort of thing is advertised as one of the primary use-
| cases for self-driving cars IIRC. I.e. give people mobility who
| otherwise would not have the ability to drive (so also e.g.
| people who are blind etc)
| conradev wrote:
| My grandma sold her house and we used some of the money to
| convert our garage into an apartment for her so that she could
| live with our family. Certainly not everyone can do this but
| living with your parents/grandparents as they get older does
| seem like a reasonable "fix" to me.
| caymanjim wrote:
| It's nice that you feel this way about your parents and
| grandparents, but this is a nightmare scenario for me. I hope
| I die suddenly before I have to rely on anyone else to
| support me in any way, and if I'm being honest, I hope my own
| parents go out that way too.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There's different levels of support. Shopping for groceries
| or helping your elders do laundry is different than
| changing their diapers and spoon feeding them.
|
| Of course, it depends on the individual's personalities and
| whether or not they can accept the compromises of living
| near or with each other.
|
| I would want to commit suicide before I subject my kids or
| grandkids to permanently doing basic tasks like cleaning up
| my bodily functions or spoon feeding me, but I certainly
| don't mind helping my elders with various tasks every now
| and then.
| exolymph wrote:
| Might be best to make the suicide plans now. Do be sure to
| inform your parents that you'd rather not help them through
| their elderly infirmity.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| We're going to be buying a house with my family, mother and
| her husband in 2021. What struck me as interesting is the
| responses of my friends to these plans; how much trouble this
| would cause me, that taking care of your parents is a huge
| effort, that they would never do this, etc.
|
| I consider this attitude a good example of why things are the
| way they are. But I take pride in going against the norm
| here.
| 5555624 wrote:
| When my father's father passed away, my grandmother sold the
| house and bought a mobile home, which was put about 50 feet
| from her daughter's house. (This was in rural Pennsylvania.)
| It worked out great for more than 30 years. She could be
| alone, she could be with family.
| glitchc wrote:
| The mobility of labour has some part to play in it. A lot of
| younger folks move to where the jobs are, and start their
| families close to their work. But their parents don't move with
| them since their current home, which they've lived in their
| whole lives, is too familiar and comfortable to leave. Just
| living in the same neighbourhood dramatically increases the
| chances of meeting up.
| tcbawo wrote:
| As the younger people alive today get older, they are more
| likely to remain connected with technology and spend more time
| socially with digital experiences (playing video games with
| friends, etc.). Hopefully, this will help offset loneliness
| that might accompany decreased mobility.
| torgian wrote:
| Unfortunately this is a poor substitute for real physical
| connection with other people.
| tcbawo wrote:
| I agree. Although, in practice digital activities probably
| help to strengthen and keep relationships alive, which
| could lead to greater real physical connections in a
| symbiotic way.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Is it that poor? During the pandemic my son has stayed in
| touch with his friends on the phone in these big group
| chats and smaller chats as well. I'm amazed at how natural
| it has become for them. They talk, gossip, play games
| (Roblox, Fortnite, nba 2k), and even watch YouTube and
| TikTok together.
|
| I think the model they created will persist into post
| Covid, with the addition of physical connection.
| abduhl wrote:
| It is a poor substitution. Online groups nowadays are
| inherently exclusive and degenerative: they very rarely
| grow to include new individuals who were not in from the
| start and often will shrink over time as people feel
| slighted by something or another and disengage. There is
| no opportunity for growth. Social groups get crystallized
| and social growth stunted.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Not to my experience. Whether big (subreddits, HN) or
| small (bunch of friends over a Telegram/WhatsApp chat),
| the groups tend to be somewhat inclusive and grow over
| time; the larger they are, the faster they grow. But even
| if they didn't, arguably exclusivity is a _feature_.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| That's not my experience at all. My online social circle
| has grown substantially over the pandemic and there's
| several people I was only acquaintances with previously
| that I've grown to know much better.
| ed312 wrote:
| Does that same process not naturally play out as kids
| turn into adults? (e.g. college freshmen massive friend
| groups -> 10 years later only really talk / hang out with
| 10 or so folks)
| abduhl wrote:
| I'm responding to this comment as a response to all the
| comments which all seem to have a similar tone. I think
| it's important to remember that kids are at a different
| stage in their life than adults. Having small locked in
| social groups from a young age is bad: it limits
| experiences, creates echo chambers, and ultimately can
| lead to stunted growth. The most important thing about
| what you said re: kids turning into adults is that they
| had the chance to select their 10 or so folks from a
| massive friend group. Locking in a social group when your
| choices up to that point in life are the people you went
| to elementary school with is likely to have severe
| consequences, and that is the real harm of shutting in-
| person schooling down.
|
| I won't even touch on the idea/harm of replacing physical
| connections with purely online ones. A lot of my friends
| are people I have met via the internet, but our
| friendships have often been cemented by eventually
| meeting up in person. I suspect the same is true for most
| people who talk about their extensive online social
| graph.
| jcims wrote:
| I honestly think smaller more stable groups are going to
| yield stronger relationships than ones that are
| continuously growing.
|
| I've been on reddit for ~12 years, for example, and after
| five or six years still hadn't really cultivated any kind
| of 'group' or relationship with anyone, so I just started
| rotating my accounts regularly because the social aspect
| of the platform is essentially of zero value. HN feels
| much more like a community, and some of the forums I
| frequent are even more so, despite being largely
| undiscoverable and frosty to newcomers.
| mcguire wrote:
| Do you have a source for that?
| munificent wrote:
| I agree it's better than nothing, but my heart breaks a
| little to think about how we've completely dropped two of
| our senses on the floor when it comes to virtual social
| interaction.
|
| We have more nerves devoted to touch than any other
| sense. We're a social primate species. We need to
| shoulders to cry on, hugs, handshakes, etc. We crave
| being in the same space with others, experiencing their
| physicality.
|
| Even the _smell_ of our loved ones is an important
| component of being connected to them. Most of us probably
| have _deeply_ evocative memories of the smell of
| "grandmas's house" or an ex's shampoo. Scent is tied to
| our emotional memories more deeply than any other sense.
| rochak wrote:
| Can confirm. I used to like staying alone and being
| connected via social media. Now, I don't enjoy that
| anymore. Maybe it is because I am tired of the dopamine
| hits social media provides.
| tcbawo wrote:
| Social media as it currently exists isn't going to
| substitute personal relationships. It misses the trees
| for the forest (personal vs tribal). To me, it feels like
| being at a party where I only know a handful of people
| and I have to shout to communicate with the people I do
| know. But, technology can connect people with shared
| interests and activities and facilitate one-on-one
| communication. People who are into baseball cards or bird
| watching can find each other. Technology has the capacity
| to enrich long term relationships. I think we're still
| figuring it all out.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > connected with technology and spend more time socially with
| digital experiences
|
| As a young person today, I feel totally disconnected from the
| people around me, even moreso because of the pandemic, and I
| actively try to spend less time "socially"/"digitally" etc.
| because they only increase feelings of loneliness. No
| technology besides basic telephony has done anything to help
| me stay more connected to my friends.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > living in a nice little garden home far removed from any day
| to day life going on
|
| Don't you have neighbours and normal community areas in this
| case? Doesn't that count as day to day life? What else are you
| expecting?
| hannasanarion wrote:
| Not if those neighbors spend all day every day at schools,
| workplaces, community centers, and shopping areas that are
| 2-5 miles away and accessible only by car.
| ska wrote:
| > The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone
| increases with age.
|
| I think your focus on construction is looking at a symptom -
| this is an unintended consequence of the nuclear family
| emphasis; the construction changed to support it.
| bogdan314 wrote:
| happy news. The study does mention at the end that spending
| time alone dose not mean the individual feels lonely. Then
| reference this[1] article for more details.
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/lonely-not-alone
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > The study does mention at the end that spending time alone
| dose not mean the individual feels lonely
|
| I'm a bit doubtful about this study. It's only anecdotal
| evidence, but I heard many old persons complaining heavily
| about loneliness.
| devchix wrote:
| The reverse is worse, I think, feeling lonely while
| surrounded by people, or being with people who make you feel
| alone. I recommend a film called _Somewhere_ by Sofia
| Coppola, it 's about an actor (not old) going through the
| motions of his life, always surrounded by people, yet his
| internal landscape is vast emptiness. There's a scene where
| he falls asleep while watching twin pole dance routine in his
| hotel room! Coppola has a good eye for these "lonely in a
| crowded place" condition. The female character at a temple in
| Tokyo in _Lost In Translations_ comes to mind, and the Bill
| Murray character calling home. Likewise _Marie Antoinette_ ,
| two characters isolated and lonely, navigating the party
| atmosphere in the Chateau Marmont of its time.
| joshxyz wrote:
| Alone not lonely, lol. I think one part of it is of course
| partners dying but on top of that is giving less of a fuck as
| we grow old then really cherishing our time with the things
| that interests us intead of putting up with shitty people and
| shitty things in life
|
| Also, the spending time with children is sadly low, imagine
| growing up with no grandkids to see man that must suck
| ThoreauBred wrote:
| Did you read the bottom half of the linked website?
|
| It clearly states more alone time does not necessarily mean
| they're lonelier as individuals.
|
| Perhaps as a species this nuclear family model we have to start
| with should really be giving way in later life to more
| autonomy?
|
| After 20+ years being parented and pushed into team work, is it
| so terrible to consider enabling free agency and experience?
|
| What makes me sad is the idea there's objective truth to living
| in what we know was often an abusive and stifling lifestyle for
| many many people.
|
| The easy fix: don't personally seek a holy war where one does
| not exist. As soon as we start wondering what to do top down,
| we start focusing on arbitrary correctness and ignore the
| individual. Cultural "facts" always lose to facts of physical
| reality. No culture has found that perfect social glue. Maybe
| it's a mirage fed to us through historical story, not something
| that is real?
| op03 wrote:
| That's all nice until they start holding you responsible for
| the activities and issues of every sibling, cousin or random
| distant relative you have never met :)
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I remember a trip to Hong Kong. I was very surprised to see a
| lot of old folks hanging out together, in the park, or
| traditional restaurants. Actually, even in NYC, there were
| always a lot of elderlies spending time in the Deli near my
| home.
|
| Maybe the secret is to retire in a place where one can maintain
| a good social life at an advanced age.
| burlesona wrote:
| This is very true. Unfortunately such places are almost all
| very expensive these days. So if you're not already into late
| retirement age (and you moved there 40 years ago when it was
| affordable), then it's not economically feasible for most
| people to get in now.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| There's lots of small towns across America that are cheap
| to live in close to a couple shops and restaurants. It
| might not be New York where you have a billion options but
| its enough to have a place to walk where you can get to
| know the regulars.
| wbl wrote:
| Places can change. There's nothing stopping suburbia from
| becoming more walkable and friendly to the elderly other
| than choices we made.
| burlesona wrote:
| There's actually a lot stopping it. First and foremost,
| reams of zoning and other regulations that are not easy
| to repeal. Second, the entire physical environment poured
| in concrete which is expensive and difficult to retrofit
| well. The street patterns of suburbia are hostile to
| walkability because they intentionally increase the
| distance between points with poor connectivity and
| dendritic routing. This is why the majority of suburban
| areas decline after the first generation of development
| and never revitalize.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Places CAN change, but there is a lot stopping suburbia
| from becoming more walkable.
|
| In the case of American suburbs, places will need to
| change by basically tearing everything down and
| rebuilding differently, either a piece at a time or all
| at once.
| sli wrote:
| We can't mix together residential and commercial
| properties in the US (anymore) due to zoning laws, so
| walkable cities are effectively on life support and are
| only going to get more and more rare as time goes on.
| Each time a mixed-use building is demolished, another
| piece of a walkable city dies that likely won't ever come
| back. Suburbs and unaffordable metropolises are poised to
| kill off the ability to live without a car.
| vonmoltke wrote:
| > We can't mix together residential and commercial
| properties in the US (anymore) due to zoning laws
|
| You make this statement like there are national zoning
| laws. Doing exactly this is common in northeastern New
| Jersey, and the result is pretty dense and walkable
| suburban areas. That said, much of this is due to
| momentum; many of the suburbs were platted before car
| ownership was widespread and the later ones continued
| similar, familiar patterns.
| burner831234 wrote:
| Actually the rise of suburbs was subsidized by the
| federal government.
|
| Separately a lot of state and local legislation that is
| contentious can be copy pasted and sent along by lobbying
| groups.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The very definition of suburbia prevents it from becoming
| elderly and walking friendly: large lots for houses with
| garages and multi car wide driveways, 6+ lane road
| crossings, parking lots spacing everything out.
|
| I can't imagine any elderly person with mobility issues
| being able to cross any road with more than a 25mph speed
| limit, especially the main roads that are 4 to 8 lanes
| wide at intersections with 40mph speed limits.
| lostlogin wrote:
| In NZ lockdown really changed my perspective. With very
| little traffic the roads became the footpath and were
| heavily used by kids on bikes and families walking. Birds
| became were more numerous and it was very quiet.
|
| I'm not sure how you get to this without literally
| shutting down the country, but that aspect was nice.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Arguably the country was shut down by cars decades ago.
| You experienced it reopening, in a sense. Hate that we
| call it "closing the street" when we stop letting drivers
| terrorize people walking on them.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Mobility, flexibility of schedule, and portable
| privacy+storage are _far_ too beneficial to just give up.
| If there 's a problem with the current way those goals
| are achieved, then we need to solve that, not abandon all
| our technological progress.
| knaq wrote:
| "more walkable and friendly to the elderly" are very
| separate things, usually in conflict. The elderly face
| disability like arthritis, poor body temperature control,
| uncertainty about lower leg position or pavement contact,
| bad vision, bad hearing, confusion, and numerous other
| troubles. No normal or reasonable amount of "more
| walkable" is going to work.
|
| They need family members who care. The family members
| need parking spaces. The fewer steps from bedroom to car,
| the better. A nice goal would be to have less than 50
| feet from bedroom to car.
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is how we got where we are now. Making things more
| difficult for cars seems to increase the quality of the
| experience for those not using cars. Making things easier
| for cars increases the problems cars cause.
|
| It's a huge subsidy that society pays to have cars
| around. There is a huge cost due to the space dedicated
| to cars, parking them, driving them and keeping them from
| killing people.
| quicklyfrozen wrote:
| From what I've seen with older relatives, if you're able
| to stay mobile, you'll stay mobile longer and have a
| better quality of life. I don't think it's impossible to
| have housing and shops together and still have parking
| within a reasonable distance -- for example a town center
| with parking lots a couple blocks from the main street.
| astura wrote:
| Personal mobility devices like walkers, wheelchairs and
| scooters mix well with pedestrian traffic, not so much
| with vehicular traffic.
|
| My grandma was very feeble at the end of her life and the
| biggest pain point for her was getting her in and out of
| the car. If we could get her in her wheelchair and just
| roll her down the street for brunch, she would have gone
| out so much more. Instead we had to get her to the car,
| then pick her up to get into the car, buckle her down,
| fold up her wheelchair, drive somewhere, then do
| everything in reverse. Then do it two more times on the
| way home. She disliked the entire process so much she
| usually didn't want to bother leaving the house.
| mcguire wrote:
| Visit any rural diner between 8:00 and 9:00 (or urban diner
| between 9:00 and 11:00) when it's otherwise quiet. I'll bet
| you will find a cluster or two of elderly people swapping
| lies.
|
| Indoor malls used to be similar gathering places for people
| who wanted to walk without being in the weather.
|
| Basically, look anywhere the 20- or 30-somethings aren't.
| justjash wrote:
| Yeah, or any McDonalds in the Midwest around that time. I
| always feel out of place if I happen to stop at one
| during that time on vacation.
| watwut wrote:
| I have seen something similar in China. Old people
| socializing outside a lot, playing games, chatting,
| exercising (in old person kind of way) and dancing.
| mike_h wrote:
| Every evening when it's warm enough to not wear a thick
| coat, every park has people of all ages dancing, but mostly
| old people. In the cities I've been to, there are parks in
| every neighborhood. They have exercise equipment and places
| to gather and play games or do shared hobbies (kicking a
| shuttlecock, whip-cracking, etc). Being old in China is
| incredibly lucky.
| canada_dry wrote:
| When I visited Beijing I mistakenly referred to the
| exercise grounds in a park as kid's playgrounds... turns
| out they're actually there for seniors to use and they sure
| do... crowded every day. Sidewalk food vendors along every
| street also promote socializing.
|
| Chinese friends of mine would like to bring their parents
| from China, but they're having nothing to do with it. They
| don't want to lose the active social network they have at
| home.
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Honest question: Would/Could a elderly people friendly and
| oriented MMORPG help elderly feel less alone?
|
| And if so, is such technology even possible?
|
| My guess for first step would be finding out what kind of
| devices do elderly have access to and more importantly, what
| kind of devices they use.
|
| Side-thought: Such a MMORPG could even have a subscription
| based financial model, as most elderly do get regular monthly
| income.
|
| The moral question: Is it better to be addicted but not alone,
| or is it better to be alone and not addicted.
|
| I personally think that not only could this bring new light for
| the elderly and a opportunity to connect with others including
| the younger generations.
|
| I think such a solution could help elderly feel less lonely,
| and it is a solution that could be provided at their homes.
| gwd wrote:
| > The thing that seems crazy to me is how much time alone
| increases with age.
|
| But the thing is, time with family, friends, and spouse stay
| basically constant. The only thing that changes is time spent
| with coworkers, and time spent with children.
|
| But when you're at your office hacking away at your computer,
| are you really "with coworkers"? Is it really less lonely to
| sit at your desk, with your coworkers at their desks, than it
| is to sit at the workbench in your garage with your wife in the
| house?
|
| I know there are exceptions -- people whose spouse has died,
| who live alone, and crave every bit of social interaction they
| can get. But on the whole this graph was fairly positive for
| me.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| >But when you're at your office hacking away at your
| computer, are you really "with coworkers"? Is it really less
| lonely to sit at your desk, with your coworkers at their
| desks, than it is to sit at the workbench in your garage with
| your wife in the house?
|
| There's a lot of incidental, in-person interaction that
| happens when sharing a space with other people. Even little
| things like meeting a coworker at a coffee machine, or going
| for lunch at the same time. Adults at work spend as much
| time, or more, around their coworkers than kids spend around
| their classmates at school.
| rayiner wrote:
| This. I live in a tiny pre-zoning code neighborhood where my
| neighbors and their kids are 100 feet away. I see and talk with
| neighbors every day when leaving the house, and not just people
| like me but people of different ages and backgrounds. My
| parents live 10 minutes away and we're their multiple times a
| week. Same for my neighbors--one couple has their parents
| living in the same subdivision, another lives with her sister
| and young kid. It's so much better than when I lived in DC I
| can't even convey it.
|
| My only regret is that my extended family lives on the other
| side of the planet. When I was little everyone lived in the
| same city (Dhaka, Bangladesh). My mom's sisters were at our
| house several times a week. Moving to the US was depressing--so
| much so that my mom has always been quite bitter about it.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| I experienced this first hand when I visited my wife's family
| in Vietnam. All 10 or so of them live in homes side by side on
| the outskirts of Saigon. Everyone woke up in the morning and
| cooked for each other. Every day was like a little party. It
| was so nice to have that much support around all the time. I
| have never experienced anything like that in the US. Of course
| having family literally at your doorstep has its pros and cons
| but it worked really well for them.
| njharman wrote:
| I acknowledge I'm not typical. But, that sounds horrible. And
| torturous. Constantly smoothened by all these people. Whom
| I'm expected to be cordial to, regardless of how douchebag
| they are, because of the accident of being related.
|
| Fuck, can't even eat breakfast in peace!
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I posted this David Brooks piece here before in a similar
| discussion, addressing both the dire economic consequences in
| particular for the lower classes and social consequences of
| the advance of the nuclear family and the replacement of the
| extended family. I think there's a very good chance that it's
| the single most damaging cultural change the US has ever gone
| through.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-
| nuc...
| Swizec wrote:
| My mom always said _"Move far away enough that your parents
| can't visit in their slippers, trust me you don't want that
| kinda meddling"_
|
| I moved to USA.
|
| "Damn it I didn't mean _that_ far" ~ mom
|
| My sister lives with her boyfriend in his mom's house. There
| is indeed a ridiculous amount of meddling even though they're
| technically separate households.
| vollmond wrote:
| This becomes even more likely with internet communities,
| etc. I met my wife online, and our hometowns are 1200 miles
| apart. It's impossible to live less than an 8 hour drive
| from both our families. We lived near mine for 4 or 5 years
| after getting married, now near hers for about 10. It's
| hard to feel close to both, and have that support network.
| iso947 wrote:
| I'm from NW England. Wife is from Cornwall - 6 hour drive
| away. We met at uni, 2 hours for her, 4 for me.
|
| Then my parents moved to Greece, we moved to London for
| career and bounced around the south east.
|
| Eventually though we settled in Cheshire, and the parents
| followed - one is a 10 minute walk away, the other is 20
| minute drive. It's amazing what having grandchildren
| does.
|
| Trouble is we'd feel guilty about moving to New Zealand
| now.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| The further I have moved from Family the more I have
| started to wish I was closer to them physically. Especially
| this year when our normal yearly gatherings were disrupted.
| mwfunk wrote:
| This is a well known phenomenon :) The best way to get
| closer to family is to move away, absence makes the heart
| grow fonder. If you want to have positive and
| constructive and long-lasting relationships with your
| family, move away from them, even if it's just an hour
| (whether that means an hour drive or a different time
| zone depends on the family).
| Fnoord wrote:
| Depends.
|
| We don't have a network for our (young) children. Because
| their aunt and grandmother live 1+ hour drive away.
| Things like that severely limit your freedom. If you can
| park the children at grandma's easily, or have grandma
| visit easily, it allows you to even get things done for
| which otherwise one would need to stay at home, or you'd
| have to take all children to the appt.
|
| Luckily, we got really nice neighbors, but we try to not
| play that joker card until inevitable. Its not something
| to rely on on the long term. Family is reliable.
|
| If you live near each other, you just need to make proper
| appointments. Something with scope & boundaries...
| burade wrote:
| It's only meddling if you're way too stressed out by trying
| to keep up with capitalism.
|
| If you live a simple life without too much stress then it's
| not really meddling.
| Swizec wrote:
| No it's definitely meddling when you're 30+ and your mom
| waltzes into your kitchen and says "Mmmmm are you sure
| that knife goes in that drawer? And when's the last time
| you did the dishes anyway look at this mess"
| alashley wrote:
| Yeah being told "it's time to go to bed now" as a 27 year
| old man is a special kind of silent death.
| celim307 wrote:
| Sounds like mom needs a hobby and her own friends
| lhorie wrote:
| And it's a surprisingly common thing. Some women in my
| family have had huge fights with their moms because of
| stuff like this.
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| And then heaven forbid if you have different political
| views from them, especially in 2020. My mom treats me
| very weirdly, not because I actually voted for Trump, but
| because I don't spend my days ranting about how he's
| Satan incarnate like she does.
|
| My sister aligns politically with my mom and she moved to
| MONGOLIA to get away from her. I'm glad for people who
| truly like their families, but not all of us won that
| particular genetic lottery.
| [deleted]
| burner831234 wrote:
| I agree with most of this
|
| One thing I've learned in my 30s is its not a genetic
| lottery. There are definitely very irrevocable dynamics
| but many can be molded with a level of concern, effort
| and boundary setting that we usually associate with work
| added with a dash of true sincerity and deep care.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > There are definitely very irrevocable dynamics but many
| can be molded with a level of concern, effort and
| boundary setting that we usually associate with work
| added with a dash of true sincerity and deep care.
|
| I think this largely depends on factors outside our
| individual control--specifically, the other person.
| Sometimes setting boundaries, doing the work, can help
| the other person see the way their behavior is impacting
| you. Other times, it won't, so if you want the
| relationship to continue you have to be willing to always
| and repeatedly do all the work to maintain the
| relationship. Without the other person being capable and
| willing to recognize their own issues (and maybe get some
| therapy), no amount of your own effort can effect a
| permanent change.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It is both fascinating and sad to watch. My family has
| split along political lines, with half despising Trump
| and half worshipping him. Each side hates the other
| sufficiently that we just avoid talking anymore, so it's
| like having two distinct families.
|
| I don't know the solution other than everyone agreeing
| not to talk politics, ever. And even better, actually
| deciding that politics is pretty insignificant and only
| something to think about on election day.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Politics is the opposite of insignificant, and everything
| is related to politics, so you're sitting on a ticking
| time bomb if you're as a group trying to ignore it.
| Ignoring the pink elephant in the room doesn't make it go
| away.
| natchy wrote:
| politics is governing. most people don't govern. We have
| other jobs and roles.
|
| My influence on politics is insignificant vs my influence
| on other things that will impact my quality of life and
| those around me. In fact, politics and political news are
| a huge time suck for lots of people. Might as well be
| playing video games or watching sports.
| Fnoord wrote:
| > politics is governing. most people don't govern. We
| have other jobs and roles.
|
| That depends on the definition being used [1]. IMO, using
| this definition of governing [2], governing is taking
| responsibility, we do it all the time, and it is tough at
| times.
|
| An example of governing is deciding when to change your
| baby's diaper. You take responsibility to put in the time
| and effort (which boils down to money) to keep the baby
| healthy, proper, and happy.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics#Extensive_and_
| limited
|
| [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/govern
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > And even better, actually deciding that politics is
| pretty insignificant
|
| Unless you think civil liberties are at stake. The
| Supreme Court will be tilted to a way I believe is
| harmful for my children's future, and personal health,
| and so I consider politicians to be very significant.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Political tribes are taking over the role of family, even
| within families.
| natchy wrote:
| i'd say political tribes are taking over the role of the
| church or spiritual leaders. Work is taking over the role
| of the family.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I almost teared up when I read this. I miss my mum!!
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I have a childhood friend who helps his father run a
| family business and lives on the corner of the family
| farm. His wife left him about a year ago, because his
| mother wouldn't give them a moment alone and was
| constantly letting herself into their house. These folks
| had a fairly traditional life and multi-generational
| family structure, but his mother suffocated their
| marriage. Had nothing to do with their engagement with
| markets.
| viridian wrote:
| What does this have to do with capitalism? Some people
| just don't want to have to deal with their grandmother
| criticizing their garden productivity on the daily, or
| their dad picking the mail up from their mailbox and
| bringing it to his home.
| astura wrote:
| What? This makes no sense. Capitalism isn't the problem,
| lack of boundaries is.
|
| My best friend lived upstairs from her parents for years.
| It was her own apartment but the arrangement was hell on
| earth. Multiple times a day every day her mom would come
| barging in (and I do mean barging) to insert herself into
| whatever was going on in my friend's apartment, make
| nasty comments, or borrow/take something. Her mom
| eventually just stopped buying her own stuff because she
| just would take whatever my friend had if she needed it,
| plus it gave her more reason to bother my friend more
| often, which seemed to be her favorite activity in the
| world. Her mom even stopped driving her own car and just
| took my friend's whenever she wanted to go somewhere. The
| constant stress of the situation was so bad for my
| friend, it legitimately was ruining her health.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| That is almost a form of abuse to be honest. I hope your
| friend has learned to set boundaries and enforce them.
| People like her mom are very good at manipulating their
| children and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with it.
| felipemnoa wrote:
| I imagine that the only way to truly set boundaries would
| be for the daughter to move away.
| cgriswald wrote:
| The underlying problem is the lack of boundaries. Moving
| away does not solve that problem. Only setting and
| enforcing the boundaries will solve the problem.
| felipemnoa wrote:
| Seems like she the mom was bored with her own life and
| would do this because she couldn't stand her own
| loneliness. And yes, it is a form of abuse as another
| commenter mentioned.
| mwfunk wrote:
| No it's boundary issues and meddling and it's not
| remotely OK.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > "Move far away enough that your parents can't visit in
| their slippers, trust me you don't want that kinda
| meddling"
|
| What I always heard was something like:
|
| "Move far away enough that your parents can't visit in
| their slippers, but not far enough that they have to packs
| their bags to visit"
| cm2012 wrote:
| This model works when you have a nice family. It sucks
| horribly when the family is a toxic one.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _" You can choose your friends, but not your family."_
|
| Not sure when I first heard that quote.
| Firehawke wrote:
| I chose to make my friends my family and to stay well
| away from most of my blood relatives. There's at least
| one part of the country I'd need to be careful of not
| giving out my last name because one blood relative has
| made it problematic there.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| >I don't think there's an easy fix for this, and that makes me
| sad.
|
| I mean, the fix is really straightforward. You prevent the
| burbs from siphoning tax dollars off the host city they
| surround so that the high cost of sprawl is placed on them,
| rather than poorer city-center districts.
|
| Then, you emulate the community and land-use strategies of
| areas in which the eldest are least displaced. One of the key
| features of global blue zones is the inclusion of elders in
| society.
|
| This means opening up a lot of zoning space to mixed medium
| density residential/commercial zones and designating very
| generous volumes of family-sized units in high and medium
| density developments to restrict the optimization of
| development projects into tiny bachelor accommodation units and
| ultra-spacious penthouses. In short, make medium density
| housing in walkable communities and stop transferring wealth
| away from those communities.
| natchy wrote:
| would rather have mixed zoning, resulting in more distributed
| "city centers". I don't like big cities, but would love a
| more connected small town.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| The older I get the more I enjoy spending time by myself. I'm
| not sure its universally a bad thing.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| I'm amazed I had to read so far to see this. The older I get,
| the more I realized I don't like people that much.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| > seems crazy to me is how much time alone increases with age
|
| Many (to a degree or another) get tired of other people.
| Divorces, break-ups, tired of fights for money/inheritance,
| tired of people acting stupid, tired of fighting about
| politics, favourite teams, and many many many more.
|
| I think people are getting tired of not getting 'what they
| want' from life, a partner, their kids, society, 'the system',
| so they self-isolate, do the things they enjoy (nothing,
| fishing, watching the birds, watching tv, etc.) without having
| anyone telling them to get their feet of the couch, don't eat
| cookies in bed, and other similar annoyances.
|
| Also, depression, poverty, lifestyle, nostalgia. I was reading*
| that men tend to go back to their hometown and grow old/die
| there, women want to stay where they are or move forward. I
| assume that (for the 50+) this maybe has to do with the
| inequality and how women suffered/were treated badly when they
| were growing up in place A, 50 years ago vs living on place B,
| with today's change social mechanics.
|
| I can think of a dozen more reasons.. I am not a psychologist,
| I just started observing how the 50+ like to live, as one day
| we will all get there :)
|
| *Addition: I tried to remember more about that book and a
| couple of interviews but for the life of me I cannot remember
| the guy's name or face.. just his voice. He went on to explain
| the reason for that; in some countries/societies, when a couple
| marries, it is accustomed to live to the MAN's hometown, and in
| some other countries/societies they go to live to the WOMAN's
| hometown. So there could be the chance that they are not 'very'
| happy, they spend a life oppressed, and towards the end of
| their lives (and especially if the couple drifts apart -post
| empty nest, or one passes away) they want to go back to the
| place they grew up, which was not tarnished by 'hurtful
| memories' and they only have fond memories. Somewhere where
| they 'always belonged' either if they have not been there for
| 20-40 years. They will return and find their old friends.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| This! Recently I had a discussion here on HN with a young
| person who wants to move into Palo Alto and finds the prices
| astronomical.(it was very enlightening conservation and if HN
| had a messaging system I would invite him to listen in here)
| Society blames seniors for 'taking up spaces meant for 'young
| growing families'. In CA, it's usually their frustration over
| how they pay little taxes and live in big homes. The
| frustration is valid but misplaced. The solution is not to
| punitively tax them that would end up driving them out of their
| towns or homes and into isolated retirement communities.
|
| I place the blame entirely on the govt that is squeezing and
| squeezing young working people for taxes and turning everyone
| against each other. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the
| undignified fight for land. Everything is instigated by the
| dissatisfaction of what do I get in return for the taxes I pay.
|
| The govt should work for US. We are working for the govt. In
| California, this is gaslighting of the public at a state level.
| I want to shake people out of this stupor and show them that
| they are being abused by the politicians in Sacramento.
|
| It starts at the public school level where children are
| indoctrinated to be sheep and follow the 'leader' because they
| are most vulnerable. It carries on to university level
| especially if the students are not in brain cell burning hard
| subjects or even anything that completely consumes them and
| suffuses them with concentration for the love of learning. They
| end up with too much time on their hands and go out in the
| world to tilt windmills.
|
| Your last line: yes! There is an easy fix for this.
| Multigenerational family homes. This is high density living
| that is sustainable without any of the cons associated with it.
| And your are living with people you like. And still able to
| meet a variety of diverse people outside your home. Because
| communities that are multi generational have people of all
| ages. Older people have experience but not working
| productively. Young people can work but not as wealthy as older
| people. Children have nothing and have the all kinds of help
| from a multigenerational family..not just mothers, uncles and
| aunts along with grandparents but also siblings and cousins.
|
| Having a huge compound that shares resources like water,
| electricity, micro grid, gardens, play spaces and shared
| vehicles. Home schooling is possible and most importantly
| childcare. Ideal family size would be 6 and can be as much
| 18-25 depending on how big the compound is...this is a lesser
| footprint.
|
| The advantage of multigenerational families vs a large family
| is that the former has many people covering diff roles but in a
| family only the parents do every thing. There is more work
| distribution and allocation. Multi generational families frees
| women from the traditional chokehold of household duties by
| distributing it and they can go to work or study more because
| they know uncles or aunts or grandparents are around for
| caregiving of children.
|
| I grew up in such a family, so I also know the downsides of it.
| In my generation, most families were multigenerational and like
| like. And I have thought long and hard about this and I think
| it comes down again to resources. When families are forced to
| be multigenerational due to necessity or tradition, it comes
| with its own set of issues. But if it's a planned family with
| guidelines agreed upon by the family members themselves, it can
| function efficiently.
| gabaix wrote:
| _I don't think there's an easy fix for this, and that makes me
| sad._
|
| One remedy is as simple as a phone call. Calling old time
| friends and relatives can make wonder. Most will rejoice at
| hearing a familiar voice.
|
| Another remedy is acceptance of being alone. Being alone
| without feeling lonely is an acquired skill.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I don't think you even have to look back to when people lived
| in little villages. People nowadays are more likely to relocate
| for work and more likely to have children later, if at all. Why
| do so many people send their children to daycare when quite
| often there are grandparents who would love to look after the
| child? Most likely is the grandparents live nowhere near them.
|
| I already spend the vast majority of my time alone, so I don't
| find it sad.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I don't think there's an easy fix for this, and that makes me
| sad.
|
| I mean, there is, which is to reintroduce mixed use zoning. You
| essentially allow people to operate small businesses out of
| their homes.
|
| This changes the dynamic very quickly because the change can
| happen before the new construction. As soon as it's allowed,
| someone buys a house on your street, or one of your existing
| neighbors does this, and it becomes a bistro from the hours of
| 6PM to 10PM. The neighbors gather there on a regular basis and
| get to know each other.
|
| Then the house across the street converts a room to a
| convenience store, and now you can walk to a convenience store
| instead of having to drive to Walmart.
|
| What makes these things viable is that the proprietor still
| lives in the house, which reduces their operating costs and
| allows them to compete with the big guys. But it's currently
| prohibited by zoning.
|
| Really what might do something great is to have a new class of
| zoning designated for owner-occupied small businesses, i.e. you
| can operate a business there but only if someone who owns at
| least 30% of the business also lives there. Then rezone the
| majority of residential properties as that.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with
| one's children' line hurts so much, but it does. It sharply
| rises, before plummeting at age 40. That's got to be a jarring
| transition. No wonder so many folks have trouble with the 'empty
| nest' and mid-life crisis.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| The Western nuclear family is a very unnatural social
| arrangement. Anthropologists have found that in most hunter-
| gatherers, the average infant is held at one point or another
| by 30+ people in a typical day.
|
| The nuclear family has the twin downsides of putting tons of
| stress on parents of young kids, who shoulder the entire
| childcare burden, and deprives a lot of grandparents, aunts,
| cousins, and others of meaningful childcare time. In the
| industrialized West, for most people it's either all babies all
| the time, or no babies whatsoever. Both extremes are suboptimal
| relative to the environment humans evolved for.
| e40 wrote:
| It's even worse than that. Every set of new parents gets no
| shared knowledge on how to best raise a child. I mean there
| are a literal ton of books on the subject, but they give
| wildly different advice.
|
| I have a single kid (turned 20 recently). I can tell you it's
| totally crazy figuring it out on your own. I approached it
| more methodically than most (IMO), and I don't think I made
| too many mistakes, but here's the thing: the mistakes I made
| didn't have to happen, had there been this shared body of
| knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation.
| leesalminen wrote:
| I'm the parent of a young child and I definitely feel some
| sort of internal pressure to be all babies all the time. I
| feel pretty guilty leaving him with anyone other than my
| wife. All I can think to myself is whether what I'm doing is
| really worth it compared to spending time with the baby.
| lojack wrote:
| I don't even necessarily think its just leaving your baby
| alone with other people. Pre-covid with a <1 year old and a
| toddler we would have play dates all the time for a break.
| You stop being the source of entertainment and become a
| mediator, which is much less work. The baby then gets
| passed around to whoever has a free hand.
|
| I suspect there has always been pressure to not leave your
| baby with someone else and go off and do your own thing.
| The difference is now people are physically more distant
| from everyone else (I blame the ease of transportation) so
| being around close friends and family is the exception and
| not the standard.
| bobochan wrote:
| I definitely remember those days. Both our kids are in
| university now and the part of the chart that spoke to me
| was seeing that steep drop off when the kids reach a
| certain age. It was a big change when the kids started high
| school and all of their sports and activities were based
| around the school instead of parent volunteers.
|
| It is fine now, and it is great to hear what the kids are
| learning in physics and math, and even cooler when they ask
| the old man for advice on a programming assignment. I would
| really love to have a couple of hours back though when we
| were all doing Lego robotics together. I miss those days.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| Unfortunately the culture of helicopter parenting is
| harmful.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| We have preschools where they have close friends, tons of
| activities etc. it's not that bad.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| I'm not defending the nuclear family, but I don't think our
| primitive past says anything about what's "optimal". For
| example, human life expectancy is much longer now. I'd much
| rather be a modern person with modern technology and medicine
| than a hunter-gatherer. Evolution != good. It's just history,
| and history is often ugly.
| k__ wrote:
| I think, "the nuclear family is bad" and "living without
| modern technology is good" don't have anything to do with
| each other.
| mcguire wrote:
| Silicon Valley operates on a constant influx of 22-year-
| olds.
| k__ wrote:
| They should try to outsource to Amish communities then.
| nsajko wrote:
| Indeed, it seems the post you replied to is using a flawed
| argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
| danenania wrote:
| I don't think it's a question of good or bad, but of
| pragmatism in not fighting against the way that our bodies
| and minds were designed. Software is limited by the
| constraints of the hardware it runs on--engineers who try
| to ignore this will write slow and buggy software.
| Similarly, if we design lifestyles and societies that
| ignore, clash with, or subvert our biological and bio-
| psychological imperatives, we are likely to produce
| widespread physical and mental suffering.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > not fighting against the way that our bodies and minds
| were designed
|
| Our minds and bodies were not designed. They evolved --
| slowly -- under conditions of relatively harshness and
| scarcity that to a large extent no longer exist. The
| human "habitat" has changed radically in the past several
| hundred years. One might argue that we're no longer
| adapted to our environment. Evolution doesn't work
| quickly enough for that.
|
| I'd also suggest there was widespread physical and mental
| suffering in the distant past. It wasn't the Garden of
| Eden in prehistory.
| danenania wrote:
| They were in a sense designed by an impersonal process--
| but I agree "design" isn't the best word since it implies
| intention.
|
| I would agree that we are no longer adapted to our
| environment, and this seems to be the cause of many
| "modern" forms of suffering that are unrelated to
| scarcity, like mental illness and diseases of over-
| consumption. To me this implies that we have done a bad
| job in creating an environment for ourselves. We replaced
| suffering caused by scarcity (something we historically
| had little control over) with suffering caused by
| deliberate choices.
|
| The point isn't that aligning our choices with biological
| and psychological needs will end all suffering. It's that
| _not_ doing so pretty much guarantees a lot of
| unnecessary suffering.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| The thing is, we don't need anthropology to tell us that
| inactivity and excessive calorie consumption are bad. And
| the solution to obesity and similar problems is certainly
| not to return to hunter-gatherer society. Evolution is
| just a red herring here. It can tell us how we got here,
| but not how to move forward.
| danenania wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not arguing for a return to hunter-
| gatherer society. But we should certainly _consider_ the
| environment that our bodies and minds were developed and
| optimized for, and that our species lived in for 99% of
| its history, as we decide how to structure our current
| environment.
|
| To say that evolution is a "red herring" is absurd. It
| has literally determined every aspect of our being. You
| can't move forward without understanding what got you
| where you are.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > It has literally determined every aspect of our being.
| You can't move forward without understanding what got you
| where you are.
|
| So has physics. Why stop at hunter-gatherers, why not go
| back to the Big Bang? Would you argue that we need to
| study astrophysics to deal with obesity?
|
| It's not absurd at all to suggest that evolution is a red
| herring, any more than it's absurd to suggest that
| astrophysics is a red herring. Prehistoric archaeology is
| highly speculative at best. I'm not saying it's
| unscientific, I'm just saying there are a lot of things
| about prehistoric societies that we could be very wrong
| about, due to lack of direct observation and evidence,
| and thus it would a poor guide for our current and future
| societies even if we decided to base our behavior on our
| ancestors (which we shouldn't).
| danenania wrote:
| Biologists actually do have to study physics (including
| the most advanced and theoretical physics) to understand
| metabolic processes, and their discoveries directly
| inform medicine, psychology, and other downstream fields
| like sociology. So that's not as clever of an argument as
| you seem to think.
|
| No one is saying that we should live exactly like our
| ancestors.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must
| first invent the universe.
| watwut wrote:
| Hunter gatherers did had mental illness and diseases.
| Takes something like schizophrenia or being bipolar. That
| is not something that is purely result of modern life. I
| dont think there is evidence hunter gatherers could not
| suffer from PTSD or abuse.
|
| They did not had diseases of over-consumption, but they
| had diseases from under-consumption.
| visarga wrote:
| So they were designed by death?
| kill-procrustes wrote:
| That's pretty much a perfect summation of the theory of
| evolution.
| bnralt wrote:
| I've seen a decent amount of evidence suggesting that
| hunter-gatherer societies are generally quite a bit happier
| than members of modern society (here's an example of an
| article discussing this[1]). I think we often make the
| assumption that more is better, but it's quite possible
| that in our search for more we're putting ourselves in
| situations that run counter to our biological nature.
| Animals in captivity have many advantages over their wild
| brethren (they don't have to worry about food, about being
| eaten, they have access to advanced medicine, etc.), but I
| don't think we can say that they're clearly better off or
| happier.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/01/55
| 10187...
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Instead of idealizing noble savages, we might look to
| present-day cultures where large extended households are
| normal.
|
| We would see that sometimes it works and sometimes it
| doesn't.
|
| Sometimes you get a great network of cousins who hook you
| up with business opportunities.
|
| Sometimes you end up enslaved by your mother in law.
| csomar wrote:
| Longer life expectancy is a statistical lie. My
| grandparents died around ~95 but life expectancy at that
| time was probably lower than ~40. My grandmother had 4 kids
| who died very young (around 1-2 years of age) and that
| skews the numbers significantly.
|
| We are baby-sitting lots of adults that couldn't make it
| past 1-3 years old of age before the medical revolution.
| Some of them might never be able to be productive and only
| consume resources from their families or the public. So
| maybe evolution was not such a bad idea after all.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I agree with your general point, but much of the growth in
| life expectancy is driven by the _massive_ drops in infant
| mortality.
|
| In general, modern advances have maybe added 10+ years to
| an average adult lifespan. The quality of the added
| lifespan is harder to assess though.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > The quality of the added lifespan is harder to assess
| though.
|
| Is it? In a sense, the choice is still available to adopt
| the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, if you wanted. I don't
| know many who would want to do that.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I'm not aware of any plains with bountiful mammoth and
| fruit trees that I can colonise with my hunter-gatherer
| tribe, but then I'm not an expert in Google maps ;)
|
| Nonetheless, i'm not sure that the last ten years of my
| Dad's life (suffering from vascular dementia) were
| particularly good for him (I know that they were super
| hard for the rest of us).
|
| I think the general point is that it's hard to trade-off
| the quality of those extra years, which is the point I
| was trying (unsuccessfully, it appears) to make.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Even that increase in life expectancy is dubious,
| consider this passage from Psalms written in _1489 bc_ ,
| which can basically be said about Americans today.
|
| > _Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our
| strength endures_
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I agree and disagree. I'm certainly not arguing that
| industrialization isn't miraculous. Even from a parenting
| perspective, I think most would rather raise their kids in
| a stressful nuclear family than watch half of them die from
| preventable diseases. If you read about the anthropology of
| childrearing it's filled with endless heartbreaking
| accounts of parents having to make choices about letting
| one kid die to focus their resources on more viable
| children.
|
| But the point I do want to make is that our physiology and
| psychology is largely fine tuned by evolution for a certain
| operating environment. When we step outside that
| environment, it often introduces dysfunction in
| unpredictable ways.
|
| An extreme example: as land animals we wouldn't survive
| very long at the bottom of the sea. More prosaic example:
| it's undeniable an environment with many more and tastier
| calories creates chronic health problems. Metabolic disease
| is virtually unknown in hunter-gatherers.
|
| A rough heuristic is that removing purely adversarial
| elements from the evolutionary environment produces an
| improvements. Pathogens, predators, physical injuries,
| birth-related traumas, and famine. Removing or mitigating
| those elements are the main reason life expectancies have
| improved relative to hunter-gathers. But once you step
| outside the totally hostile elements, most environmental
| changes tend to be neutral at best and harmful at worst.
| Physiology and psychology rely on delicately tuned
| equilibria, which are easy to disrupt. The consequences
| aren't terrible, but do tend to subtly accumulate over
| time. Hunter-gathers die fast because they get a concussion
| and bleed out. Westerners die slow from the accumulation of
| plaque in their arteries.
| watwut wrote:
| However, we have not been hunter gatherers for thousands
| of years. And we also live healthier and longer lives
| then they did.
| urban_strike wrote:
| Longer on average, yes, but I highly doubt healthier. I
| think we'd be in awe of the average health/fitness of a
| 30 year old hunter gatherer from 100,000 years ago,
| compared with the average corresponding human in modern
| times.
| mcguire wrote:
| Well, those who had survived to 30...
| watwut wrote:
| Most likely we would not. There are whole classes of
| sicknesses that dissappeared last 200 years which were
| caused by lack of various nutricients. Both difficulty to
| get them and lack of knowledge played role.
|
| Add to it easy to cure sicknesses, injuries that are
| nothing more and would kill you back then, their higher
| chance to contact said injuries and it is unlikely they
| would be so much healthier.
|
| Also, there is reason why agrarian societies pushed away
| hunter gatherers - it is just easier to stay alive and
| healthy. Getting all the food a hunter gatherer in all
| seasons is hard.
|
| In addition, childbirth in their society would both kill
| or forever damaged more women. They would also have
| harder time to leave physicly abusive situation, meaning
| likely more of it, meaning yet another negative impact on
| their health.
| AlanSE wrote:
| > Also, there is reason why agrarian societies pushed
| away hunter gatherers - it is just easier to stay alive
| and healthy.
|
| No.
|
| Agriculture exists because it supports more people per
| unit of land than what the traditional way of life did
| (on average). This is as hard of a fact about history as
| you're going to get.
|
| Now, you need to be savvy about what the statement is not
| saying. It is not providing a reason for an individual,
| or group of people, to make the switch from hunter-gather
| to agriculture. History did not lay that choice upon the
| discretion of people. It plays out in a much more
| complicated way.
|
| Since the relatively natural land will only support so-
| many humans per acre, what happens when there are too
| many children? They move. Okay, what happens when that
| next region has too many children? Do they start making
| farms based on their ledgers of expected food production
| to population ratio - NO. The people who have political
| decision power are not the same people who starve or get
| their heads lobbed off as a result of their decision. If
| anything, a leader would prefer the neighboring tribe
| lose a few heads to adjust for the starvation problem. Do
| people start "switching" to farms anywhere in this? No.
| Only over a vast period of time, many climates, lots of
| movement, tribal reorganization, do people start... semi-
| nomadic animal husbandry. One day this will lead to
| agriculture.
|
| All of this is vastly more complicated than it is on the
| surface, and the newly-established farmer occupation,
| when it comes around, could possibly be seen as the
| sucker at the table. There was constant tensions between
| "civilized" societies and their tribal neighbors, and
| only over the super long term does the higher calorie
| density of civilization win out. Even if their soldiers
| are shorter and stupider, there are more of them. We
| don't read about this, because recorded history picks up
| at a time when superior organizational capabilities of
| civilization is starting to give them a quality advantage
| as well (and as a side-effect, writing).
| watwut wrote:
| You did not done much reading about history and military?
|
| Anyway, easier way to get food and not get hungry or
| starwe is strong reason to switch lifestyle. Human
| societies of all kinds have been doing exact that
| decision over and over.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I thought people in the past were shorter due to
| malnutrition? I don't think we'd be in awe of them.
| zoolily wrote:
| Hunter-gatherers were considerably taller than farmers.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > Physiology and psychology rely on delicately tuned
| equilibria, which are easy to disrupt.
|
| Agreed. My point is just that we should look at
| physiology and psychology as guides, not anthropology
| (which is interesting but not necessarily prescriptive).
|
| A diet of Twinkies and Coke is obviously terrible. But a
| finely tuned, balanced modern diet guided by nutritional
| science is likely superior to a primitive hunter-gatherer
| diet. There are plenty of people today who are in great
| physical condition; this is very feasible within our
| modern society.
|
| Similarly, different modern countries often have
| differing familial arrangements, so we can look at
| empirical outcomes there instead of trying to guess at
| what our distant ancestors did, who had little choice but
| to do what they did, not having modern civilization as an
| option.
| aylmao wrote:
| I largely agree with you, but I don't think there's reason
| to believe this is the only way to live modernity. Being an
| industrialized nation with modern technology and medicine
| doesn't come as a single package with the nuclear family.
|
| For example, I'm Mexican. Here it's quite normal to spend
| plenty of time with your extended family, live near them,
| have your parents help you take care of your kids for
| extended periods of time, etc. at least in my experience.
| We're an industrial nation and have modern medicine, but
| this is more a matter of culture and social attitudes I
| think.
| rm445 wrote:
| As a parent without nearby family, I think you're right. It's
| hard work. We went away to university, got jobs, settled down
| and bought a house. To move back close to family now would be
| an upheaval - there was probably only one short window of
| time when it wouldn't have been as much effort. Persuading
| our parents etc to downsize and move close to us might have a
| better chance.
|
| It would be nice to live around extended family. People
| definitely do, but, here in the UK at least and excepting
| big-city-dwellers, it seems linked to lower economic status -
| people for whom one job is much like another.
|
| Maybe eventually the link between where you work and where
| you live will be weaker, for more specialised jobs.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| A more "natural" arrangement occurs if we all don't run to
| large cities chasing glory and gold (which I have done, full
| disclosure, much to my child-caring woes). There is nothing
| wrong with nuclear families if you add in something like
| "nuclear communities".
|
| In many small towns or suburban cities, 3 generations live
| nearby, with all the aunts and uncles. Help with care is
| always next door, and children are raised with dozens of
| frequent visitors or caretakers. I'm quite jealous of the
| quality of life of my inlaws / extended family for these
| reasons.
| axaxs wrote:
| I experienced this in the small town suburb I lived in
| once. There were always random kids in and out of the
| house, we'd give them food/water/bandaids whatever. Tell
| jokes/stories. Even though we aren't related, we all knew
| each other and our kids just kinda bounced around together.
| Definitely a cool experience.
|
| I think the media making the entire world out to be some
| bogeyman waiting to kidnap your child is as much to blame
| as anything.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _making the entire world out to be some bogeyman waiting
| to kidnap your child is as much to blame as anything._
|
| The US president is certainly guilty of this, and it
| appears to be a GOP strategy to exacerbate and prey on
| this fear [0].
|
| 0 - https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-26/rep
| ublican...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I live in a top 10 US city (based on population), and it
| seems to be as you describe - generations of family living
| nearby, grandparents, etc. always around to help with the
| kids. Weekly (at least) family meals, parties where the
| whole neighborhood is invited, etc. I grew up knowing most
| of my friends' cousins and grandparents because they were
| just always around. Even today, I know my neighbors' kids
| and nephews because they live close by, too.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Sure, I should amend my statement to emphasize _running_
| (as in away) rather than _big city_. You can certainly
| flee family support in search of riches from or to big or
| small cities.
| [deleted]
| didip wrote:
| I watched somewhere on YouTube that nuclear family is
| designed to enhance consumerism. You sell less stuff if there
| are multiple families sharing the same items.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The _western nuclear family_ is exactly what you get in
| agrarian societies of the past. It wasn 't just some random
| thing the people of the 1950s made up on the spot.
|
| When 4/6 of your sons grow to adulthood you can't live in the
| same household as all of them. You live with one of them
| (probably the most or least functional one). 2 of the others
| have their own farms (one probably gets yours, maybe you
| split your farm between them if it's big enough) so you
| probably pick one of them. The 4th you never see because he
| runs a business making cart wheels or something in the next
| village over. The 5th left town to get a job in the port by
| the sea when he was 15 and you haven't seen him since. And of
| your daughters that survived childhood will all move in with
| their husbands. If you run the numbers for them it's the same
| thing.
|
| Multi generational households don't work at scale simply
| because of the numbers involved. Anyone pretending that
| that's how most people lived prior to the industrial
| revolution doesn't understand how many kids people had back
| then. At best you might get 10-25% of households having a
| grandparent around depending on the infant mortality rate at
| any given time. The birth rates and life expectancy just
| don't support more. 10-25% certainly isn't abnormal, but
| implying it is the default is Olympic level mental
| gymnastics.
| iguy wrote:
| I think you greatly overestimate population growth rates in
| the past here. A world where 4 successful sons was the norm
| has population doubling every decade or so, no society has
| done that. A world with just 2 has doubling every 25 years,
| and this was _extremely_ unusual in the pre-industrial
| world. A few places in the new world (like Quebec) managed
| this for a while, and it was an astonishing phenomenon to
| people (like Malthus) who saw the numbers.
|
| Most places were much closer to equilibrium, with about the
| same number of people farming a given district from one
| generation to the next. Something more like 3 adult
| children, one of whom never has a family, is what you
| should imagine. And then it's easy to picture
| multigenerational households being common. As they were, in
| many (but not all) parts of the world.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > The western nuclear family is exactly what you get in
| agrarian societies of the past.
|
| Absolutely not - and I have direct experience of this.
|
| First: multi generational households are extremely common.
|
| Second: people, including children, spend tons of time with
| other people outside of the parent-child relation.
| Relatives, often cousins, granparents, and neighbors.
|
| This is still the case for most agrarian societies outside
| of the English-speaking world.
|
| The obsession with the hyper nuclear and exclusionary
| family is very american.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Absolutely not - and I have direct experience of this.
|
| Everyone who has direct experience of this time has been
| dead for half a century at least.
|
| >First: multi generational households are extremely
| common.
|
| Define "extremely common". What percent of people in a
| given society in a given time period do you think grew up
| in one?
|
| >Second: people, including children, spend tons of time
| with other people outside of the parent-child relation.
| Relatives, often cousins, granparents, and neighbors.
|
| Nobody is debating this. Of course prior to the
| industrial revolution people moved around less so your
| friends and neighbors are more likely to be your cousins
| and if grandma is nearby she'll wind up babysitting more.
| I don't see this as being meaningful to this discussion
| since they are outside one's household.
|
| >This is still the case for most agrarian societies
| outside of the English-speaking world.
|
| Back this up with numbers. Grandma has to live somewhere,
| but for an child in any given agrarian society to be more
| likely than not to have have grandma living under the
| same roof birth rates need to be low to the point of
| apocalyptic.
|
| >The obsession with the hyper nuclear and exclusionary
| family is very american.
|
| Is the fact that it's an _American_ obsession supposed to
| be a bad thing?
|
| Yes, multi generational households were far, far more
| common from the grandparent's perspective in the past
| because elderly parents living alone was far, far less
| common. But from the perspective of the child growing up
| they still far from the default. The birth rates are
| simply too high for them to have been default. Nobody
| here is saying mutligenerational households are bad but
| the people who think they were default have a skewed
| understanding of history. Calling something that just has
| to happen by mathematical necessity "unnatural" (i.e. the
| comment my initial comment replied to) seems a little
| over the top.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > Everyone who has direct experience of this time has
| been dead for half a century at least.
|
| TIL: I'm dead.
| watwut wrote:
| Multi generational households were the norm for much of the
| history.
| iguy wrote:
| Depends where, but in western Europe for the last
| thousand years, probably not.
|
| I think the best data is for England, and centuries
| before the industrial revolution, the pattern is very
| strongly not multi-generational. Young couples expected
| to set up new households together, not to live with their
| parents.
|
| (The royal family & such of course were different, and
| still are.)
| watwut wrote:
| > Depends where, but in western Europe for the last
| thousand years, probably not.
|
| This is definitely not true. At minimum you placed span
| from 1020, which means middle age, feudalism, powerty
| before French revolution and after, industrial revolution
| which meant completely overcrowded housing.
|
| Living in multi generational household was normal,
| expectation to care about parents was normal. Building
| new house at the time of marriage where couple would live
| alone was not the expectation - at minimum it would be
| unaffordable for huge parts of population. Plus your
| social system was family, whether in old age or in
| sickness.
| iguy wrote:
| There is pretty good data on this from pre-industrial
| England.
|
| What you are asserting is what historians widely believed
| before they actually looked at the data, around the
| 1960s. They said this by looking at the more recent past
| of less developed places (like rural Russia, pre-1917)
| and assuming that the far past of England looked the
| same, and thus that nuclear families became common only
| recently. And they were wrong.
|
| Of course, there are many places even further away than
| Russia. Lots of other cultures did have multi-
| generational families as the pattern, and many still do.
| watwut wrote:
| You don't know much about European history and even less
| about Russia, isn't it?
| caeril wrote:
| 40 is early for the average empty-nest boundary. That comes
| later. Rather, the decline at 40 marks marked independence of
| young children transitioning into pre-adolescence and then
| adolescence. You see your children much less 1. when they enter
| school, 2. when they start forming their own extra-familial
| friendships, and 3. when they enter adolescence and believe
| their parents don't know anything.
| bluntfang wrote:
| >40 is early for the average empty-nest boundary.
|
| maybe for your demographic (and the demographic for
| hackernews readers), but many American children are born to
| teenage and early 20s mothers.
| realityking wrote:
| I'd think that demographic overlaps significantly with
| families that have more than one child. Significant for
| this questions is, when do folks have their last kid?
| caeril wrote:
| You're right. There are undoubtedly many teenage mothers.
| But we need to look at medians:
|
| The median age for women of first age of birth in the
| United States is 27.6 years. The average "childbearing
| years" duration is 5.3 years. If we assume an age of 10 for
| average increase in independence, we get 27.6 + (5.3/2) +
| 10 == 40.25 years.
| silveroriole wrote:
| Makes me feel better in a way. By age 60 it won't matter much
| whether I had kids or not. Time spent with them per day equals,
| like, one TV episode. So I'm happy to see that my partner and
| my self will continue to be more important by that metric.
| ericd wrote:
| I'm guessing that's the average over all people, including
| those who spend 0 time with their kids, because they don't
| have any.
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| What a truly bizarre sentiment. Just because the kids move
| out means they're completely out of your life?
| silveroriole wrote:
| Well, it's not my sentiment, it's the figure in the graph!
| hnracer wrote:
| "it won't matter much" is your sentiment.
|
| Presumably a parent of adult kids would retort that it's
| not just about the N hours of face to face, but also
| being proud of each milestone they hit (graduation, job,
| kids, etc), talking about the kids with their partner,
| and thinking about them.
| arcticfox wrote:
| Right, but to make your point, you made the incredibly
| bold assumption that every minute is equally as valuable
| as every other minute. So because time with children =
| one TV episode of time, it can't be that important.
| moate wrote:
| It's actually the opposite: If this time was so valuable,
| why wouldn't there be more of it? Why is it so important
| for the individual to have a child if you're never going
| to spend any time with them down the line? This is about
| what a specific culture (Modern Americans) are valuing.
| You can agree or disagree with that valuation (and
| whether it's ungrateful children or active seniors
| causing the time issue) but it's a valid analysis.
| mhh__ wrote:
| > If this time was so valuable, why wouldn't there be
| more of it?
|
| Money can be exchanged for goods and services
| mhh__ wrote:
| I would be willing to bet that most parents first and last
| thoughts in a day is about their children, the idea of it
| working out to roughly a TV episode a day is absolutely
| bizarre.
| yboris wrote:
| You don't have to have kids. I'm 35 years old; my wife and I
| (10 years together now) revisit this question yearly - neither
| of us want kids or wanted kids in these years. We're most
| likely never going to have kids (by choice).
|
| The way I see it, bringing a sentient being into this mad world
| needs to have a good personal reason, it shouldn't be the
| default that you need to find a reasons against.
| programmertote wrote:
| I am with you. I grew up in a below-middle-class family
| raised by my widowed mom. My dad passed away when I was 12. I
| have two younger siblings.
|
| As I look back on the last ~40 years of my life, it's mostly
| about struggles sprinkled with brief periods of joy lasting
| no more than a couple of days at most. Most of the time, I'm
| studying to get good grades so that I can get scholarships,
| without which I'd not be able to go to college; helping my
| widowed mom with her chores (including taking care of younger
| siblings) because she is occupied with making money to
| survive; and even now that I'm an adult with a stable income,
| I spend most of my time working for someone (selling my 8+
| hours a day to my employer) while worrying about if I'll have
| enough money saved by mid-50s when I hope to be able to enjoy
| life a little more (e.g., going on vacations) with some spare
| money to spend.
|
| All I'm trying to say is that life is a struggle for most
| people (the poorer family you were born into, the truer that
| statement becomes). We never have moments of peace because we
| have things to worry about constantly. I'd never bring
| another human being into this mess unless I can have a
| discussion with my future progeny before s/he is conceived
| (which is, of course, impossible). In other words, unless
| some ghost/spirit is begging me to let him/her incarnate
| because s/he see value in this rat race, I'd not make this
| decision one-sidedly.
|
| As a tangential note, I am a strong proponent of euthanasia
| and hope that one day, it'll be commonly accepted by the
| society.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I know this is highly subjective but what is a "good personal
| reason" for having kids?
| yboris wrote:
| On the moral side, there may be good reasons to be an anti-
| natalist ("Better Never to Have Been"). I think it depends
| on the quality of life ahead. If the earth was a utopia,
| I'd be more interested in having a child.
|
| A good personal reason to have a child, I think, is having
| an intense desire to have a child, and an intense desire to
| nurture and help your child grow into a good human being.
|
| I give at least 10% of my income to cost-effective
| charities (see GiveWell.org for recommendations; see
| GivingWhatWeCan.org for a community of others doing the
| same). I think that's a better use of my money than taking
| care of one human being. I get more time for myself (no
| need to take care of my own children). I help in cost-
| effective ways to help the next generation live a better
| life; it's a good balance for me. Needless to say, having a
| child wouldn't conflict with giving to charity, but it's
| easier.
| friendlybus wrote:
| Most people in the past had kids because life sucked. We
| gained from having extra hands on the farm. More kids
| were better in a world with a relatively high mortality
| rate.
|
| Your kid doesn't have to live in a utopia to be worth
| making.
| grumple wrote:
| I think that peak is when people have very young children that
| require large amounts of time from their parents. The decline
| is children getting older, going to school, going to college,
| and starting families of their own.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > I don't know why the 'time spent with one's children' line
| hurts so much, but it does. It sharply rises, before plummeting
| at age 40.
|
| I don't see anything wrong with this line. It's not because you
| don't see your kids often when they're adult that it wasn't
| worth having them, or that you don't appreciate the little time
| you still spend with them.
|
| Personally, I didn't want kids but now it's something that I
| regret somewhat. Being a man, I wrongly assumed the option
| would always be there.
| suprfnk wrote:
| > I don't even want kids. I don't know why the 'time spent with
| one's children' line hurts so much, but it does.
|
| Do you maybe not want kids on a rational level, but still want
| kids on an emotional level?
| mrlala wrote:
| Probably this. Also, people are really bad at "knowing" what
| they want.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Yes, the prospect of an "empty nest" is not one I am looking
| forward to. And that's not even figuring in the bits about how
| old I'll be then (and presumably less good looking).
|
| I do obsess on how to make that slope more gradual (i.e. offer
| higher utility to my adult off-spring) without impeding their
| growth and maturation.
|
| Older folks definitely get a second wind when they are once
| again in need to help care for the grandchildren. But when
| these grandchildren get older, the grand parents are needed
| less and/or are less interesting to tweens. Another empty nest
| situation to navigation, ahem.
| br_hue wrote:
| Sad data. In my opinion this is the result of a culture that
| optimizes for the wrong things in life.
|
| "Happiness is only real when shared.".
| mcguire wrote:
| How so?
|
| The chart seems to say that, as you age, you work less and your
| children become more independent.
| Yajirobe wrote:
| edgy into the wild
| stronglikedan wrote:
| No way. I've demonstrably proven to myself that I'm happiest
| when I'm by myself. Social interactions are tedious, and
| draining, so I prefer to keep them to a minimum. I optimize for
| the right things in _my_ life.
| br_hue wrote:
| It's my perspective, but yeah, I shouldn't have generalized.
| Different people have different preferences, needs and
| opinions.
| typhon04 wrote:
| Even so, what do you do in that time? Isn't it providing some
| service or building a product for people... and a greater
| purpose? I doubt you are a hermit doing as little social
| interactions just to get by and only consuming without
| producing anything. If so... what is the meaning of it all?
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| 1. Cooking your own meals daily (2 hours)
|
| 2. Gym (2 hours with commute)
|
| 3. Midday nap (30 min)
|
| 4. Eating meals, including slowly drinking coffee (2 hours)
|
| 5. Reading (2 hours)
|
| 6. YouTube (2 hours)
|
| 7. Self reflection (1 hour)
|
| This is 11.5 hours so far of the 16 of non sleep time. This
| does not include any income earning activities, which I
| still spend time on.
|
| I also go on long walks and think.
|
| I'm not saying this is ideal, but it works for me right
| now.
| yakubin wrote:
| _> and a greater purpose?_
|
| This part is presumptuous. "Greater" for whom?
|
| _> If so... what is the meaning of it all?_
|
| And what is the meaning of it all in the alternative? It's
| up to you. Maybe you don't need one. Maybe this question is
| meaningless.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| With you there.
|
| All will be forgotten. It is freeing to know that.
| screye wrote:
| In my experience, shallow social interactions and the
| processes for building connections are tedious for some
| people. (introverts?)
|
| However, I have found that even the most solitary person
| really enjoys the company of someone they are in tune with
| and can have meaningful conversations with.
|
| Does your claim of finding interactions tedious hold for
| these type of pre-existing intimate connections too ?
|
| Just curious
| tristor wrote:
| I think it'd be interesting to see this data split by gender as
| well as by age cohort. I think we'd find that men juncture
| towards spending time alone sooner than women, and that they
| start out with a higher level of being alone. Those are just my
| assumptions though.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| I'm also surprised they didn't call out gender. From everything
| I've read, men are increasingly isolated as they age, whereas
| women tend to cluster together. This also has been linked to
| higher-by-gender suicides for isolated men. <chagrin>Granted, I
| guess if you're dead you don't have to worry about showing up
| in the list and skewing the graph inconveniently.</chagrin>
| war1025 wrote:
| > I think we'd find that men juncture towards spending time
| alone sooner than women
|
| This is interesting to me because my dad was far more social
| while I was growing up than my mom ever was.
|
| I feel like I am also much more social than my wife is.
|
| I guess there may be trends by gender, but I'd guess it's not
| nearly so clear cut.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| What counts as "spending time"? I'm sure they define it somewhere
| in the article, but I wonder what percentage of the effects do I
| get to experience by commenting here.
|
| Are we "spending time" together right now?
|
| I ask because I've bugged a few healthcare professionals I
| randomly meet about how millennials (and younger) will age, and
| if their comfort with the connective nature of the Internet will
| help reduce mental decline due to inactivity through aging, and
| I've gotten positive responses (e.g. "for people who can use the
| Internet to stay cognitively active, aging will be a more
| pleasant experience generally").
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I don't think much true human connection is happening here --
| in the sense of connections that are emotionally fulfilling and
| improve psychological well-being. It may work for some people
| but I guess for most people the monkey brain is too far from
| what we're doing right now.
| rantwasp wrote:
| I sort-of disagree. Maybe for just browsing hn in general
| you're right. That changes when you engage in a conversation
| with someone on a thread.
|
| also, i don't really believe in the idea of the "monkey
| brain". our brain is both "hardware" and "software". The
| tooling we are using is an extension of our brain.
| wil421 wrote:
| No I don't think it's the same. We are spending some time here
| but the amount of interaction is very low.
|
| I recently bought something from a whiskey group on FB. We
| spent about 30 minutes talking about whiskey after our
| transaction. It was probably more meaningful than a week of HN
| interactions.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Lost Connections is a fantastic book on this.
|
| While it's definitely worth a read, the author's core
| argument is eroding community structures have led to an
| explosion in mental illness.
|
| He has a very interesting tale of a man in a small village
| who is essentially supported by everyone else there and with
| that is helped
|
| Compared to the typical Western solution assuming your poor
| or homeless neighbor is the responsibility of some outside
| entity.
|
| Online interactions also have a tendency to be very
| impersonal , and very mean. I don't really use any social
| media aside from this ( although that will change when I
| start promoting my side project game, I'll never speak
| outside of just promoting the game or asking for community
| feedback).
|
| I'm very much looking forward to a post-corona world, my hope
| would be that more people embrace this beautiful world of
| ours instead of arguing about which movie casted who on
| Reddit all day.
| rabuse wrote:
| This is why I genuinely enjoy going to this bar near me
| regularly. It's a very high-end place, but everyone that
| goes there knows one another, and we're like a giant
| extended family. People within the group have newborns, and
| they bring them all the time, and pass them around for all
| of us to enjoy .
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I believe online interaction _can_ be a mild substitute for
| real interaction, even through a forum like this, but it
| requires that it be the same people interacting (and for the
| interaction to be pleasant). Me writing this here isn 't to
| you, person I am responding to, but to anyone who reads it.
| It lacks the building of interpersonal camaraderie until we
| have direct, frequent, and multiple interactions.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I think I'm with you on the general notion that this time
| doesn't generally hold a candle to "real" interactive
| conversation, but you put it at "more than a week of HN
| interactions" so there is _some_ value here, which I do find
| interesting, if ultimately negligible /useless.
| [deleted]
| crispyporkbites wrote:
| As someone who loves being alone, this is great news!
| belly_joe wrote:
| Heh, same. All I have to do is wait 30 years and everyone will
| stop bothering me!
| roastytoasty wrote:
| This data makes me sad just looking at the parents, children, and
| coworker lines. This isn't how it should be...
| [deleted]
| resistLies wrote:
| Have you considered this is a good thing?
|
| Parents and children are a generation away, there are flights
| over cultural differences that drive wedges. I'm glad I only
| see my Fox News repeating parents once a week.
|
| However my co-workers are my peers who I can bounce ideas off.
|
| This isn't new or Western either. Japan has a phrase "Foolish
| father" that both means what it sounds like, but also respect
| that everyone has a father. A more general term "filial piety".
| mcguire wrote:
| Children should be dependent on their parents (or vice versa)
| and everyone should have to work until they die?
| watwut wrote:
| When frequent contact with parents is stigmatized after certain
| age, which it is in USA, then old people get lonely as they age
| and their contact with children will go down ...
| momento wrote:
| >This isn't how it should be...
|
| What makes you say that?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Think of the people you really like, respect, or care about.
| Now think about the people you actually spend time with.
| tacocataco wrote:
| Humans are naturally social creatures.
|
| I wonder if this graph is missing a data point of time spent
| with strangers. (caregivers and the like)
| jarito wrote:
| In many situations (daycare, elder care) the caregivers are
| by no means strangers. My 2 year old spends as much or more
| time with her daycare teachers and classmates than she does
| with my wife and I.
|
| They love her and she loves them. Just because they aren't
| blood doesn't mean they don't play a huge part in her day
| to day experience and growth. In fact, they play a much
| larger part in her world than her grandparents or other
| family that she only sees several times a year.
|
| It feels to easy to dismiss these folks as 'not as good as
| family' when, at least in my experience, they are much more
| than just paid baby sitters.
| [deleted]
| toddsiegel wrote:
| Agreed. But a silver lining of the pandemic is that my wife is
| now my office mate. As a result, we've spent the majority of
| most days together over the last 8 months and I could not be
| happier!
| roastytoasty wrote:
| My hope is (for occupations that can accommodate it) that all
| work remains at home. There are multitudes of pros and
| marginal downsides in my eyes.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I imagine this is testing some marriages, but I think
| my spouse and I are both happier for spending more time
| together. It really depends on living arrangements as well -
| just our office space is nearly as large as our first
| apartments entire living space so we can take the time apart
| we need.
| eulers_secret wrote:
| It also depends on personalities - my wife and I share 650
| square feet, have for years. This year has been pleasant
| even though there's no "time apart" and no privacy. We also
| have a dog in that small area.
|
| There's more to it than just affording large luxury
| housing.
| thanksforthe42 wrote:
| Have you considered this is a good thing?
|
| Parents and children are a generation away, there are flights
| over cultural differences that drive wedges. I'm glad I only
| see my Fox News repeating parents once a week.
|
| However my co-workers are my peers who I can bounce ideas off.
|
| This isn't new or Western either. Japan has a phrase "Foolish
| father" that both means what it sounds like, but also respect
| that everyone has a father. A more general term "filial piety".
| gen220 wrote:
| The underlying data here is, of course, a distribution (each with
| its own distinct shape). In this case, I suspect that the
| "average" statistic is not the best representative of that
| distribution.
|
| For instance, "children" is definitely a bimodal distribution.
| There are many people in life who never have children, and
| therefore drag down the average for all those who do have
| children.
|
| I suspect that, in reality, there are many modes for each of
| these dimensions, at each point in time. I think seeing the modes
| would be more interesting than the averages.
|
| If you believe in free will, you can probably choose which mode
| you'll end up closest to. You certainly aren't doomed to be in
| some statistically-unlikely valley in-between. There's hope you
| won't die alone, in spite of what the picture painted by the
| average might say.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Yes - I also didn't found the averages hard to interpret and
| not super full of insight.
|
| Presumably a lot of people spend 6-10 hours with their
| coworkers, and a lot of people spend 0 hours; a lot of people
| spend 8+ hours with their children, and a lot of people spend 0
| hours, and pretty much the same for all of those categories.
|
| I'd have found a few 'typical' people in each age group more
| interesting. This is harder to calculate but maybe k-means
| clustering would be a good solution.
| bcherny wrote:
| This is a great point. Can anyone find a link to the raw
| dataset? Happy to whip up a better visualization.
| gen220 wrote:
| Looks like the data source is here:
| https://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles-0319.htm
|
| It's not a super easy to use format, but it should be fun to
| extract some more useful data out of it.
|
| For what it's worth, the sample size here is very small. It
| is hard to believe that it's representative of the
| distribution.
|
| This link [1] suggests the data come from 210k interviews
| conducted over 16 years (13ish thousand per year).
|
| And the data is longitudinal (so over those 16 years, many of
| the interviewees are the same person).
|
| Even if every interviewee was unique, this would represent
| <0.0001 (or less than .01 percent) of the ~240m americans in
| 2003 who were over the age of 20.
|
| [1]: https://www.bls.gov/tus/atussummary.pdf
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I'm most surprised by the time with friends. I expected it to
| peak later and be higher. I wonder whether it counts roommates.
|
| I know that spending less time with friends has been a
| particularly difficult aspect of aging for me, and I expect
| similar for many people.
| kill-procrustes wrote:
| I was just discussing this thread with a friend of mine and we
| agreed on the same thing. Taleb has a line about college being
| the closest thing to a natural social state in the Western
| world. I think our brains feel comfortable in some sort of
| regular, persistent social milieu, particularly one formed by
| close friends/family. We expect some sort of tribe to be around
| us. That doesn't mean some of us aren't introverts--I
| definitely am one--but as I get older the absence of my friend
| group constantly there in the background is really painful.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| This article makes me think of a waitbutwhy post about how little
| time you have left with certain cohorts of your life:
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
|
| Worth reading and of course feels different with how much things
| have changed in the last 10 months
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| FTA: _Older people spend more time alone, but this doesn't
| necessarily mean they're lonely_
|
| Why bother saying this? We know it's not true.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> We know it's not true._
|
| I'm 58, and spend a lot of time alone, but I am _definitely_
| not lonely. It 's by choice. I am quite comfortable in my own
| company; which was not the case, when I was younger.
|
| I won't go into the nitty-gritty, but there's a lot of unusual
| circumstances in my life. I know that the life I lead is pretty
| different from most folks.
|
| But I would not be comfortable assuming that something "isn't
| true," simply because it doesn't apply to me.
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