While you find it tragic, I find it a blessing of sorts.

I've never had the experience of being accepted socially in these so-called social structures. My parents went to church and forced me to go. I've generally worked, and had school and stuff. It is nearly too bad I don't believe in God enough to withstand such things. I might as well been invisible at school, and I only rarely have made any sort of friendship at a workplace that carried over outside of work. Living away from family has been normal, and sometimes would go a few months in between visits due to money issues. I'm the weird one in the family - my brother in law said I was the weirdest person he'd ever met... until he met my spouse.

However, I have met friends online that I have kept for years. I interact with folks that aren't turned off by my weirdness. Met my spouse over the internet, and talking to him, though overseas, eased loneliness. The same lack of extensive social network at home allowed me to more easily move overseas when we married. Oddly, being an immigrant has made my weirdness easier and people tend to be a bit more accepting (minus the anti-immigrant folks).

I'd still venture a guess that you are fairly (within a few standard deviations of) normal. I miss the days of the Internet when it wasn't just a virtual extension of one's life. The same social memes are now embedded digitally, which makes loneliness even more prevalent because you can't escape from it like you used to be able to.

> we happily nuked existing social structures in favor of a "build your own social network" mentality

Is there evidence that this actually happened?

At least in America, I think the forces of social atomization predate the rise of social networks. The classic "Bowling Alone" was published in 2000, and it was an expanded version of a 1995 essay.

If anything, I expect that the Internet is helping. I left my home town (pop 200k) because my professional and cultural interests were too esoteric. Now I know know youngsters in towns of 500 that have an encyclopedic knowledge of anime. I see technologists working from anywhere and everywhere. Some will use that to rove, but I know many use that to stay close to family and friends.

And personally, the on-line social networks are how I arrange a lot of my meatspace social time. There are a lot of people I am now back in touch with that would have been lost to me without social networks. That isn't to deny the points of the article, which I agree with. But as much as Facebook irritates me, I don't think I can blame it for this.

Agree. For our kind, hackerspaces and similar coworking spaces are very important. Especially for starting new companies and cooperatives. Having social media like HN is icing on the cake.

At least geeks have the Net though. Huge portions of the population have no genuine social group as they get older. It is no wonder the Japanese are obsessed with high school. It's the last time their peer group was together. Things like participation in sports, religion and other quasi-social affairs are in decline.

In the UK, the existing social structures like the church had pretty much collapsed before social networks came on the scene.

Social networks actually have the potential to help restore local social structures as at root they are about connectivity. A local volunteering group can easily keep its members up-to-date via its FB group. A local Councillor can update his constituents via his Twitter account. I'd like to see a new batch of startups which work on channelling social media usage to properly social ends.

Yeah. My experience is that social networks and media are good for distributing information to a group of people who have opted in to the distribution. Which is what I think you are saying. However, social media is often portrayed as substituting for face-to-face social contact, which it does to some degree, but nowhere near good enough to replace it. Social media is a bit like spun sugar, it briefly tastes like you are eating something, but ultimately the experience is fleeting and leaves you empty.

I wouldn't go quite that far. I wouldn't be doing nearly as well as I am without my friends online, who live everywhere from the next city over to another continent. They're a huge part of my life and I'd feel empty without them. However, I do need physical contact with people at least a couple of times a week - mostly in the form of touch, personally. I couldn't cope with being around people offline as much as I can with those same people online, though.

Ok, we've put the word "loneliness" in the title above.