No. It does not. It was just as hard 30 years ago as it is now. As it was 300 years ago. 3000 even. People still congregate in places where it's easy to meet them. They still do it today, they did it all throughout history. People don't want to go, that's the problem. They don't want to talk. They don't want to open up.

We idealize the past I think. There was never any magical time when people weren't lonely. There was never any magical time when people didn't kill themselves.

If anything the Internet has made it easier for people to find the connection they want. It doesn't solve anybody's status problem, that still requires good ole-fashioned hard work and achievement and luck.

If you're lonely, ask yourself why you refuse to go out and meet people and make connections. Even if it's just at the grocery store. Even if it's just with the homeless guy down the road. Keep digging and eventually you'll find a root cause.

The nature of the problem is such that you have to be the one to reach out. You can't expect society to do that for you. Nobody can solve your loneliness problem for you. That's the hard lesson I had to learn.

I understand what you're saying, but I also think it's important to acknowledge that dynamics have changed - and we don't need to go back 30 years to see it.

As recently as 5 or 6 years ago, I would quite often strike up conversations with strangers at the bus stop or on the train or at the post office.

Usually these conversations would last for just a few minutes, sometimes an hour or more, and in a handful of instances I made a long term friend.

I find that this is vastly harder to do now, because nearly everyone in those common spaces is now engrossed by their phone. This changes the dynamics of interacting and striking up a conversation substantially by adding a lot of social friction.

Historically, the interaction was something like: slightly awkward silence -> random comment about the weather or some equally anodyne topic to break the awkward silence -> possibly a rewarding conversation.

Now, the awkward silence never occurs in the first place. It's been entirely replaced by everyone scrolling the feeds on their phones. To start a conversation, you have to proactively interrupt what the person is doing and ask for their attention.

What's more, even if you successfully navigate that dynamic and start a conversation, the soft dings and tapping reminders from the phone constantly pull people's attention back to the virtual from the physical.

Smartphones have been a boon in myriad ways, but I do miss the chances to engage in face-to-face conversation with strangers in the real world that existed before they commanded every second of our spare attention.

Sure, most interactions never develop into anything lasting, but you only need one to click every few years...or even a lifetime!

Excuse a slight tangent, since it was on my mind today: I'm sure I'll be defensively sniped at as an "extrovert" here (lol), but I do think we have a duty to each other to be outgoing, warm, forbearing...to make every effort that others feel at ease. Techies will sometimes make icky demands like that a social interaction must be "useful". Yes, looking random people in the eye and talking to them...even when they're not giving you anything...is tough. I know well that it can be among the hardest and most draining things. But I, anyway, believe we're obliged to learn to do so well and to suffer through it.

Resolving to take on this incredibly modest, day-to-day responsibility of making others feel acknowledged and at ease---of trying to bring out the best in everyone---should surely be one key step in addressing your own loneliness.

Obviously part of this skill is respecting the extent to which others want left alone. And I, for one, prefer to spend most of my own time far away from people. Please don't snarl at me for not understanding "introverts"! :) But the point is of course tied with how tech can affect what people in fact expect and want and how tech can adjust the "cost" of an interaction (smartphones, public spaces optimized for laptops inside and cars outside...and on...and on...).

It will be interesting to see which ways AR/VR goes.

() You're walking somewhere, displaying a side banner of things you're enthused about. So there always fodder for striking up conversation when standing around. And look, the gal unlocking the eyeglass shop is an Atlantic winter solo sailor. Perhaps a "good person to have a conversation with" rating system might help cope with those that aren't.

() Standing at the bus stop, you don't see the stop. You don't see the people waiting, and they don't see you. Especially the homeless guy. You see a "tree", placed so you don't run into the pole. A log for the guy, so you don't walk into him. You see bushes, or boxes, or bears. But no people. The bus pulls up to a stream in a glade in the woods.

() Bus? Are you going on vacation? Wouldn't your vacation be a nicer at home, and around your block, in VR? Like work. And play. And getting together with friends?

() No more two-body problem. What's a "long distance relationship"? Oooo, that sounds like what you were telling me about yesterday, how when you were meeting someone in olden times, you had to arrange exactly when and where you would meet, because without real phones, otherwise you might fail to find each other. Wieerrrrd.

Just a bit of background. I'm an introvert, I'm happy in my own space. Too much noise or too many people make me very uncomfortable. Birthdays, for example would have to be up there as one of the worst events of the year only topped by Christmas Parties. So you see, I'm not one for talking to random strangers. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fairly contented person with a small family group of about 6 people I happily interact with on a regular basis.

I travel to work via bus and it is a rare day when I don't get approached by somebody at the bus stop or on the bus who is looking to chat. I'll go through the polite hi how are you type of thing before getting back to my book or whatever I was filling the time with. My point is, that most of the people on the bus seem to be conducting some degree of social interaction with semi random strangers and if I were a different person I guess I'd be right along with them. Even with my attitude I still enjoy the fact that on our bus there is a small thriving community where people share the time of day.

Yes, there are a lot more phones being used than 10 years ago, but people still seem to be chatting, the phones are just there as an adjunct rather than as a barrier to communication.

The main thing I learned from this is, if I started conversations with random people on the bus, I'd be that odd person who makes people uncomfortable. I wish it didn't work that way.

Local cultures can vary a lot. In NYC, riding the bus, I more often end up in a conversation than not. In Boston, that is just not done. Except with tourists sometimes. I used to travel more, and it became a standing joke... At someplace not Boston, chatting. While traveling, chatting. Hit the subway by Boston Logan airport, chatting... sort of... with people awkwardly uncomfortable... facepalm, back in Boston, burned again.

That is exactly right. No one can be bothered to exert the effort to carry on a relationship--not when their handheld Internet has an ocean of stuff that's easily more entertaining and less judgmental or potentially problematic, whether that content is memes, videos, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter posts, or incoming text messages, which now look more like rebuses, with the emojis. I saw a very representative meme that said "In the early 2000s, it was 'Why would I text message someone when I can just call them" and now it's 'Why would I call someone when I can just text message them?'" The asynchronous nature of those communications, and how the contact is divided across multiple services, whether text message, WhatsApp, Kik, Instagram, or whichever, makes it that the user gets used to having low expectations for the reliability of their dozens or hundreds of online "friends," and of course Facebook redefined that very word.

See this statistic from a recent article in The Atlantic published just the other day:

> The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out.

"Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? - More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...

And the New York Post had an article saying that those in the next oldest generation (Generation, or I suppose "pre-Millennials") should try to address those problems, as though people in their 30s and 40s aren't glued to their phone screens as well:

> Generation X needs to save America from millennials

http://nypost.com/2017/08/05/generation-x-needs-to-save-amer...

Wikipedia: Generation Z and their use of technology and social media:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z#Technology_and_so...

What happened to being bored? To doing things, not because they were "cool" or even "fun", but simply because there was time that had to be killed? Going out because there was nothing inside, and meeting other bored people, connecting on anything because it was better than nothing?

Technology is raising the "minimum acceptable interest level" for activities - killing our mental slack, the slack where offline novelty could slip in.

I've been thinking about it for a while, but this thread has made my decision. Next time I'm off-call, 3pm tomorrow, I'm going to cut the cord. Unplug the modem and tell my friends I'm only answering phone calls (disable data) - no internet outside of work.

I want to feel bored again. Not brief moments of boredom, the hours of boredom I felt as a kid, the boredom that drove me to do new things... instead of today's boredom, that merely leads me to learn new things.

To me, that's an alien experience. I was and am never bored when I'm alone, I just think and imagine. I only get bored when I have to pay attention to boring stuff that prevents me from drifting off.

It's easier, until it isn't...

Your posts come off as an extrovert who doesn't understand why introverts find socializing with random strangers a draining and unpleasant process.

> There's also the problem that, even if the infrastructure were there, that doesn't mean people will take advantage of it. Loneliness is tied very closely to the pride part of the brain, nobody wants to admit they have a problem and seek out help for it.

For some people, maybe.

I don't care about random strangers, pride, and a number of other things people (like you) expect me to. People seem to think I'm lying or confused when I say this. My accomplishments in life (outside of work) have been as anonymous as anyone could make them.

I've still had times I felt lonely but it has more to do with the fact I realized a group of people I thought were trustworthy were not. As a result, its transient until I'm done pulling the knives out of back and addressing the wounds.

As such, a large number of interactions with strangers isn't useful to me. I wouldn't trust them because most people are too selfish to be trustworthy. And trust is necessary to deal with loneliness and form connections.

I think you are missing the point. Loneliness is not solved by simply being around people.

I’ve been living in the US for 5 years now and the amount of people I can call friends here is very small, despite all the attempts at grocery stores, bars, meetups and even homeless folks.

Society doesn’t seem to be open to take in someone that apparently doesn’t fit certain criteria they impose. And unless you are willing to do exactly as other people do, you’re going to have a hard time. People may disagree, this is just my personal experience.

I learned a harder lesson: some people don't need to reach out. They are naturally attractive. Some of it can be helped, but not all of it. If people aren't approaching you, you're not likely in that category and connections will be more difficult for you. Do you try to change yourself, your environment, or something else?

Knowing that it's a harder road puts off some people from taking that road. It's a classic trade off of playing to your strengths vs. covering your weaknesses.

For example, hitting on girls at the gym goes down differently depending on how you look. Same for approaching people in public for casual conversation. Some people say you shouldn't hit on people at the gym at all. Do I risk offending someone at the gym or try to make a connection?

When people report about bad experiences with casual connections in any place, do you let that change your behavior or not?