Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
by Gigachad on Monday February 06, 2023 @05:02AM
(#34675461)
>If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice.
We are seeing a whole generation miss out on social connections, reporting mass loneliness and depression. You can't just hand wave that away "they made a choice". If an individual does something, its a choice, if an entire generation does something, its the environment that changed.
Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
by MattPalmer1086 on Monday February 06, 2023 @06:11AM
(#34675883)
Ok, something has changed then. But it does not appear to me to be the result of dismantling the places where people could meet in person. I'm not trying to handwave it away.
Maybe the internet and social media is encouraging people to forge remote connections rather than physical ones?
Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
by AussieWog93 on Monday February 06, 2023 @07:11PM
(#34686538)
I agree with you that it's not a deliberate dismantling, but (as much as it pains me to say this) Gigachad's right that there's at least a decay of sorts.
Call it network effects working in reverse, or a change in incentives, but there really are less serendipitous encounters in young peoples' lives.
The Covid related ones are not dismantling the places young people meet, that was a public health emergency that will not continue forever.
If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice.
I know that the isolation of Covid has had a terrible effect on young people's mental health and I do not want to diminish that. But it isn't a dismantling of the places they could meet for the main part.