Depression. People are spending the majority of their lives staring at a screen, and then wondering why they're depressed.
In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection.
But it feels like we're always expected to be on our "grind", always bettering ourselves in an increasingly competitive labor market, so it's harder to go offline and just enjoy life because there's always that lingering sense of guilt that one is being left behind in our collective arms race to...nowhere.
This is the exact position i am in right now. I crave the outside world and human contact like a drug. I am not clinically depressed, just in a state of constant longing for social interaction. I keep telling myself my work will allow me to one day enjoy the outside, ironic really.
I find that advice hard to accept. I'm older so I spent plenty of time as an adult without the internet (unless you count BBSes). I use the internet to find things to do. Meetups to go to, events on facebook, events and parties friends invite me to, restaurants to go do, etc... I don't know how I would do it without the internet at this point. Maybe it used to be I'd look in the local paper like SF Weekly or LA Weekly but I live in a place that doesn't have those anymore and AFAIK even those are a pale version of what they were in the 80s and 90s
Well if it's helping you socialize, don't take that advice. Everyone's different. I'd ditch it if I could (for work reasons, for me and for my spouse, I cannot) but then texting is the most technological thing I really need to keep in touch these days, and maybe the occasional e-mail check-in or phone call, and entertainment and diversion's laughably abundant even without it so that's not a concern. If I were finding meetups and such on the Internet that'd be different.
Join some sort of a club. A bowling league. Some sort of scheduled team activity. The less competitive leagues will be filled with people looking to just socialize, unwind and have a few beers once a week.
This is one reason I changed careers from research to medicine. Now social interaction is built into my job, whether I want it or not, and I'm a much happier man for it. Sometimes all the grind does have a useful endpoint.
This is a real problem and , oddly the solution is to build even more immersive technologies that bring people closer together, thus making the jump from virtual life -> real life smoother. We can't expect to just tell people to "go out and meet people", because people's expectations have changed, and the street has no "mute" and "block" buttons.
I find it important to note that small communities where it is reasonable to know everyone and expect to be known are just as "real" as offline communites. I think there were a few years - at least for myself - where social media were mistaken and masqueraded as the same as small communities.
In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection.
But it feels like we're always expected to be on our "grind", always bettering ourselves in an increasingly competitive labor market, so it's harder to go offline and just enjoy life because there's always that lingering sense of guilt that one is being left behind in our collective arms race to...nowhere.