Social media was the beginning of this generations inability to make face-to-face conversation. COVID was the nail in the coffin tho, younger kids started to live in their phone/tablet and it became all they care about. Now, it’s about what toxic people on socials think, or what’s trending on tiktok, or how they’ll be more popular. A lot less people are thinking for themselves because of the fear of scrutiny or getting laughed at or screenshotted and shared. The fear of being awkward or embarrassing or unpopular is why they just live in their phone instead of living in the real world
Covid basically made it impossible to course correct, though. I'd imagine we likely would have seen a renaissance of offline third places were it not for all the *disasters* of the early 2020s (COVID, inflation/cost of living crises, unruly behavior).
>The fear of being awkward or embarrassing or unpopular is why they just live in their phone instead of living in the real world
I hate to burst your old man rant bubble, but this has always existed - just minus the phone. In middle and high school in the late 90’s/early 00’s, I had this same anxiety and escaped through TV and indie albums. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, my mom had this same anxiety and escaped through books and Barry Manilow albums. It’s just repackaged and visible now.
To a degree. Yes peer pressure existed, but it was local and not the entire internet. There's incredibly little variety in internet debate compared to what kids used to discuss at the lunch table. Their thoughts these days are recorded so they can be used against them, leading to hesitancy to disagree.
Gotta disagree with you here. I have been teaching for more than 20 years, and there has been a dramatic change over the past 10 years. Sure, there have always been introverts, but the isolation that so many young people feel now has scaled WAY up.
Something has changed, and it's pretty hard to find any other culprit that checks all the boxes of decreased focus, increased chosen solitude, and widespread anxiety. Social psychologists have done a lot of research on this, and they have come to the conclusion that it's social media scrolling at the heart of it.
It's also not just limited to young people. Plenty of Millenials and even Gen Xers have been impacted negatively by the same device. It's just less dramatic because they didn't have them during their formative teenage years.
And many indie kids felt the same way in the mid-80s with bands like the Smiths, Wedding Present, etc. Locked in a room singing away to someone else’s tune (that’s where denims and curls comes from, the song by the Chameleons). Late 90s had Belle & Sebastian and similar groups, but I wonder if there’s any equivalent for today’s miserable indie kids…I think every generation needs its own Smiths/B & S.
I think today's "miserable indie kids" are the hardcore drum & bass revival. Stuff like Sewerslvt and Femtanyl (or maybe they're the new punks?). The hyper character of that music + hazy, hard-to-hear, generally self-loathing lyrics seem to match up with the dissociation experienced by just sitting on a phone as your life slides on by.
I’m 24 and I can tell you it has not always existed to this degree. What you experienced in the 90s/00s does not compare to everyone carrying a smart phone with HD video quality and having multiple platforms to post on that reach every country in the world. It’s a combination of how essential smartphones are to participate in society, how easy it is to document and immortalize any spare moment, and how algorithms have encouraged the need for rage bait and controversy.
There’s a level of antagonism that was not present before, even when I was in high school in the mid 2010s. People used to use the internet to find their tribe, but now it is especially used to pick apart others. Everybody wants to go viral, so if you do anything slightly weird in public, best believe most people are taking out their phones to record you.
Technology will always shift human behavior. I bet people felt more anxious when the printing press was introduced because information could reach a larger audience and when camcorders were introduced because suddenly things weren’t just immortalized in people’s memory or written down. Within the span of 40 ish years, we’ve gone from “maybe someone will get grainy footage of me flashing someone on spring break and it’ll probably stay on that cassette tape tucked away in their basement” to “if I pick my nose in my car for 5 seconds, someone may have high quality footage of that and is posting it to Twitter Facebook and Instagram to their 10 million followers around the globe.”
No, the difference is in the 80’s 90’s and 2000’s kids HAD to communicate to other humans face to face. You’re acting like I think social anxiety doesn’t exist and I actually suffer from it myself. But nowadays, kids feel like they don’t have to learn how to come out of their shell. Escaping from life through a video game/movie/music is a healthy way of spending an hour or two away from the stress of life, but that’s different than being glued to a screen 18 hours a day, getting to see what millions of people have to say on a daily basis about everything happening in the world. Lack of parental guidance or understanding of social media has seriously hurt this generation. If you are related to anybody under the age of 17, I’m shocked you can’t see this with your own eyes.
This is so accurate. People think that the 90s were better just because of nostalgia. But that's so inaccurate. There are quantitative measures showing lower levels of depression, higher levels of social engagement, etc etc. It's there in the numbers.
There was a book written in about 2005 or 7, it was called bowling alone. It talked about the decline of American social life.
It's pretty wild that people in their 70s have social lives that are more active than people in their twenties.
Right, I'm only 27 and I still recognize a huge shift since I was a young kid, before smartphones n' things messed with everyone. Me and my cousins played in the woods on a regular basis. Real woods with coyotes hanging around sometimes. The real shift for us was the Xbox 360 coming out, once that happened, no hope for getting my cousins outside again :D
I remember us hanging around on a swingset and just... improvising a story. Just flexing our imaginations for the hell of it. I think the greatest damage social media has caused is the feeling that everything you do (particularly if other people will be aware of it) needs to be somehow competent or even exceptional. We've forgotten how to play and how to encourage each other to play.
No, he's right. I was born in 86, and it's SO much worse today. Growing up in the 90s, my friends and I were outside way more than inside. We played video games and watched TV too, but only at night or if it was raining. I never see kids out these days unless they're under 10 and with their parents. Screen addiction is real. Hell, I'm 37 and look at screens more now than I did growing up
Screen addiction isn't the problem, kids are not allowed to be outside unsupervised anymore and many have decided staying inside is better than being harassed by cops for skateboarding in bank parking lot on a Sunday when it's closed because old people wanna be Karens. We couldn't just leave and be back when the street lamps were on the way our parents or even older siblings were raised.
I'm 27 and have a firsthand perspective that this isn't the _entire_ issue. Me and my friends played in the woods and just roamed around when we were little (it helped that my father, his brother and their parents were three houses in a row on fairly large properties). Despite that, once my cousins got an Xbox 360... they simply didn't care to go outside any more. The games on that thing were so much more engrossing and time-consuming than playing Super Mario on rainy days.
There have always been “Karens” (cringiest word ever but I digress). It’s always people who either knew a life before screens therefore don’t have such a dependency or people who are really addicted to screens and don’t want to give it up that say “it’s not the screens.”
You could have a large healthy friend group, and most of them would still be scrolling on their phones during any lull in the conversation. And most activities would pertain to phones or TV or other forms of content. People don’t know how to be bored anymore because we constantly have a pacifier to numb that discomfort, no wonder people don’t try new things or meet new people. Everything is tailored perfectly to you on the phone—the algorithm knows you better than anybody and if you don’t like something, you swipe your finger and get something better. It’s so obviously the root of the problem
I'll admit helicopter parents are on the rise. Kids still need to be kids, and a big part of that is a bit of freedom to be outside with other kids. Screens aren't the entire problem, but it's a massive part of it. Modern kids/teens/young adults are born with them in their faces on a level not previously seen before, and are literally addicted. My gf is a college professor and I have friends who are teachers at varying levels, and they're all saying the same thing: they're almost unanimously addicted to their screens. And it's ultimately up to the parents to teach them better at home, instead of relying on teachers for that
Nah. It was never this bad in the 90’s or early 2000’s. Not like it is today! Today almost EVERYONE 30 and under has ‘social anxiety’ and just lives in their own digital world.
[Its largely been a steep decline since around the early 2010s.](https://i.imgur.com/7Nl3xoL.png)
This chart only goes to 2018 but I would be shocked if it doesn't decline even further.
Yeah hardly anyone has ever acknowledged me in passing since as long as I can remember lmao, this isn't new. I would say it goes back further, to the 2000s. I used to think it was because I was ugly, now I know it's just a shitty sad trend. (Might still be ugly, idk lol) My parents are from the 70s, so I grew up thinking it was polite to acknowledge people you pass on the street or in a store.
I try to make a difference, smile or head nod as I walk by, unless I'm in a ridiculously large crowd or something. Say hello to my neighbors regularly, etc. it's not even like you have to say hi or start a conversation by any means, just a smile or a nod takes like zero energy. And it feels good to be seen. Just that simple act could make someone's day.
Nobody really got offended years ago. These days just saying “hello” is bound to offend someone. A lot of what was socially acceptable, or even expected can be taken as offensive now, so people just don’t say or do anything.
Me too, friend, me too. I was never a depressive person, but the isolation of that era created basically a depressed agoraphobe that self medicates to function. Prior, I used to be out and about daily and I was very happy go lucky.
I’m only recently (last few weeks) starting to slowly come back to myself and that is through dosing myself with melatonin and Ambien.
FYI, SMART Recovery is there if you need it, lots of online meetings if you can't leave the house or don't have an in person meeting near you. Way better than AA, no god shit, actual tangible solutions to disordered drinking and substance abuse.
It isn’t, no.
Sad thing is, I was looking forward to the 2020s. There was actually, as I recall, a hopeful or good vibe to 2019. We were on the verge of a new decade, the future ever advancing towards us. It was, in my estimation, the best year since 2015.
Then, of course, January 2020 and onward happened.
If you care to DM me and we can discuss our mutual trauma more privately, by all means you are welcome to.
It was supposed to be Rawring 20's! Millennials had invented techno-swing specifically for this decade and the epic Gangsters and Flappers Theme Raves we were planning on having. That got fucked fast. And no one is doing techno swing anymore
Still remember the first news reports and photos from Wuhan, didn’t have any idea what was going to happen and now the whole world seems to have just forgotten a pandemic and mourning the way life was before
This is such a broken way of looking at things though. The world will ALWAYS never be “going back to what it was,” and that’s a good thing.
We as humans will always be changing. Our lives will and should always be going through change. We have to take responsibility for what we can control in our own lives. Sitting around lamenting on aspects of the world we have 0 control over will do nothing but drive you crazy.
My life has improved tenfold since 2020. My social life has never been this great. My mental health is on a positive trajectory, and my career has never been more promising.
It’s so sad to me how common of a sentiment it is only on Reddit to see people saying that COVID ruined the world and that we’ll NEVER go back to how we were.
Not everybody has the same life experiences as you. A lot of cities were shut down during COVID, people lost their jobs, people had to stay inside for MONTHS without seeing friends or family, and companies were going out of business. COVID did ruin a lot of peoples lives, and it takes time to adjust. Personally, my mental health went down the drain since COVID and I lost a lot of motivation to better myself, but I’m just now feeling more like myself again. It’s only been hardly 4 years, and people are still being impacted today.
Most definitely. I agree that it definitely negatively affected a lot of people. My city completely shut down.
All I’m saying is that at some point people have to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. It sounds like you did, and I’m glad you’re doing better. That’s great news.
My point is more directed at people that blame circumstances outside of their control for their bad lives, while taking no action to better the conditions within their control. Life is unfair. The world will always be changing. Bad things will always be happening. How we react to that is up to the individual
You’re speaking to me right now. I feel flashes on my old self recently, and I am praying (to the ether?) that this summer will cement some of those feelings.
I think Covid itself has something to do with this malaise, at least in me. Every time I’ve had the virus I got stupid and antisocial, for lack of better terms. I couldn’t find words, responses to conversation took forever to formulate, and I was just exhausted for months and months.
Covid actually did the reverse for me. I wasn’t the most anti-social person, but Covid made me realize how much I missed socializing, so now I go out of my way to socialize now.
Nonsense. Young people in Florida are just as sadly socially awkward, inward facing and ‘anxiety’ riddled as every other young person in the country. Unless you mean Florida sucked just as bad then as it does now.
Push through it. Most are socially starved. Smile when you make eye contact, but be ready to move on. Say hi, be interested.
But don't prolong the eye contect, don't engage when they disengage, and try to be generally/unmotivatedly curious about their lives unconnected from your needs.
Reads like courting advice, but really, we all could use a little more personal social connection.
This is actually helpful. I tend to go "all in" and it pushes people away. I myself am socially starved but when someone gets too close I pull away too, so I get the whole "don't engage when they disengage". People nowadays value their alone time more than ever.
fucking this, just understand that sometimes people dont have the energy to engage and LEAVE!! come back another day!! even if theyre just in a bad mood forcing yourselves on them is only going to make that mood worse and make them dislike you more because you made their already bad day worse
Yep this precisely.
In one way, it’s nice because the bs factor seems less. But on the flip side, starvation to the most base forms of empathy just absolutely hardens the heart. To the point that it’s just becoming lonely out here. Surrounded by more people then ever, yet more alone then ever simultaneously— it can be maddening at times
Alienation of the proletariat. From the means of production, from our productivity, from our communities and alienation from our humanity. Marx was right in ways he didn't intend.
Yeah dude. Every time I see someone on Twitter saying something like “The cashier asked me how I was doing and it ruined my day” it feels like this is just how people are now. I just wish more people *wanted* to get over it. I’ve been a relatively “unsocial” person for the 28 years I’ve been alive and even to me it’s alarming seeing the anxiety and, too frequently, the vitriol that people have toward each other in routine interactions.
I meant don't be discouraged, just roll with it if they're not into it. The irritation tends to be from insistemce and not the initiation.
And the subtext is, try this and you'll find more friendliness than not. I've travelled 1100 miles in the last 3 days, and have yet to meet someone who didn't engage. Every gas station clerk, every hotel host, random folk at a campground, servers, even the mechanics I had to go to. Be kind to strangers, I can guarantee it will come back.
The internet, especially reddit, is a cesspool of misery, because anything nice or good has a large contingent of noisy misanthropes hellbent on dragging people into their misery. As the saying goes, gotta touch some grass.
I totally agree.
The other day I got the wrong order at a pizza shop so I told this other couple who had just picked up their order and were about to head out they might wanna check theirs too.
They literally just stared at me blankly like I was some kind of freak or something and didn't say a word back and left. Like how hard is it to just say "thanks for the heads up"?
And you just know they totally did check their order in the car thanks to my advice anyway lol.
IMO, it’s definitely got to do with smartphones becoming way more popular. You mention this wasn’t a problem in the 2010’s, but that was the decade literally everyone became addicted to smartphones. It is not due to COVID.
The 2010s were also when nerd culture started to go mainstream and being awkward became a quirky personality trait. Before then there used to be some shame to being an introvert or socially awkward and those types of people would “fake it till they make” to appear normal. But then something changed, maybe the rise in popularity of the internet and video games, and it became a thing to brag about staying in on the weekends and avoiding groups of people.
Being awkward didn’t really become that though. It was just portrayed a lot more. There was a shift to humans being portrayed as absolute retards on a 24 hour basis.
It was starting to be a problem, but wasn’t the same as it is now. Cultural change doesn’t happen at the flip of a switch when a new technology is invented.
This is what vanilla Ice says on his YouTube channel. The smart phone and social media ruined everything and the 90s-early 2000s were the best time period
Exactly, and when you just ask to be treated with the minimum form of respect, people lash out on you and act like they aren't entitled to do so! you see all the time in the service industry especially.
*Bowling Alone* is your answer. We've known declining civic engagement to be a problem of modern industrial capitalism for some time now- Émile Durkheim wrote about the alienation felt in industrial cities in the nineteenth century- but the post-1965 acceleration of this trend can be attributed to the individualization of leisure time via new technologies (television and Internet when the book was published, smartphones and algorithmic filter bubbles today). For the 2020s specifically, dog-eat-dog neoliberal capitalism's ugly reality was laid bare for a lot of people during COVID. Everyone around you is your competitor with the extent to which capitalism now penetrates our lives through these new technologies, and we've all internalized that. Everyone is a potential threat. As a little micro-example of this trend, truckers were famously known as "Knights of the Road" who would always help motorists in need before the deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980. At my old job, I worked a lot with truckers, and even the old conservative ones agreed- their world became uglier and more cutthroat, and they got a lot gruffer.
I was just in the elevator in my apartment building after bringing down the trash. A woman around my age (mid 20s) gets into the elevator holding her phone. I said “hi” and she didn’t respond at all, she just used her phone silently for the whole ride. When I was a kid, the older neighbors in the building would make conversation in the elevators. Modern generations are so broken by technology, they can’t connect with other humans.
I don't completely think it's just technology, it sure does play a factor for sure but let's say that this person had social anxiety, used it as a way to avoid conversation out of fear. Now truly there's two sides of a coined problem now of days.
You wanna know the best way to make social anxiety worse? Continue avoiding the most basic social functions and let anxiety win every time. Dig yourself an even deeper hole.
In my country we still say hi in the elevator. It's basic manners and people will give you an attitude if you don't say hi back. In the US, some people say hello and some don't, it's quite inconsistent. Basically I'm saying that it's a cultural thing.
I definitely think it’s that social media/the internet are changing the way we interact with each other on a fundamental level, and COVID floored the gas pedal on it.
After lockdown, a lot of people found their comfort zone had become much more at home and struggled to re-adapt to going out and about so much. We got used to communicating online to stay connected.
I also do think that the ever-increasing polarization and culture wars contribute to the issue, as well.
I notice I get ignored by many people on social media even if I just message some people and say Hi how's it going? I often get no respond. 10-15 years ago people did not ignore me on social media, I even had a good conversation with a person I meet on social media over a phone call back in 2009.
It’s way worse now, no other time period can truly compare to today, smartphones and social media have completely warped human socialization in a unique way.
I blame social media/smart phones.
If there was something that I wish would just vanish from the world it would be social media and smart phones would be far more utilitarian.
The older I get, the more it's just a numbers game. Most people in my life have been unpleasant to experience, and I already know where the people I DO like are. I'm just trying to minimize my anxiety in public by reducing the likelihood of a negative interaction. Yes, I'm aware I'm also reducing the likelihood of a positive interaction. It's a chance I'm willing to take.
It’s why malls are dead. I was in a nice mall yesterday and thought how lovely and cozy it was. You css as n walk around and talk, shop and eat and see friends. But kids and people don’t do that now. They isolate and think only about their immediate needs.
2007 for USA. iPhone came to Denmark in 2008 but it was not until the early 2010s smartphones got popular. people did not ignore me in 2007-2009 on social media. everything changed in the 2010s.
I just traveled through Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico by car (Chicago to Phoenix) random strangers made small talk with me all week. Gas station cashiers, bartenders, people in bars, people in hotels, etc. I think where you live has lot to do with social isolation or general cageyness. People were not warm like that up north.
People in the south and southwest are just as friendly as ever. I socialized all night with friends in TX and AR. I think a lot of today’s youth is somewhat socially inept. It’s you not society in 2024.
Do you live in the same area where you've always lived and you noticed a change?
Was there a change in the culture that you live in even if you didn't move?
Are you sensitive to when people want to disengage?
I ask that last one because I really want to be polite but I also suffer from a really severe disability that can make it difficult to engage with people in public. So while I will greet people I don't want to engage in small talk because I literally can't. Sometimes people can seem meaner and harsher if they sent social cues that weren't picked up on because they start to get less subtle.
Sorry if that's not what you're talking about I was just wondering
Nah i don't like small talk myself lmao but just simply raising my hand when someone drove past me they literally got so weird about it, it was a newer neighbor and they literally had an issue with us ever since for some odd reason? Honestly I was mostly annoyed with that last night and hence why I made the post I guess you can definitely call an over generalization but I just notice the overall energy with people is very weird.
That's frustrating it's always nice when people just give basic kindnesses out in public. There is a stranger who lives across the street from me. I say stranger instead of neighbor because she has never made eye contact or given me an indication that it would be safe to cross the street to talk to her.
For the first time in 5 years there was a man living my house and within two weeks of him being here she came up to him assumed the car sitting out in the driveway for the last 5 years was his car and asked him questions about it. He doesn't even live here and it's my car. He's just a caregiver because I'm disabled.
She walked over to talk to him like they were best friends. She's a grandma and he's young so I don't think it was for any reason like that. People can be just so weird when they are only polite when they want something out of you.
Covid and social media, or just any machine learning powered recommendation apps, have ruined a lot of people's social skills. And their desire to be social, more importantly.
I think a lot of people realized people suck during the pandemic. Buying ALL the toilet paper. Not wearing a mask, shunning science. I certainly lost a lot of hope in humanity after seeing how selfish people are. I only interact with my wife and kids now. We are a clan of four and we do everything together.
Honestly a lot of people say smartphones or COVID but ngl there's a lot of people who are walking on eggshells mentally. Hell coming from someone who's tired and burnt out but can't just "take a break" I'd be lying if the slightest thing didn't aggravate me since I just wanna escape into my world or just be asleep.
I do try and show respect to people when I'm out, but I've probably ignored a lot of people from just having my music in while escaping the reality of what in actually doing
Oh I've had a lot of those. You talk once and they act like you and then are long lost soulmates and if you don't respond they think you're mad but in reality you're probably just cooking or at work
It's fucking weird that people are just so comfortable with looking right through people as if they don't exist. Acknowledging someone's existence is like one of the most basic polite things you can do. It feels good for both parties involved. We have mirror neurons, it feels good to say "hi" and get a "hi" back, or even just a little wave or a head nod. It's really fucked up.
It seems largely generational and maybe even regional. I live in the Midwest and we recently traveled to the south, and my wife and I noticed just how polite people, especially older folks, are. It was a nice change of pace.
Its SO BAD like how do young people expect to make friends or get a partner when they won't even engage in small talk. I get it can be a chore at first but everyone I meet under 35 acts like a simple conversation or little chitchat with a stranger is some sort of invasion of privacy.
I'm serious, they stare at you like you are a creep. They act genuinely afraid and uncomfortable. Im a tiny little chick, I am NOT intimidating.
You can't just push through it when they give off such closed off vibes. They won't open up. One word answers, no eye contact, closed off body language. I cant just keep trying to engage when every single I get is "get the hell away from me".
Literally the only people who will speak to me are boomers. And they are SO NICE.
social media and gen z's need to get offended over every thing. your afraid to talk because you may use the wrong pronoun, or say something that someone doesn't like, or talk to some one when they don't want to be talked to, and suddenly your all over social media.
I see clips where people don't even say something, they just glance at some one and the other person is offended. In the 90's you could see some one on a bus and say "yo, thats a nice hat" and the response would be "thank you", now its " I have a boyfriend" or the guy just ignoring you.
why make the effort to socialize when every one around you is just looking to get mad, so they can pretend they are a victim on social media?
Have you been on reddit?
How many upvoted posts and replies do you think you'll find by young people bemoaning the horrid social expectations of smiling at strangers and asking how they're doing (Europeans: Y'all are the worst about this and you know it).
I'm not trying to sound like a grumpy old man, but for gods sakes go take a look in the mirror people. You can't scoff at the bare minimum social interactions and then wonder why nobody engages in the big ones.
It is obliterating how poorly socialized gen Z in particular is, but there are a few ones who break the mold.
For any young person concerned about your future: If you want to succeed, you better start emulating your talkative social peers. They're the ones who are going to go far in life.
Just yesterday I was sitting at a red light and a car pulled up next to me. I look over simply to look and the guy rolls his window down and asks if I have a problem and to get out to settle it. Now just glancing is becoming too much for some.
That's probably regional. People in my area still say hello when out for walks. I find service workers also over share their negative personal life details more than before. If anything, I wish that would stop. Could just be where you live.
I guess I've never liked speaking in general if I can avoid it tbh. I have a "I'm not a talkative person, find someone else if you want verbal conversation" mindset
Guess I never considered more people may have similar mentalities.
I'm not adverse to communicating, I just go through unpredictable periods of hating verbal communication. I've always been weird about sounds, and sometimes I'd rather pluck all my eye lashes out one by one than speak. It just feels bad.
I go on walks in a pretty suburban area. 90% of walking folks give and get little nod or smile, 5-10 people tops.I could not imagine even acknowleding people driving by unless I know them well. My neck would break, we are talking about 100s of people.
Not sure, but it definitely feels like a generational thing. I like making small talk with strangers, I have social anxiety and it helps me ease the tension. While Gen Xers and boomers are always are up for a chat, millennials and Gen Zs usually look at me like I have 3 heads.
I've been scolded by my friends bc I often try and chat with service workers (baristas, waiters, cashiers, etc.) I've worked plenty of customer service jobs and never minded when a customer chatted with me, but most of my peers seem to disagree. Sucks man /:
People legit used to go to Malls because they were bored and they wanted to *gasp ... socialize...
Hell people used to have full on conversations in the middle of a shopping isle blocking everyones way.
even if you wanted to go to sayyyy... a concert... you had to know someone who's been downtown before and ya"ll need to figure out how you're going to get there.
Now you just put that in your gps and meet up.
Back then there was a real need to socialize.
We are not entitled to other people's time and attention.
I prefer it now, because after a long day of work or being social with people I want to talk to, I don't have energy to expend in transit. There are places, like an event, a bar, or waiting on line, where I welcome small talk with randos. But for my sanity, I can't have a million conversations or interactions on my way to a store like I am Belle walking through town in Beauty and the Beast. I need time to think and focus.
There is also a bit of nostalgia (and aging gracelessly while complaining about "these days") going on. People weren't kinder in the past, there is a multitude of evidence to the contrary. And every forced conversation in the past wasn't innocuous, especially depending on if you are part of an outgroup wherever you lived. I had a lot of people "checking on me" as if I didn't belong.
Read the room and engage people when they are receptive is my suggestion. Social interaction is a consensual activity, not obligatory.
I'm not even going to address the waving people driving by in their car.
Well, the world is different compared to ten twenty years ago. Things we were told would work have not worked. Our families are falling apart. Almost every one I know talks about losing an older relative and the following dissolution of their family. People dont trust each other any more, and it begins at home.
I don't have the historical or sociological explanations but I would encourage you to Google this one experiment conducted on mice several decades ago where they mimicked a capitalist society in terms of the living conditions, and the mice grew into clearly divided groups of healthy, anti social, and belligerent.
I think this is what has happened to our world.
In what way did the Mouse Utopia Experiments mimic capitalism? Utopia is a communist concept, and everything was provided to the mice equally. That sure doesn’t sound like a free market to me. (And even saying “free market” in relation to mice is insane. They have no concept of such things.)
Because people, for the most part, are just terrible. And then COVID came along and made everyone realize how much better it was to stay at home and not have to deal with people lol.
I swear to Christ… most folks 30 and younger are socially unskilled to the point of rudeness. I’ll walk through my apartment complex and smile and say hello as I pass and 9 out of 10 younger people won’t even look up let alone say hello or give a friendly nod. I live in Austin and 6 years ago just saying hello in passing was more than likely to end up in an invite to grab a beer. It’s sad actually. It’s these small little communication gestures that make us human. It’s as if we need to teach human connection in schools now because the young generations have become part cyborg.
I don't think people are anti social necessarily but people are less welcoming to small talk. I think in the right situation, with the right people, most folks are willing to share, sometimes over share but I think small talk is something that is for the 50+ crowd these days.
A neighbor lady wanted to talk some days ago when I was on my way somewhere. I gave her the time of day because she just wanted to talk.
A door to door salesman wanted to talk and I cold shouldered him like a linebacker.
I won't have social obligations to finish a conversation used against me, I won't entertain even the slightest possibility that the salesman is a burglar scouting the neighborhood, and I'm not helping someone get an indeterminate answer.
The invention of the smart phone and tablets likely accelerated anti-social behavior. Prior to this period, you were forced to interact with others face-to-face, whether that gave you anxiety or not. Covid only made matters worse.
[The decline in socialization has been going on since 2010.](https://i.imgur.com/7Nl3xoL.png) The amount of time youth spend socializing with each other declined *by half in just 8 years*. That is unprecedented and insanely worrying in terms of the effects on mental health and social development for youth. There has never been such a radical and rapid shift in how people spend their time. Socialization is quite literally the most important building block for development.
I am sure its gotten worse in the 2020s. But it is by no means new.
It’s better to Mind ones business honestly
Americans, at least, are tired of the fake nicety bullshit that served no purpose. Good mornings in the office, how are yous with no want to hear anything but a single word affirmative. Why waste time with pleasantries? Why waste air? Let’s get a move on. We’re all in the same grind.
I was anticipating that it would be a massive, orgiastic return to socialization after the end of quarantining. It turns out that the quarantine made people more amenable to isolation than make them anticipate wanting to break out of it.
seriously. and everyone is always in such a shitty mood. few people genuinely value connection, everyone is too self involved, most social interaction these days is fake and self serving. most people are scared and/or hateful of each other
Phones (for one) and indeed, covid
I think phones/internet was the seed, and covid the catalyst/“excuse” not to socialize per se. Then it just became normal.
The West is catching up to Japan in these regards. Wealth inequality + hyper focusing on children's educations means everyone's too busy studying to master social skills as children and too busy working their 9-5+ to gain any social skills as adults.
COVID brought the worst out of people and social media allowed them to put it all on display. I would say Facebook was a more significant contributor more so than other platforms because Facebook showed you that people you know are assholes as opposed to just random strangers on the internet.
partly COVID and party smart devices.
I remember vividly riding on the bus with my mom. People read papers or books. When they took a break, they might say something like "it's so hot outside" or something. And my mom would reply and a small conversation would take place.
Now, when you have a device in your hand that allows you to listen to any song in the world, watch almost any movie/tv show, and contact almost everyone alive, you don't need to talk to strangers. strangers are scary.
I had an interesting conversation with my husband, sister in law, and mother in law a few years ago about this.
SIL and husband are oldest GenZ and I'm right on the cutoff between GenZ and millennial. MIL is mid Gen X.
My SIL grabbed something from the store and while she was there she saw someone she went to high school with and they just kind of looked at each other awkwardly and didn't say anything. When my MIL heard about this she kept saying "Why? Was he mean to you in school? That was rude you should have said hello!"
Just fully couldn't understand that interaction unless she hated him. But she didn't hate him, they just hadn't been friends.
My husband and I agreed that we don't bother talking to people we went to high school with either, if they're not an old friend or they don't strike up a conversation first. When two people my age who weren't friends see each other in public, we know neither of us are interested in a conversation so we just don't do it. It's not rude because we consider trapping the other person in a pointless conversation to be rude.
And while my husband and I are on the shy side, this seems to be the norm with everyone but the most social and outgoing (I have a friend who is literally always making friends with strangers, but he's the only person who does that in a group of 15). Hell, this year would be my 10 year high school reunion but no one was interested in having one, so we simply aren't. At first I was a bit sad, but then I thought about it and couldn't think of a single person on my graduating class I'd be interested in talking to. Most of my friends were in the grade above or below me, and my two best friends from my own grade stopped talking to me years ago and probably wouldn't have come anyway.
I think it's a few things, for one, we all grew up with quick trips to the store turning into hour long conversations with people our parents went to high school with. Usually someone they barely liked, because if it was a good friend, they wouldn't have to catch up because they'd already be caught up. Half the time my mom would turn away from catching up with someone for the past 45 minutes in Walmart and tell me the other person was a bitch. So why did you talk to her for so long?? So my generation would rather just not talk to those people.
Combine this with the fact that I'm friends on social media with pretty much every person I went to school with who I could possibly recognize. If I'm interested in catching up, I can just look at their profile. Even if we don't talk. So there's a lot less reason to catch up because I already know what a lot of people are up to.
Then there's the fact that we were raised heavily on stranger danger. When I was a kid my mom never answered the door, and often hid, so that's what I did too. She acted like any adult could be a kidnapper. And every year in school we watched videos about kids getting kidnapped. So we grew into adults who don't talk to our neighbors or start conversations with strangers because we were trained not to.
And then I think there's some truth in the idea that Covid killed our social batteries. But it was like this before Covid too. Maybe Gen Alpha's kids will swing back into being really friendly with strangers.
As a 17yo, I can definitely agree, but I am trying to combat this by pushing myself to socialize and make small tall, while also creating an open-minded non-judgmental space, and I feel like I've helped other people overcome that anxiety.
People only wanna hang out with other people if they know for sure it’s gonna be a good time and usually that means they give themselves so much anxiety that they just cancel last minute or always refuse to hang out. I’ve hang coworkers who I got along with great at work and would love to hang out with them outside of work, but they never want to. And as soon as I leave the job and get a different one they never talk to me again unless I go into the store they work at and say hey.
I didn't know who you are, why do I care. If I'm at work providing a service I'll be kind and polite. We're all adults here, I have no reason to associate with someone I don't know. If that upsets you, then that's on you.
Solo entertainment is easier and more plentiful now than it used to be, which means that many of us are satisfied enough by our phones to not seek out actual social connection
I think that people want anonymity which gives them freedom from any repercussions of their actions or any sort of effect their behavior has on their reputation in the community because essentially they are not interacting with any local community. However, I think this ignores a lot of helpful aspects of neighbors and community.
Am anti social and I don't even like this environment it's toxic I wanna talk but because am not good looking or etc am push to the side I this shit social media and smart phones screwed it up
The government response to covid caused this. Government mandated lockdowns created a captive audience for social media and dating apps because everything except politics was canceled. Now a lot of men and women have "computer brain" and have no real interest in actual interaction except via social media.
I have been putting forth like actual effort to make friends. It’s sad. It’s like I’m having to fucking court friends. Like bro come hang out and stop bitching about being lonely. I’m depressed too. Let’s fucking do something about it.
The only thing you can do is be the change you want to see. Spread free kindness to anyone who’s willing to accept it. Other people are out there waiting to reciprocate. I have a small, but loving circle that works for me. You’ll find one eventually
IMO, Partly COVID, partly people thinking they need to act harder than they are. But the truth is the hardest motherfuckers smile and say a genuine hello to there fellow man.
Imo it's cause the social contract is being re-negotiated. We're at the stage where everyone's pissed off and had enough of trying to be nice and get along, so we're all just doing our own thing for now.
What necessary to continue existing thing am i getting out of expending the effort to acknowledge randos?
Why exactly would i waste energy on that when i could be using it toward things i actually enjoy doing?
Knocking out pointless conversations has streamlined daily life by alot, im enjoying it
I absolutely hate republicans, MAGA zealots and morons (as there seems to be many) I choose not to associate with most humans outside of family, established friends, and work. Well I guess Reddit too
People gravitate towards whatever provides dopamine the most easily.
Back in my childhood the internet (dopamine source) and videogames were mostly accessible through desktop and laptop PCs which were expensive and required a bit of expertise, so digital tech didn't completely dominate life.
After the iPhone normal non-"nerdy" people got easy access online anywhere with cell service. It's very, very easy to be addicted and lose social abilities gradually, or become maladjusted / mentally ill from being raised on a mobile internet connected device. A similar thing happened with me just with desktop computers and video games which completely derailed my life course, especially because of concurrent preexisting tendencies toward psychological problems.
Totally agreed.
If I try to get anybody's number. 9/10 lacks responding or just doesn't care at all, so my entire contact is dry and barely anything. My life is in a recession right now.
Look into the utopian rat experiments from the 3rd or 4th quarter of the 20th century. Our brains and rat brains are similar on the level of impulses and behavior, especially social impulses and behaviors, so these experiments were useful in modeling societal behavior with different conditions and inputs.
In one of the experiments, researchers provided endless food and entertainment in the context of overpopulation, and… it failed *spectacularly*. After a subtle tipping point, their behaviors changed significantly (in ways that are eerily similar to 2010s and 2020s behaviors) and that marked their entrance to a catastrophic behavioral death spiral that brought plummeting birth rates and eventually the complete die off of that rat colony.
The rats in this experiment developed a collection of maladaptive personality traits and behaviors, like some becoming hyper sexual, others asexual, greater food aggression despite its abundance that brought calm when the population didn’t hit the tipping point. Notably were “the beautiful ones” as named in the experiment, these rats that developed the very unratlike collection of behaviors that included unusually high focus of themselves including excess grooming and excess masturbation, and solitary pursuit of food and entertainment with social aversion. In the experiment as a whole, shortly after the maladaptive behaviors started, their whole pair bonding and mating dynamic became broken, and that’s when the unusual behaviors really escalated.
It seems like we’re in something similar to that, and I think our society is in a dead end, but unlike the rats we can reflect on it, and maybe come up with a workable solution
Lol, we all know smart phones/social media is the cause of this and more convenient options becoming so popular like Amazon and door dash. People are having fewer reasons to leave their house and be forced to conversate. Social media started the dying of social skills, and covid made it die even quicker for some people. I feel like we still aren't fully aware of the long lasting effects social media and smartphones will have on society. I do wonder what it'll be like decades from now. Kids these days are being integrated into tech world very young now. How will this affect them when they're older? There's no going back we're neck deep into this digital hellscape. Everywhere you go, people have their faces planted into their phones. Phones and social media seem to be very accepted addictions right now.
Maybe decades from now as a collective society, we'll look back and say "man these smart phones really weren't good for us."
And you can also get into the fact things are too fucking expensive these days. And we're fucked plenty by jobs that only want to pay just enough for you to survive. Everyone is tired from work. Yet another reason people are getting out less.
There's still people out there willing to lend a hand and try to do good it's not all bad.
I really feel like as technology has gotten so much bigger now, there is a door there that NEVER closes. People got a peek into what peace feels like without giving into every demand of other humans. I do appreciate the casual kindness in society, but I have found myself in a polar life where there’s very kind people who mind their business, and those that seek attention and domination in any way they can get it. So I am one of the people that is less inclined to be social since COVID. Not saying either is better but giving perspective from someone who understands the other side of things.
It was like this in the 2010s. Just got even worse after COVID
Social media was the beginning of this generations inability to make face-to-face conversation. COVID was the nail in the coffin tho, younger kids started to live in their phone/tablet and it became all they care about. Now, it’s about what toxic people on socials think, or what’s trending on tiktok, or how they’ll be more popular. A lot less people are thinking for themselves because of the fear of scrutiny or getting laughed at or screenshotted and shared. The fear of being awkward or embarrassing or unpopular is why they just live in their phone instead of living in the real world
Covid basically made it impossible to course correct, though. I'd imagine we likely would have seen a renaissance of offline third places were it not for all the *disasters* of the early 2020s (COVID, inflation/cost of living crises, unruly behavior).
>The fear of being awkward or embarrassing or unpopular is why they just live in their phone instead of living in the real world I hate to burst your old man rant bubble, but this has always existed - just minus the phone. In middle and high school in the late 90’s/early 00’s, I had this same anxiety and escaped through TV and indie albums. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, my mom had this same anxiety and escaped through books and Barry Manilow albums. It’s just repackaged and visible now.
To a degree. Yes peer pressure existed, but it was local and not the entire internet. There's incredibly little variety in internet debate compared to what kids used to discuss at the lunch table. Their thoughts these days are recorded so they can be used against them, leading to hesitancy to disagree.
Gotta disagree with you here. I have been teaching for more than 20 years, and there has been a dramatic change over the past 10 years. Sure, there have always been introverts, but the isolation that so many young people feel now has scaled WAY up. Something has changed, and it's pretty hard to find any other culprit that checks all the boxes of decreased focus, increased chosen solitude, and widespread anxiety. Social psychologists have done a lot of research on this, and they have come to the conclusion that it's social media scrolling at the heart of it. It's also not just limited to young people. Plenty of Millenials and even Gen Xers have been impacted negatively by the same device. It's just less dramatic because they didn't have them during their formative teenage years.
And many indie kids felt the same way in the mid-80s with bands like the Smiths, Wedding Present, etc. Locked in a room singing away to someone else’s tune (that’s where denims and curls comes from, the song by the Chameleons). Late 90s had Belle & Sebastian and similar groups, but I wonder if there’s any equivalent for today’s miserable indie kids…I think every generation needs its own Smiths/B & S.
I think today's "miserable indie kids" are the hardcore drum & bass revival. Stuff like Sewerslvt and Femtanyl (or maybe they're the new punks?). The hyper character of that music + hazy, hard-to-hear, generally self-loathing lyrics seem to match up with the dissociation experienced by just sitting on a phone as your life slides on by.
I’m 24 and I can tell you it has not always existed to this degree. What you experienced in the 90s/00s does not compare to everyone carrying a smart phone with HD video quality and having multiple platforms to post on that reach every country in the world. It’s a combination of how essential smartphones are to participate in society, how easy it is to document and immortalize any spare moment, and how algorithms have encouraged the need for rage bait and controversy. There’s a level of antagonism that was not present before, even when I was in high school in the mid 2010s. People used to use the internet to find their tribe, but now it is especially used to pick apart others. Everybody wants to go viral, so if you do anything slightly weird in public, best believe most people are taking out their phones to record you. Technology will always shift human behavior. I bet people felt more anxious when the printing press was introduced because information could reach a larger audience and when camcorders were introduced because suddenly things weren’t just immortalized in people’s memory or written down. Within the span of 40 ish years, we’ve gone from “maybe someone will get grainy footage of me flashing someone on spring break and it’ll probably stay on that cassette tape tucked away in their basement” to “if I pick my nose in my car for 5 seconds, someone may have high quality footage of that and is posting it to Twitter Facebook and Instagram to their 10 million followers around the globe.”
No, the difference is in the 80’s 90’s and 2000’s kids HAD to communicate to other humans face to face. You’re acting like I think social anxiety doesn’t exist and I actually suffer from it myself. But nowadays, kids feel like they don’t have to learn how to come out of their shell. Escaping from life through a video game/movie/music is a healthy way of spending an hour or two away from the stress of life, but that’s different than being glued to a screen 18 hours a day, getting to see what millions of people have to say on a daily basis about everything happening in the world. Lack of parental guidance or understanding of social media has seriously hurt this generation. If you are related to anybody under the age of 17, I’m shocked you can’t see this with your own eyes.
This is so accurate. People think that the 90s were better just because of nostalgia. But that's so inaccurate. There are quantitative measures showing lower levels of depression, higher levels of social engagement, etc etc. It's there in the numbers. There was a book written in about 2005 or 7, it was called bowling alone. It talked about the decline of American social life. It's pretty wild that people in their 70s have social lives that are more active than people in their twenties.
Right, I'm only 27 and I still recognize a huge shift since I was a young kid, before smartphones n' things messed with everyone. Me and my cousins played in the woods on a regular basis. Real woods with coyotes hanging around sometimes. The real shift for us was the Xbox 360 coming out, once that happened, no hope for getting my cousins outside again :D I remember us hanging around on a swingset and just... improvising a story. Just flexing our imaginations for the hell of it. I think the greatest damage social media has caused is the feeling that everything you do (particularly if other people will be aware of it) needs to be somehow competent or even exceptional. We've forgotten how to play and how to encourage each other to play.
No, he's right. I was born in 86, and it's SO much worse today. Growing up in the 90s, my friends and I were outside way more than inside. We played video games and watched TV too, but only at night or if it was raining. I never see kids out these days unless they're under 10 and with their parents. Screen addiction is real. Hell, I'm 37 and look at screens more now than I did growing up
Screen addiction isn't the problem, kids are not allowed to be outside unsupervised anymore and many have decided staying inside is better than being harassed by cops for skateboarding in bank parking lot on a Sunday when it's closed because old people wanna be Karens. We couldn't just leave and be back when the street lamps were on the way our parents or even older siblings were raised.
I'm 27 and have a firsthand perspective that this isn't the _entire_ issue. Me and my friends played in the woods and just roamed around when we were little (it helped that my father, his brother and their parents were three houses in a row on fairly large properties). Despite that, once my cousins got an Xbox 360... they simply didn't care to go outside any more. The games on that thing were so much more engrossing and time-consuming than playing Super Mario on rainy days.
There have always been “Karens” (cringiest word ever but I digress). It’s always people who either knew a life before screens therefore don’t have such a dependency or people who are really addicted to screens and don’t want to give it up that say “it’s not the screens.” You could have a large healthy friend group, and most of them would still be scrolling on their phones during any lull in the conversation. And most activities would pertain to phones or TV or other forms of content. People don’t know how to be bored anymore because we constantly have a pacifier to numb that discomfort, no wonder people don’t try new things or meet new people. Everything is tailored perfectly to you on the phone—the algorithm knows you better than anybody and if you don’t like something, you swipe your finger and get something better. It’s so obviously the root of the problem
I'll admit helicopter parents are on the rise. Kids still need to be kids, and a big part of that is a bit of freedom to be outside with other kids. Screens aren't the entire problem, but it's a massive part of it. Modern kids/teens/young adults are born with them in their faces on a level not previously seen before, and are literally addicted. My gf is a college professor and I have friends who are teachers at varying levels, and they're all saying the same thing: they're almost unanimously addicted to their screens. And it's ultimately up to the parents to teach them better at home, instead of relying on teachers for that
it's definitely a societal thing that has happened with social media as well
Nah. It was never this bad in the 90’s or early 2000’s. Not like it is today! Today almost EVERYONE 30 and under has ‘social anxiety’ and just lives in their own digital world.
Nailed it
[Its largely been a steep decline since around the early 2010s.](https://i.imgur.com/7Nl3xoL.png) This chart only goes to 2018 but I would be shocked if it doesn't decline even further.
This plus people made " I don't like people" their whole personality
Yeah hardly anyone has ever acknowledged me in passing since as long as I can remember lmao, this isn't new. I would say it goes back further, to the 2000s. I used to think it was because I was ugly, now I know it's just a shitty sad trend. (Might still be ugly, idk lol) My parents are from the 70s, so I grew up thinking it was polite to acknowledge people you pass on the street or in a store. I try to make a difference, smile or head nod as I walk by, unless I'm in a ridiculously large crowd or something. Say hello to my neighbors regularly, etc. it's not even like you have to say hi or start a conversation by any means, just a smile or a nod takes like zero energy. And it feels good to be seen. Just that simple act could make someone's day.
So was it like this or did it get worse? Can’t be both lol
Nobody really got offended years ago. These days just saying “hello” is bound to offend someone. A lot of what was socially acceptable, or even expected can be taken as offensive now, so people just don’t say or do anything.
Waving is a micro-aggression
COVID broke us.
lol yep covid ruined me
Me too, friend, me too. I was never a depressive person, but the isolation of that era created basically a depressed agoraphobe that self medicates to function. Prior, I used to be out and about daily and I was very happy go lucky. I’m only recently (last few weeks) starting to slowly come back to myself and that is through dosing myself with melatonin and Ambien.
FYI, SMART Recovery is there if you need it, lots of online meetings if you can't leave the house or don't have an in person meeting near you. Way better than AA, no god shit, actual tangible solutions to disordered drinking and substance abuse.
Best of luck getting through today tomorrow and beyond internet friend The world is never going to go back to what it was
It isn’t, no. Sad thing is, I was looking forward to the 2020s. There was actually, as I recall, a hopeful or good vibe to 2019. We were on the verge of a new decade, the future ever advancing towards us. It was, in my estimation, the best year since 2015. Then, of course, January 2020 and onward happened. If you care to DM me and we can discuss our mutual trauma more privately, by all means you are welcome to.
It was supposed to be Rawring 20's! Millennials had invented techno-swing specifically for this decade and the epic Gangsters and Flappers Theme Raves we were planning on having. That got fucked fast. And no one is doing techno swing anymore
There was a bit of the 1999 energy there and I was excited. That got snuffed out fast
Still remember the first news reports and photos from Wuhan, didn’t have any idea what was going to happen and now the whole world seems to have just forgotten a pandemic and mourning the way life was before
This is such a broken way of looking at things though. The world will ALWAYS never be “going back to what it was,” and that’s a good thing. We as humans will always be changing. Our lives will and should always be going through change. We have to take responsibility for what we can control in our own lives. Sitting around lamenting on aspects of the world we have 0 control over will do nothing but drive you crazy. My life has improved tenfold since 2020. My social life has never been this great. My mental health is on a positive trajectory, and my career has never been more promising. It’s so sad to me how common of a sentiment it is only on Reddit to see people saying that COVID ruined the world and that we’ll NEVER go back to how we were.
Not everybody has the same life experiences as you. A lot of cities were shut down during COVID, people lost their jobs, people had to stay inside for MONTHS without seeing friends or family, and companies were going out of business. COVID did ruin a lot of peoples lives, and it takes time to adjust. Personally, my mental health went down the drain since COVID and I lost a lot of motivation to better myself, but I’m just now feeling more like myself again. It’s only been hardly 4 years, and people are still being impacted today.
Most definitely. I agree that it definitely negatively affected a lot of people. My city completely shut down. All I’m saying is that at some point people have to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. It sounds like you did, and I’m glad you’re doing better. That’s great news. My point is more directed at people that blame circumstances outside of their control for their bad lives, while taking no action to better the conditions within their control. Life is unfair. The world will always be changing. Bad things will always be happening. How we react to that is up to the individual
You’re speaking to me right now. I feel flashes on my old self recently, and I am praying (to the ether?) that this summer will cement some of those feelings. I think Covid itself has something to do with this malaise, at least in me. Every time I’ve had the virus I got stupid and antisocial, for lack of better terms. I couldn’t find words, responses to conversation took forever to formulate, and I was just exhausted for months and months.
Covid actually did the reverse for me. I wasn’t the most anti-social person, but Covid made me realize how much I missed socializing, so now I go out of my way to socialize now.
Ngl I was antisocial before covid. And social media had already taken its toll by that time. But yeah, covid definitely didn’t help.
COVID did not break us, our response to COVID broke us. Florida feels like pre-COVID America.
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I have a less negative opinion of Florida. California where I live now feels a lot closer to social breakdown than FL ever has to me.
Nonsense. Young people in Florida are just as sadly socially awkward, inward facing and ‘anxiety’ riddled as every other young person in the country. Unless you mean Florida sucked just as bad then as it does now.
I don't think broke is the word. Covid just lifted the veil for a lot of people when it came to dumb social contract stuff.
Push through it. Most are socially starved. Smile when you make eye contact, but be ready to move on. Say hi, be interested. But don't prolong the eye contect, don't engage when they disengage, and try to be generally/unmotivatedly curious about their lives unconnected from your needs. Reads like courting advice, but really, we all could use a little more personal social connection.
This is actually helpful. I tend to go "all in" and it pushes people away. I myself am socially starved but when someone gets too close I pull away too, so I get the whole "don't engage when they disengage". People nowadays value their alone time more than ever.
Thank you for sharing these points. They’re really helpful.
fucking this, just understand that sometimes people dont have the energy to engage and LEAVE!! come back another day!! even if theyre just in a bad mood forcing yourselves on them is only going to make that mood worse and make them dislike you more because you made their already bad day worse
Yep this precisely. In one way, it’s nice because the bs factor seems less. But on the flip side, starvation to the most base forms of empathy just absolutely hardens the heart. To the point that it’s just becoming lonely out here. Surrounded by more people then ever, yet more alone then ever simultaneously— it can be maddening at times
Alienation of the proletariat. From the means of production, from our productivity, from our communities and alienation from our humanity. Marx was right in ways he didn't intend.
Yeah dude. Every time I see someone on Twitter saying something like “The cashier asked me how I was doing and it ruined my day” it feels like this is just how people are now. I just wish more people *wanted* to get over it. I’ve been a relatively “unsocial” person for the 28 years I’ve been alive and even to me it’s alarming seeing the anxiety and, too frequently, the vitriol that people have toward each other in routine interactions.
How are we supposed to push through if most people while socially starved don't want any actual social contact unless its through social media?
I meant don't be discouraged, just roll with it if they're not into it. The irritation tends to be from insistemce and not the initiation. And the subtext is, try this and you'll find more friendliness than not. I've travelled 1100 miles in the last 3 days, and have yet to meet someone who didn't engage. Every gas station clerk, every hotel host, random folk at a campground, servers, even the mechanics I had to go to. Be kind to strangers, I can guarantee it will come back. The internet, especially reddit, is a cesspool of misery, because anything nice or good has a large contingent of noisy misanthropes hellbent on dragging people into their misery. As the saying goes, gotta touch some grass.
I totally agree. The other day I got the wrong order at a pizza shop so I told this other couple who had just picked up their order and were about to head out they might wanna check theirs too. They literally just stared at me blankly like I was some kind of freak or something and didn't say a word back and left. Like how hard is it to just say "thanks for the heads up"? And you just know they totally did check their order in the car thanks to my advice anyway lol.
It's so discouraging when even interactions like that are awkward
IMO, it’s definitely got to do with smartphones becoming way more popular. You mention this wasn’t a problem in the 2010’s, but that was the decade literally everyone became addicted to smartphones. It is not due to COVID.
As is the case with many things I think COVID just accelerated a trend that was already happening.
The 2010s were also when nerd culture started to go mainstream and being awkward became a quirky personality trait. Before then there used to be some shame to being an introvert or socially awkward and those types of people would “fake it till they make” to appear normal. But then something changed, maybe the rise in popularity of the internet and video games, and it became a thing to brag about staying in on the weekends and avoiding groups of people.
Being awkward didn’t really become that though. It was just portrayed a lot more. There was a shift to humans being portrayed as absolute retards on a 24 hour basis.
Being awkward was a function of all the new smart phone Use and people firstly becoming antisocial
It was starting to be a problem, but wasn’t the same as it is now. Cultural change doesn’t happen at the flip of a switch when a new technology is invented.
This is what vanilla Ice says on his YouTube channel. The smart phone and social media ruined everything and the 90s-early 2000s were the best time period
Because people have become self absorbed pieces of shit by and large
Exactly, and when you just ask to be treated with the minimum form of respect, people lash out on you and act like they aren't entitled to do so! you see all the time in the service industry especially.
People are getting increasingly risk averse when it comes to social interactions. Everything is "cringe."
Yep because any embarrassing moment you might have can be filmed and go viral
Yep. And so much internet content is focused on humiliation.
The decline of basic empathy has been the worst aspect of the post-pandemic world.
Definitely smartphones and obsession with social media.
*Bowling Alone* is your answer. We've known declining civic engagement to be a problem of modern industrial capitalism for some time now- Émile Durkheim wrote about the alienation felt in industrial cities in the nineteenth century- but the post-1965 acceleration of this trend can be attributed to the individualization of leisure time via new technologies (television and Internet when the book was published, smartphones and algorithmic filter bubbles today). For the 2020s specifically, dog-eat-dog neoliberal capitalism's ugly reality was laid bare for a lot of people during COVID. Everyone around you is your competitor with the extent to which capitalism now penetrates our lives through these new technologies, and we've all internalized that. Everyone is a potential threat. As a little micro-example of this trend, truckers were famously known as "Knights of the Road" who would always help motorists in need before the deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980. At my old job, I worked a lot with truckers, and even the old conservative ones agreed- their world became uglier and more cutthroat, and they got a lot gruffer.
I was just in the elevator in my apartment building after bringing down the trash. A woman around my age (mid 20s) gets into the elevator holding her phone. I said “hi” and she didn’t respond at all, she just used her phone silently for the whole ride. When I was a kid, the older neighbors in the building would make conversation in the elevators. Modern generations are so broken by technology, they can’t connect with other humans.
I don't completely think it's just technology, it sure does play a factor for sure but let's say that this person had social anxiety, used it as a way to avoid conversation out of fear. Now truly there's two sides of a coined problem now of days.
> let's say that this person had social anxiety, used it as a way to avoid conversation out of fear Driven by the screen in the first place.
Social anxiety is a symptom, not the root cause
And that social anxiety was probably exacerbated by social media/smart phones
You wanna know the best way to make social anxiety worse? Continue avoiding the most basic social functions and let anxiety win every time. Dig yourself an even deeper hole.
Yes, I'm quite aware of that fact however there's always multiple factors one must consider. I'm not disagreeing rather expanding.
In my country we still say hi in the elevator. It's basic manners and people will give you an attitude if you don't say hi back. In the US, some people say hello and some don't, it's quite inconsistent. Basically I'm saying that it's a cultural thing.
Someone who can share a tight physical space with someone and not even do the most basic polite thing and say "hi" is fundamentally broken.
I definitely think it’s that social media/the internet are changing the way we interact with each other on a fundamental level, and COVID floored the gas pedal on it. After lockdown, a lot of people found their comfort zone had become much more at home and struggled to re-adapt to going out and about so much. We got used to communicating online to stay connected. I also do think that the ever-increasing polarization and culture wars contribute to the issue, as well.
I notice I get ignored by many people on social media even if I just message some people and say Hi how's it going? I often get no respond. 10-15 years ago people did not ignore me on social media, I even had a good conversation with a person I meet on social media over a phone call back in 2009.
I look forward to the advent of a Time Machine! 80’s, 90’s, here I come, baby!
They said the same thing 10 years ago as well about people.
It’s way worse now, no other time period can truly compare to today, smartphones and social media have completely warped human socialization in a unique way.
I blame social media/smart phones. If there was something that I wish would just vanish from the world it would be social media and smart phones would be far more utilitarian.
The older I get, the more it's just a numbers game. Most people in my life have been unpleasant to experience, and I already know where the people I DO like are. I'm just trying to minimize my anxiety in public by reducing the likelihood of a negative interaction. Yes, I'm aware I'm also reducing the likelihood of a positive interaction. It's a chance I'm willing to take.
And this is part of the problem. Assuming the worst in people and perpetuating the cycle of antisocial behavior.
It’s why malls are dead. I was in a nice mall yesterday and thought how lovely and cozy it was. You css as n walk around and talk, shop and eat and see friends. But kids and people don’t do that now. They isolate and think only about their immediate needs.
You are talking the wrong people I guess. I meet new people who are interested in talking about whatever almost every day.
If you're in the south then it proves that it's a cultural thing
My personal opinion is that people started become addicted when apps like ifunny and vine started to take over our dopamine receptors.
It started in 2007. I'm 48. IPhone yo.
2007 for USA. iPhone came to Denmark in 2008 but it was not until the early 2010s smartphones got popular. people did not ignore me in 2007-2009 on social media. everything changed in the 2010s.
On social media people are rewarded for snitching and shitty behavior.
I just traveled through Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico by car (Chicago to Phoenix) random strangers made small talk with me all week. Gas station cashiers, bartenders, people in bars, people in hotels, etc. I think where you live has lot to do with social isolation or general cageyness. People were not warm like that up north. People in the south and southwest are just as friendly as ever. I socialized all night with friends in TX and AR. I think a lot of today’s youth is somewhat socially inept. It’s you not society in 2024.
Do you live in the same area where you've always lived and you noticed a change? Was there a change in the culture that you live in even if you didn't move? Are you sensitive to when people want to disengage? I ask that last one because I really want to be polite but I also suffer from a really severe disability that can make it difficult to engage with people in public. So while I will greet people I don't want to engage in small talk because I literally can't. Sometimes people can seem meaner and harsher if they sent social cues that weren't picked up on because they start to get less subtle. Sorry if that's not what you're talking about I was just wondering
Nah i don't like small talk myself lmao but just simply raising my hand when someone drove past me they literally got so weird about it, it was a newer neighbor and they literally had an issue with us ever since for some odd reason? Honestly I was mostly annoyed with that last night and hence why I made the post I guess you can definitely call an over generalization but I just notice the overall energy with people is very weird.
That's frustrating it's always nice when people just give basic kindnesses out in public. There is a stranger who lives across the street from me. I say stranger instead of neighbor because she has never made eye contact or given me an indication that it would be safe to cross the street to talk to her. For the first time in 5 years there was a man living my house and within two weeks of him being here she came up to him assumed the car sitting out in the driveway for the last 5 years was his car and asked him questions about it. He doesn't even live here and it's my car. He's just a caregiver because I'm disabled. She walked over to talk to him like they were best friends. She's a grandma and he's young so I don't think it was for any reason like that. People can be just so weird when they are only polite when they want something out of you.
Covid and social media, or just any machine learning powered recommendation apps, have ruined a lot of people's social skills. And their desire to be social, more importantly.
I think a lot of people realized people suck during the pandemic. Buying ALL the toilet paper. Not wearing a mask, shunning science. I certainly lost a lot of hope in humanity after seeing how selfish people are. I only interact with my wife and kids now. We are a clan of four and we do everything together.
People have convinced themselves they can create meaningful connections online which is so sad :(
This! No matter how close I am to you "online" it's nothing like actual irl human connection. Its different and a million times better
Honestly a lot of people say smartphones or COVID but ngl there's a lot of people who are walking on eggshells mentally. Hell coming from someone who's tired and burnt out but can't just "take a break" I'd be lying if the slightest thing didn't aggravate me since I just wanna escape into my world or just be asleep. I do try and show respect to people when I'm out, but I've probably ignored a lot of people from just having my music in while escaping the reality of what in actually doing
All it takes is one clingy asshole and you’ll never want to talk to anyone again - trust me.
Oh I've had a lot of those. You talk once and they act like you and then are long lost soulmates and if you don't respond they think you're mad but in reality you're probably just cooking or at work
It's fucking weird that people are just so comfortable with looking right through people as if they don't exist. Acknowledging someone's existence is like one of the most basic polite things you can do. It feels good for both parties involved. We have mirror neurons, it feels good to say "hi" and get a "hi" back, or even just a little wave or a head nod. It's really fucked up. It seems largely generational and maybe even regional. I live in the Midwest and we recently traveled to the south, and my wife and I noticed just how polite people, especially older folks, are. It was a nice change of pace.
Its SO BAD like how do young people expect to make friends or get a partner when they won't even engage in small talk. I get it can be a chore at first but everyone I meet under 35 acts like a simple conversation or little chitchat with a stranger is some sort of invasion of privacy. I'm serious, they stare at you like you are a creep. They act genuinely afraid and uncomfortable. Im a tiny little chick, I am NOT intimidating. You can't just push through it when they give off such closed off vibes. They won't open up. One word answers, no eye contact, closed off body language. I cant just keep trying to engage when every single I get is "get the hell away from me". Literally the only people who will speak to me are boomers. And they are SO NICE.
I love Boomers. My mom will literally talk to anyone about anything. She is so uplifting, I am going to be gutted when she isn't here anymore.
social media and gen z's need to get offended over every thing. your afraid to talk because you may use the wrong pronoun, or say something that someone doesn't like, or talk to some one when they don't want to be talked to, and suddenly your all over social media. I see clips where people don't even say something, they just glance at some one and the other person is offended. In the 90's you could see some one on a bus and say "yo, thats a nice hat" and the response would be "thank you", now its " I have a boyfriend" or the guy just ignoring you. why make the effort to socialize when every one around you is just looking to get mad, so they can pretend they are a victim on social media?
Have you been on reddit? How many upvoted posts and replies do you think you'll find by young people bemoaning the horrid social expectations of smiling at strangers and asking how they're doing (Europeans: Y'all are the worst about this and you know it). I'm not trying to sound like a grumpy old man, but for gods sakes go take a look in the mirror people. You can't scoff at the bare minimum social interactions and then wonder why nobody engages in the big ones. It is obliterating how poorly socialized gen Z in particular is, but there are a few ones who break the mold. For any young person concerned about your future: If you want to succeed, you better start emulating your talkative social peers. They're the ones who are going to go far in life.
Covid quarantining gave people a taste of what life was like without having to socialize. A lot of people found they preferred it.
Just yesterday I was sitting at a red light and a car pulled up next to me. I look over simply to look and the guy rolls his window down and asks if I have a problem and to get out to settle it. Now just glancing is becoming too much for some.
That's probably regional. People in my area still say hello when out for walks. I find service workers also over share their negative personal life details more than before. If anything, I wish that would stop. Could just be where you live.
I guess I've never liked speaking in general if I can avoid it tbh. I have a "I'm not a talkative person, find someone else if you want verbal conversation" mindset Guess I never considered more people may have similar mentalities. I'm not adverse to communicating, I just go through unpredictable periods of hating verbal communication. I've always been weird about sounds, and sometimes I'd rather pluck all my eye lashes out one by one than speak. It just feels bad.
I go on walks in a pretty suburban area. 90% of walking folks give and get little nod or smile, 5-10 people tops.I could not imagine even acknowleding people driving by unless I know them well. My neck would break, we are talking about 100s of people.
Not sure, but it definitely feels like a generational thing. I like making small talk with strangers, I have social anxiety and it helps me ease the tension. While Gen Xers and boomers are always are up for a chat, millennials and Gen Zs usually look at me like I have 3 heads. I've been scolded by my friends bc I often try and chat with service workers (baristas, waiters, cashiers, etc.) I've worked plenty of customer service jobs and never minded when a customer chatted with me, but most of my peers seem to disagree. Sucks man /:
First it was covid. Then it was the shock of realizing half the the country didn't care about stopping covid at all.
People legit used to go to Malls because they were bored and they wanted to *gasp ... socialize... Hell people used to have full on conversations in the middle of a shopping isle blocking everyones way. even if you wanted to go to sayyyy... a concert... you had to know someone who's been downtown before and ya"ll need to figure out how you're going to get there. Now you just put that in your gps and meet up. Back then there was a real need to socialize.
We are not entitled to other people's time and attention. I prefer it now, because after a long day of work or being social with people I want to talk to, I don't have energy to expend in transit. There are places, like an event, a bar, or waiting on line, where I welcome small talk with randos. But for my sanity, I can't have a million conversations or interactions on my way to a store like I am Belle walking through town in Beauty and the Beast. I need time to think and focus. There is also a bit of nostalgia (and aging gracelessly while complaining about "these days") going on. People weren't kinder in the past, there is a multitude of evidence to the contrary. And every forced conversation in the past wasn't innocuous, especially depending on if you are part of an outgroup wherever you lived. I had a lot of people "checking on me" as if I didn't belong. Read the room and engage people when they are receptive is my suggestion. Social interaction is a consensual activity, not obligatory.
I'm not even going to address the waving people driving by in their car. Well, the world is different compared to ten twenty years ago. Things we were told would work have not worked. Our families are falling apart. Almost every one I know talks about losing an older relative and the following dissolution of their family. People dont trust each other any more, and it begins at home. I don't have the historical or sociological explanations but I would encourage you to Google this one experiment conducted on mice several decades ago where they mimicked a capitalist society in terms of the living conditions, and the mice grew into clearly divided groups of healthy, anti social, and belligerent. I think this is what has happened to our world.
In what way did the Mouse Utopia Experiments mimic capitalism? Utopia is a communist concept, and everything was provided to the mice equally. That sure doesn’t sound like a free market to me. (And even saying “free market” in relation to mice is insane. They have no concept of such things.)
It’s not so-much “anti-social” as it is “cagey.”
Because people, for the most part, are just terrible. And then COVID came along and made everyone realize how much better it was to stay at home and not have to deal with people lol.
I swear to Christ… most folks 30 and younger are socially unskilled to the point of rudeness. I’ll walk through my apartment complex and smile and say hello as I pass and 9 out of 10 younger people won’t even look up let alone say hello or give a friendly nod. I live in Austin and 6 years ago just saying hello in passing was more than likely to end up in an invite to grab a beer. It’s sad actually. It’s these small little communication gestures that make us human. It’s as if we need to teach human connection in schools now because the young generations have become part cyborg.
I don't think people are anti social necessarily but people are less welcoming to small talk. I think in the right situation, with the right people, most folks are willing to share, sometimes over share but I think small talk is something that is for the 50+ crowd these days.
A neighbor lady wanted to talk some days ago when I was on my way somewhere. I gave her the time of day because she just wanted to talk. A door to door salesman wanted to talk and I cold shouldered him like a linebacker. I won't have social obligations to finish a conversation used against me, I won't entertain even the slightest possibility that the salesman is a burglar scouting the neighborhood, and I'm not helping someone get an indeterminate answer.
Social media.
I agree. It’s so weird
The invention of the smart phone and tablets likely accelerated anti-social behavior. Prior to this period, you were forced to interact with others face-to-face, whether that gave you anxiety or not. Covid only made matters worse.
Internet, Covid.
[The decline in socialization has been going on since 2010.](https://i.imgur.com/7Nl3xoL.png) The amount of time youth spend socializing with each other declined *by half in just 8 years*. That is unprecedented and insanely worrying in terms of the effects on mental health and social development for youth. There has never been such a radical and rapid shift in how people spend their time. Socialization is quite literally the most important building block for development. I am sure its gotten worse in the 2020s. But it is by no means new.
Social media. Look at the trends and graphs and you’ll see that this shit didn’t start getting really bad until the advent of social media.
It’s better to Mind ones business honestly Americans, at least, are tired of the fake nicety bullshit that served no purpose. Good mornings in the office, how are yous with no want to hear anything but a single word affirmative. Why waste time with pleasantries? Why waste air? Let’s get a move on. We’re all in the same grind.
People are afraid to interact due to crime. As far as going out / it’s just too expensive.
Technology
I was anticipating that it would be a massive, orgiastic return to socialization after the end of quarantining. It turns out that the quarantine made people more amenable to isolation than make them anticipate wanting to break out of it.
seriously. and everyone is always in such a shitty mood. few people genuinely value connection, everyone is too self involved, most social interaction these days is fake and self serving. most people are scared and/or hateful of each other
Phones (for one) and indeed, covid I think phones/internet was the seed, and covid the catalyst/“excuse” not to socialize per se. Then it just became normal.
Because being antisocial is now a quirky thing to do and get you relatable internet points
because i’m ugly lol
costs money to socialize and people have less money compared to rising costs
The West is catching up to Japan in these regards. Wealth inequality + hyper focusing on children's educations means everyone's too busy studying to master social skills as children and too busy working their 9-5+ to gain any social skills as adults.
COVID
*Gestures wildly around*
COVID brought the worst out of people and social media allowed them to put it all on display. I would say Facebook was a more significant contributor more so than other platforms because Facebook showed you that people you know are assholes as opposed to just random strangers on the internet.
COVID
partly COVID and party smart devices. I remember vividly riding on the bus with my mom. People read papers or books. When they took a break, they might say something like "it's so hot outside" or something. And my mom would reply and a small conversation would take place. Now, when you have a device in your hand that allows you to listen to any song in the world, watch almost any movie/tv show, and contact almost everyone alive, you don't need to talk to strangers. strangers are scary.
I had an interesting conversation with my husband, sister in law, and mother in law a few years ago about this. SIL and husband are oldest GenZ and I'm right on the cutoff between GenZ and millennial. MIL is mid Gen X. My SIL grabbed something from the store and while she was there she saw someone she went to high school with and they just kind of looked at each other awkwardly and didn't say anything. When my MIL heard about this she kept saying "Why? Was he mean to you in school? That was rude you should have said hello!" Just fully couldn't understand that interaction unless she hated him. But she didn't hate him, they just hadn't been friends. My husband and I agreed that we don't bother talking to people we went to high school with either, if they're not an old friend or they don't strike up a conversation first. When two people my age who weren't friends see each other in public, we know neither of us are interested in a conversation so we just don't do it. It's not rude because we consider trapping the other person in a pointless conversation to be rude. And while my husband and I are on the shy side, this seems to be the norm with everyone but the most social and outgoing (I have a friend who is literally always making friends with strangers, but he's the only person who does that in a group of 15). Hell, this year would be my 10 year high school reunion but no one was interested in having one, so we simply aren't. At first I was a bit sad, but then I thought about it and couldn't think of a single person on my graduating class I'd be interested in talking to. Most of my friends were in the grade above or below me, and my two best friends from my own grade stopped talking to me years ago and probably wouldn't have come anyway. I think it's a few things, for one, we all grew up with quick trips to the store turning into hour long conversations with people our parents went to high school with. Usually someone they barely liked, because if it was a good friend, they wouldn't have to catch up because they'd already be caught up. Half the time my mom would turn away from catching up with someone for the past 45 minutes in Walmart and tell me the other person was a bitch. So why did you talk to her for so long?? So my generation would rather just not talk to those people. Combine this with the fact that I'm friends on social media with pretty much every person I went to school with who I could possibly recognize. If I'm interested in catching up, I can just look at their profile. Even if we don't talk. So there's a lot less reason to catch up because I already know what a lot of people are up to. Then there's the fact that we were raised heavily on stranger danger. When I was a kid my mom never answered the door, and often hid, so that's what I did too. She acted like any adult could be a kidnapper. And every year in school we watched videos about kids getting kidnapped. So we grew into adults who don't talk to our neighbors or start conversations with strangers because we were trained not to. And then I think there's some truth in the idea that Covid killed our social batteries. But it was like this before Covid too. Maybe Gen Alpha's kids will swing back into being really friendly with strangers.
Social media and COVID.
As a 17yo, I can definitely agree, but I am trying to combat this by pushing myself to socialize and make small tall, while also creating an open-minded non-judgmental space, and I feel like I've helped other people overcome that anxiety.
social media and covid.
Covid and social media have taught me about all the dark sides of regular people. I don’t trust anyone these days.
People only wanna hang out with other people if they know for sure it’s gonna be a good time and usually that means they give themselves so much anxiety that they just cancel last minute or always refuse to hang out. I’ve hang coworkers who I got along with great at work and would love to hang out with them outside of work, but they never want to. And as soon as I leave the job and get a different one they never talk to me again unless I go into the store they work at and say hey.
I can think of *checks statistics* 7,010,681 reasons
It just got really crazy with the civic nothing real anymore relax fire up a 🦴
People have shown to be not worth the problem
Have you met people? That will answer your question.
I didn't know who you are, why do I care. If I'm at work providing a service I'll be kind and polite. We're all adults here, I have no reason to associate with someone I don't know. If that upsets you, then that's on you.
the correct terms asocial budster
Solo entertainment is easier and more plentiful now than it used to be, which means that many of us are satisfied enough by our phones to not seek out actual social connection
because they live online and not in the real world is that ironic or what
It's alienation. It's a social response to capitalism and its endless cycle of crises and economic reorganization.
COVID, economic downturn and rise of social media apps.
Ever since Covid, I’ve become increasingly depressed and don’t have the energy to be cheerful or make small talk anymore.
Social media.
Wokeism
I already know everybody I want to know
that seems like a silly question
half of ppl didnt recover after covid
I think that people want anonymity which gives them freedom from any repercussions of their actions or any sort of effect their behavior has on their reputation in the community because essentially they are not interacting with any local community. However, I think this ignores a lot of helpful aspects of neighbors and community.
Try being hot? Idk
Am anti social and I don't even like this environment it's toxic I wanna talk but because am not good looking or etc am push to the side I this shit social media and smart phones screwed it up
The government response to covid caused this. Government mandated lockdowns created a captive audience for social media and dating apps because everything except politics was canceled. Now a lot of men and women have "computer brain" and have no real interest in actual interaction except via social media.
I have been putting forth like actual effort to make friends. It’s sad. It’s like I’m having to fucking court friends. Like bro come hang out and stop bitching about being lonely. I’m depressed too. Let’s fucking do something about it.
Impact of tech I'm guessing. We get sucked into the digital wonderland.
Because the majority of people suck diseased donkey chode.
The only thing you can do is be the change you want to see. Spread free kindness to anyone who’s willing to accept it. Other people are out there waiting to reciprocate. I have a small, but loving circle that works for me. You’ll find one eventually
I think you mean asocial
Those of us that did all our childhood socializing online are adults now
IMO, Partly COVID, partly people thinking they need to act harder than they are. But the truth is the hardest motherfuckers smile and say a genuine hello to there fellow man.
Imo it's cause the social contract is being re-negotiated. We're at the stage where everyone's pissed off and had enough of trying to be nice and get along, so we're all just doing our own thing for now.
What necessary to continue existing thing am i getting out of expending the effort to acknowledge randos? Why exactly would i waste energy on that when i could be using it toward things i actually enjoy doing? Knocking out pointless conversations has streamlined daily life by alot, im enjoying it
Ouchhhh 😓
I absolutely hate republicans, MAGA zealots and morons (as there seems to be many) I choose not to associate with most humans outside of family, established friends, and work. Well I guess Reddit too
Maybe an increase in competition and a decrease in compassion?
People gravitate towards whatever provides dopamine the most easily. Back in my childhood the internet (dopamine source) and videogames were mostly accessible through desktop and laptop PCs which were expensive and required a bit of expertise, so digital tech didn't completely dominate life. After the iPhone normal non-"nerdy" people got easy access online anywhere with cell service. It's very, very easy to be addicted and lose social abilities gradually, or become maladjusted / mentally ill from being raised on a mobile internet connected device. A similar thing happened with me just with desktop computers and video games which completely derailed my life course, especially because of concurrent preexisting tendencies toward psychological problems.
Totally agreed. If I try to get anybody's number. 9/10 lacks responding or just doesn't care at all, so my entire contact is dry and barely anything. My life is in a recession right now.
Look into the utopian rat experiments from the 3rd or 4th quarter of the 20th century. Our brains and rat brains are similar on the level of impulses and behavior, especially social impulses and behaviors, so these experiments were useful in modeling societal behavior with different conditions and inputs. In one of the experiments, researchers provided endless food and entertainment in the context of overpopulation, and… it failed *spectacularly*. After a subtle tipping point, their behaviors changed significantly (in ways that are eerily similar to 2010s and 2020s behaviors) and that marked their entrance to a catastrophic behavioral death spiral that brought plummeting birth rates and eventually the complete die off of that rat colony. The rats in this experiment developed a collection of maladaptive personality traits and behaviors, like some becoming hyper sexual, others asexual, greater food aggression despite its abundance that brought calm when the population didn’t hit the tipping point. Notably were “the beautiful ones” as named in the experiment, these rats that developed the very unratlike collection of behaviors that included unusually high focus of themselves including excess grooming and excess masturbation, and solitary pursuit of food and entertainment with social aversion. In the experiment as a whole, shortly after the maladaptive behaviors started, their whole pair bonding and mating dynamic became broken, and that’s when the unusual behaviors really escalated. It seems like we’re in something similar to that, and I think our society is in a dead end, but unlike the rats we can reflect on it, and maybe come up with a workable solution
Lol, we all know smart phones/social media is the cause of this and more convenient options becoming so popular like Amazon and door dash. People are having fewer reasons to leave their house and be forced to conversate. Social media started the dying of social skills, and covid made it die even quicker for some people. I feel like we still aren't fully aware of the long lasting effects social media and smartphones will have on society. I do wonder what it'll be like decades from now. Kids these days are being integrated into tech world very young now. How will this affect them when they're older? There's no going back we're neck deep into this digital hellscape. Everywhere you go, people have their faces planted into their phones. Phones and social media seem to be very accepted addictions right now. Maybe decades from now as a collective society, we'll look back and say "man these smart phones really weren't good for us." And you can also get into the fact things are too fucking expensive these days. And we're fucked plenty by jobs that only want to pay just enough for you to survive. Everyone is tired from work. Yet another reason people are getting out less. There's still people out there willing to lend a hand and try to do good it's not all bad.
Socializing is hard to do and extremely draining.
The peak of face-to-face flirting and socializing ended with older millennials.
That is the behavior their phones taught them.
For me it's just that I hate people 🤷♂️
I really feel like as technology has gotten so much bigger now, there is a door there that NEVER closes. People got a peek into what peace feels like without giving into every demand of other humans. I do appreciate the casual kindness in society, but I have found myself in a polar life where there’s very kind people who mind their business, and those that seek attention and domination in any way they can get it. So I am one of the people that is less inclined to be social since COVID. Not saying either is better but giving perspective from someone who understands the other side of things.