Media in general is probably the real answer. We lack boredom at home. Earlier you were bored, so you signed up for sports, went on cheap trips, camping, pretty much anything to get out. Talking to older people 60 - 70+, some of them spent three or four days at the clubhouse of their chosen sport, they where constantly out of the house, because that's were you weren't bored.

Yes the post's title calls to mind that 'Bowling Alone' was already detailing loss of cohesion nearly 30 years ago.

People are alienated, y'all.

It's a negative feedback loop too. There used to be people out doing things so when folks got bored they'd go find them.

Now entertainment and social media sort of fill that gap (not really) but enough that there's less people out. Less people out mean it's less entertaining, so less people go out etc.

my 94 yo gpa is calling his homies ALL DAY LONG. ill see my best friends between once a week to once a month and texting comes and goes. if i got a phone call i assume its an emergency

> First television, then internet, then smartphones

i like vr so i sometimes wonder if itll catch on and if were in the "we know one or two people with a tv" era of the early 40s. theres certainly seems to be a financial incentive since it seems like tvs and phones have gone about as far as we can take them. its also certainly seems like a another leap down the isolation path as well

luckily i think most people reject vr bc it sucks to wear something on your face

edit: grammar (still bad but better)

> Now on any given city block in the US, there may only be 1 or 2 houses that have kids of any age in them.

Thats why we plan to move to the burbs. Lots of ethnic enclaves where kids go around the neighborhood on their own and play.

I think the media influence went far beyond just pacifying or entertaining.

The relentless satire is what really did it. It was all written by some of the smartest yet depraved and depressed people who found a home in comedy. What did we think was going to happen?

Satire is all well and good, but what are we doing when we no longer take anything seriously anymore? Social media, but particularly reddit, continues to be an echo chamber for these mentally castrated and bitter people who couldn't challenge the comedy with a life that was actually any better than what was being mocked.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. It seems like people are increasingly exhausted and disillusioned with life.

What you seem to be implying is people are lazy and choosing TikTok over real relationships. But I also think people choose TikTok because it’s low effort and they don’t have much gas left in the tank.

I think Bowling Alone did a great job of describing the phenomena. I don't think it did a great job of explaining why it was happening.

It doesn't, for example, cover the privatization of public spaces, it doesn't mention mass white flight from cities to suburban sprawl due to people wanting to preserve apartheid, nor does it cover the rise in wealth inequality or the weakening of labor laws or the obliteration of pedestrian friendly infrastructure.

Instead, it pins it all on 'television' which, sure, but there's a reason why people gravitate towards entertainment that is served to them much more cheaply per-hour than not. It's a little like saying the problem with small pox is that the boils are painful, not the underlying virus systematically destroying your body.

In my personal experience in community organizing, the main pain points people have are 1) that they have day jobs that exhaust them, 2) the traffic sucks and they don't want to drive to our meetings, or 3) they need to pick up a second shift or another job to cover their basic needs. And even to those points, it's hard to get a public space where you can regularly meet that doesn't charge a lot of money, to provide food/refreshment, to maintain an ongoing potluck which requires a lot of coordination especially when it comes to preferences/dietary restrictions, etc. It's almost never out of a lack of interest. People desperately want community but there are so many barriers in place.