Is Urban Loneliness a Myth?

by kareemm • 16 years ago

74 19 16 years ago

sjs2• 16 years ago

You can be just as lonely in a small town if not more so. At least in a big city like NYC you're basically guaranteed to find people with similar interests, no matter what they are. In a smaller town it's far easier to become an outlier. Especially if it's small enough that everyone knows everyone (< 10k).

noname1234• 16 years ago

Nah, bro. The most difficult thing about modern life are choices. In a small town or elementary school, you are friends with everybody because those are the only people you can be friends with.

Life gets more complicated as you move from elementary school to middle, high, undergrad school and the real world as you are forced to make more choices about the people that you choose to hang out with. That's why people go to grad school, participate in a hobby, or join a sub-culture to make their world smaller again and limit their choices to make themselves happier.

kareemm• 16 years ago

> That's why people go to grad school, participate in a hobby, or join a sub-culture to make their world smaller again and limit their choices to make themselves happier.

I don't think people do those things to limit their choices to make themselves happier.

I think they do those things because the act of being at grad school, or enjoying a hobby or sub-culture makes them happy.

In other words, people don't do those things to socialize with fewer people; they do those things because they enjoy doing them. Socializing with people who enjoy the same things they do is a pleasant side-effect.

sjs2• 16 years ago

> In a small town or elementary school, you are friends with everybody because those are the only people you can be friends with.

Basically. So if or when that goes sour, what do you do? In a small town you're up the creek.

> That's why people go to grad school, participate in a hobby, or join a sub-culture to make their world smaller again and limit their choices to make themselves happier.

And in a small town you have less choices about which schools to attend, clubs to join, sub-cultures, etc. You started out with "Nah, bro." and then supported my argument. Unless I'm missing something.

rdtsc2• 16 years ago

That is true. A small town also has the downside of constant rumors and everyone being into every one's business. Stuff like "did you hear so and so is pregnant!?" or "he bought a Mercedes, where does he get the money, doesn't he work at the post office?" and stuff like that.

Some of it is innocent, some can interfere with other's lives where they would want to run away.

whatwhatwhat• 16 years ago

Couple of gems...

An environment that’s alive at all hours, populated by all types, and is, most of the time, pretty safe. What he was saying, really, was that New York had become the Web. Or perhaps more, even: that New York was the Web before the Web was the Web, characterized by the same free-flowing interaction, 24/7 rhythms, subgroups, and demimondes.

Hampton says he views the Internet as the ultimate city, the last stop on the continuum of human connectedness. I’d argue that New York and the Internet are about the same, in the way that a large bookstore feels like it offers just as many possibilities as Amazon.com—maybe slightly less inventory, but more opportunities to stumble on things you might not have otherwise. Whichever the case, what the Internet and New York have in common is that each environment facilitates interaction between individuals like no other, and both would be positively useless—would literally lose their raison d’être—if solitary individuals didn’t furiously interact in each.

theklub• 16 years ago

This is one of those things that's like, WFC?

zmmz• 16 years ago

An ineresting read on a similar topic was covered in Credit Suisse's magazine (picked it up at an airport): http://emagazine.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fus...

The linked story talks of death in isolation in Japan where it is a much more widespread problem due to two things: firstly, the work culture there does not incite interpersonal relationships so often people will only associate with their family, and secondly, people try to stay unintrusive in their old age, being ashamed to contact their children and other family.

The above is made even worse by relocation projects that took place moving couples into the suburbs out of the major cities, inorganicly forming "communities" overnight of people who have never met and never will leading to initiatives such as the Center for the Prevention of Death in Isolation.

koeselitz• 16 years ago

When I was very, very young, I once made said to my parents that I was glad I lived with my family, because if I lived all alone in a big apartment in a city, I would feel very lonely. And I remember - this is one of my most vivid early memories - that my father stopped what he was doing, sat down, and explained to me that someday I might find myself living in that kind of situation. Even then I could tell this was very personal to him - like he'd been in that situation himself. And, he told me, even if I found myself living 'all alone,' and even if I thought I was in a place where no one cared about me, or thought about me, or even had contact with me at all - I wouldn't be. He told me that there would always be people all around me, so I'd discover, if I looked around, that people just next door, people just a few feet away from me, were always right there, communicating with me on a certain level. I only had to pay attention.

It's nice to have that sort of confirmed by this study. Because of that impression, it's always made sense to me that this is true; cities are interconnected systems, and every member is dependent in some way on every other, no matter how solitary that person may think she or he is. I think we've built up a lot of mechanisms today whereby it's easy to tell ourselves that we're very lonely; all that's needed to remove that sensation of being alone is a simple observation of the basic fact that we're constantly and continuously interacting with the people around us, even if it seems like we're not.

rdtsc2• 16 years ago

I like to observe people who are by themselves when I am out. It is probably because I feel awkward sometimes when I am out by myself.

For example, in a cafe or a in a park, a lot people who are by themselves fiddle with their cell phone, read a book or pretend to do something else. In other words, they perform an activity that they could be performing at home without having all these people around. Yet, they chose to go out and be among others. They don't talk to others, they don't even look at others in an obvious way, they seem to be pre-occupied and ignoring everyone, but on a certain level I think they are there more to be with others and whatever else they are doing is just a random activity they do so as not to look too weird staring at strangers.

(That probably means that I am the weird one staring at everyone...)

Evgeny• 16 years ago

read a book or pretend to do something else. In other words, they perform an activity that they could be performing at home without having all these people around

I sometimes do that just to avoid distractions at home - internet, cats, housework ... it's much easier for me to concentrate when I'm not home.

icco• 16 years ago

Just as a heads up, this article is from 2008, in case you didn't notice. Still very true today though :)

palish• 16 years ago

print version: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/52450/

zeynel1• 16 years ago

previous discussions on hn-

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=376573

http://news.ycombinator.com/itemid=381128

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485239

c00ki3s• 16 years ago

>when group cohesion was essential to fight off abrupt attacks from stampeding _wildebeests_

I couldn't help but to laugh at the mental picture.

Is Urban Loneliness a Myth?

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