You have to be the one who creates things to do.

Really, that’s it.

You want to play D&D together, you host and DM.

You want to just hang out, you reach out and propose what you’re doing.

You want more purposeful and meaningful time, join a volunteer group you vibe with.

Even if it’s meeting for coffee. You have to be the one who reaches out. You have to do it on a regular cadence. If, like me, you don’t have little alarms in your head that go off when you haven’t seen someone in a while, you can use automated reminders.

I have observed my spouse (who is not on social media) do this and she maintains friendships for decades this way. Nowadays she has regular zoom check ins, book clubs, and more, even with people who moved to the other coast. You do now have the tools for this. I have adopted it into my own life with good results.

Note: you are going to get well under a 50% success rate here. Accept that most people flake. It may always feel painful (and nerds like us often are rejection-sensitive). You have to feel your feelings, accept it, and move on.

You are struggling against many aspects of the way we in the developed world/nerd world live. We have a wealth of passive entertainment, often we have all consuming jobs or have more time-consuming relationship with our families than our parents ever did. We move to different cities for jobs, and even as suburban sprawl has grown, you’re on average probably further away from people who even live in the same city! You get from place to place in a private box on wheels, or alternatively in a really big box on wheels with a random assortment of people. You don’t see people at church, or market day, or whatever other rituals our ancestors had. On the positive side, you have more tools and leisure than ever before to arrange more voluntary meetings.

I'm also in this group, so I have a few theories as to what causes it and how to fix it.

For one thing, I was severely traumatized as a kid, which delayed a lot of my social skills. I'm catching up but not all the way there yet. When my social battery is full, I can do pretty well, but if I'm even a little down, it's basically impossible to act normally.

I also had it hammered into me as a kid that nobody wants me around, nobody could ever love me, I'm a failure, a burden, a creep, a weirdo, and nothing but a bothersome nuisance that nobody would ever want to spend 30 seconds alone with. I'm trying to reject these thoughts, but it's difficult when you have nobody to talk to. It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I wonder how many people have the same issue. I've made a few friends in person, but I rarely get to see them.

Well I've started doing public surveys in my nearby big city, and documenting the results. I just hold out a posterboard that says "how alone do you feel"[1] or "have you ever been in love" etc, and hold out a marker, and people come up and take the survey. At first I did this out of sheer loneliness and boredom. But I have done it for enough months that some people have come up to me and told me that I've helped them, or that they look forward to my signs.

I'm trying to reach those people who feel the way I feel have no way of connecting with anyone, or at least feel that they don't. Do you have any new ideas of how to achieve this?

[1] https://chicagosignguy.com/blog/how-alone-do-you-feel.html

It seems you can't ignore a lot of this is a product of fewer children, temporary and transitional relationships that are not governed by the boundaries of marriage, and fewer intact families. This leads to fewer siblings, fewer responsibilities toward others, and more opportunities to be and feel isolated. There is a reason why the concept of a family protected by certain legal responsibilities and obligations have been around for a long time. I can't imagine getting older and having no children or siblings. I look at my parents and the only reason why they advanced into old age with tons of support is because of their siblings and children. Friends only go so far. Also the loss of belief in God and purpose lived out through regular Church attendance, charitable activities with a purpose, and community prayer leads to fractured relationships, philosophical and existential anxieties, no matter how many people you have around you. There's a reason why religious communities and institutions have survived thousands of years through all sorts of political upheavals and change. The modern experimentation rejecting God and family doesn't seem to be working out so well. As the older population ages (and increasingly gets euthanized), the younger population shrinking, and the greater reliance on recreational drugs and technology to fill the void, it really doesn't seem that hard to understand the increasing loneliness.

Spending time in parts of Latin America or western Europe or east Asia and then coming back to the US, you can see a lot of ways in which we've built loneliness into the fabric of US culture.

It goes beyond car culture. It's probably illegal to build a cafe within walking distance of your neighborhood or into the first floor of your apartment complex.

Americans get an idea of how bad we have it when we go on vacation, but we don't see it as something that can be built at home.

People need to purposefully and intentionally do things. Sitting home on an app, watching TV is easy. There is no fear or rejection, there is no work to get out of the house, there is no risk. But there is also no reward.

My thoughts on this are you need to have multiple roots into your community. This is something that you go to often and talk to people, become a regular, say hi. Think back to how your parents or grandparents did it: They went to church/temple/synagogue, they went to PTA meetings, they talked to their neighbors, they were in clubs, they went to the same bar.

So I think doing things that get you out of the house, consistently the most important part:

1. People need to make a point to talk to their neighbors, invite them over for dinner or bbqs, make small talk. How towns are constructed now is a hindrance to this (unwalkable towns where all of the houses are big garages in the front and no porches).

2. Join a religious organization. Go to church, but also join the mens/womens group, join a bible studies class. Attend every week.

3. Join social clubs / ethnic organization. The polish or ukrainian clubs, knights of columbus, elks, freemasons. Go every week.

4. Join a club / league. Chess club, bowling league, softball league, golf league. Tech meetups, DnD Night etc. But you have to talk with people and try to elevate things to friendships.

5. Have lunch, happy hour, etc with coworkers.

All of the replies so far are suggesting ideas for an individual but seem to be missing the real crux of the matter...

Yes, you'll be less lonely if you join a group, get out of your house, etc... But how do we actively incentivize that? Social media and whatnot have hundreds of thousands of people working around the clock to find ways to suck you in and monopolize your time.

While "everyone should recognize the problem and then take steps to solve it for themselves" is the obvious solution, it's also not practical to just have everyone collectively decide they need to get out more without SOME sort of fundamental change in our society/incentives/etc

Intentionally choose community and the effort it takes to build and cultivate it [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. People are work, but you cannot live without community [6].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250212233145/https://www.hhs.g...

[1] https://thepeoplescommunity.substack.com/

[3] https://www.tiktok.com/@amandalitman/video/75927501854034854...

[4] https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s...

[5] https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html

[6] How A Decline In Churchgoing Led To A Rise In ‘Deaths Of Despair’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408406 - December 2025 (2 comments)

I don't have a full answer, but a couple thoughts:

1. Volunteer. Somewhere, anywhere, for a good cause, for a selfish cause. Somebody will be happy to see you.

2. Stop trolling ourselves. As far as I can tell, all of the mass social media is trending sharply towards being a 100% troll mill. The things people say on social media do not reflect genuine beliefs of any significant percentage of the population, but if we continue to use social media this way, it will.

Disengage from all of the trolls, including and especially the ones on your "own side".

> So they sit on social media all day when they're not at work or school. How can we solve this?

The naive solution is to place blame on the people who are influenced by the most advanced behavior modification schemes ever devised by humans. Kinda like how the plastic producers will push recycling, knowing they can shift blame for the pollution away from their production of the pollution, because people love blaming. You'll see commenters here telling us that the answer is for people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get out, get involved in their communities under their own willpower. These ideas are doomed from the outset.

The real solution is already being enacted in a number of US states and countries[1]: legally restricting access to the poison, rather than blaming the people who are at the mercy of finely honed instruments of behavior modification when they're unable to stop drinking it under their own willpower.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

A social circle is like a garden, inasmuch as you have to put in work to tend and maintain it. You have to put yourself in a position of potential awkwardness or rejection, which isn't easy. Interacting with people (especially strangers) also takes practice - small talk is a skill like any other.

If you already have a friendship circle, start being the one to propose meetups (cafe, pub, picnic, hike, etc.) If you don't, it's harder - join a social sporting league, group fitness class, dance class, DnD group, anything where people have to talk with each other. When you arrive, turn your phone off for the interval. It might take a couple of goes to find something that sticks or the right environment.

I think that the real trick of "solving" the loneliness epidemic is that it isn't spread evenly. Everyone has their own individual level of opportunity for social interaction, so the solution is hyper-local and individualised. There's no one size fits all solution.

From my perspective, the issue is quite simple: progress optimizes everything other than the cost of human labor. Socialization, as defined today, inherently requires human labor, and thus falls under the Baumol effect.

The 'loneliness epidemic' is merely the result of weakening demand, owing to a slew of low-cost alternatives. Thus, we end up with two options,

1. automate the social experience

2. accept that the comparative cost of socialization will grow higher forever

For some reason, the vast majority of humans in the 21st century are interested in morally rejecting (1), thus ensuring (2) as an outcome.

.

Note: this is not to say I reject the notion that individuals can be helped. I think most comments in this thread are quite healthy, even as they narrowly focus on the individual case.

But it is rather impractical to adopt a positivist "how you can help" framing to address the epidemic at large. While certainly instrumentally useful, it is necessarily unlikely for the same traditional solutions to loneliness to spontaneously 'gain influence' against what has thus far been a gradual decline in their effectiveness and buying power.

I don't think this will ever be resolved.

It's a twofold problem, I believe. People are lonely because of fear of rejection and also actively avoid new people out of caution and high standards.

So two people who are otherwise lonely will make no effort to connect.

I think social networks have done a tremendous amount of damage to our collective psyche. Because on the web, you can single-click permanently block someone and never see them again. If you are admin of a group this person is in, you can also ban this person and prevent them from interacting with members of the group (in the group, that is, you cannot control private messages, but by banning someone from a community you are effectively isolating them), and I think we haven't considered how much power we are giving to random Reddit mods due to this.

If you identify with that problem, and you want to solve it, and you are open to advice...

Go to church, and be intentional to connect. Find a bible study, fellowship group, volunteer opportunity, or prayer meeting. Sit at church on Sunday with somebody from the bible study. Get lunch with one of those people. Find somebody at church who shares a hobby. Do your hobby together.

You have to put in the effort. Growth is uncomfortable. Real connection takes time.

Maybe you find something similar in other spaces, but I am certain you can find it in church.

Not for everyone but if you can, get a dog. Dogs are icebreakers. People like to meet a cute dog. They won't know your name at first but you will be "Fido's Dad" or "Dave's Mom". Other dog owners will greet you and so long as your dogs don't hate each other you already have something in common.

A dog gives you a reason to be wherever you want to be - take a walk around the neighborhood or to the park. You're not a rando taking a walk for mysterious and possible nefarious purposes, you're walking the dog.

But for for goodness sake, pick up after the pooch. If you can wipe your own arse you can pick up a dog turd with a plastic bag.

I was addicted to weed from ages 15-23. I have clinical depression and anxiety/OCD (now medicated and stable). I basically isolated and got stuck in a loop of believing I was broken and a bad person. When I committed to quitting I joined addiction recovery groups and asked for help instead of trying to do it alone. I still rely on the wisdom I gained in AA/MA. Trust God, clean house, help others, go do something when you are in danger of wallowing in self pity. 4 years later, I have a few real friends and many acquaintances. I swing dance and volunteer. I work in a semi-social office. Life is good. I still get paranoid thoughts, but they don't own or define me. I wish the best to all the lonely programmers and alienated people out there.

I'm not lonely, but occasionally wish I had some meaningful friendships. Most people who want to be my "friend" just want something from me -- a job, help them move, buy their dumb products, watch their kids, drive them to the airport, whatever else they want to dump on me.

I get that comes with friendships, but people go from zero to super favors in 2.1 seconds these days. Seems too burdensome, so I typically tell people to F off -- easier that way.

My wife will drag me to some social events. I have a hard time relating to any of the guys. The ones I meet are all obsessed with sports and entertainment. Did you watch the game? No, oh...well; did you go skiing last week? No, Oh...I gotta go.

I like a good football game, but the world is burning; I can't pretend it isn't. I'd like to help but don't know how. I just work on building my business to have enough resources to possibly make a slight difference; maybe I'll die without actually doing so, and it would have been better to just distract myself until I die, but my brain doesn't work that way.

Social media is just one big psyops. I liked X until major players started taking over and now it seems like Claude owns X as everyone just posts how Claude Code just vibe coding them 4,000 bitcoins in 24 hours. Quit all social media because it's just distorted.

To be honest, gave up on being friends with anyone about 10 years ago.

In my opinion, it's entirely possible to build a social network or social media that doesn't incentivize rage but one that leads to actual friendships. I don't think internet itself is the issue, I think that the existing options just maximize outrage/drama and other negative addictive qualities rather than the slow-burn good things.

The US is structured to promote loneliness.

If you want to fix it:

- More free public spaces (parks with benches, squares)

- More free public events and activities (free concerts, art installations, plays)

- Greater physical proximity (it's hard to make eye contact if everyone drives)

- Wealth distribution (create a society where one's value is not based on their net worth)

- Encourage days off for community service

In other words, provide socially-funded incentives for people to be close to one another physically and remove income as a measure of value.

Go to church.

Data from various studies, including those from academic institutions and public health organisations, supports the idea that regular church attendance helps reduce loneliness by fostering social connections, support networks, and a sense of community.

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3551208/

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/20...

3. https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/7-76

4. https://www.cardus.ca/research/health/reports/social-isolati...

5. there are plenty more...

also if you allow anecdotal data:

I have been going to a church half a year now, and the sense of community is amazing, made new friends and know more people I could dream of. So there is a way, there is a light. Never felt lonely again since.

We need weekly activity plans to introduce multi-racial, multi-age, multi-political people to each other in palaces for the people venues.

Read the book 'Palaces for the People'... Invest Billions in social infrastructure... and run the country like it was a retirement community. Everyone is welcome, everyone has value and we need to learn (with practice) how to love each other again.

I’ve always been someone who likes to go to local coffee shops, shops, and walks around the neighborhood. While I’ve met a few friendly employees who learn my name and say hi to me, in general I’ve found customers and people in general aren’t super approachable. They’re usually there as a part of an existing group of friends, or are focused on their work.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to meet people in this situation, but it is difficult to break the ice. Especially if your social skills are rusty.

On a larger scale, I think most people’s budget for anonymous social interaction is consumed through social media, where they scroll past strangers arguing and let’s be honest, mostly vitriolic comments. So in the real world, they don’t want to deal with anonymous strangers and intently focus on their own friendships.

Groups are a good way to bridge this gap, but the groups that are easier to host aren’t always accessible to everyone. And they require a lot of time and ideally strong social skills to run effectively.

I’ve thought about starting a campaign to make socializing with people in person more of a common practice again, but I’m honestly not sure how to convince enough people

Somewhat a tangent response

I have a fear of crowds and bums. Not where I'm paralyzed/medicated but one thing I'm trying to do is go downtown and do street photography. I wonder how do I say no to a stranger asking me for money. Or fear of getting robbed. It's not like my camera gear is that expensive but yeah. This would push me to get out there more as I've lived in the same place for 10 yrs and I haven't really explored/gone around much. Other than when I did Uber Eats, I would go all over the place. I would get wasted/drink at bars but end up with nothing end of the day, temporary day-long friends.

Funny I was at the gym yesterday, guy said hello to me, as a guy that keeps to himself usually (unless around friends) I gave him a bad look (not on purpose) and then I responded. I'll say hello next time I see him.

Yeah for me it's just fear and lack of exposure. I do make a lot of "work friends" go on walks. But yeah real friends I think I have 4 or 5 lifelong real friends. Women nothing, haven't been laid in like 12 years pretty said to say. Unfortunately it's something I value myself like "I'm a loser by not getting laid". Even though rest of my life is good, 2BR apt, sporty car, six-fig job, but yeah. It's my social awkardness, but I lift/improve myself, cutting down on weight I want abs. Idk I'm not going after women anymore either just trying to live life now, do shit, get out of debt, get out of 9-5, mental freedom.

It's funny if it's guys I'm very "charismatic" like I can be "everyone's friend" which doesn't work out due to conflicting interest. To that end it's really about taking an active interest in the other person, engaging them, asking them questions and remembering.

My thing with women is I don't get along with them like a guy (where I don't want anything from them physically). If they're not attractive then it's easier to talk to them but yeah, I guess that comes from a desperation mindset.

Many answers address the question of "how to build community." I like those responses! I also want to contribute to the discussion with an emotional intelligence response. The theory is that "loneliness" can be a symptom of underlying internal factors.

While it is true that loneliness can arise from a lack of community, people, and related factors, for some people, the problem stems from not knowing how to be alone. At its core, the question becomes, "Am I externalizing my world, or internalizing my world?" When you externalize your world, you require something external. We are social creatures, and I do believe we need other people. I'm only suggesting that sometimes people need to look internally first.

Personal anecdote: No amount of community would have helped me feel like I wasn't alone, because I needed the world around me to provide some sense of my self-worth. It felt counterintuitive, but for me, I had to learn to be alone. Only then could I feel like I wasn't alone. It all came down to attachment theory and self-worth.

I once shard a flat/apartment with a female social butterfly. She once gave me some great advice, which is to NEVER turn down an invitation.

Going out and trying to be comfortable in non-ideal situations (i.e. you know hardly anyone there) is a skill you can learn. I often think it's probably like sales cold calling. After a while you develop calluses.

The causes are deeply structural. It won't be solved any time soon. We're talking about the fundamental organization of modern society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...

In the past, whenever I felt lonely and hopeless, I jumped into helping others: volunteering, helping an old neighbor garden, help someone move, etc. Helping people gave me a short-term purpose, which eventually let me ride out the low phase of life. YMMV, of course.

Ritual, purpose and community are what's required to build a group.

I cured my own loneliness episode by joining a local running group. It provides the same kind of thing as church. Ritual, we meet every week and there's a few different groups. Purpose, it doesn't feel useless to be improving your fitness level. And community comes when you suffer through a run with others.

Showing up regularly means you start to integrate people into your lives as you know when they skip a week for a vacation or something.

I went from living in my town and not knowing anyone for 17 years to having 20+ friends or people I can say hello to and have a chat.

Just find a local running group, or start one. You want the "meet at Starbucks at 6:30 on Tuesday" ones. Show up and keep showing up and you'll make friends. It's impossible to be on your phone when you run and there's always something running related to keep the conversation going.

The first place to look is suburban development.

I wrote an article[0] on Tiny Neighborhoods (aka “Cohousing”) that starts with:

> “I often wonder if the standard approach to housing is the best we can do. About 70% of Americans live in a suburb, which means that this design pattern affects our lives – where we shop, how we eat, who we know – more than any other part of modern life.”

We have been so uncritical of the set of ideas that make suburbia—single family homes, one car per adult, large private yards—even though these play a big role in how people act.

Some people want to address loneliness by making incremental changes. But if the statistics are right and nearly everyone is somewhat lonely, we should expect that the required adjustments feel “drastic” compared to the current norm.

People would be less lonely if they could live in a community of 15-20 families with (1) shared space and (2) shared expectations for working together on their shared space.

[0] https://iambateman.com/tiny

There is an old joke or trope of an evil scientist creating a worm that destroys the Internet and everyone ends up thanking him for saving the world.

If you have young boys in your life then teach them that it's ok to feel and express their emotions, and as they get older that their sexual self need not be frightening and that sex can exist outside of narratives of domination.

Loneliness is a symptom of the loss of the third place. You can't solve loneliness, but we can as a society look at why many have lost their place for socializing.

Hyperfocus on productivity, the one dimensional man that know only rest and work, and the rise of narcisism and hyper individuality, all causes of the loss of the third place.

Everyone needs to take on the quest to find where they belong, but society needs to give people time to invest in this quest.

So I think it's as simple as working less and spending more time with people.

Related: Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out

https://archive.is/BIcjb

Personally I’m living with a partner (only 50% of the time for now), have only two social activities per month outside work in average and some small talk at work. I don’t need more and have no intention to volunteer, join church or anything like that just for the social aspect. I guess the big problem is the (growing?) minority having close to no social experiences.

When you have large, strong, healthy families, these tend to be hubs for others. They can serve as warm hubs for others to gather around.

When these are gone, loneliness epidemics follow.

Something I've noticed with me and other gen-Zers is that meeting with friends or strangers over Discord VoIP is a great way to socialize. It's missing some of the social benefits of in-person meetups, but it's very low-commitment (just hope on a call) and it's much easier to find others who share your interests.

Since it's a societal problem, but solved on the microlevel of one person at a time, it seems the way to have a broader effect is to show the value of having connection with other people over the value of not.

Overcome any addictions (scrolling, gaming, etc.) that stand in the way would be easier if the goal was clear.

Overcoming attitudes and defensive beliefs (too many cliques, they won't talk to me...) go away when you can either recall a time when you had friends or know others who do.

Convince people it's better (in their own value system) to be social, have friends of all kinds, and let them know their value and meaning increase by being a friend, I think you'd have a hard time stopping people from becoming social.

It cannot be solved, at least not in the way I think people want it to be.

We’re lonely because we are wired to avoid rejection and uncomfortable social situations, and because technology has given us hundreds of alternatives to sitting in the mess of connecting with people.

You can only solve it in your own life - by being courageous and spending more of your time in the physical world than in the digital one, willing to gro through the shitty feelings that come with being a human trying to meet other humans.

You cannot solve it for other people. There’s no sexy solution here. Meetup.com or whatever dating app or tech platform or not for profit will not fix it, because it takes individuals choosing the hard path and that will never happen en masse.

The common denominator is to have shared spaces where it's expected to be among strangers' presence, and for those strangers to eventually become repeat guests in a person's life. That's the maximally comfortable scenario for inducing social behavior and it's responsible for eons of human social history. Think church.

The problem there is that it's the responsibility of groups or society to arrange that. There's not much that a single lonely person can do there.

The less common denominator, that an individual may partake in until society concocts a better solution, is to intentionally visit existing shared spaces even where they otherwise wouldn't (hint: bouldering gyms are good for this because there are repeat faces as well as a social okay-ness to congratulating strangers, or asking how certain challenges can be solved).

Or break with convention, comfort, and perhaps etiquette, and instead just talk to people. Even outside of those spaces. (This is the advice that will piss a lot of people off if it's presented as their only option.) This advice is horrible until it isn't. It does, with enough practice, 'just work'.

---

For an entrepreneur or organizer: it would just go a long way to think about things in terms of allowing conversation to happen unimpeded. Pay attention to where people talk, and about what. Conversations happen a lot in hallways but famously by water coolers, perhaps because it affords people enough time in a shared space to muster the internal capital to start a conversation.

In college I ran a forum for people to meet others and some of the most self-reportedly successful participants just asked questions into the void and were surprised by the number of responses.

Everyone always gets the causality reversed. Social media didn't cause the epidemic, it filled a niche to help cure the epidemic. People were lonely long before the internet arrived, the internet just made it easier for those lonely people to connect to each other. And now many of them prefer the internet over socializing with people they don't care for that much in person.

In other words, the problem is structural. Moving to a new city where you don't know anyone, only work with people for a few years, and where there are no longer institutions like the church, how is anybody supposed to meet anyone? Meetups? Half the people can't even afford a car.

There is no solution other than meeting a lifelong partner.

There are, of course, multiple causes for loneliness. We can't fix them all with one clear action. Here are the main five, in my view:

First, social media. It's too easy to temporarily forget about your loneliness by staying home and doomscrolling or watching TV.

Second, increased mobility. People move around the whole continent now for work, removing them from their closest and oldest social connections.

Third, God is dead. Churches as community centers are dying out. Young people don't trust them anymore, because they don't believe in God, and because churches had many scandals. Secular community centers are very rare and struggle with funding.

Fourth, work is more stressful now. There used to be more time to socialize, but in our quest for productivity, work became denser with fewer idle times.

Fifth, fewer people want to have kids. Much has been written about this.

Now what can we do at societal scale? First of all, study the phenomenon more closely. Who is lonely? Who isn't? Which interventions work? Which cultural factors are important? At your local scale, you can just call or meet a friend.

I doubt it's the solution, but a silly program I want to build is something like this:

- Give users a modern Tamagotchi

- Give the digital pet a need to socialize.

- Strap a basic LLM to it so users can talk to their pet.

- Have the pet imprint on its owner through repeated socialization.

- Owner goes to bed, pet still has social needs, goes out into the digital world to find other pets.

- Pet talks to other pets while you're asleep, evaluates interactions, befriend those with good interactions.

- Owner wakes up the next morning, checks their pet, learns it befriended other pets based on shared interests, and is given an opportunity to connect with their pet's friends' owners. Ideally these connections have a better-than-random chance of succeeding since you're matched via shared interests.

I'm sure there's a ton of unsexy technical reasons this is hard to make work well in practice... but dang, I think it would be so cool if it worked well.

I realize this exacerbates the issue in some ways - promoting online-first interactions. But, I dunno. I'll take what I can get these days, lol.

No one is asking for this advice, but I'm sharing it anyways.

My #1 top priority this year is _social health_. I'm taking it into my own hands. Mostly just continuing things I'm already doing with tremendous payoff. My measurable result is going to be throwing my own birthday party in fall. I've never done that before, I've never had enough friends in my city!

No one group or app is going to come save you from loneliness. You have to get up, go outside, and find people.

0. Say yes to everything, at least if you're new in town. Don't care how scared you are of X social situation. "Do it scared" - @jxnl

1. I am part of my community's swing dancing scene. I take classes, go to social dances, I _show up_ even when I don't feel like it. People recognize me now, know my name, etc. I'm also a regular at my gym. Find a place and be a regular face there. (_how did I become a swing dancer? I got invited, and my social policy prevented me from saying no!_)

2. If I have no social plans for a week I do a timeleft dinner (dinner with 5 strangers). Always have something on the books. I call this my "social workout". If I vibe with anyone I ask if they want to grab ramen the following weekend. Leads me to point #3..

3. Initiate plans. Everyone is waiting for that text "hey, want to go do x with me?". Be that person. I have an almost 100% enthusiastic response rate to asking people to do literally anything. Go on a random walk? Go to costco? Go checkout ramen or pizza spot? You don't have to think of anything special. Whatever you're already doing.. ask someone to come with! Soon they start inviting you to do random stuff.

4. (experimental) I don't drink, which does curtail my social opportunities. I'm considering updating my drinking policy this year. My hypothesis is that the benefits of having a strong community out-weigh the health benefits of abstinence.

Is there a loneliness epidemic? Or is this viewing history through rose colored glasses?

Is the shift from how society used to work to how society has come to work real or just a grammatically correct statement?

Statistics are biased by those who compute them. Have we asked everyone or inferred and p-hacked up data points?

The single salary family is largely a myth. A relatively small percentage of the population ever achieved that. Is the same true for loneliness? Is it a bigger problem now than it has been?

Is this like in medicine where we think ADHD is up, cancer is up... it's an epidemic! When in reality as a percent of society things are normal, we just had no idea before how prevalent those things were before we measured.

Having kids (with the right partner and good intentions as a parent) is a great way to avoid feeling lonely.

The kid(s) are tremendous source of connection. You may trade for a feeling of exhaustion, overwhelming responsibility, etc. but a lot less loneliness.

Also go a step further and join support groups for parents. Community resources where kids play and parents can hang out and chat. Connection is built through shared experiences, and parenting is an experience you can share with other parents.

Between having kids and participating in events with other parents, there will be a lot less opportunities to feel lonely.

Familiar relationships always come out of a sense of shared responsibility and utility, not out of a "secular" desire to "make friends", the way I see it.

So, live vigorously in a way that benefits from social relationships and they will necessarily come.

Be useful to others and they often return the favor.

Make a social app whose goal is to get people off their phone as quickly as possible. There used to be a slew of apps where you a press a button to indicate "I'm bored/free, who wants to hang out?" and then you get matched with your contact list and anyone else who pressed the button at the same time. But for whatever reason they all flamed out and died.

I'm wondering if there are any research groups led by sociologist that explore this topic which may be helped by a group of volunteer ?

I've always wondered why applications like Tinder etc... have not been completely destroyed by open-source already ?

We also forget that communities are essentially what allowed this escape in the first place ; I remember going to psytrance festivals but there are so many more escapes : theater, cinema groups, even in tech you have meetings for rust, programming languages and what not

There is definitely some kind of knowledge around being active in life ; and on that point I do not think that working count as active (I'm myself a workaholic so i'm definitely not the best example here)

There are other drivers for isolation than not knowing how to integrate though - it's not always easy to find people who share those common interest or mindset.

It's a very polarized time period which only exaggerate this - the best way to fight it off is to literally do something meaningless with people (eg : play)

I'll add another suggestion: be more forgiving.

Anecdote: I had a friend in SF. He and I would hang out once in a while, and I always looked forward to these hangouts (we'd meet up for coffee, or go for a walk, hang out at Dolores Park, etc.). He is gay, I'm not. His perspective on things was often quite different than mine and I found that interesting. I got married, he stayed single. Even after marriage we would still hang out (though not as often as before). Then we had a child, which sucked all spare time out of my life; but even then we hung out once in a while. Then one winter there was cold/flu/COVID going around. We planned on hanging out and I unfortunately bailed on him at the last moment. This happened 2 more times. Then that bout of illnesses passed and I reached out to him to hang out again. But this time he seemed cold and distant. So I dropped it. And I didn't see him again for almost 3 years.

Then one day I ran into him while walking through Dolores Park. He didn't see me, but I hesitated and still hollered out at him, for old times' sake. He responded and walked over. We chatted a little, I gave him a parting hug and we agreed to hang out again.

A couple of weeks later we managed to hang out again. What I gathered from our meeting was that he had been miffed at what he thought was me blowing him off; and I, when I felt he was cold and distant, had misread his grief at losing his cat. We both misread each other and wasted 3 years.

Moral of the story that I took away from it was: be more forgiving. Friendships are worth the extra effort.

It's the phones dude. It's literally just the phones. Get rid of the phones and you fix it.

It’s all about fostering community again, and that’s more than just shared calendars and town events.

It’s “third places” where folks can just hang out and work, play, share, and commiserate without having to pay money to do so.

It’s bringing back establishments that promote lingering and loitering, like food halls or coffee shops, rather than chasing out folks.

It’s about building community centers inside apartment complexes, more public green space, more venues and forums.

Giving people space that doesn’t require a form of payment is the best approach, because humans will take advantage of what’s out there naturally. Sure, structure helps, but space is the issue at present I believe.

There is a gap between thinking and action. I think the social media and gaming and online stimulions currently designed to bombard and drain your thinking brain, leaves nothing for the action you and your body needs to take. Your brain only has so much chemistry to trigger neural activation and we are blowing it on mental stress to the point where the body doesn’t have any more mental energy to tackle real world stress or handle real world emotions.

Try an A/B test. Do days with zero screen stimuli - no TV, no phones, no online interaction. Go into the world to a cafe, or a common area with people and do stuff. See how you feel and what you feel up to. Vacations might be good and relaxing because you disconnect. Maybe do it without paying for it.

Have kids, then you’ll crave just having five minutes alone. :D

Its mostly social anxiety. Which makes sense. Children have progressively been raised more and more on screens and devices. Teenagers rely more and more on technology to solve problems. Adults do too. No one has to interact anymore, which means many people no longer know how. Cue the anxiety.

In previous generations, you had to interact with others to get anything done at all. Kids had to play with kids, parents had to talk to the postman, the milkman, the newspaper boy, the telephone operator, the neighbors, you name it. It was a necessity for a functional life, so people did it.

I doubt we can solve this for other people. Each person must solve it for themselves, but for most people the solution will be joining a church and attending weekly. From there, get involved with a ministry, that will lead to appreciation dinners, which will lead to getting invited to the non-religous stuff the people are involved with.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/31/are-relig...

Might want to read Bowling Alone[1] (or at least some commentary on it) and the "hunkering down" effect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

When I go to tech meetups, I often see a great deal of people sitting alone using their phones, because interacting with people you don't know is scary.

Try to resist! Yeah it's scary but most tech-heads are as nerdy/goofy as you and are interested in all the details of whatever you hacking on.

I've been working on something called Open Enough Design (OED). The core idea: most rooms force a binary choice between total isolation (the bunker) and overwhelming exposure (the stage). Neither works. What works is a dial you can adjust.

In my book "Leave the Door Open" I suggest simple, high leverage moves anyone can do. Three examples of practical moves that cost nothing:

-Turn your chair to face the door instead of a wall. Your nervous system relaxes when it can see who's coming.

- If you live alone, open your door or window four inches for an hour. The sounds of life beyond your walls remind your body you're not alone on the planet.

- Put out a second chair. Even if no one visits. It shifts your internal posture from "no one is coming" to "I'm expecting life to enter."

Small changes, I know. But the room shapes you as much as you shape it. It's a virtuous cycle.

I write about this at oedmethod.substack.com if you want to go deeper.

It’s been ten years, but we ran a dinner group, once a month, and met at various restaurants. Very popular.

Decommodify relationships

Decapitalize third spaces.

Reduce the difficulty of making walkable cities - building zoning reform, mass transit.

I'll jump.

I've been meaning to set up a bi-weekly dinner for hacker types who live mid peninsula, specifically near San Mateo. I have a group of 4 or so in mind and have a good place to host, but would like a slightly larger group.

If anyone would be interested in helping to get something stood up, send electronic post to carl chatfield snail (mail run by g)

Make a social network that is centered around people who live in a 1 kilometer radius

Make them interact and do things, generally they will be less toxic because it will reduce their online disinhibition effect.

Make them have meals, meet, walk at the park, whatever.

Maybe social media just meets their social needs. Maybe this is not a problem that needs to be solved, this is just the way things are now.

Kids make friends pretty easily when they go to school and later college. Only after graduating college it becomes very hard to make friends.

So one solution is have folks attend classes in schools and universities or even local libraries during weekends. Classes specifically designed for different age groups - 30s, 40s, 50s etc. Classes related music, personal finance, investing, art, sports, cooking etc

Govt should offer tax breaks for attending these classes. That would attract a lot of people.

Communities, in-real-life communities.

Dancing, knitting, cooking, sports, gardening, board games. Which activity is secondary, what is crucial is that people can come (no matter if they feel great or not), can bring friends, with low pressure (so they can sit and talk, no need to actually dance, cook or so).

Regularity is crucial - weekly are the best.

Build or join a local community!

I’ve been working with https://fractal.boston/ and adjacent communities for the last year and my loneliness has been cured. I now have the opposite problem where I don’t get enough time to myself!

Social media and on demand media hijack the emotional triggers that would usually be resolved by talking to people. Some examples:

* In line at the BMV, bored and feeling lonely. Should resolve loneliness by talking to strangers in line... mostly chit-chat, but sometimes you make a friend! Social media turns this into doom scrolling.

* Sitting in the living room by yourself, feeling a little lonely. Should result in calling up a friend or relative, or heading to get a coffee/beer where you can interact with people. On demand media turns this into low risk watching shows (yes, old school TV was an option, but on demand, there's always something on that is interesting).

So the trick is to make yourself ask if you should give someone a call or go somewhere public when you are pulling out the phone with intent to scroll or watch a show. When you find something you are interested in because you are watching lots of videos about it, or replying on forums, force yourself to engage in the real world. If you are arguing politics, find a group advocating your position and get involved (I've got to meet three majority leaders and two Presidents, plus a bunch of congresspeople you see on the news all the time as a side effect of getting involved because I was pissed off on the internet about business taxation issues). If you find a hobby, find a local group that does that. Learning to play the guitar from YouTube was fun, but jamming with other musicians? Off the charts fun and far more educational that just playing along with videos.

Finally, and this is the big one, try to never eat meals alone. Never say no to going to lunch with coworkers. Join stuff that meets for breakfast. Dinners are hard, but it's surprising what happens when you invite a couple people over for dinner and a beer once in a while.

Have standing lunches/dinners/coffees or even facetimes with your friends. I do them monthly with most. If you need to cancel, so be it, but having it pre-scheduled helps tremendously.

Sports. CrossFit and similar social sports have been healthy for me and for many others, and I think the community is at least equal to the exercise in improving people's lives.

Not saying this is the only way, but it made a big difference for me and my friends. I realize the physical challenges are artificial, but so is an Advent of Code puzzle when you already have a day job. Hard things are worth doing because they're hard, and they're even better when done together with those you love.

Some ideas:

- Get rid of AI chat bots, limit social media use to federated platforms, get out more.

- Encourage cities to build spaces for people rather than cars where folks can meet up without the pressure to buy things and leave. Spaces for walking and hanging out.

Phone a friend. A buddy of mine texted me yesterday and we went to lunch together today. We’re talking about starting the old hackathon up again, this time with agent armies. It was just fun and easy and long overdue. Be the one to break the ice if you can.

Make Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing legal again.

Having barely room for little more than a bed forces you to get out during the day. Stuff happens when your default for where to spend your time is not at "home". SRO halls also usually had more room for common spaces to meet and socialize with other people in a similar position in life, and of course, SRO is a very cheap housing option.

The first step to solving it would be proving it exists.

Because it doesn't. It's been a phrase used for over 40 years to decry basically any change the author didn't like, from different technology, the rise of the 'me' generation or the declining religiousness of the US.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/202504/loneliness-is...

Individuals may be lonely, but that has always been true. There is no evidence this is different than before, growing, or in anyway an 'epidemic.'

For me, the answer was smoking. I made a ton of friends that way. Always went out to a pool hall, a bar, or a nice patio so I could smoke. It was great. You can’t smoke in your rental so you gotta get out and find places to smoke. Few states you can do it in anymore though. I moved to a state with a smoking ban and quit smoking, no point to it. Don’t get out as much nowadays.

Encouraging people to meet up in everyday life and gathering them just to talk is where I’d simply start.

In that spirit I have created and deployed a vibe coded app: come have dinner.com (not the real website).

A simple website we share with my SO to our loved ones, friends, co workers and more. People can register to come have dinner at ours, with an attendance they don’t know.

The website has an admin interface with a simple password, some good jokes, email reminders and calendar invitations.

Should I open source it?

1. Pass a law letting people WFH where its reasonably possible. I WFH in a walkable city and me and my friends try new restaurants every week, always around noon. I've met lots of new people, and joined new groups that I wouldn't have found out about if I was stuck at my desk. Give people more freedom of movement.

This is a difficult problem to want to solve. Some of it has to do with low income or joblessness. So this is the first focus I would set - make income easier to come by, more fair, more distributed. This in itself will not fix the solo state of people but it would alleviate some worries. Then we have to tackle the social problem. This is really difficult to want to solve. Activity helps, so the state should be able to encourage more activity overall. For instance, in my own youth I was physically more active, so you meet a lot of people through sports - that alone works fairly well. You can probably think of many more cohesive social structures and what not. I think it is a difficult to want to solve problem though. Not everyone uses social media by the way but is still isolated; Japan even gave some odd name to this.

LifeKit did an episode on this recently. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/06/nx-s1-5667582/how-to-build-a-...

Some things I do: I organize a monthly brunch for friends. I try and grow it, invite people I've recently met.

If someone asks me to do something, I try and do it. Get invited to poker night, I'm there. Asked to play Fantasy Football, yep! Even though I don't watch football and have never played.

A couple of years ago I tried to create a platform to connect people to local communities. The twist was that each community had members that worked as buddies to help welcome and guide new members. I got 10s+ communities and members but since there was no business model associated and I needed to work, I couldn't kept it up. The website was https://tribalo.app.

From the few numbers I got, I figure out it help. Maybe one day I don't need to work and can focus on it again.

There is no "loneliness epidemic". It's a bad journalism epidemic. People in general are a combination of lone and grouping. Both are OK. People don't need to socialise all the time. People who want to socialise but can't usually suffer from emotional difficulties that they haven't addressed. Same for people who obssess about socialising all the time.

Working on a basketball app to bring people together. Basketball was invented out of grief, by James Naismith who lost his grandfather, mother, father, and family home to a fire within 4 months. He was tasked with helping to have rambunctious youth learn the principles of teamwork and sharing and slowing down and thus created the game. It truly brings people together and I hope everyone gets a chance to experience the magic that is pickup basketball. It got me out of a deep hole after the pandemic after my mom had passed and I gained 30 lbs.

I fit the

> sit alone every day and have no one to talk to, people of all ages, who don't feel that they can join any local groups

I do not fit the

> So they sit on social media all day when they're not at work or school

I'm bringing this up because, at least for me, the issue is has nothing to do with social media, at least not directly.

Others have said a longer version of this:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Do it yourself. Don't wait on others. Organize social events, invite people.

I'll say the same thing that I always do. For some reason, it's not popular, hereabouts, but it's worked for me, for over 45 years.

Get involved with volunteer/gratis work. Join an advocacy/charity group. Do stuff for free.

HN members have really valuable skills that can make an enormous difference.

Joining a volunteer organization brings together passionate, action-minded people that already share a common platform.

It can also teach us a lot. My personal career was significantly helped by what I learned, doing volunteer work.

Boom. Loneliness problem solved.

I have been trying to make more friends in the real and virtual world the past two years, and I have been pretty successful. Most of my new friends come from the following: Volleyball, MtG, or a writing group.

Really, I think that it comes down to make making or joining a space with a shared activity and moderating out the crap.

The problem is most communities are losing those spaces in favor of private social clubs. That's what we need to fight.

This is a minor thing, but as an introvert, I really try and push myself to model social behaviour to my kids. Saying good morning to people in the street, chatting to other dog owners, being nice to waiters, travelling by bus, there are lots of tiny opportunities every day to show that world is full of lovely people who aren’t scary at all.

My girlfriend built a web app for meeting up in small groups. I think it's going to be fun! It's not public yet but almost there. Let me know if you live around Stockholm (or Sweden perhaps) and want to beta test it!

Find what you love to do

I think the solution will be large power outage.

Maybe our built environment shouldn't consist solely of isolated houses in isolated gated communities where we drive our kids and sit in isolated cars in the school dropoff/pickup lines.

I think one solution is to have more accessible public spaces where people can meet. As a host of board game meetups, my biggest challenge is finding places to meet. I had to stop hosting Friday game nights because the available spaces were too expensive or closed early.

I'm working on an open source non-commercial website to drive up demand for public spaces. https://createthirdplaces.org/

Open very large disco techs.

Best way to solve it is to recognize that it's intentional and start calling it the anti-social epidemic instead. If we keep calling it loneliness then everyone thinks its something that is happening to them, instead of something they are doing.

Dogs?

Move to a country that lives outside and isn't car dependent.

I've wondered if LLMs can help match people. People give the LLM some public context about their lives and two LLMs can have a chat about availablity and world views.

Use AI to scaffold relationships not replace them.

Asking people to change their ways is pointless. When something is systemic, only a systemic solution can work.

I have become intimately convinced that engagement-based feeds are the root of many evils of our time, loneliness included.

Here are some of the perverse effects (if ever they needed be told), and how they relate to the loneliness epidemic

- they incentivize individuals from a young age to find stimulation from scrolling mindless content through short dopamine loops instead of seeking satisfaction through longer-term endeavors (e.g. projects, board games, bands, sports teams, etc.) which tend to foster connections with friends, neighbors, family, strangers

- they radicalize and polarize into extreme niche communities (political extremes, conspiracy theories, manosphere, etc) so that it's more difficult to find common ground with a random average person, giving you the impression that everyone is your enemy

- they reflect a skewed version of reality where societal standards (beauty, intelligence, success, wealth, etc) are distorted and artificial, which drives people to believe they are insufficient and ostracized

I firmly believe that engagement-based feeds should be heavily regulated, the same way that other addictive behaviors have (e.g. tobacco, gambling, etc.).

In my opinion - just do it. What you want. Message someone you haven’t talked with for years. Ask someone out. Smile :-). Say hello. Strike a conversation with a stranger.

You deserve it, because you are a human

social media should be studied deep and hard

just this week i was stuck with a machine i could use to log on websites, so I just browsed reddit anonymously, no profile, no suggestions, no "me" at all.. and it was delightful, suddenly I'm not here to respond or be heard and my brain went into focus mode, i was eager to read the article linked and not the comments.. very very refreshing

except for critical needs, we should go back to paid limited network access, this will make people allocate their time and attention much better and also do more things outside potentially meeting people

Some people think loneliness is somewhat a result of stress and anxiety, it’s far from it. It is precisely the lack of pressure that makes them stay home. You need to apply as much pressure on them so that staying at home becomes unbearable.

I have no link or affiliation with this company, but recently heard about it:

https://storiboardclub.com/

They say they want to “make meeting like-minded people easy, natural, and fun” and “ Loneliness doesn't have to be the norm.”

https://storiboardclub.com/about-us

I normally don't contribute to HN comments these days (too much anger in the comments section) but I appreciate your post and activities.

I am a tail-end boomer in the U.S. so my experiences were with a world where socializing was more functional: we shopped in public, played in public, read in public libraries, watched movies in public, rode transit together, etc. Being in public was a requirement, not a choice. While there are still remnants of this older culture still active in today's world in urban life, there are so many options for not being in public that it is simply easier to avoid it. We all want our space in one degree or another.

On the playground growing up, my world was filled with name-calling and backbiting. I was a heavier kid, so that was my burden. Other kids had bucked teeth, warts, limps, they were too short, or too tall, uncoordinated--whatever--nobody really escaped the wrath of the crowd. We were forced, by our parents, to just deal with it.

My parents like many others in their generation recognized this behavior for what it was--natural. Watch an episode of the Little Rascals--you will see what I am referring to.

Most if not all of those kids who were called names and isolated in some way found ways to break out of their pigeon hole: playing sports, playing music, making art, studying hard at school, boxing, singing, dancing, cracking jokes, whatever. Then they were heroes, and the crowd could celebrate them--and they thrived.

I know this sounds overly idealistic, but it is true. I experienced this first hand in a neighborhood of several hundred kids from broken homes, poor homes, ethnic homes, etc.

Voiceless people must find their voice. The responsibility is their's. The crowd will not come to the rescue of the person who won't stand up for themselves and make their way in life.

Loneliness is very, very sad. The cure to loneliness is in the powerful hands of the lonely person. Do whatever it takes, as long as it takes, to work on those things that hold the lonely person back from achieving something--anything--for themselves and then engage with the crowd with more confidence.

I appreciate what you are doing by helping others--that is one of your superpowers. Live a good, strong life!

Start with you: 1. Daily sunshine 2. Nutritious diet 3. Adequate, quality sleep 4. Exercise

You'll find virtually every dimension of your life will improve if you're on top of these four things. It will make you more ambitious in pursuing social engagement. And that will make socialization much easier.

Trading Cards!

IMO the biggest barrier to entry to the hobby is the price, coupled with the existing communities being really old. I'm trying to get people to print their own cards for casual kitchen table play through https://cardstocktcg.com.

people act as if this is an individualist problem, but that ignores all the facts

the first place to think about serious change is city planning since the invention of cars & then suburbs

we used to be forced to live next to each other, walk and see each other

it turns our car based city planning doesn’t work on any level if you look at cities which didn’t go all in

Join local groups. Talk to and engage with your neighbours. Volunteer in your community.

Eliminate the Internet. I'm not joking -- it's much, MUCH harder to be lonely if you don't have Amazon, Instacart, UberEats, and social media fulfilling various needs in your life.

I visit whatever sport activity I can find. Like Go Karting, gymnastics, bouldering, etc and always start asking pro guys: “yo, how come you visit this so often? How do you get fun from it?”. And people lovely tell their story. Later they teach me how to do things. It works for me.

I am a solo bootstrap founder, ultra lonely.

Go to the latin mass :) find community at church

Get a bike

The older people get the more disposable they are viewed as by society.

When you are younger, you belong in school. When you get older, you belong at work.

If you fall out of any of these social structures its extremely difficult to find your way back in.

I was already pretty disconnected from society and people in general when my divorce hit and now I am completely untethered from any kind of community. Living is miserable I hate my life and I do not want to exist like this anymore.

None of the solutions people provide are easy or functional. "Go meet people" is the most vague, unhelpful bullshit ever.

I think the reality is some people, no matter how intelligent, caring or otherwise full of empathy they may be are just "too far gone" for anyone to have the initiative or concern to care about us. The world is so corroded and socially poisoned that any kind of meaningful effort in this kind of thing is pointless. Anybody with time or money is busy making money.

You can't solve the epidemic because it is a byproduct of multiple irreparably broken systems. People will continue to fall through the cracks and it will get worse. I don't know what happens after that but we'll probably all be dead.

I built a mobile app that allows you to get a morning wake up call from a real person. Part of my motivation here was to help add a little human interaction to what is a lonely experience for some people.

Third places. Become a regular at game night, church (if you're into that), join a bowling league, join organized dinners through meetup.com or whatever the modern version is, take up martial arts, take adult education classes outside your existing interests. There are more options out there than ever before.

Read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feinman" and really absorb the part where he explains how he had so many crazy adventures and encounters.

People who live in London, how did you find a solution for this? I am interested in hearing what you tried. I am in my very early 30s. Single male. I didn't feel up in UK. Moved here I my 20s.

To a first order, how can we decrease percentage of people that are single should be the question.

I dont know the solution but few things that are root cause:

- Internet and Social Media

- Neighborhoods no longer are walkable especially suburbs at least in America. Kids are not encouraged to go bike to their friends place anymore because of traffic risks.

- High Trust societies have degraded into "lets keep ot myself, I can't trust anyone these days". Decades ago, you could just walk into a neighbor's home and say hello. Now, you need an appointment just to talk to a neighbor or are too worried what they will think of you.

- No real friendships after school/colleges. This is a huge deal once you are out on your own in the real world. Work relationships are meh at best and with remote work nowadays, it has become even worse.

- Even if you join a club or activity, they are too "planned" and "robotic". For example, my kids take a dance class and they said they don't like it. I realized why. There is no break. They don't even get to spend like 30 mins with other kids socializing etc. There is a fixed schedule. You go, you dance, you leave.

But this is the world today. So I don't know how to fix it.

I am somewhat suspicious of this loneliness epidemic. 81% of Americans are somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with their personal life[0]. And my personal experience is that both close friends and general civil community is easy to find[1]. I wasn't trying at all so it can't be that there are any real constraints here.

0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/655493/new-low-satisfied-person...

1: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-10-09/Community

It's not perfect, but I've managed to make some friends on Bumble BFF, https://bumble.com/bff-us/ . If you are more of a one on one person and feel awkward in groups, this is the best thing i've found so far

Not online.

People, together, doing things, ideally having fun.

Spaces and activities that provide venues for communication, humor, authenticity, play, touch, collaboration.

Can we please make this HN discussion stay open forever. This is one of those threads which has clicked me the most. I thank the creator of this a lot. A lot of these comments are super insightful and I wish to talk but I feel and explain my situation but I always sometimes feel like it takes a mental toll. I sincerely love this discussion and have gone I think 75% aruond and its so great to see people similar to us

I wish if this post could perhaps be made an exception or similar where people can talk about this for longer. Perhaps its just me but I wish for something like this avenue in some more time (perhaps right now I feel a bit closed off for some reason) where I wish to talk but words don't come out so much.

I don't know if I am walking around the bush on what I would wish to talk about here because of it right now. I have been trying to screenshot all the posts I could find which are great here and I just don't know, I just want this HN thread/discussion to stay open forever so that I can talk here a month in or two months in when I feel even more comfortbale

The point I am trying to say is that I was losing hope in HN and every social media because of botting and other issues and just lack of trust and direction and irl interactions are few and between. This feels such a great thread and I appreciate the author (I saw their work on their website which is phenomenal)

In a way, I think atleast this thread will help solve or atleast help me (or that's how I feel) in loneliness epidemic and I am grateful for that but I just want this to stay forever.

One of the issues I have in creating a special place for talks like these is that I see very few people sign in//sign up or talk. HN has lots of users and I got some really insightful answers here.

I think its technically possible and I just want the moderators to do this once. Dang if you are reading this, I genuinely hope that you can keep this thread permanent/long time. Loneliness is a real concern and I just feel that some people are unable to reach out (perhaps me right now) and definitely need some right place and right time and if this could just stay or (stay longer at the very least) I would deeply appreciate it sir

We need an open-source dating / social platform that isn’t designed to monetise loneliness.

We’ve outsourced forming relationships to profit-driven systems that trade comfort and convenience for reduced real-world social effort. By substituting the need to approach people in person, these platforms quietly erode social confidence and reinforce avoidance, exacerbating the social problems they claim to solve.

Are you talking about the US? If so, I heard this proposed on a podcast “Grey Area”. Mandatory two year draft for all, regardless of gender. It sounds crazy at first but it kind makes sense the more you think about it.

We can encourage people to start families and stop telling them that it's the end of anything fun.

I mean this seriously: we need more cults.

Cults have been viciously slandered by mainstream information sources, often because lurid cult stories generate clicks and headlines. Of course some cults are abusive, just like some marriages are abusive. But we still think marriage is good in general.

If you think all cults are bad, you're implicitly against all religion, since every mainstream religion was once a cult. Being anti-cult is also profoundly un-American. America was built by cultists. Freedom of religion is literally the first principle stated in the Bill of Rights.

A cult is really just a professionally managed social environment. If you trust professionals like lawyers, doctors, or teachers with their respective duties, there's no reason in principle you shouldn't trust a cult leader to manage your social environment for you. Of course you should vet them, ask about their reputation, etc.

Destroy social media.

Fund free places to hang out.

I think this is fine? I’m pretty quiet in my real life but I do talk about here.

Well, let's start by confronting and acknowledging the very strong case that we -- "we" here being the tech world in general, and the audience of this site -- bear a heavy burden of responsibility for it.

It could be argued that it was all inevitable given the development of the Internet: development of social media, the movement online of commerce and other activities that used to heavily involve "incidental" socialization, etc. And maybe it was. But "we" are still the ones who built it. So are "we" really the right ones to solve it, through the same old silicon valley playbook?

The usual thought process of trying to push local "community groups," hobby-based organizations etc is not bad, but I think it misses an important piece of the puzzle, which is that we've started a kind of death spiral, a positive feedback loop suppressing IRL interaction. People started to move online because it was easier, and more immediate than "IRL." But as more people, and a greater fraction of our social interaction moves online, "IRL" in turn becomes even more featureless. There are fewer community groups, fewer friends at the bar or the movies, fewer people open to spontaneous interaction. This, then, drives even more of culture online.

What use is trying to get "back out into the real world," when everyone else has left it too, while you were gone?

The answer is social media. But social is per se difficult like in real life.

People are suffering from PCNS. Here is a great documentary about it https://youtu.be/9kqgF5O354E?si=5UMifCZuk_sP71m0

Shared stressors are what bring people together. Communities form when a group of people all have the same problem. Go around egging peoples homes in your neighbourhood, and keep doing it. By the time your neighbours finally catch you they will all have gotten to know and appreciate one another better. They will have formed a communtiy identity.

Affordable third places[0] where people can impromptu join and serendipitously meet friendly faces repeatedly. All of my strong friendships were from exactly this at either skateparks, college dorm common area, or run clubs. Churches had this figured out for millenia

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

loneliness is not really transmissible like an epidemic. If two lonely people get together, they aren’t lonely anymore.

I think the big solution consists of many small solutions. One problem I identified is that social media platforms (1) decimated local live music events coverage in mid-sized cities and (2) placed live music events into the same "filter bubble" algorithm as everything else, making it difficult for people to discover what is going on nearby.

I started https://musiclocal.org, a 501(c)(3), as a curated live music events platform for my local area (and hopefully others). We list all the live music events in the area, and we optimize the software for usability, performance, SEO, etc. The goal is to make discovering local live music events as easy as doom-scrolling. We have had an outstanding reception in the area we serve. We are not self-sustaining yet, but I am optimistic about our chances. As a non-profit, we do not do any of the dark-pattern garbage that has become omnipresent in social media and other consumer software. We just do the right thing as best we can.

Here is some more background (from our "Issues" page):

At MusicLocal, we focus on the root challenges facing local music communities to address endemic issues of negative social media practices, isolation and community polarization, and economic concentration and monopolization. Specifically:

• We believe convenient, comprehensive live music event listings are critical to reversing the decline in local music journalism. • We believe ethically designed, steward-curated live music event listings provide a vital alternative to addictive social media platforms. • We believe that making live music more visible and accessible encourages in-person interaction, strengthening communities and alleviating loneliness and social isolation. • We believe that local live music listings are a critical component of strong local economies, helping to lessen the negative economic consequences of big tech and music industry monopolies.

---

"Technology has a purpose, and that purpose is to do good and to share" --Steve Wozniak

Being happy with yourself and being OK that you're not advancing anymore (you're just happy and don't have anything to pursue), or raising a family. The only two ways.

Ban advertising based business models.

I would suggest for the crowd here: tech meetups, even online ones and communities will connect you to people with your interests.

Another thing that you'll likely find in your area is a chess club.

Maybe you won't love the chess itself, but it's an excuse to hang out with people.

Another one is volunteering work. Elderly, dogs, etc, many communities need help.

In my village I have started a "clean up" program where average citizens take few bags a picker and we clean areas of our village.

Most of people are "this is the job of the garbage collectors, the mayor should do it", so what? It also costs money, and nobody will do as carefully as the people living there.

Even if 95% of my village won't care few will and we make an impact and socialize, etc and more start taking part of it.

"Who don't feel that they can join any local groups"

There's your problem. Fix that.

If there aren't any local groups then help create one. If there are, go along, meet some people, see what works for you, join a different one if you didn't like the first one, keep going until you've found your people.

If you feel like you can't go to a group then create a support group for people who feel like they can't go to groups. Or go online and find the virtual space for people like you and then travel to see those people (or invite them to see you).

But there is no fix for you having to socialise if you're lonely. You're going to have to find a way in.

If you're a programmer you should do everything to make the internet something you must sit down to use not something that follows you everywhere. The last 25 years of tech "progress" must be unmade.

i always thought I had avoided this issue. then i moved to a new town. starting with zero friends in a new town, with very little in place as far as shows, groups, etc, it seems quite a bit harder than it was 20 years ago. meetup used to work but it has become a cesspool of zoom calls and pay meetings. i wish i knew a really good answer (and i dont drink so bars dont have the appeal. by the time i get off of work coffee shops are closed)

i love people and do not want to be alone.

This is an individual problem and an individual's responsibility to solve, imo (Although I do think it's interesting to consider whether a project, company, or initiative could help make this easier to solve for millions.)

Regardless, there are four steps worth taking as an individual: (1) go out, (2) make friends, (3) turn friends into community, and (4) maintain community.

If you're feeling lonely, you're probably failing at one step along this chain.

1. Going out. I don't have a lot of tips here. Except to go to things that actually facilitate interacting with strangers. Don't just go to a bar or go work from a cafe. Go to a meet and greet, an event for strangers to mingle, etc. Or, if you're having trouble motivating yourself to go out, then that's something inside yourself to work on. I find that a shakeup to your life routine (e.g. moving cities, going on a vacation) can provide a good window to change your habits, where you'll start doing things you don't normally do in your home city.

2. Making friends. This one is simple but hard for some. Basically: be personable, smile, engage in conversation, ask questions, be interested, avoid being threatening or clingy, dress and stylish normal-ish unless you really don't want to, etc. Then talk to people at these events, and if seems like you'd like hanging with them and have things in common, ask to exchange numbers.

3. Turn friends into community. IMO this is where you go from the basics into the advanced, and where the most benefits lie. However, most people stop after #2, even though this step is easier than steps #1 or #2, and is extremely rewarding. Community is an in-person social network. The number of connections between people in a community determines the strength and stickiness of that community. Thus it's very important that you introduce your friends to other friends. For example, instead of going on a coffee date with a friend once every month or two, invite 2 or 3 friends to dinner. This has numerous benefits. All of your friends will meet each other, and suddenly they'll know who you're talking about when you mention other people. Also, conversation is easier when there are more people. Also, you'll find events and hangs happen more often, because (a) more people are able to initiate them, and (b) there's more reason to go. People are more motivated to go and less motivated to cancel when there's an event that allows them to see multiple friends at once.

4. Maintain community. People move away. People have silly fights and disagreements and stop talking to each other. People get into relationships and disappear. People get sick, or old, or antisocial, and disappear. Shit happens. So you have to keep doing steps #2 and #3, at least occasionally, forever. You don't necessarily need to do step #1 as much, since the people in your community will naturally bring friends and whatnot to your events. But you still need to get to know these people, exchange numbers, and invite them to future events.

I think old-school chat rooms might be a solution to this.

I have 2 answers to this, depending on how you define "loneliness epidemic"

Genuine loneliness, like what you described, can only really be solved by touching grass. Figure out your hobbies, or find one if you don't have any.

My answer to what a lot of people call "the male loneliness epidemic" as a woman is to say it doesn't exist, you need to figure out how to be attractive. We aren't throwing ourselves on shitty men, and most of the men that complain are complaining because they feel entitled to us and thus put no effort into being attractive. The quickest way to be attractive is have empathy and not be a douche. Listen to peoples needs, and don't feel entitled to our attention

I think people in general need to stop letting differences rip them apart from each other. I've seen countless friendships crumble over stupid things like politics. (I'm not saying politics is stupid overall, but I do think it's stupid to let it affect a relationship, except in extreme situations). I'm not talking about the Neo-Nazi who openly expresses hatred towards other races, or the extreme other end who insists that anything other than full throated and vocal activism makes you a bad person. Those people are toxic and should be avoided. IME that's like 1% of the population if not less.

Social media has (IMHO) exacerbated this by allowing us to selectively surround ourselves with people we know we'll agree with. It's a nice reprieve sometimes, but it's so, so unhealthy beyond short-term.

Also talking to people in-person is very important. The less you do it, the harder it is, but it's worth doing. The natural humanizing effect of conversing with a person in meat-space does wonders for increasing understanding. Don't talk about topics you disagree on, focus on agreements and common interests. A good friend of mine is a trans-woman married to a woman. She decided to get into target shooting and approached others in good faith, and she said something like (not a direct quote): "I was worried they would be assholes, but it turns out they're just nerds like me, they just love to kit out their rigs".

Another friend of mine fell into the right-wing youtube rabbit-hole and "infiltrated" an Antifa group. He's a good guy overall, but got a very clouded exposure to "the other side." After he was done, he said something like (not a direct quote) "I was actually really surprised at how accepting, respectful, and intellectual most of them were. We wouldn't agree on politics, but they were a lot more interested in real analysis and dealing in facts than I ever would have thought, and we ended up having some good conversations."

Yes there are going to be assholes out there, but give people a chance before jumping to conclusions. You might be surprised! Don't jump in the deep end all at once, and be mindful of personal danger and comfort-level, but don't be so afraid to reach out to humans (in-person) and try to connect, even if you think on the surface there's no way you could get along.

The people who push "no hello" on their co-workers and want to stay home all day are lonely now. Shucks.

Obviously, someone has to create a nice big corp which would make us nice LLM friends and family members, yes, yes, yes!

I wonder if there would be some way to create a hyper-local MMO. Let people meet each other from the comfort of their homes and bond over the shared activity of the MMO, and make it so the people you are likely to play with are also in your general geographic region. That way, it would be an easy way to meet people, bond with them, and potentially meet up IRL to take the friendship further.

I think this would be an awesome idea but the main challenge here would be game design and implementation. You'd need a lot of capital and some big ass game studio.

I like to hang around at my local skate park.

I'm not very good on a skateboard, better on a BMX. In any case the vibes are usually good.

Sometimes you think people aren't even noticing you, till you finally land the trick you're working on and a total stranger yells 'whoo!'

Idk, probably some kind of app.

> You have to be the one who creates things to do.

This. Isn't it fascinating that for all the different ways we have to reach people (almost immediately, anywhere in the world, at virtually no cost) and all the different social entertainment options, people feel unable to perform an action that is so simple? An action that their ancestors going back all the way to the hominids has done at massively greater costs to them?

What is it that makes people feel this powerless?

Universal Basic Tokens allowance?

Volunteer

Learn to use smartphones as tools, not as all consuming attention sinks.

This comment will get buried in the sea of individual responses here since I am too late. But for the dumpster divers, here is my contribution!

1. People have obscenely high standards for social interaction. If this person is not an outlier (in a good way) with their behaviors, it's just not going to happen. Most people have a very low tolerance for new people in their life. This has always existed to some degree but people today much prefer to listen to endless content from their favorite streamers, comedians, etc. and form parasocial relationships.

2. The environment for interacting with people has much higher stakes. Think about all the people who get recorded and posted on TikTok every single day. These are people doing it where you can see it - not just the Meta glasses people who remove the recording light. You can act like being a weirdo has no consequences but everyone has this extremely powerful device that can broadcast whatever you do to billions of people immediately - and you can suffer real consequences from this. Every crashout you have in any kind of crowd will be posted for eternity so that the world can see.

3. There is less and less benefit to having social networks/friends. Your friends aren't going to help you get a job, buy you a house, or meet your spouse. Meeting a spouse through friends is increasingly rare as online dating is dominating. As much as everyone complains, it is the major way people meet their spouse in major cities. People assume this is because friend networks are getting smaller but it's not due to that. It's because standards for interaction within friend groups has changed and standards for partners has changed. Unless you are prolific top 1% social maximizer, you are not going to run into anywhere near enough eligible people in your social network to meet your maximized match. We expect to completely maximize and find the best possible fit for our spouse now. Compromise of any kind is considered worse than dying alone. Cost of housing has exploded, jobs have become very hard to keep/find, and this turns everything into a transaction. Living with friends and kicking them out when they can't make rent is a tough but very real situation. People are more transactional because the economy dictates its necessities. Your family is the only thing that will bail you out - your friends can't overlook you skipping $2000/month in rent for 6 months.

There is more but anyway - loneliness epidemic is not going to get solved. It will continue to get worse until some kind of revolution which would require a complete reworking of our entire economy. I would accept this as the new normal and try to figure out how you can optimize your own individual experience in spite of all these things that are working against you. It is not worth trying to fight it on a systemic scale because there are simply too many components and the core cause is one our entire economy is based around. (A good investment is inherently counter to affordability)

Housing in my city has been expensive for years, and the knock-on effect is that most people I know live so far apart we barely see each other anymore.

When you stack a two hour trip each way on top of the rising cost of doing anything at all, on top of already crushing housing and living costs, you end up with a perfect storm where staying home becomes the default. Not because people don’t want to socialise, but because the effort and expense make it impractical.

This has been a prolem where I live for years and I've actively watched it become worse over time as people have been forced to move further and further apart, and further and further away from the active areas of the city in order to be able to afford to keep a roof over their head.

AI (chat) companies now have enough data to recommend h2h (human to human) but they are not building this.

They could literally find people who are working on he same things and recommend them for networking etc.

But that would take you off platform. Off attention.

Who wants to build this. Others must be thinking the same thing?

I was going to post this somewhere else, but I think this story fits.

An old guy approached me and said "put the music on my phone mann".

Alright.

My response: "Search on YouTube"

He keeps insisting on ME doing it for him.

3 steps

First his data was off. For presumably a while he's had his data off ( it's metro PCs so it's prepaid anyway) and I guess he was relying on WiFi.

Ok.

One click to fix that in the Android tile menu.

His Bluetooth was off too.

Turn that on. Turn on his headphones. Luckily it was already paired.

Finally I had to open YouTube and find music for him.

3 or 4 steps.

Now he's happily listening to music.

But beyond that, he got to introduce himself to me, and I guess the next time he accidentally turns off his data he can ask for help again.

I also like to help people.

Old people are awesome when it comes to this. They'll just ask someone to help them out, that's how you build community.

Don't know how to change your oil ? Cool Billy's a car guy he can help you out. Having trouble with your water pressure, maybe Sarah's a plumber and she can help.

Of course if something serious you're still going to be expected to pay these people, but if it's something quick they'll help you free of charge. Maybe you'll bake them a cake for their kids birthday.

I recall when I was young a neighbor basically gave my mom a car. It was an absolute piece of crap, and out of the goodness of his heart he would come and fix it every now and then.

I didn't realize it as a kid, but if you're passionate about cars and you get the emotional satisfaction of both helping a neighbor and seeing how long you can keep that old car running, that's its own reward.

How many of you would love for a non technical neighbor to say their computer is slow. I recall someone on HN even offering to send out a free laptop to someone in need.

Traditionally communities would have a blacksmith or a baker. That's what that person did and they had a status tied to it.

In modern economic systems what exactly we do is so abstracted away from anything meaningful we lack this connection.

On a very fundamental level people need to feel needed.

TLDR: Help others.

marijuana bars

stop inventing and endorsing divisive ideas

Alcohol.

Make as many third places as you can. People need to get out to do other things than work, and these should be low cost activities. If you introduce subscriptions and then ramp up prices, then you are the scum of the world.

Church.

together

Telos

In the USA, the loneliness epidemic is compounded by isolation. A large portion of our society has moved into suburban communities that are largely impersonal. There is very little in the way of in-person community outside of churches or political movements that only certain kinds of people want to be involved with.

With the Internet giving us the ability to interact with our chosen niche with little effort, we are willing to accept this still-impersonal alternative to our stagnant communities.

I have found that, as a city-dweller, I benefit from separating myself from social media and going out into the world looking for more personal connections, but this is somewhat of a privilege afforded to those people who live in more densely populated areas. Even then, my distance from social media can sometimes be a handicap when you interact with people who are still reliant on it to coordinate everything.

For most people, the social opportunities that existed in the 70's through the 90's simply doesn't exist anymore. If you aren't using social media, you're practically being anti-social, but there is something inherently anti-social about social media to begin with, so you're screwed if you do and screwed if you don't.

Not with technology.

It's so interesting to see the tech community all angsty about the loneliness epidemic.

20 years ago, the Pope warned of the coming "epidemic of loneliness" that the tech industry would bring us, and the tech industry laughed at him. They said he was just an old man who didn't understand and that technology would bring us together in unity and happiness.

And yet, here we are 20 years later, and hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't submit an article to HN about loneliness.

Organize things.

Start a bowling league, a DnD group, a book club, a charitable organization... whatever.

Have a dinner party. Join the chess club. Start or join a sports league.

Many of these community events aren't happening because nobody has created them yet and it might just be up to you to do it.

Part of the loneliness epidemic is somebody actually has to initiate things and not enough people do. YOU can do it.

We (reading this) can't do anything. An enlightened government might set policy in such ways as to fix this over the course of decades, but I don't even seen that being acknowledged as possible or desirable in those same decades. The problem will continue to deteriorate until it becomes catastrophic.

In person RPGs, tabletop wargames and boardgames are amazing for geek culture. Thanks to local Discord groups, I have an active nerd community that I play games with at least once a week. This has revolutionized by social life!

There is a introverted crafty side of painting and 3D printing miniatures that works great for me too.

These games all work as essentially offline alternatives to videogames and are way more fun!

Also, my local game store serves beer; so its essentially a nerd bar even though most people don't drink.

Wargaming related references: Tabletop Minions on YouTube, The HiveScum podcast, Companies such as Black Site Studios and Conferences such as Adepticon.

Go look these up!

To paraphrase Barney Stinson:

When I'm feeling lonely, I stop feeling lonely and feel awesome instead.

There are lots of good suggestions in here. People just need to go do them. And if there are structural impediments to doing them, then eliminate those impediments.

I wasn't getting out enough during the day because I share the car with my wife. So I bought an EBike and now I go out all the time.

I chose to live in a place with things near by that I can go to.

Whenever I'm thinking, I'd like to go do an activity, but I need something else first, it's usually not true, or the other thing I need is easy to get.

People just need to decide to stop doing things that make them unhappy.

Easy, same as obesity and environmental problems: fix the built environment by building places for humans, not cars. It all stems from that in North America.

The deeper you get the lonlier you get.

And that can happen even when you are among 1000s of people, not just alone , if you are among people thinking of something else, staring into the void or that you can't connect etc. you are a deep person.

Deep person + deep thinker is the worse. Also people aren't doing them any favor by singing the praise of being a deep person and a deep thinker.

It also has to do with abundance of everything and being not in need of cooperating 24/7/365 to avoid starving ....some people slip into deep thinking and deep emotional introspection...yeah fuck that

go volunteer. they're needed everywhere. problem solved. most able-bodied lonely people are that way because they can't be arsed to get off the damn couch. they would just rather discuss loneliness on social media. I can't be arsed either, but I don't feel lonely when I'm alone, which is the majority of the time.

undo urbanization, education, and technology. retvrn to monke.

Why do they feel they can't join any local groups? Fix that.

I think part of the problem is that social media is normalized and it is easy. It is way easier to engage socially (or at least you feel like you're engaging socially) with likes and lurking and stuff. It is way harder to put on pants and go out and it is normalized to do so (phrasing like bedrotting is super casual, whereas it is actually really hard to maintain an eating disorder because you have to be constantly hiding it from people).

Also I think there's more groups whose social norms online teach you to be repulsive offline and again there's not enough social pushback against it. We do need to be harder on casual edginess online because it is teaching habitual behaviors that make it hard to engage socially. Your 50 year old hiking buddy is not going to understand your soycuck joke you are trying to show him on your phone. Your average wine mom at women-only book club is not going to love if you insist on talking about banning trans people from the club because they're "men invading the women's spaces" especially when there's very likely 0 trans people to exclude in the first place on account of trans people being rare.

Lastly there is usually a ton of stuff happening but the instructions on how to engage with it is nebulous. People who know the algorithm find it easy, the people who don't know the algorithm find it super hard. And IDK how to solve that because there's so much going on in people's heads that they don't realize the people around them seriously aren't scrutinizing them that much. There's like a socialization death spiral where every small awkward interaction hurts way more when you don't have enough experience to know that the small awkward interactions are normal. So you can't tell someone "just go to book club" because they'll go, have 1 normal situation like mishearing someone and then decide they are so embarrassed they can never go to book club again-- but since it is so normal it happens at every social event and they end up lonely.

Move to Latin America

Step one might be to stop calling it the loneliness epidemic. Loneliness is an emotion, isolation is a condition, and we might even expect that if people felt lonely more often they would try harder to be social and actually be less isolated. This is also a network effect: my reaction to my loneliness affects someone else's loneliness if I go talk to them (or not).

Burn capitalism to the ground?

Lobby to shut down social media that doesn't encourage real life interaction. I honestly think things will keep getting worse until we unplug them.

Many of these comments recommend church. While valid if it works for you, it doesn't mesh with me.

I found community through a shared enjoyment of an activity that must be done as a group. Grass roots motorsports in my case, but any activity that needs you to be there with others should work the same. The key is that you should enjoy it and you should have time to interact with people. I like to make car go vroom, but generalize the approach and it should work.

My first season, I won an event with a hero run that sent me from 5th to 1st. When I parked, a random guy stuck his head in my window and started hyping me up for it. I still think about that 3 years later and it still makes me feel good. That feeling made me want to do that for others.

I started approaching random people I'd seen before and just starting a conversation. It was rough the first few times but it gets easier. You already have a shared activity so just start with that. I made a point to remember people's names or at least their car (bad with names, but cars stick for some reason). If the name didn't stick, I'll ask again next time and maybe bring up their car so they know I remember them. When I know their name, I use it when I see them again. Maybe just "Hey bob!" as I'm passing, but something to let them know someone there knows them and cares enough to say hi. They're not a stranger at least. If I haven't seen them in a while, I ask how they've been and spend a bit more effort on the conversation than just a "hey".

It started with the regulars. Now I'm looking for the new faces. I know stuff and they need to know that stuff, so it's easy to talk. If they come back, they should be able to find someone to talk to so I introduce them to some of the other regulars.

I look for people eating lunch alone and I go talk to them. Maybe 2 to 5 minutes, maybe longer. Depends on them. Sometimes I'm awkward. Sometimes I say dumb stuff. Whatever. I'm trying to help these people not be alone at a social event if they don't want to be. If they do, that's fine too, but I'll try again next time.

Some people are closed off and don't really want to talk. That's fine. I still say hi by name and see how it goes. Not trying to push, just keeping the door open. After a few times of trying, a lot of people will start to open up our let the guard down. Some don't.

I'm an introvert and all of this takes extra mental energy on top of the events being competition and work. I don't have the time to compete at the highest level every event because I'm spending time helping others. Rather than getting a better driver in my car to tell me where I'm making mistakes, I'm trying to get the less skilled drivers in my car so they can see why I'm faster. Instead of reviewing data over lunch to see where I'm losing time, I'm trying to build community. I want people to come back. There's a cost to it.

I moved to the middle of nowhere 10 years ago and had no local friends. Work friends are rarely real friends. Tech meets, young professionals groups, nothing came out of those. It sucks to go to a bar alone. None of that produced anything.

Motorsport has been the only activity I've tried where I've started making friends who I talk to outside the events. A lot of it is still about motorsports, but I've gained a few friends who I sim race with or talk to online in the off season. It could have been any other group or activity, but those are the people who made me feel welcome.

Real figures, there are at least 25 people I can walk up to and start a conversation with at an event and have good rapport, more that I know by name and just haven't clicked with, 2-3 people I consider actual friends. I started putting in the effort like this after my first season, so this is the product of 2 seasons of effort (winter doesn't count because there are no events). I'm still kind of lonely, but it's better and getting better.

I think it's that I put in effort. I know I've helped some of those people feel like part of a community. I gave them a few people they could talk to so they didn't feel so alone. Maybe my role was just keeping them coming back until they found their clique. Maybe I need more time to get to know them. Some introverts need an extrovert to help them get started. Sometimes that extrovert is an introvert tryhard.

The reason I do this is cause one guy stuck his head in my window after a run and said something like "bro that was awesome! Nice run!" And he was genuinely happy for me even though he barely knew me. I'm not good at that specific thing so I try in my own way.

I think people look for community. I did. I bounced off a few groups because I didn't fit in. I'm trying to do my part to help people "fit in". Tech solutions ain't gonna help here. Get face to face, make outsiders feel accepted, and see what happens.

And thanks, Clarke.

I've been thinking recently about the scale at which it seems the vast vast majority of people participate in close to zero public discussion online and what a bummer it is.

Basically all discussion platforms are broken for any sort of long term meaningful discussion which I think is at least part of the problem. Even this thread and this comment just the fact that the thread is now 4 hours old the amount of views and chance of getting many responses drops precipitously. On most platforms unless you are someone with a large following you basically have to think like a marketer and post often and early on posts to stand a chance of getting a discussion going. It's always so ephemeral too. Even though posts on a platform like HN on reddit still exist and you can comment on old threads probably 99% of the activity happens in the first 6 or so hours and then it largely ends.

It makes me miss forums where at least you had long lived threads with simple time based post order and a good chance of replies. This doesn't seem to exist on only platforms now and forums have largely faded away.

The fragmentation of discussion has also messed things up. For example yesterday I was listening to a HardFork podcast episode which is a fairly popular pod, topping the charts in at least the tech category, and after listening I wanted to check for discussion around the episode and probably leave a comment or two. I assume this episode had to have gotten at least in the low tens of thousands of plays though perhaps that is way off. I went searching for discussion and basically found a largely dead subreddit for the podcast with no threads being regularly created for the episode and an empty comment section on nytimes which any site comment section is a useless place for discussion anyways. The pod is also posted on youtube which the youtube comment section had the most activity of anything I found but the youtube comment section and the way it is structured/operates is perhaps the most useless of all the platforms for trying to have any discussion. I just don't understand how if at least say ten thousand people listened to the episode surely at least 1% would be interested in discussing it and 100+ people going back and forth would be a large, active, healthy discussion somewhere.

Even threads that seem "active" on sites like HN or Reddit in the context of the actual audience sizes are shockingly small and confuse me. For example The Pitt season 2 just premiered and posted 5.4 million viewers, the subreddit post ep discussion currently has 5.3k comments which is quite high for a show. That is a joke of a percentage though, 0.1%! and even worse in the context of people that are posting probably post more than once in the thread. I understand many and even most people not wanting to post to discuss a show they just watched but how the hell is less than 1 in a thousand!

This post got long which also damages the chance of any engagement due to TLDR culture.

There is no easy solution to this problem. It's a conflux of many factors. (There are no more "third spaces". Too much rent-seeking behavior. The centralization of platforms consolidates power and creates inertia. The dopamine-hacking of recommendation algorithms. Social media in general.)

https://soatok.blog/2025/09/16/are-you-under-the-influence-t...

I've written at length about related topics. Unfortunately, there are powerful invested interests in keeping things shitty. It's often critiqued as "capitalism is bad" but we're seeing today is better described as techno-feudalism than capitalism.

IMO it is not possible. The world has changed. Until modernity, people made connections out of economic necessity. Either you get a wife or have fun farming by yourself - literally it doesn't work so you die. Either you're friends with the baker or you don't get bread or get absolute shittiest-quality goods and you die. And so on. Shut-ins didn't exist because it was physically impossible to survive without leaving your room. No UberEats, no Amazon Prime, no remote work, no internet.

When the economic necessity to form relationships with others disappeared, the naked truth was exposed - most people don't fucking like each other. Yes, when you're starving to death you'll be friends with the guy who has potatoes, but when you can buy the damn potatoes yourself in the supermarket, you're not going to tolerate his smelly ass.

Most friendships form over common participation in a project. Doing something together, knowing that you have to put up with the other one to achieve higher goals. Without those goals, there are no incentives to deal with others. And what goals am I supposed to have if by doing nothing I already have a roof above my head, full fridge, clean house, and an entire library of video games?

Think about the main message of feminism: "Girl, you can make it in life without a man. Don't settle for an aggressive alcoholic just because that's the only option. You can do it yourself.". It perfectly captures how forming relationships turned from an asset into a liability.

Loneliness epidemic started 30+ years ago. There were books written in the 90s about it(bowling alone). Nothing modern can be blamed on it. If anything, social media is helping the crisis; not causing.

The 'fixes' has been established for just as long. My nearby 'community centre' was built in 1987. Has this been successful at all? Not in the least bit.

The reality of what is causing this hasnt changed. Without fixing this key problem, the crisis obviously has continued for 30+ years. I'm not nostradamus here. However, from many previous conversations it's crazy how absolutely nobody is ready to talk about the cause. They'd rather just call it a paradox or feign ignorance for why this is happening. Honestly it's rather conspiratorial creating when you think about it.

Out of curiousity I asked what gemini 3 pro thinks.

1. Revival of third places.

As if that hasnt been tried for 30+ years... fail.

2. replacing 'socializing' with "service"

The idea is that cleaning a park will somehow make you less lonely is laughable at best.

3. Bridging the generational gap.

Elderly teach the young skills? while youth teach digital literacy. My community centre literally has this. F mark.

4. Urban design and walkability.

We need to spend trillions of dollars to completely redesign and rebuild cities? lol what.

5. digital hygiene

social media is a sedative? crazy.

I love gemini, but man they are getting it so wrong. All of this will likely just caused the crisis to be worse in my opinion.

To me, has this been done unintentionally through the typical 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' or has this been intentionally done and maintained? The refusal to acknowledge the cause seems to push toward intentional. Guess we just live with the loneliness epidemic.

You can't.

It is up to them to change. They won't change, and this "loneliness epidemic" is starting to become really fucking annoying. It is almost a grift now to shit on tech by mids.

These people don't want to go outside or engage with other people.

It is like people who are drug/alcohol/tobacco/gambling/sex/etc addicts. It is up to the individual to change. How is it anyone else's responsibility?

I surveyed a bunch of people on reddit, discords, etc. a couple years ago to figure out why people are lonely, back when this whole "loneliness" movement was starting.

A lot of these people say they have "trauma" or some other mental block as a primary reason why they're lonely (btw they're in discords with thousands of people, and playing online games with OTHER PEOPLE). I'm sorry but everyone has shit going on in their lives. You aren't really that special.

Maybe 1-5% of people have dealt with actual, really horrific trauma, and even they have managed to go on to have fulfilling lives. They chose to move on.

I'm an asshole, no doubt, and I've dealt with my own traumas in the past that were honestly way more fucking horrible than "I'm shy" or "nobody likes [insert some esoteric niche]" and guess what? Who cares? Go outside.

There is no helping these people, or anyone to be honest, unless they really want to make a change. These aren't starving Sudanese or people who live in India or something where you can't just "go outside". Mfs be in CALIFORNIA and crying. I'd understand if they were lonely because they were living in Iraq or Venezuela or something.

The only solution is we build a Matrix, and put all these people into it. I will bet 100% of my net worth and any earnings from my entire lineage for perpetuity that they will still fucking complain and be lonely. I was really hopeful for metaverse, too bad but maybe there's still a chance.

I never want to hear about "loneliness epidemic" again, to me it just sounds like DEI/ESG/Eacc and other bs grifting now to hate on tech. Everything is a choice. You press A in a video game even though you're lonely, why not press A to go outside?

These people aren't lonely, they exist in massive online echo chambers with other people. And honestly? I think they like it. Most drug addicts loved being on drugs even though it was a horrific existence. They don't like it when they're narcan'd during OD. But when they decide to get clean, I am proud that they actually did it how amazing is that? SO these lonely people have to stop crying and step outside.

on the topic of platonic friendship, I couldn’t disagree more with a lot of the comments. I have plenty of friends yet I don’t do clubs and will never, ever do organized religion. People advising it are religious freaks in my opinion. Some of my best friends took this advice to go to church and bible study. They complain every time I see them about the people in their church. Meanwhile I’ve made more and better friends online. Its not hard, get on social media, find an influencer/streamer that matches your vibes and go jump into the official or adjacent discord community and play video games with people in that community. If you engage in active listening and are a decent person, you will easily make plenty of friends. Additionally, I think in person hangouts are kinda mid, but I hangout with my friends in-person (at a minimum) every other day when I weight lift. Like seriously, I often would rather chill in Discord than go and hang out in-person.

To me the male loneliness epidemic is more about a lack of ability to find meaningful romantic relationships. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and as somebody who has been doing online dating since it essentially started, I am pretty sure that the problem (or at least a major piece) is that match group has commodified romantic relationships.

I know a lot of people will focus on meeting people in public or whatever, but it has been my experience that dating has become completely garbage and a large part is because all of the current popular dating apps disallow index search and funnel you into swiping. From a mate selection perspective this makes no sense. Not only does it muddy the waters about who is actually a real match, but it also does psychic damage to make so many shallow judgements.

Back before match group bought OkCupid, I used to have excellent results finding people their who shared a lot of common ground with, messaging them with a thoughtful message, and going on dates. Swiping is an absolute crap shoot, and often I feel like I am being used.

from what I've looked into, on an individual level, the main thing I need to do is learn how to be a good company for others. Be for other strangers what I would want them to be for me. But it's easier said then done.

From a practical perspective, there is the whole "3rd place" issue. How can I open a business that caters to the public, who will just sit there and loiter on their phones and laptops all day and be profitable. Starbucks sort of did it in the 90s, but they're not tolerating that anymore.

Forget businesses, can you walk to a park, a beach, a hiking trail on a whim and run into people? Can you hold events, watch parties,etc.. on public places easily like that? It's not easy at all these days.

I blame cars. I despise the idea that electric cars are the replacement to cars, without considering changing transportation so that it is more efficient with trams, trains,etc... The side-effect of that is you run into strangers on public transport. This doesn't just affect the loneliness epidemic, it is in my opinion a direct cause of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, and of course obesity. You can't even be homeless and sleep on the streets these days. Even the park benches are built to be hostile to anyone that wants to chill there for too long.

Society was restructured between 1950s-1980s so that it is suburbanized. It's all about the family unit, single family homes, freeways and roads built to facilitate single family homes (after WW2, starting families was all the rage, plus white-flight didn't help). Shopping centers built to cater to consumers driving from their suburban homes. Malls you can walk in, after you drove some time to park there. Even when you buy food items at grocery stores, pay attention to serving sizes, it is improving a little, but you'll see at minimum a serving size of two typically.

Society was deliberately engineered so that you have more reasons to spend more as a consumer. Families spend more per-capita. suburbs mean more houses purchased, entire generations renting with their bank as a landlord via mortgages, home repair, home insurance, car insurance, car repairs, gas stations for cars where you can get the most unhealthy things out there in the most frequented and convenient places. Make kids, make wives, make ex-wives, get sick the whole lot of you for hospitals, health insurances,etc..

It wasn't planned by some central committees or secret cabal, but it was planned nonetheless by economists and policy makers.

If everyone just got married and had kids, they won't be lonely would they? you don't need to hang out at park with strangers, you'll feel less of a member of your local neighborhood who look and think like you, and start thinking more as one people.

All the interpersonal interactions and opportunities to build relationships with people are commercialized and controlled.

For one reason or another, people are just not getting married in their early 20's anymore, or having that many kids later on like before. Even when you get married, your interaction is by design with other married people, who are busy commuting in their cars to and fro work, kids school,kids sports, plays,etc... imagine taking your kids on busses and trains every day to these places which are fairly near-by, by necessity. you'll be spending time with them instead of operating machinery. They'll be meeting stranger kids from other schools, seeing random strangers all the time, you'll be talking to randos as you walk to the train, wait on the bus,etc.. but this can't be monetized.

Blame the economists and policy makers if you want to blame someone.

If you want solutions, let's talk explicitly about the policy changes that need to happen.

Too much traffic? tear down the freeways instead of building more lanes.

It costs $10B to build a simple metro line? pass better laws to regulate bidding and costs, investigate fraud and waste.

But to dig even deeper into the root of the matter, look at what is celebrated and prized in society. Most of its ills come from there. For most Americans, it is inconceivable to be able to just go out of your house without any plans or destination in mind and just start walking and see where you end up, and who you run into. That's a crucial and tragic ability that's been lost. We really have more urgent things to address to be fair, but ultimately, this can only be solved one small step at a time, but also big sweeping changes are needed. The first step is to define and accept what the problem is, and where the blame and cause lie.

build another software platform

/s

This community is not going to be the one to solve that problem, sorry.

No. We are too busy worrying about an invading USA.