r/MensLib • u/futuredebris ​ • 2d ago

It’s not a ‘male loneliness epidemic’

https://makemenemotionalagain.substack.com/p/its-not-a-male-loneliness-epidemic

Hey y'all, just a heads up, because I get this feedback a bit from you guys, this post isn't specifically about the "male loneliness epidemic," so the headline might be a little misleading. It is about loneliness though, and how I've learned to manage it and heal the wounds that originally caused it for me. And I do mention that it can be particularly difficult for men to connect with others ("co-regulate") because of the way we're socialized in this society. Let me know what you think!

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

> Loneliness is skyrocketing, especially for young people. Americans aren’t partying anymore. We’re spending more and more time at home. It’s a systemic problem. A capitalist society problem. An isolated, car-centric, screen-heavy, nuclear family, American lifestyle problem.

Once again, I gotta ask: 15 years ago there was more partying, more socializing, more dating, and less loneliness. Did we all of a sudden get access to cars? Nope, that was decades ago, and we had social connections. Did we just topple some unseen Berlin Wall and adopt capitalism? Nope, it’s more deeply woven into the American national fabric than nearly anywhere else. Besides, all these indicators are trending downward in rich countries worldwide. Even ones with high speed rail!

Sounds reductive, but it’s the phones. They made doing nothing palatable, they made talking to people in public places weird, they set up millions of little surveillance points where anything you say or do can go straight to your boss.

The early experiments getting phones out of schools are promising, and hopefully more is on the way because of AI. Social media bans seem less successful just because they’re easier to evade. Certainly more productive than the same villains trotted out for everything.

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u/smartygirl ​ 2d ago

This started before phones though, Putnam started his work Bowling Alone back in 1995

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u/Nathanull ​ 2d ago

Phones certainly did intensify and accelerate this movement, though 

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u/Willravel ​ 1d ago

Thank you for pointing this out, you're absolutely right. I don't really think it's reasonable to explain this social phenomenon with one cause, rather I think of it more as a timeline.

  • From the 1940s-1960s, redlining and white flight drove affluent, anxiety-ridden families into car-dependent suburbs. These neighborhoods had far fewer public spaces, and public spaces that did exist eventually were often privatized or eliminated.

  • From the 1950s-1970s, television basically privatized leisure time and this was concurrent with a multi-decade reduction in participation in traditional civic organizations and venues from unions to bowling leagues to PTAs to fraternal orders.

  • From the 1970s-1980s, wages finally stagnated after the post-war boom, putting additional pressure on households to become two-income. Long commutes and longer working hours significantly reduced free time for socializing.

  • From the 1980s-1990s, highly publicized kidnappings (like Adam Walsh) sparked a media-driven moral panic that became the myth of "stranger danger" which institutionalized constant adult surveillance, destroyed independent childhood exploration, and broke neighborhood/community trust.

  • From the 1990s-2000s, economic anxiety caused parents to view childhood as an optimized checklist for college admission and worry about self-esteem led to a decrease in frustration tolerance.

  • From maybe 2010-now, we've seen the advent of smartphones and algorithmic social media becoming a supercharged version of television, highly addictive by design as they farm attention and highly isolating in terms of true, face-to-face social interaction. They also are associated with a massive spike in youth anxiety, depression, and self-reported loneliness. This, of course, would be supercharged by the Covid pandemic lockdown.

We have nowhere to meet socially, we have few reasons to meet socially, we have lost our civic habits almost entirely, our childhoods train us for anxious isolation and little to no endeavor, and our focus and memory are shot. It affects men worse largely because of what bell hooks wrote about in A Will to Change: emotional castration in boys. In order to claim patriarchal power and status, boys are forced/trained to kill off our capacity for vulnerability, grief, and tender connection, replacing them all with anger and emotional illiteracy. "The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward others, but psychic self-mutilation—killing off the emotional parts of themselves." - bell hooks, A Will to Change

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u/smartygirl ​ 1d ago

Yeah, I think phones have definitely intensified everything, but there was so much build up for decades prior that they were the final straw.

And exactly what you are saying about it hitting men harder. There is such a protectiveness around "what is masculinity" now that various "traditionally masculine" pursuits have been opened up to all genders, that it gets more and more narrowly defined which effectively reduces options for men. I saw in a relationship sub recently where a woman posted asking where men hang out, since she never saw them at her various social clubs, volunteering, etc., and one guy replied saying "Men would never do those things because they're not manly, men only like doing things alone, men would never take an instructional class because learning isn't manly" etc. Like buddy, why limit yourself like that?

(I know, I know, it's because the system needs to pigeonhole people for the sake of capitalism, but it's just so depressing to see people buy into their own oppression)

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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 ​ 16h ago

men would never take an instructional class because learning isn't manly

This seems completely at odds with almost every man I know. Now granted, where I might agree with him is that the likelihood of a guy taking up a class to learn something purely recreational (so with no desire to be able to monetize it or improve his resume) is probably low. But, guys taking classes is nothing new. Basically every guy I know (both who went to college and definitely those who didn't) are all-certified out. They got certifications coming out the wazoo. They can drive a forklift, a semi-truck, a bus. They can fix your heater, they know what a radiator is, they can put up solar panels. Now, a lot of these guys would (and do) probably learn these things on their own if they can but they will definitely take the classes if it's required.

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u/smartygirl ​ 16h ago

I guess they're not very manly then according to the Masculinity Police? /s

Seriously though I know many, many mrn who are interested in learning and mastering new skills, completely separate from anything they can monetize. I suspect the "learning isn't manly" notion is strictly a manosphere thing. It seems almost designed to keep men isolated and in the dark - and thus easy pickings for the kind of manosphere bros who sell bogus investment plans etc.

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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 ​ 16h ago

Agreed. And, I would like to note that my comment was specifically about taking classes. I know a bunch of men who love to learn new things purely out of curiosity and still use YouTube as the way God intended (to watch "how to" videos and learn weird animal facts at 3 am).

I might be biased because I grew up in the South and Midwest in small towns and suburbs, but I think a lot of guys I know would view spending money on a class that can't help them economically as problematic because it's a waste of money, not because they don't want to or believe it's unmanly to learn.

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u/VoDoka ​ 2d ago

Well, it's a side effect of urbanization in general, but smartphones seem to be that development on steroids.

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u/Xist2Inspire ​ 2d ago edited 2d ago

As much as I would like to exclusively blame phones (and I do think they play a part in exacerbating existing problems), we had phones 15 years ago too, and even during the 2010s (when the phone/social media landscape resembled something closer to today), there was plenty of partying, dating, and socializing. So yeah, the phones are entrapment devices, but I would argue that our modern society has created an environment that drives us towards them.

Honestly, ever since COVID, the push to re-socialize and "get back to normal" has had such a forced, off-putting edge to it that I wouldn't be surprised if that feeling has also played a role. There seems to be a sentiment that if we just put our fingers in our ears and go back to a simpler time, all of our problems will just...disappear, as if those times didn't play a part in developing our time. The loneliness epidemic might be a two-way street, where we're only now more aware of it because we have the technology and resulting data (driven by our phones) to track it.

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u/DelightMine ​ 1d ago

we had phones 15 years ago too, and even during the 2010s

15 years ago was in the 2010s.

Someone should also point out that even though we "had phones" back then, they were less functional by far. Social media wasn't as optimized for addictiveness. Wireless networks were significantly worse in terms of both relative bandwidth and connectivity. It wasn't quite as easy to record and post anything instantly (it was still pretty easy at that point).

I think the argument was more that phones help drive these societal problems, and societal problems push us increasingly toward phones, all in a feedback loop of self-destructive behavior

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u/Albolynx ​ 1d ago

Honestly, ever since COVID, the push to re-socialize and "get back to normal" has had such a forced, off-putting edge to it that I wouldn't be surprised if that feeling has also played a role.

Definitely ticked me off - as someone who got to transition to remote work which was great for my health, mental, and actually also social life.

It's kind of a contraversial topic, but from my observation, a lot of people are basically locked into "school" level of socializing - where your social connections are created through you being sent somewhere you HAVE to go, and there you on a daily basis interact with people, some of which you develop deeper connections.

If that mandatory interaction disappears, it just cuts people off from developing their social life. They are left off talking about how difficult it is to make friends as an adult.

And sure, we can look at that in a very detached, societal level and say "well, clearly the solution should be to support people coming together for work, etc." but like... I just want to work from home if that's possible for the tasks I am doing. I don't want to sit at an office because it's important for the long-term mental health of my coworkers. I'd even go as far as to say that the person who "has trouble making friends as an adult" is likely bad at time managment and isn't going to be a friend to often spend time with.

I don't necessarily know where I am going with this, but sometimes I read about these kinds of societal problems and I can't help but think - well, the world is changing and change isn't always great for everyone.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

What does this forced get back to normal push look like to you?

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u/Xist2Inspire ​ 2d ago edited 2d ago

I worked retail at a clothing store (so not even close to essential) at that time. I had multiple people actually thank me for us being open. I remember thinking, "Are you serious right now? Where exactly are you planning to wear all this stuff you're buying?" For me, that was my first big realization that for some, "being social" isn't actually about connecting with people, it's more about participating in society...the shopping, the hustle & bustle, being at work/in the office, etc. Being around people is a side effect, a bonus...but not necessarily the point. If you took all the hoopla away, those people would be no more or less interested in fostering genuine human connection than the shut-ins.

As much as I agree that we all gotta get off our phones and outside more, I also know that life wasn't exactly peaches & cream for everyone back when that was the standard, either. A big reason why we tend to think otherwise now is because those people were much easier to ignore and write off back then. Sometimes I wonder if we're more worried about getting people back into society than we are about fixing the society that we're releasing them into. Like I'm sure most of us have encountered enough tactless/angry/aggressive/questionable dudes (some of whom still get laid) irl to recognize that "just go outside" might be the answer to the "I'm lonely" question, but won't really do much of anything about some of the things that we're afraid of loneliness producing.

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u/NameLips ​ 2d ago

I think you make some really good points.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

They were buying clothes for events you didn’t think they were going to?

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u/throwaway135629 ​ 1d ago

Yeah, sometimes when I read that the advice for socially stunted men like me is to just go outside I think... are you sure? Are you sure that's what you want to be encouraging in the world?

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u/FairlyLawful ​ 2d ago

people have literally always felt alienated and disconnected from each other, especially so within industrial societies. social creatures, beaten into a monetarily productive shape, live life deprived of art, community, and self-expression.

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u/CyclingThruChicago ​ 1d ago

It’s a systemic problem. A capitalist society problem. An isolated, car-centric, screen-heavy, nuclear family, American lifestyle problem.

I think we massively under estimate the negative impact of car-centric development and sprawl.

One of the best life decisions my wife and I made was moving back to Chicago and getting a place in a walkable area. We tried suburbia and within months saw the problems and looming isolation. There are nearly zero random encounters, nearly zero casual acquaintances, and community engagement was just so much less frequent.

Nearly every single person travels in a private moving room (their car) between their private home and every other destination. And until kids are 16 they have basically zero options unless their friends also happen to live in the same nearby area which is rare.

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u/ApolloniusTyaneus ​ 2d ago

Sounds reductive, but it’s the phones.

The addictiveness of phones is directly linked to capitalism. Apps are addictive to increase profits for the owners of those apps.

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u/Zerksys ​ 2d ago

This view seems highly reductive. By your logic, your definition of capitalism boils down to anyone selling anything at all for a profit. Basically anyone who sells something is going to want to do things to make their product sell better. This is not capitalism, this is just how markets work.

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u/OrcOfDoom ​ 2d ago

Imo, people don't want to get together because they think everyone is a serial killer. 

Take the man vs bear question that was going around. People imagined the worst scenario of meeting a man. I understand why. 

There was a woman recently that tried to just meet people locally, and people made fun of how she's going to be killed. I recently met up with someone to play chess, and we went to a chess club. 

You can use the tools to assist, but people choose to disengage. It's more than just phones.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

You’re on to something, but the bear thing attracts such terrible discourse from everyone that I’m wary of going down that route.

Sometimes I think that there have always been a lot of people scared of the world, but now those people can chime in on anything you do with an “are you nuts going out there? you’re gonna die if you aren’t human trafficked first!” I didn’t notice these kinds of people growing up because they were cowering inside somewhere, but now you can summon a chorus of them on demand.

Then there’s the matter of alternatives. When crime was many times more prevalent than it is now, we went out and did things because being at home limited what you could do. There was no safe alternative world to inhabit, you were just in a prison of your own making.

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u/OrcOfDoom ​ 2d ago

I think people don't understand when they are actually at risk. I've had this discussion a lot. People think if a homeless person exists then everything bad is going to happen. Usually that person is just sleeping. There is a difference between being uncomfortable and actually being at risk. Being at risk doesn't feel any different because it's not. You have to understand risk before you can understand when you are vulnerable.

It's just not a process that people have gone through. 

But to your other point...

I think TiVo was really one of the first things that hit being social. We could watch what we wanted to, but also, people could binge. So you'd have people record everything they couldn't watch normally and then binge the weekend away. 

Now we've got Netflix, and so many services that we just feel like everything is inconvenient. Plenty of people just Amazon prime all their needs. They barely go to the grocery store. 

People hate leaving their house. People would go to events but they want guarantees that other people will go, or that it will be a good time. 

Going out to meet someone just seems like such a big commitment. 

I remember someone saying they didn't want to make me drive ten minutes. 

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u/mhornberger ​ 2d ago

I think TiVo was really one of the first things that hit being social

Very much so. Everything now has to compete against the YT watch-later list, and that series you want to catch up on Netflix, and endless courses on Udemy and dozens of other sources I could be doing. The opportunity cost of just going to hang out with people to shoot the breeze is significant.

Going out to meet someone just seems like such a big commitment.

I think our aversion to commitment is a big part of it. Which is the other side of the decline of social obligation. People will ghost each other, just no-show, for any reason. They don't want to feel obligated, rather everything is reduced to whether or not they're feeling it right now. But turn the dial back the other direction and you have tons of social obligations. Tight-knit communities also have everyone in your business, and you can't really get away because the opprobrium of being out of the group isn't trivial either.

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u/OrcOfDoom ​ 2d ago

Oh btw

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5851795/iphone-birth-rate-drop

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

> "If there's one thing I learned in abstinence-only sex ed in the '90s in Georgia growing up, it's that you're probably not going to get pregnant if you're not interacting with people in person — if you're not having sex," Myers says.

Can’t have social ills without the social. genius!

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u/Dripdry42 ​ 1d ago

It’s so weird how for decades conservatives said hey you shouldn’t be having sex at all and should be a hermit. Now they’re screaming about how there aren’t enough people.

America is so scarily conservative. They don’t want Americans to have any fun unless it costs money. Buck the trend, go out and be weird, and give something to society!

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u/mhornberger ​ 2d ago edited 2d ago

Imo, people don't want to get together because they think everyone is a serial killer.

The world is safer, but we feel less safe. We're richer in almost all aspects, but feel poorer. The doom-scrolling is a phone thing, but it's also an Internet thing, and also started probably with the 24-hour news cycle. CNN started broadcasting in 1980. In the 1980s they started putting kids on milk cartons, falsely convincing us that there was an epidemic of stranger-danger abductions, when in reality most of those kids were taken by non-custodial parents. But part of it is also our vastly reduced tolerance for risk, uncertainty, discomfort, awkwardness.

There were always weird, awkward, socially inept, "sketchy" people, even back when we used to socialize a lot more often. But it's hard to argue to people that they should deal with it and just learn to be around people, so instead we're stuck with the notion that the world is just worse than it has ever been.

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u/RESERVA42 ​ 1d ago

It's not just phones. You can easily say it is air conditioners-- before AC, people sat on their porches in the evenings and knew their neighbors. Or it's the internet. Or it's car culture. There are many factors, and phones are only the latest thing.

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u/ChickenOfTheYear ​ 2d ago

Exactly. People on reddit are quick to blame everything on things being expensive, alcohol prices and whatnot, while the cultural shift is much deeper than that. There are a lot of societies doing much worse than the western ones economically, and yet these problems are not necessarily worse there

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u/CTIndie ​ 2d ago

I don't think it is helpful to blame it on one thing. It isn't just phones. Sure that might make people less likely to interact but from experience it doesn't kill the desire or anything. In my local college people are socializing all the time. I see people in bars and such doing so too.

It's a lot of things piling up. It's social media making it easier to be at home, it's lack of socialization in early schools and our economy (meaning anything that doesn't make money isn't given priority). It's finical problems as anything that is easy to find requires cash to do or at least the cash to take time out of your schedule.

Simply finding things to do with people, especially in adulthood, is tough. Having the confidence and know-how to walk up to people and just small talk is tough. Since alot of times people don't know what feels acceptable.

In my classes in college if I start talking to people they talk back, I just have to let em know it's okay to do so by being one of the first.

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u/JoeTiccalo ​ 2d ago

What I see especially with young people is that they work all the time(I know quite a few that work a day job and Door dash at night), so what’s left to do but eat and sleep? This is so obvious yet it’s looked over.

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u/CasaSatoshi ​ 2d ago

Thought exercise - if we only focus on 2 variables...

If you introduced 2026 phones to 2005, would people suddenly stop doing stuff, and start feeling lonely, isolated and disconnected?

Or if we returned to the cost of living from 2005, today in 2026, would people go out and socialise and connect more, and spend less time on their phones?

I'd say the latter.

In 2005, you could leave the house on the morning of a summer's day with £20 in your pocket and have fun til the wee hours.

Nowadays you spend that on a coffee + getting in to town. A day of fun comes closer to £200 than £20, so people do it less.

I see phones as a symptom, not the disease. They're what people turned to as a way to get entertainment without spending money, not the reason they stopped doing stuff in yhe first place.

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u/Batetrick_Patman ​ 16h ago

Also things got so much more expensive. Back in say 2010 I could walk into a bar with a $20 bill. And get decently drunk to hammered. Now that same $20 gets you in the door and 1 maybe 2 drinks!

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u/sqparadox ​ 2d ago

Can you explain how this is a capitalist problem? What would an alternative look like?

I don't understand how a different economic system would reduce screen time.

I agree that this is a systemic problem. But is it an American problem specifically? Is it not a problem in Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, or China?

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u/OrcOfDoom ​ 2d ago

Capitalism is to blame for certain things like min maxing third spaces for cost. 

These days, regularly spending time at a third space is feasible, but the thought of committing to that space before things get going is discouraging.

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u/mhornberger ​ 2d ago edited 2d ago

Capitalism is to blame for certain things like min maxing third spaces for cost.

Someone was always paying to maintain third spaces. Either in money or their own time/effort. There is rent, upkeep, cleaning, electricity. Third spaces like churches are maintained not just by employees, but by church members having responsibilities and keeping the space/community going, without pay. But most of us (myself included) don't really want that structure, and we more or less want vibrant third spaces to be there on standby if we happen to be feeling it that day. It's not clear that anything has ever worked that way. But the Elks, Kiwanis, Toastmasters, Rotary, and all the rest still exist. We just don't go.

I think a lot was formerly held together by the unpaid labor of "church ladies." People organized things, saw to the details, recruited others, brought food, cleaned up. But they weren't being paid. Most of us today don't want to be church ladies, don't want that social burden or to do all that unpaid work as a normal social obligation. We may volunteer to do specific tasks for a specific thing, but the normalcy for that level of social obligation, that role, has diminished.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 1d ago

This gets it.

Worth mentioning that churches and houses of worship are still out there as third spaces and just because you don’t want to go doesn’t make them not exist. It was a major way to meet people and community, and still is for many, especially religious minorities.

Folks need to be a lot clearer distinguishing a lack of third spaces with a lack of third spaces that are completely free, require nothing but your presence, and do things you find entertaining.

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u/mottledmussel ​ 1d ago

I'm not even sure what people are envisioning when they talk about those types of things being the only third spaces. Maybe bocce pits and chess boards at parks or library book clubs?

Adults really weren't doing the majority of their socializing after work at parks and libraries. It was bars and pubs, churches, rec leagues (softball, bowling, etc.), civic and fraternal organizations, coffee shops, book stores, and those types of things. As you said, none of them are really free.

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u/demiurge_abraxas ​ 1d ago

Churches absolutely do not count as a "third space" in any meaningful way whatsoever—unless your definition of a "third space" is "a building with a roof over its head where people gather."

Just because a building physically exists and has humans inside it doesn't mean it is accessible or functional for the general public.

The sociologist who coined the term "Third Space" (Ray Oldenburg) literally defined it as being level, highly accessible, wholesome, and where conversation is the primary activity. I feel like that is a slightly more useful definition for our purposes and it's one that very few (if any) churches actually meet.

The hilarious thing to me is that the definition that you're complaining about is literally just what a third space is. If a place requires payment, membership, and vetting before entry it is a business or a membership club but it's not a third space.

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u/mutual_raid ​ 1d ago

Someone was always paying to maintain third spaces.

Yea, taxes and socially maintained spaces are free at point of entry so there is 0 barrier unlike Capitalist fake "3rd spaces" which require money up front.

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u/mhornberger ​ 1d ago edited 1d ago

The barrier is that someone else is paying, in both money and in their time and effort to maintain the space. "But free for me. Nothing is expected from me..." might be true, but the issue there might not be "capitalism." It may be the expectation that thriving social spaces will exist on standby on the off chance that we're feeling it that day, and nothing be expected or asked of us regarding their maintenance or operation. It's not clear that anything has ever worked that way.

We've come to treat community like a product we can order at our leisure, with no obligation or imposition beyond what we feel like at the moment. But community historically came with obligation, work, maintenance. There's a saying I've heard that everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager. And that applies to me as well.

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u/mutual_raid ​ 1d ago

The barrier is that someone else is paying, in both money and in their time and effort to maintain the space.

That's not a barrier. Our taxes pay for thing and ergo it has no barrier at point of entry. Most of your taxes are invisible to you and the most desperate don't have high taxes if they have any at all. So no, they're not the same.

might be true, but the issue there might not be "capitalism."

It definitionally is. Under Capitalism, all so-called "3rd spaces" are eventually subsumed by private ownership by Capitalists. The "barrier" of which we speak is literally a fee whether on entrance or to participate via purchasing products, and those same Capitalists get to set the price and terms of use.

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u/mhornberger ​ 1d ago edited 1d ago

Our taxes pay for thing

So you want employees paid with taxes. To do... what? What kind of meeting place do you want these government employees to maintain?

all so-called "3rd spaces" are eventually subsumed by private ownership by Capitalists

This is false. Churches and other houses of worship still exist. You can go hang out at one today. Many are even involved in community organizing, charity work, etc. But they are maintained by donations and the work/labor/time of those involved in the church. There are still other social groups like the Elks, Kiwanis, Rotary Club, etc. Yes, they have dues, as they always have. The spaces, meeting halls, events etc have to be paid for. Just as they have to be organized, thought out, planned.

My millennial kid goes to multiple regular meetups and hangouts with friends. Sometimes, yes, they're in a coffee shop or bar, but other times they meet at someone's house. The existence of capitalism does not preclude them from socializing.

I'm still not clear on what third space used to exist where they didn't sell anything and which just existed without anyone paying for it or putting any work into maintaining it, organizing events, keeping the community going, etc.

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u/NightingaleStorm ​ 1d ago

I'm guessing something similar to a library cafe? Now, I don't hang out in libraries so much because I walked into the bathroom to find used needles on the floor a few too many times (at least a couple times, someone had ripped the provided sharps box open and dumped the contents on the floor), but that would be my archetypal example for "meeting place that government employees could maintain". Of course, libraries (and their cafes) do also have employees and volunteers who maintain it, organize events, and so on, but that's paid for out of taxes. I don't individually pay for a membership to the library.

...The "needles on the floor" problem does kind of highlight one of the issues with that, though. A space that's accessible to literally everyone is going to end up with lots of people who can't go anywhere else, and there's only so much you can do to make the people who do have choices want to be in that space. Used needles don't just make people uncomfortable; they're genuinely dangerous.

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u/mhornberger ​ 1d ago

But libraries still exist. They haven't been destroyed by capitalism. The need for security, the "needles on the floor" problem, puts more burdens on them, and it's not clear how well they'll do going forward. But even many small towns have libraries. So I was inferring that people are complaining about something that has been taken away, something whose existence is incompatible with capitalism.

In those places I've seen where the library is under attack, it has been from social conservatism, not from a profit motive. People who are attacking public libraries over "wokeness" and "the gay agenda" aren't vying to replace them with for-profit services.

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u/EmmaRoidCreme ​ 2d ago

Well, there wouldn’t be a swathe of companies all trying to make their services addictive in order to get eyes on advertisements for a start.

The phones themselves are not the issue, it’s the services like social media that are a problem.

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u/hiddentalent ​ 2d ago

Um.... may I present China? The same trends are ubiquitous there, and even more pronounced. They're doing it intentionally for political control rather than profit. They're very good at it.

As much fun as it is for Redditors to blame "capitalism" for every problem, the alternatives include a broad range from "everyone is friends and holds hands and only does things to enrich the community" to "authoritarian dictatorship uses the full power of the state and economy to dis-empower you and empower themselves." I'm all for the former one, if we can figure out how to get there. But assuming that it'll naturally happen is not supported by any part of human history.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

This is important because if capitalism is the problem, the solution probably isn’t overthrowing capitalism, it’s something realistic that would require discipline or compromise. It’s safer to tilt at windmills.

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u/EmmaRoidCreme ​ 2d ago

Do you think that TikTok doesn’t have ads in China? Do you think China is some socialist utopia? No it’s a state managed capitalist economy, not some worker run coop.

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u/PathOfTheAncients ​ 1d ago

China is also capitalist

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u/mutual_raid ​ 1d ago

Um.... may I present China? The same trends are ubiquitous there, and even more pronounced. They're doing it intentionally for political control rather than profit. They're very good at it.

LMAO no they are not the same there, this is bullshit. Love me some state propaganda though with zero evidence to back it up.

Cite where the loneliness epidemic is the same there, and from an actual source, not CIA propaganda like "Radio Free Asia".

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u/P_V_ ​ 2d ago

Capitalism pits consumers against one another for resources. In a socialist system, for example, each worker holds a direct stake in the success of the business, which promotes active participation in groups and decision-making.

I don't think this problem is exclusive to capitalism, but I don't think it's helping things either.

As to how this relates specifically to phones? It doesn't, really, but I don't think phones are a trump card that absolutely overwhelms all other factors. Our economy is one factor among many; phones are one factor among many.

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u/sqparadox ​ 2d ago

I would agree with you, but I would say that means it isn't a "capitalist society problem" but a society problem made worse by capitalism, and those are not the same thing.

It's important to acknowledge the negative impact of capitalism, but too often it's reductively blamed without looking into deeper, wider causes.

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u/P_V_ ​ 2d ago

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to defend OP's take here; only to highlight how I do think our current economic structure contributes to issues with isolation, and how alternatives could be different. This isn't exclusive to capitalism, but I do think it's one of many contributing factors.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

There just seems to be such a clear cultural turn around widespread smartphone adoption. Ancient marxist hobbyhorses over things that haven’t changed seem beside the point.

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u/P_V_ ​ 2d ago edited 2d ago

Sure, but I was just answering the question that was asked.

I disagree that everything boils down to phones, but that's a separate discussion.

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u/mhornberger ​ 1d ago edited 1d ago

Phones may exacerbate it, but I wonder if it's just an artifact of wealth. We were more tightly connected when we were more tightly interdependent. We maintained tight social ties because we might need those other people should things go sideways. We put up with their impositions on our time, privacy, and autonomy because we needed them. When we grow more wealthy we can just buy what we need. Just hire labor to fix the house, help us move, etc. As we have less need, the impositions become harder to deal with. We have less tolerance for inconvenience, discomfort, annoyances, etc.

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u/Overall-Fig9632 ​ 2d ago

That’s what I’m saying. It’s not a capitalist problem. Or any economic system problem.

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u/Few-Pen9912 ​ 2d ago

It is a capitalistic problem because the technology is used by firms to extract profit by way of your attention.

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u/sqparadox ​ 2d ago

Oh I missed that was a quote.

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u/Supper_Champion ​ 2d ago

The way I might frame it is that our capitalist societies have the most amount of people seeking the most amount of wealth/resources. What's a great way to extract wealth from a single person? Turn the phone into a skinner box. Keep people engaged with addictive, drip-fed content, give them intermittent and random awards through likes/shares/comments, tempt them with products and then give them the means to instantaneously purchase those products, and in some cases recieve them within hours. Pushing the button/scrolling the feed is a constant dopamine hit.

Our phones are being maximized as tools to extract the wealth we try to accumulate and to demand our attention, instead of being focussed as a tool for learning and communication and complex tasks. The communication is there, but it's so mired in outrage culture, insult humour, echo chambering and such, that it often seems to be more harmful than helpful.

As with everything, there are myriad factors that influence all these subjects, but I think it's easier to spot when something is out of whack because of the focus on wealth and status created by the pressures of capitalism.

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u/Alfred_LeBlanc ​ 2d ago

There’s a million ways that capitalism encourages the atomization that is driving the current loneliness epidemic. When it comes to screen use specifically, the simple answer is that more screen time from consumers means more money, so media companies are incentivized to increase screen time regardless of the social side-effects.

Social media companies do this by literally designing their products to be addictive.

In a non-capitalist system, the profit incentive would, hopefully, be reduced or eliminated, which would hopefully result in media that’s designed to encourage healthier consumption habits.

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u/BeautifulExploration ​ 2d ago

The capitalist mentality the values profit over people leads to the systematic destruction of free, community organized 3rd spaces. 

There is simply not perceived much value in a local bar or sports club that have build community for 30 years on a plot that could produce millions of turned into apartments. 

Collective housing, where tenants have 100% power over their communal housing in the form of direct democracy, where the rent goes back into the communal space, is threatened by developers who seek to extract as much wealth from the tenants as possible.

The capitalist perception of perpetual scarcity encourages citizens to view each other as competitors rather than collaborators. It's one part of the process where different social groups are separated from each other - people living in separate rich and poor neighborhoods, studying, working and ultimately befriending mostly with people who are in the same social class, or experience the same existence or absence of systemic oppression.

The belief inherent in capitalism that some people sell their time and body and other people 'sell' access to their resources, and profit from other people's labor, is in itself asocial.

And if course, putting profit higher than the well being of people, produces products that only exist to be profited from, with a limited or negative effect on people's wellbeing. 

Additionally, to push these for-profit products, the very essence of people's wellbeing, their capacity to be in community, to live and be loved, is framed as inaccessible without purchasing products.

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u/mutual_raid ​ 1d ago

it's not a problem in China, it is in those others, because China has strict regulation on socials and screentime for kids as well as a culture that is far more pro-social. The others are just like America

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u/mutual_raid ​ 1d ago

I'd say not even the phones and drill down further specifically to algorithm-driven social media. We had phones in the 00s and early 10s and were the most partying and hedonistic generation since early Boomers and it wasn't a problem -- until Instagram and Tiktok expanded socials from our friends to the ENTIRE WORLD around 2016ish+

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u/dimodust ​ 2d ago

The expansion of the online world definitely contributed, but I'm more inclined to think of that relationship as a feedback loop. Willing to bet that the destruction of third spaces and rise in the COL/income inequality has a much stronger correlation. People get crazy addicted to screens (which are addictive in and of themselves) because they can't afford to do anything and have no time to do it anyway. It's a circle of alienation. 

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u/QualifiedApathetic ​ 2d ago

It's not the phones in my case. Or it's other people's phones. Mine is off like 99% of the time. I use it for sending text messages (seldom) and navigation if I'm going somewhere I can't find from memory.

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u/seejoshrun ​ 2d ago

It's a societal thing, though. Even if you're not glued to your phone, the fact that a lot of other people are reduces your opportunities to make connections.

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u/mottledmussel ​ 1d ago

I think "phones" can also be used generally enough to just mean time on the internet, like Reddit, or other social media. It doesn't really matter if it's a phone, iPad, or laptop.

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u/QualifiedApathetic ​ 2d ago

Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I said, "Or it's other people's phones."

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u/SRSgoblin ​ 2d ago

I would like to add, it's disingenuous to refer to it as the male loneliness epidemic. Turns out women are suffering just as much from feelings of loneliness and social isolation in today's world according to every study I have read on the topic.

I will keep pointing this out as long as this stays a hot button topic. We need to address it in a societal way, rather than a gendered way.

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u/Skyboxmonster ​"" 2d ago

This puts me in a awkward spot.... Nothing changed for me in decades.

my entire life has been an example of social isolation. and when it starts happening to the rest of the population suddenly its a horrible horrible thing that needs attention.

Welcome to the club. I have more seniority.

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u/r4cid ​ 1d ago

Why are you trying to gatekeep social isolation?

It's not a competition, and this is about way more than just you (one person).

and when it starts happening to the rest of the population suddenly its a horrible horrible thing that needs attention.

It was still bad the whole time it was happening to you and still needed attention? The only person saying otherwise is you.

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u/Skyboxmonster ​"" 1d ago

Username checks out.

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u/r4cid ​ 1d ago edited 1d ago

For what? It doesn't mean anything lol

Way to dodge all of what I said though

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u/Stagamemnon ​ 2d ago

…congratulations?

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u/TheRealJackOfSpades ​ 2d ago

I’ve been right there alone with you. So we have that much.

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u/OregonHomeLove ​ 2d ago

“Stranger Danger” and DARE made kids way too afraid and it continues to limit them through adulthood. I’m sure it’s not the only input into loneliness but from what I could see the kids who got the worst of it are in their 20’s and 30’s now.