The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic—Asterisk

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I think what’s happening is that the ways in which we do community and friendships are changing as technology advances. We make our tools and — as usual — our tools remake us. Those who get left behind as the world moves on insist that we are changing for the worse, but I don’t believe it.

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Yeah, the kids are alright.

I, too, am not too sure that the ones who lived through the transition will fare as well, though.

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I can’t speak for anybody else, but I mean to fare as well as I can. If the world is going to move on, I mean to move on with it, to adapt and understand the new zeitgeist to the extent that I can bear to do so.

After all, what’s the alternative? If the world seems empty to me, and it seems there’s nothing for me there any longer? Unlike Anne Rice’s romantic vampires, I can’t just go underground and wait it out, dead but dreaming until something impels me to rise again from the grave. I must instead, as Rice’s vampire Lestat put it, suffer through the emptiness and find what compels me to continue.

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I think you’re right that technology is driving this loneliness epidemic rhetoric, especially outrage-driven algorithmic social media platforms. However, I also do think there just are a lot of lonely people, I don’t know if it’s unique to the present moment, but we Americans work too much, live in cities that require cars to get anywhere, and have our third spaces gated behind a paywall, so it wouldn’t be surprising that Americans feel particularly lonely.

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I think most of our third places have always been paywalled, but until relatively recently that wasn’t a problem. But we work too damn hard for too many hours, get paid too damn little, and pay too damn much in taxes on what wages we do earn.

And, frankly, given the price of alcohol I find it’s cheaper to drink at home. I can get a bottle of Bacardi for the price of a mixed drink, and if I’ve already got fruit in the freezer I can get lots of fruity drinks out of that bottle of rum. I could invite friends over to drink, but then I’d have to make sure they don’t drive home, so it’s less of a pain in the ass to drink alone. :)

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