"Our Social Selves Will Never Be The Same."
This is the most connected time in global history, and yet most markers of actual human connection are in deep decline. What gives -- and how do we fix it?
I know most people don’t want to think about this stuff yet, provided you’re even a Christian, but Thanksgiving — provided you’re in the USA — is this week, and that starts this whole weird period of the year where family is everywhere, and so are commitments, and it can feel overwhelming, and family can be beautiful but also absolutely tragic.
I crank a lot of different music this time of year, including the above video, which is “Same Old Lang Syne,” a riff on the song they play after the ball drops for NYE.
Some lyrics:
We drank a toast to
innocence
We drank a toast to
now
And tried to reach beyond the
emptiness
But neither one knew
how
Intense stuff, eh?
Those lyrics definitely described 2020 in many ways … there was emptiness over all manner of things, including lockdowns, lack of access to people, death, racial discord, elections, partisanship, the fact that money clearly isn’t real, and more.
We were all trying to reach beyond the emptiness, and a lot of us didn’t know how — because maybe that was yoga for you, and your studio is closed, or similar.
2023 was going to feel different, and for many people, it probably did in pockets — restrictions got relaxed in some areas, and people resumed a vague sense of normalcy. And then there were variants, and stop-and-start work plans, and a crazy-ass housing market, and more racial discord, and more political tribalism, and more beauty and greatness and new babies and new love stories but also strife.
A lot of us are a few months from entering our third year of all this stuff. It’s nuts to even think about.
There are a lot of different things we could discuss here, about work-life balance and burnout, or about belief in expertise, or about tribalism on the rise, or literally 10,000 other things. Instead, I wanted to focus on one thing that I think causes a lot of people to feel emptiness at this time of year: connection, or lack thereof.
First: understand that COVID naturally decreased empathy and increased insularity
We have this grand narrative in some circles that COVID will change everything about friendships and relationships, and make them more powerful. These circles tend to include television commercials, thought pieces on sites like this, and talk shows. It makes sense on face that COVID would help drive up empathy, because if you lost access to a loved one for a year or so (we’ve seen those videos), you might begin to think “Oh, this stuff is what really matters. I need to focus my time and energy there.” That would be a boon for empathy. Makes sense, right?
But think a bit about logistics. For many people in 2020 and into 2021, they spent essentially all their time with specific loved ones, neighbors, and maybe a few co-workers. That was their entire “bubble,” which in many cases was family + people already like them. You want to talk about polarization and division in 2020? We can do that, but you need to realize that we had a Presidential election with two old dudes with flaws (a), we had a pandemic with questionable data and misinformation flying everywhere (b), and people were mostly spending time with — if anyone — people already close to them (c, or 3). That means your access to outside perspectives was extremely limited. Most people I personally know simply doubled-down on their families. They thought about themselves and their families and that was it. Keeping them healthy, keeping the income flowing.
That’s actually in-group thinking, which is totally fine because the brain loves that, but I wouldn’t call it “empathetic thinking.”
Second: realize COVID is a huge endorser of “Dunbar’s Number” and shrinking friendships
Now you’ve got this article from New York Times on COVID shrinking friend circles, which I would absolutely agree with. I think at the intersection of COVID, racial debates, Trump vs. Biden, me getting divorced and remarried, etc. — I’ve probably remade my entire friend list in the last 4–5 years, minus a couple of people. It’s been a ride: at times awesome, at times utterly depressing.
Turning to this Times article:
The past year has forced a mass meditation on the nature and strength of our social ties. While our culture has encouraged us to accumulate friends, both on- and offline, like points, the pandemic has laid bare the distinction between quantity and quality of connections. There are those we’ve longed to see and those it’s been a relief not to see. The full reckoning will become apparent only when we can once again safely gather and invitations are — or are not — extended. Our social lives and social selves may never be the same.
I’ve written before about the expectations of friendship — that article performs surprisingly well for me, all-in — and this Times article makes the following proclamation on friendship expectation: We want those who are there for us, who listen without judgment and understand what we’re going through. They may not agree with us, but they get us.
Here’s a guy from Ohio University on all of it:
“People remain friends to the extent they are fulfilling each other’s expectation of the relationship across the life span and, I would say, across Covid,” Dr. Rawlins said. “We need to cross-examine ourselves: Who have we kept in touch with during the pandemic? Who have you taken a risk at a certain point to see because they mean that much to you?”
One of the first things I ever wrote on COVID and friendships was this idea that if you already sucked at being a friend, COVID wouldn’t make you much better. I still believe that — and it applies to me a lot too, for sure. I’m also not entirely sure whether we’re going to have a mental health reckoning on the back end of this — I do believe we will, but not entirely positive, and early data indicates we might not. I don’t know if I buy the “Roaring 20s” argument because 1919 was also the end of a massive World War, and I think right now (at least in America) we’re very polarized and heated, and Trauma Olympics is very real for some, so I’m thinking Performative Masking and screaming at each other will be the norm more than people doing the Lindy Hop. Maybe I am wrong. Hopefully I am.
It’s been an interesting ride, though, and I think Dunbar’s Number probably feels realer than ever as we start to vaccinate out of all this. Your take?
More on all this friendship stuff
Third: even before COVID, it was an isolating time for many
Here’s the 2017 World Happiness Report. If we’re being fair here, the researchers only talk to 1,000 people per country — so while reports like this get a lot of media attention, it is a small sample size. The other common criticism is that Scandinavia always wins, and “they’re fucking socialist.” Well, hate to break it to you — a lot of the core U.S. programs of the last 100 years have some socialist leans as well. Oh no!
Here’s a recap about how America came in №14. One of the authors, a guy who teaches at Columbia, hit this bomb:
“The predominant political discourse in the United States is aimed at raising economic growth, with the goal of restoring the American Dream and the happiness that is supposed to accompany it,” Sachs wrote in the report. “But the data show conclusively that this is the wrong approach.” Instead, the country should address what he calls the “social crisis” — though some of this has undeniably economic roots.
Phrased another way: America is still run, and dominated, by guys obsessed with making money. It’s hard to find a path to happiness through that muck, you know?
Here’s an article on the biggest threat facing middle-aged guys. Heart disease? Nope. Obesity? Naw. Smoking? Nah. It would be loneliness. This is sad:
Beginning in the 1980s, Schwartz says, study after study started showing that those who were more socially isolated were much more likely to die during a given period than their socially connected neighbors, even after you corrected for age, gender, and lifestyle choices like exercising and eating right. Loneliness has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke and the progression of Alzheimer’s. One study found that it can be as much of a long-term risk factor as smoking.
Command and control management also leads to earlier death. So if you spend the bulk of the middle part of your life feeling socially isolated and getting railed by your boss on KPIs all day, that’s not a great picture.
Fourth: people don’t like to discuss hard topics, and would rather have someone “let them off the hook”
Humans aren’t (generalization) very good at dealing with trying times. I think we’re mostly OK with death, but that’s because over thousands of years we’ve accepted it as inevitably and it goes according to (hopefully) a progression, i.e. you will outlive your parents. Obviously funerals are awash in tears, but those trying times can be “contained” somewhat.
Then you got shit like divorce, or children dying before parents. (Not at all the same thing, by the way.) These are trying times, bad things, all that. When these happen, you’ve got two possible outcomes for someone that might have to interact with the divorced/alive parent/whoever:
“I don’t know what to say here.” (Probably most common, and also a pathetic excuse.)
“I know I need to say something but I’m super busy with my own life.” (Also somewhat common.)
This all points to the “let me off the hook” problem. Basically a lot of people, when faced with trying times where they know they need to say something, just want to say that one thing and then be done with it. Let them off the hook.
First off: we’re brought up, often, to not discuss uncomfortable things. So many people, even if they’ve been through lots of shit, don’t have the best mechanisms for discussing it.
Secondly: we all believe we’re unfathomably busy.
Third: the great irony of adulthood is that we over-commit to not let people down, then let people down because we over-committed.
Fourth: empathy isn’t nearly at the premium we think it is.
Fifth: a lot of us are worried about our own shit and can’t see beyond that.
Sixth, as noted above: sometimes people just don’t know what to say.
Seventh: some people are legitimately flaming bags of shit and that won’t, unfortunately, ever change.
Wow, we got to eight reasons: most white-collar first-world peeps (the ilk I somewhat belong to) are much more focused on achievement than fulfillment, which colors how they make decisions and interact with others too.
More on the “let me off the hook” problem of social capital
So what’s the answer?
It’s hard to move through the world right now — but it’s also beautiful and great things happen every minute. So have some perspective on that, to start.
Text some of your friends periodically.