I find it fun that alcohol increases DNA methylation, but we find now that having a rich social life decreases it. If you need any other reason to see the societal fitness of societal lubricants. I've cut way back into "maybe one once in a while" territory, but I also have regular social interactions with exactly two toddlers and one wife and that's about it.
I've never been to AA, but I'm told it's the cues that get you, and I do admit the memories of beers + guitar hero or other such nonsense from old days is exactly what I want every time I open a beer.
It's like that old rat experiment, where they gave them cocaine or heroine laced water + regular water, and they always preferred the the drugs, until there was a rich social life / environment, at which point they rarely did.
Socializing is powerful stuff if you can find enough time to build up enough trust to just have a heap of fun for a few hours. I swear a side-splitting laugh fest adds years to your life. When is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you couldn't breathe?
It’s not the cues that get you. That is an idea promoted largely by treatment centers and the rehab industry, who need to be able to plausibly claim they are teaching their customers how to avoid relapse. I’m a recovered alcoholic and I can assure you, my “cue” for drinking was being alive and awake at the same time.
Your reaction is a sane and normal one: you remember a good time, and you have some inkling to recreate it. Certainly. And to most people that makes sense. But alcoholics are different from most people, and their understanding that is an essential first step to recovery.
Totally understand. With any luck, you and I have played two sides of a dialogue that’ll be read by someone else, for whom it might be quite useful. For that I thank you.
Most folks aren't alcoholics. Maybe they did some beer shotgunning in college, but stopped. Heck, I've known folks that came out of combat, hooked on opiates, and quit.
If you are one, though, there's nothing gonna keep you from the drink, except total abstinence, and some kind of structure (AA, NA, Church, Martial Arts, etc.).
I'm a recovering addict (over 45 years), and participate in Fellowship. Gives me tremendous socialization.
Don't you just mean social activities? You don't need to accept metaphysical dogmas or engage in scheduled physical combat with other people to socialize.
Well, just speaking for myself, socialization is the least of the benefits of the structure I follow. That socialization is also incredibly deep. It's not your usual Kiwanis Club.
I have learned that addicts (and alcoholics are just alcohol addicts), need a lot more than just "socialization."
Most folks have no idea how to address true addiction.
Well, they have "ideas," but very few are at all effective.
> "The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."
> "There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken
I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, but I know one that works for me, and I have seen a lot of people fail; often, spectacularly. It really is one of those "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand." things.
You mentioned church, so I assume you mean rituals or activities based on the religion of Christianity, what exactly is deep about those rituals or activities? You also mention true addiction, do you mean physical addiction (as opposed to psychological)? Also, regarding what addicts need, are you not just extrapolating based on your experience? It is certainly possible that what worked for you won't work on everyone else
Eh, I think we’re reaching that wall, where folks have their minds made up, and won’t accept conflicting information. There’s a ton of that, in addiction treatment.
> You also mention true addiction, do you mean physical addiction (as opposed to psychological)?
True addiction has nothing to do with physical dependence. That’s actually a by-product of addiction. It’s entirely possible to be an addict, without ever becoming physically dependent, and also, you can become physically dependent, without becoming an addict. That happens frequently, in pain management.
But a lot of folks have their minds already set in stone, here. Lots of moralizing and theories get tossed around, while addicts die, and destroy the lives of others.
I’m not going to try explaining it here. I’ve been at this, longer than many folks have been alive, and am quite aware of the futility of trying to graft new ideas onto closed minds. I’m really too busy, helping folks out, that want it.
> It is certainly possible that what worked for you won't work on everyone else
Absolutely, but it has worked for millions, so it does have some effectiveness.
Sure, it's simple, but it's extremely psychologically taxing. No surprise people rely so much on alcohol.
I personally find alcohol to be vastly overrated for removing inhibitions. A few drinks and I'm still as tightly wound as ever. A lot of drinks and I end up having all sorts of unpleasant bodily effects instead.
Could you give some specifics? For example, does this look like repeatedly trying things that make you a bit uncomfortable, and CBTing when you have those uncomfortable feelings? Is it helpful to do this with people you already feel safe around?
> When is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you couldn't breathe?
2 weeks ago in Oaxaca with some friends. We were at dinner and one (a guy) mentioned the Mormon purity defying practice of soaking which sparked confusion from the other (a girl). So he explained it in Mandarin so the others in the restaurant wouldn’t understand. It’s not a language I speak but watching her face told me everything I needed to know.
Damn dude, I (truly) feel for you. It's increasingly rare for me too, but it's so healing. If you're comfortable sharing, whereabouts do you live? What are your political inclinations? (The latter I ask because it radically influences what you find funny, not because it matters otherwise).
With no context, I highly recommend finding a comedy club near you and having a few drinks. It might take several attempts though so don't give up
I wish I had friends, but I also wish I had a Ferrari, the latter one might be reachable within my lifetime if I work hard for it.
Wait, with a budget of €100 000 I could actually get some second-hand old shitty Ferrari. That's... surprisingly affordable. I mean buying this shit right now would be highly irresponsible, but I can see myself potentially buying one in far future.
I just checked Lamborghini Murciélago, the dream sportscar of my childhood, and it goes for like €300 000. Hmmm... that's like, a lot of money for what is basically a toy, but if I really really really wanted that, it would be achievable within my lifetime without completely ruining me financially.
I get a good chuckle out of these articles. “Here’s another thing I lack that was supposed to make me live longer!”
Speaking of living longer: I’ve had my fill of fast cars already, but how about an airplane? I watched some guys fly Piper Cubs in Alaska. That looked fun as hell. https://youtu.be/XXuIA_b35fs
Perhaps I’ll buy one of those. They aren’t so expensive.
> Maybe it’s because the delta between say, a 911 and a racecar is smaller than that between a civilian prop plane and a fighter jet?
For me it'd be more because the first three are pastimes, the fourth one is a job.
You don't get to own a fighter jet and fly it around the world doing stunts or taking in sights just because you can; you can't take your friends or loved ones with you either. You are granted the right to fly an expensive piece of government property, whose operating costs can be counted in average taxpayer's annual income tax per hour. You fly where you're told, when you're told, how you're told. The point it gets most exciting, the point where you are granted most authority over your mission, is the point where you're shooting at someone or being shot at.
The movies make it look like all four things you mentioned are fundamentally the same in terms of feelings of freedom. It's not the only case. Adult me got disillusioned about a lot of career paths I dreamed of as a kid :(.
I'm getting more and more interested in cars actually. But I don't care about specs, it's more about appreciation of the looks. Some designs can be beautiful.
I've definitely become a fuck-cars car enthusiast in my late 20s, if that makes sense lol
In that I still love (classic) cars, I still love (sim) racing, at the same time that I absolutely despise car-centric infrastructure and urbanism as one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century.
It used to be fashionable to collectively buy boats and vacation homes and other shit. Turns out, having a shared expensive thing quickly leads to disagreements.
> Turns out, having a shared expensive thing quickly leads to disagreements.
In this case, I'm guessing the first minor bit of body damage [gravel, whatever] or consumable replacements [tires, brakes, etc]. Ignoring the financial pressure/means aspect, preferences are what they are. Tire pressure, cleanliness, or what-have-you.
Personally, I wouldn't buy a Lamborghini without breaking it/rebuilding several times over. Fancy car, want to see what it really has. Other people? Baby it to no end because it's so precious. They got a date tonight.
All this to say: an old rustbox [or several] is probably the better group project. What little I knew of my Dad: demo derby, sounded great.
There are criticisms of it, some of which are in the criticisms section of the Wikipedia article, and look to be valid.
I never liked when people talked about debunking an experiment that was honestly done and just needed refutation or at least correction. If researchers publish research that was honestly done and then later found to have statistical flaws, or that is disproved with a larger sample size or whatever, I wouldn’t say it had been debunked. I’d say it was refuted or corrected or refined or whatever. If it was a “research” study where the group publishing it knew is was junk designed to promote an agenda or sell a product, then the term debunked is fair.
It's all fair. All studies are flawed but some are useful. As a paradigm shift for addiction I could see it being less than a home run. As a statement about happiness it's all well and good if for no other reason than an analogy and potential positive finding.
Do scientists just randomly publish obvious nonsense now?
The causation is obviously in the other direction: Healthy people socialize more.
Proposing the inverted causation, without even examining the alternative is ridiculous. This is just trash science.
Having a correlational result and using it to pretend that one has to cause the other with absolutely no mechanism is not science, it is reading tea leaves.
A healthy person has more opportunities and more abilities to engage in social activities. The less healthy a person becomes the rarer those opportunities become. Basically every single health condition, especially the most common ones like obesity, make it harder for people to engage in social activity.
The alternative explanation is pretty simple and does not require some magical mechanism whereby social interactions are somehow causing your body to age slower.
Exactly right. I doubt we can get to causation unless we conduct proper long term experiment instead of just looking at correlations and assuming causation goes one way.
The study says social bonds are associated with lower inflammation. It's well documented that inflammation causes anxiety and depression. How does this affect one's social activity? Negatively, the mechanism is very clear - you don't socialize if you are depressed and anxious. And somehow they assume the reverse casual relationship without explaining the mechanism for it.
I wonder what fraction of people today have literally no friends (perhaps this could be examined using a questionnaire and points system to determine who counts as a real friend vs mere acquaintance). The number of people with "zero" must surely be rising, especially among the young.
I think it's more about the concept of mental isolation than some magic hard number of "friends" (whatever way you define it). You can have 100 close friends that you regularly talk to and hang out with in your free time and still have noone to talk to regarding certain issues. Speeking from a military/PTSD perspective, a single person who you might not even share that much with but who you can talk to about a particularly traumatic thing might be worth more than all close friends and family in the world. Because they will never understand what you really feel like since none of them have experienced it.
It's a real test of how real a friendship is. There are lots of people who enjoy spending time together, talking, laughing, remembering the good times, everything's great. But start to open up about some real trauma and you will drive 90% of them away.
They dont have tools, dont know what to do. But more importantly, someone who was in the same situation or did not studied it a lot is simply incapable to truly understand. They can nod, listen, validate, but wont be able to puzzle out half said things, badly expressed things. They won't be able to see logical consequences of what you talk about unless you point them out.
Meanwhile, someone with the same experience, even if not friend, will be able to understand much more and more easily.
It is not so much about some moral or relational failure on their side, it is simply that it is impossible to imagine feelings and situations you never had.
Varies by friend. Some are open to it, others not so much. In general I've found that talking about trauma with friends isn't very useful even if they are willing to engage.
As someone in this group, I think there are a surprising number of middle aged people without any friends. If you move or lose your friend group (or never had one) it seems harder than ever to find friends.
I wouldn't call myself middle age (though I'm not THAT far off, and past middle age for men in my family), but I'd agree and say I could count my total friends on a single finger, and I really don't even like him that much... and he knows it, and probably feels the same.
Acquaintances, though, I have many. Many of I talk to regularly, but would never consider them a friend, because well, I know almost nothing personal about them. A former boss that I meet up with anytime we are in the same city for dinner and drinks, I've known for nearly 20 years, but I don't know his wife's name, I know he has 4 kids, and I've met them all in passing, but no clue what their names are, etc.
Maybe I'm weird, and maybe I'm a bit lonely, and maybe it has taken a couple decades to realize I squandered all of my in-build friends from childhood, but I'm not sure I'd do it differently. I've had a semi-successful life, and most of my high school friends still live in their hometown, have dead-end manual labor jobs, or have died/disappeared from drug use.
Therapy tells me I pre-reject friendship so friendship doesn't reject me, and I agree with it, but don't feel like changing the pattern.
> I pre-reject friendship so friendship doesn't reject me
LOL that would describe me perfectly as well I think. I have not had "close" friends since I was in my early 20s. Then everyone moved away and we all started our separate lives.
The next group of friends came along when I had kids, and parents naturally became friendly because we would see each other at kids activities, sports, etc.
Then the kids grew up, and there was nothing bringing that group of people together anymore. I still see and talk to one or two of them but it's pretty infrequent.
Now, the idea of maintaining a real, close friendship just sounds like too much work. I'm happy enough just living my life on my terms.
Most friendships are just formed of the people we see regularly due to circumstance. They may be pleasant but they are not deep, and they will fall apart as soon as circumstances change.
That was true for me, I moved 15 years ago and my friend group went to zero practically overnight, never recovered. Now middle aged and don't even have many acquaintances. I do, however, have a few somewhat problematic family members and relatives, more in that category than I would like.
Its not great but also not a huge problem - I believe now I have some amount of Schizotypal personality spectrum, and have all my life, though I never admit that to most people IRL since the label freaks people out.
Friends come from having opportunities for interaction with people. People take that for granted though early in life when they are essentially forced into these situations through schooling, but after completing that don't give themselves such opportunities any longer. If you find yourself without friends in middle age, evaluate your own time. Are there opportunities in your life to speak to others? Taking up hobbies where you have a chance of interacting with others is a great way to make friends.
In other words, friends won't drop into your lap. You have to go where fish are actually biting and cast out your line.
Having a kid caused me to lose my friend group. Everyone else is childless and don't understand the difficulty of making certain plans or don't care I guess. Though people tell me I'll make new ones soon through kid activities.
Have you tried going to a church or a country club or a bar? There is also a find friends option on most dating apps. I really wish that you’d find at least one friend. If you’re in Toronto I could meet up with you at a cafe or a pub.
It also depends on what exactly you count as “real friends”. If you set the standard just a little bit high, many people only have their family, or not even that. And you can have friends and still feel alone.
no, the reverse is that a real friend would confront you and help you correct what he thinks is a mistake, or at least discuss it to understand why, instead of canceling the friendship and worse stabbing you in the back.
if they can't confront someone for what they think is a mistake, then it's them who have no backbone, and potentially also the enabler, because you can't change someones behavior by walking away from them.
This is my main concern. At 46 i’m in excellent physical condition, do well financially and am incredibly lucky to have the wife and kids that I do. I really want to live for another 200 years.
I just have absolutely zero friends or interactions with people who aren’t my wife and kids. Haven’t for probably 15 years now. I work remotely and 99% of the people I work with are offshore so very little overlap in work times. So the occasional teams message on a group channel is it. No friends or even acquaintances. I occasionally find myself craving the little notification icon on X to let me know some stranger liked my post. I recognize that this is not optimal.
The gym is essentially my hobby but max interaction is the occasional fist bump or head nod. I spend 90 minutes there 6 days a week.
Its to the point where other people aren’t even real to me anymore, I can go literally months without a real life conversation.
Not complaining but it does worry me from the longevity aspect
Definitely tougher to make and maintain friend relationships at this age. Most of my group comes from church but think about other social settings or clubs that might provide opportunities to make connections.
The other suggestion is to not worry about who initiates what. I make it a habit of reaching out to people and don’t mind if I am the one doing so the majority of the time. It is so easy, for me at least, to fall into the trap of keeping track to make sure the people “care enough”.
Hope that helps and hopefully my entirely unasked for advice wasn’t inappropriate. Only responding because I am a similar age and struggled with the same.
In my 30s, church became my only source of friends and acquaintances. However even then, I only made two “true” friends I still meet up with outside of church. Three, if I count my wife who I consider my best friend :)
The rest seemed like friends while we attended the same church, but quickly vanished as soon as we left (the particular church, not the faith). Maybe more of those relationships could have been nurtured to last if given more effort, but as both my wife and I are introverts, it wasn’t easy.
I’m in my early 40s now. We still attend church, but we find the whole social aspect of it draining. We attend worship…then go home.
Yeah, I hear that. Similar experience. I think that is probably to expected though. I guess I am ok at this stage in life with a couple “true” friends. I am probably two ahead of most my age.
I think that's the thing, so many friends are situational friends. Wife had a couple she made us hang out with because our sons were friends. Suddenly sons aren't friends anymore so we no longer hang out. Not mad at them, totally get it.
I think perhaps remote work, modern living (such as entertainment on demand) takes many people out of those situations and that drives the loneliness epidemic.
Humans are social animals, and if I’m being pretty reductionist this paper states “being social is healthy for social animals. Being healthy means longer life spans”.
So not too much of a surprise there.
Edit: still valuable to do research even to confirm whatever seems to follow logically. Not trying to discredit that!
I am neither social nor an animal. What exactly is the mechanism of action, what is it about going to church or whatever that decreases this nasty interleukin-6? And how can carried out most minimally, or made into pills?
Animal from the muppets is an animal. Animal from the Anti-Nowhere League is an animal. But the Elephant Man was not an animal, and neither am I. Moderation rules prohibit me from showing you how social I'm not.
My friends are objectively bad for my health vs. how well I take care of myself without their influences.
What I suspect is common WRT these studies is lonely people become self-destructive, reaching for stuff like alcohol and/or comfort eating, i.e. harmful substitutes for relationships they miss.
But I don't really have those issues. I can be super content spending most time solitary with regular impersonal interactions at cafes and grocery stores. Just having a modicum of peaceful sharing of space with others tops up my socializing needs, beyond that it's fast into diminishing returns territory.
- extremely introverted person who never developed a dependence on others for self-worth and/or happiness
What I sometimes wonder about these studies is whether we have established causation. Is it that socializing makes people healthier or do healthy people socialize more?
From reading this it seems to me there is a wide gap between what happens at the molecular level and the social level, and they are very eager to jump it?
Anecdotally I agree with the message, but the research looks weak indeed.
A simple snapshot assessment and some scoring of an individual's (entire, self-reported!) social life is too simplistic. The measurements would have to be performed throughout the life of each participant with sufficiently high frequency.
For what it's worth, the dataset they used does in fact have measurements spanning 30 years of adulthood, and similar papers from that dataset leveraging the longitudinal data have found similar conclusions.
Why it happens is less clear. It could be stress effects, or it could be something like people with more social support are more likely to get help going in for preventative care etc.
Social ties correlate with all kinds of beneficial traits, outcomes and privileges, in a very complex and bidirectional causal relation: sociable people have much better economic and career prospects, healthy middle class people have the opportunity, time and resources to engage in social activities, raising a family is a high energy activity not everybody can afford that basically "generates" a substantial web of social links, which in turn support the person in their gray years, and so on and so forth.
So the finding here is that healthy, wealthy people with a support network age just like healthy, wealthy people with a support network.
> All models adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic variables selected a priori for their potential to confound associations between CSA and biological aging indicators. Covariates included age (in years), sex (male vs. female), race/ethnicity (White, Black, Other), educational attainment (12-point ordinal scale), and log-transformed current household income (USD). These variables were treated as exogenous predictors—assumed to temporally precede both CSA and biological outcomes—and were included to block potential backdoor paths and minimize bias.
> [...]
> Educational attainment and income reflect stratified access to material and psychosocial resources that affect both health behavior and biological risk processes (Adler and Newman, 2002). Treating these covariates as exogenous minimizes bias due to confounding while avoiding over-adjustment for potential mediators or introducing collider bias (Schisterman et al., 2009).
from a certain perspective, they've found that if I tell you nothing more about a person than their lab test results on some biomarkers, you can make a better-than-random educated guess about how much social connection they have in their lives.
that's kind of interesting, though very far from the causal claims in the university press release.
> Covariates. All models adjusted for ... age, sex, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and log-transformed current household income.
Let's look at something else which wasn't controlled for at all: doing physical activities.
People who, for example, run every week or bike every week often do so because they have a group of friends who also does that, and doing such a physical activity also builds friendships better than not doing such activities.
Perhaps exercising is both correlated with health and with building groups of friends.
Or perhaps exercising is correlated with being attractive, and being attractive is correlated with building social connections.
... I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this study shows correlation only, and there are so many confounding factors I consider it pretty tenuous.
That could be a factor, though 1) the study found no correlation with cortisol levels which is affected by exercise, and 2) income and education are highly correlated with physical activity levels already, so wouldn’t put too much hope on that.
I think the clear implication of the phrase "healthy aging" is a lower-than-average rate of deterioration with respect to increasing years on earth.
It's like, you actually can describe one of two burgers as "healthier" even though they're both unhealthy. One is just less harmful. It's a valid use of language.
They need to cancel out the whole human civilisation as a confounding factor in order to conclude something useful. Linking genetic and social factors is something I cannot decide to laugh or amaze.
I don't really see what you mean? It's well known and widely accepted that environmental factors influence gene expression. Social factors are a very large part of our environment.
I wish these studies would dive deeper into the mechanisms that prompt healthy aging, rather than just saying "social ties".
The few that come to mind are laughter, stress, exercise, and cognitive engagement.
It might be interesting to see if diet changes as a result of social ties as well. We can make an educated guess that stronger social ties means less time eating alone.
All of those things were true thirty years ago (car-centric society, inequality, etc.) and yet loneliness wasn't as bad.
I think technology is almost certainly more to blame here. Endless online entertainment, social media, dating apps, etc. have all erased in-person social lives.
The essay “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital” which touched on many of the GP poster’s points, came out in 1995. This has been happening for a long time. The pandemic just made it a lot worse.
Lots of Western European countries have phones too. It took time to get where we are, eg for rents/mortgages/college to outpace wages enough to seriously impact work-life balance.
I blame the fact that nowadays it's possible to live your entire life comfortably in solitude. People used to form relationships not out of pleasure, but out of necessity - it was impossible to farm land without family, and even in a city it was difficult to get shit done without at least some connections with neighbors and such. Once this necessity disappeared because most services started to function perfectly, so did social connections.
His arguments is that people who voted for Trump made decision to destroy "social fabric". Which is true, it was vote with the hope harm will be done to liberals, trans, low level goverment workers they hate.
It is not argument about loss of personal friendship, but about values those Americans have. And those values do not have space for social fabric other then domination over "other".
> It is not argument about loss of personal friendship, but about values those Americans have.
They're quite linked, eg after 1954 Brown vs Board of Education, many cities closed all kinds of meeting grounds like pools, libraries, schools, parks, playgrounds etc to prevent desegregation. Loss of such places contributes to loneliness. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America.
We respect everyone's right to their own religious (and indeed, ideological) convictions, but please don't invoke religion in order to make ideological arguments here. You've been doing it repeatedly, and it's not what HN is for.
I do appreciate you looking out for the community. It's a strange rule for you to say a person's worldview can't be included in comments about how to live, effects of worldview's on society, and so on. Especially when the topic is community's effect on health with the parent comment exploring how our worldview drives our prioritization:
"Car-centric lifestyle, few third places, low work-life balance, high and increasing inequality, underdeveloped social safety net, employer-tied social benefits, etc all tied together with American individualism. If we want prosocial, community-oriented behavior, we have to actually prioritize it."
Either supporting a connected, loving society or responding to that comment requires a foundational justification for it. I noted that popular philosophies encourage selfishness, disconnects, anxiety, depression, and hate. Whereas, the older worldview, the Bible, produced individuals with more peace, work ethic, stable families with decades-long marriages, Western democracy (eg the Constitution), and so on. Solving the problem requires building on the right foundation (eg Christ & the truth).
You mention you respect all's religious convictions with some censorship apparently but all claims shouldn't be treated the same. Jesus lives perfectly, works miracles, raises from the dead, and has biographical evidence approaching Julius Caeser. Then, His Gospel impacts 4,000 people groups with all of them reporting life transformations and miracles. Countries founded on Judeo-Christian principles turn out to be the best ones to live in with the most freedoms while the atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu countries still jail or kill those disagreeing with them. Scientific discoveries actually confirmed the Bible more, too.
Whatever has strong evidence with high, global impact should always be allowed:
The biggest issues, though, is we will all face the Lord Jesus Christ during Judgement Day. He promised every knee will bow, some willingly and others fearfully. He will render to each for their works, from day to day life up to moderation or lawmaking decisions. Our whole life might be replayed second by second with Him asking if each decision prioritized our God, His character, His truths, and love for others.
So, we have to answer questions like "why have a lifetime of social ties? with God both designed us for and commanded us to love others as ourselves. Also, to bring them into fellowship with Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins, into the Church which is like a family, help with their earthly needs, and God uses them to do the same. It multiplies starting with hearing the Gospel and His truths. Jesus said "blessed are those who are not offended by me" so please don't be and please allow God's truths on Hacker News.
> Countries founded on Judeo-Christian principles turn out to be the best ones to live in with the most freedoms while the atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu countries still jail or kill those disagreeing with them. Scientific discoveries actually confirmed the Bible more, too.
This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that's unacceptable on HN. It breaks these guidelines:
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
It's a long-established norm on HN that it's not acceptable to wage battle or engage in debate on the grounds of nationality or religion:
It's just HN's form of the age-old dinner-party principle. When we're trying to have an interesting discussion and someone makes an argument on the basis of the superiority of a nation or religion (or race or any other identity), it causes offence in people who don't belong to the identities that are asserted to be superior, which can lead to heated arguments, or at least discomfort, and makes everyone want to quickly leave the dinner and go home.
I was raised in a Christian family, and I have respect for Christian teachings and those who have faith. We need you to show the same respect for this community that you would expect people to extend towards your faith, by respecting the guidelines and the community's norms.
On HN we're just trying to have a healthy discussion, and the introduction of arguments based in the superiority of any religion's teachings are well known to take discussions in an unhealthy direction, so we need you to stop doing it please. The same principle applies to any religious belief, ideology or other worldview, including atheism. This is not a place for evangelism or activism, it's a place for curious conversation.
I suspect that HN's rationale is far less the basis of a worldview than that citing a (mainstream, contemporary) religious foundation is a red flag to the HN commentaritat's bull, and will shift the discussion from the site's prime aims of "intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation":
Dang's post cites politics, which though worthy of (some) discussion also tends the same way.
Mind too that the result need not be intentional, it's just how a public-discussion site, even a comparatively well-mannered and well-behaved one such as HN, works.
Section 2 and 3 of the study[1] go deep into their analysis methods, you’ll need something a bit more solid than “I’ve read about correlation vs causation once” to counter it.
The journal mentioned in the article (Brain, Behavior and Immunity - Health) has a few submissions related to this topic, like the one that examines CRP levels and social media use: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37224891/
Hah, true. I guess it also shows the difference between social drinking and only hanging on the bottle by yourself.
(Though for the "blue zones", I've read some suspicions that the true secret of them is plain old corruption - with some of the "supercentenarians" having died long ago and only living on in the records, so family, friends or complicit buerocrats can collect their pensions. Not sure if this is widespread enough to explain the entire effect though)
Yeah, and to make matters funnier the Seventh Day Adventists bought the brand and added themselves to the list.
But… there is one thing that seems to hold up. One of Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed diets came to these enclaves and displaced traditional diets, incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease has spiked. That’s real.
I bet we could measure a parallel effect on social media displacing real social activity wherever it goes.
> But… there is one thing that seems to hold up. One of Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed diets came to these enclaves and displaced traditional diets, incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease has spiked. That’s real.
Yeah, no disagreement here. It would be a miracle if a food that is designed and produced with the only intention to have people eat as much of it as possible had no bad consequences. That's before all the biological evidence we have.
The processed food/obesity debate seems similar to me to the climate debate. The evidence is well-researched and mostly very clear and most of the "debate" around the topic is with people who want to muddy the waters because they have personal stakes in it in some way - be it financial, political or psychological.
Blue zones correlated stronger with pension fraud than lifestyle.
I mean, I've met old but still active Italians - it's not the wine that enabled them to stay healthy this long. Italians by and large drink less than other Europeans anyway.
>Blue zones correlated stronger with pension fraud than lifestyle
That's just racist (those lazy-cheating southerners) bullshit "myth-busting" attempt that does the rounds. There was no different between these areas and others nearby with regards to pension fraud (or with regards to them being specially prone to it) that explains this. And there were no pensions to be had for those people well into the 1980s anyway, meanwhile everybody in those rural places knows everybody else since children...
> And there were no pensions to be had for those people well into the 1980s anyway, meanwhile everybody in those rural places knows everybody else since children...
Hailing from a much poorer country than Italy I can assure you, you can have everyone in on it.
I've spent four years in (northern) Italy and was impressed by the level of cleverness they displayed going around their overbuilt bureaucracy and tax system. It was both impressive and familiar really.
Not something normally admirable, but the Italian government (whichever might be in power at the moment) seems to think it's still 2005 or so and that the middle class will just take whatever is thrown at them.
I find it fun that alcohol increases DNA methylation, but we find now that having a rich social life decreases it. If you need any other reason to see the societal fitness of societal lubricants. I've cut way back into "maybe one once in a while" territory, but I also have regular social interactions with exactly two toddlers and one wife and that's about it.
I've never been to AA, but I'm told it's the cues that get you, and I do admit the memories of beers + guitar hero or other such nonsense from old days is exactly what I want every time I open a beer.
It's like that old rat experiment, where they gave them cocaine or heroine laced water + regular water, and they always preferred the the drugs, until there was a rich social life / environment, at which point they rarely did.
Socializing is powerful stuff if you can find enough time to build up enough trust to just have a heap of fun for a few hours. I swear a side-splitting laugh fest adds years to your life. When is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you couldn't breathe?
It’s not the cues that get you. That is an idea promoted largely by treatment centers and the rehab industry, who need to be able to plausibly claim they are teaching their customers how to avoid relapse. I’m a recovered alcoholic and I can assure you, my “cue” for drinking was being alive and awake at the same time.
Your reaction is a sane and normal one: you remember a good time, and you have some inkling to recreate it. Certainly. And to most people that makes sense. But alcoholics are different from most people, and their understanding that is an essential first step to recovery.
That makes sense! I didn't mean to sweep the experience into a few pithy words. I'm past the edit window, but I"m glad you're pointing this out.
Totally understand. With any luck, you and I have played two sides of a dialogue that’ll be read by someone else, for whom it might be quite useful. For that I thank you.
Most folks aren't alcoholics. Maybe they did some beer shotgunning in college, but stopped. Heck, I've known folks that came out of combat, hooked on opiates, and quit.
If you are one, though, there's nothing gonna keep you from the drink, except total abstinence, and some kind of structure (AA, NA, Church, Martial Arts, etc.).
I'm a recovering addict (over 45 years), and participate in Fellowship. Gives me tremendous socialization.
>some kind of structure
Don't you just mean social activities? You don't need to accept metaphysical dogmas or engage in scheduled physical combat with other people to socialize.
Hey, thanks for redefining "structure." I guess it needed that.
Sure, go ahead and do whatever you think works. If you're an alcoholic, it either will, or won't, work; with [rewards|consequences] to follow.
If you're not, it probably won't hurt. In fact, it could definitely enrich your life.
I highly doubt there was ever any doubt about the benefits of socialization. Science just confirmed what used to be commonly held beliefs
Well, just speaking for myself, socialization is the least of the benefits of the structure I follow. That socialization is also incredibly deep. It's not your usual Kiwanis Club.
I have learned that addicts (and alcoholics are just alcohol addicts), need a lot more than just "socialization."
Most folks have no idea how to address true addiction.
Well, they have "ideas," but very few are at all effective.
> "The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."
> "There's always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken
I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, but I know one that works for me, and I have seen a lot of people fail; often, spectacularly. It really is one of those "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand." things.
You mentioned church, so I assume you mean rituals or activities based on the religion of Christianity, what exactly is deep about those rituals or activities? You also mention true addiction, do you mean physical addiction (as opposed to psychological)? Also, regarding what addicts need, are you not just extrapolating based on your experience? It is certainly possible that what worked for you won't work on everyone else
Eh, I think we’re reaching that wall, where folks have their minds made up, and won’t accept conflicting information. There’s a ton of that, in addiction treatment.
> You also mention true addiction, do you mean physical addiction (as opposed to psychological)?
True addiction has nothing to do with physical dependence. That’s actually a by-product of addiction. It’s entirely possible to be an addict, without ever becoming physically dependent, and also, you can become physically dependent, without becoming an addict. That happens frequently, in pain management.
But a lot of folks have their minds already set in stone, here. Lots of moralizing and theories get tossed around, while addicts die, and destroy the lives of others.
I’m not going to try explaining it here. I’ve been at this, longer than many folks have been alive, and am quite aware of the futility of trying to graft new ideas onto closed minds. I’m really too busy, helping folks out, that want it.
> It is certainly possible that what worked for you won't work on everyone else
Absolutely, but it has worked for millions, so it does have some effectiveness.
Alcohol reduces inhibition but the real trick to lower your social inhibition is just practice.
It's not really complex, it's like anything else you'd study - mindful, focused practice; pay attention to details; iterate.
Sure, it's simple, but it's extremely psychologically taxing. No surprise people rely so much on alcohol.
I personally find alcohol to be vastly overrated for removing inhibitions. A few drinks and I'm still as tightly wound as ever. A lot of drinks and I end up having all sorts of unpleasant bodily effects instead.
Same. Maybe it just doesn't work on those with really deep introversion.
Could you give some specifics? For example, does this look like repeatedly trying things that make you a bit uncomfortable, and CBTing when you have those uncomfortable feelings? Is it helpful to do this with people you already feel safe around?
> When is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you couldn't breathe?
2 weeks ago in Oaxaca with some friends. We were at dinner and one (a guy) mentioned the Mormon purity defying practice of soaking which sparked confusion from the other (a girl). So he explained it in Mandarin so the others in the restaurant wouldn’t understand. It’s not a language I speak but watching her face told me everything I needed to know.
Last time I laughed like that with friends I was probably 18 or 19. That was 40 years ago.
Damn dude, I (truly) feel for you. It's increasingly rare for me too, but it's so healing. If you're comfortable sharing, whereabouts do you live? What are your political inclinations? (The latter I ask because it radically influences what you find funny, not because it matters otherwise).
With no context, I highly recommend finding a comedy club near you and having a few drinks. It might take several attempts though so don't give up
I bet issue is not the lack of jokes around but friends.
Former Mormon here, not familiar with "Mormon purity defying practice of soaking". Some explanation is needed
Google it, but not when you’re at work.
It’s how teens fuck while keeping Jesus’ approval.
Ah, the age-old practice of fooling God. A classic.
TIL. TY.
I never really do the full belly-laugh thing with friends or family. 90% of the time I'm alone in a room, seeing something funny on a screen.
I wish I had friends, but I also wish I had a Ferrari, the latter one might be reachable within my lifetime if I work hard for it.
Wait, with a budget of €100 000 I could actually get some second-hand old shitty Ferrari. That's... surprisingly affordable. I mean buying this shit right now would be highly irresponsible, but I can see myself potentially buying one in far future.
I just checked Lamborghini Murciélago, the dream sportscar of my childhood, and it goes for like €300 000. Hmmm... that's like, a lot of money for what is basically a toy, but if I really really really wanted that, it would be achievable within my lifetime without completely ruining me financially.
https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=432670758...
Look at this shit, it's beautiful. €260 000. Not now and not tomorrow, but totally achievable as a lifetime goal.
What a day to be alive. Having a luxury sportscar is more realistic than having friends. Send immaterial help.
I get a good chuckle out of these articles. “Here’s another thing I lack that was supposed to make me live longer!”
Speaking of living longer: I’ve had my fill of fast cars already, but how about an airplane? I watched some guys fly Piper Cubs in Alaska. That looked fun as hell. https://youtu.be/XXuIA_b35fs
Perhaps I’ll buy one of those. They aren’t so expensive.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was a kid. I also wanted to be a racecar driver.
Today, I love sports cars. I’ve had a few fast cars, and owning a 911 is on my bucket list.
Funny enough, I have no interest in learning to fly. Though I’m still very into military aviation as a topic.
Maybe it’s because the delta between say, a 911 and a racecar is smaller than that between a civilian prop plane and a fighter jet?
> Maybe it’s because the delta between say, a 911 and a racecar is smaller than that between a civilian prop plane and a fighter jet?
For me it'd be more because the first three are pastimes, the fourth one is a job.
You don't get to own a fighter jet and fly it around the world doing stunts or taking in sights just because you can; you can't take your friends or loved ones with you either. You are granted the right to fly an expensive piece of government property, whose operating costs can be counted in average taxpayer's annual income tax per hour. You fly where you're told, when you're told, how you're told. The point it gets most exciting, the point where you are granted most authority over your mission, is the point where you're shooting at someone or being shot at.
The movies make it look like all four things you mentioned are fundamentally the same in terms of feelings of freedom. It's not the only case. Adult me got disillusioned about a lot of career paths I dreamed of as a kid :(.
Too much math/paperwork for flying, I'll take the [fast? unique?] car.
How old are you? I found I grew out of an interest in cars after my early 20's.
I'm getting more and more interested in cars actually. But I don't care about specs, it's more about appreciation of the looks. Some designs can be beautiful.
I've definitely become a fuck-cars car enthusiast in my late 20s, if that makes sense lol
In that I still love (classic) cars, I still love (sim) racing, at the same time that I absolutely despise car-centric infrastructure and urbanism as one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century.
Maybe you can make some friends in the quest for the Lamborghini. Or maybe you could form a group who collectively buy it?
It used to be fashionable to collectively buy boats and vacation homes and other shit. Turns out, having a shared expensive thing quickly leads to disagreements.
> Turns out, having a shared expensive thing quickly leads to disagreements.
In this case, I'm guessing the first minor bit of body damage [gravel, whatever] or consumable replacements [tires, brakes, etc]. Ignoring the financial pressure/means aspect, preferences are what they are. Tire pressure, cleanliness, or what-have-you.
Personally, I wouldn't buy a Lamborghini without breaking it/rebuilding several times over. Fancy car, want to see what it really has. Other people? Baby it to no end because it's so precious. They got a date tonight.
All this to say: an old rustbox [or several] is probably the better group project. What little I knew of my Dad: demo derby, sounded great.
Buying a share is still very common in the personal aircraft world
If you buy the Murci you’ll be invited to every cars and coffee so lots of potential friends there!
Shit I'll do when I'm 70 and the stock market works in my favor.
Both my father and father in law retired recently. They’ve done financially pretty well in life - not super rich, but they can live loose a bit.
Both were recently in the market for new cars. As a car enthusiast, I told them to YOLO and buy something like a 911.
But no, they got a staid huge BMW sedan and a staid huge Benz SUV respectively, despite neither of them ever likely to use the back seats at all.
O they’ll be using those back seats alright ;)
that old rat experiment is considered bunkum now
Why? By whom?
The rat experiment is usually referred to as Rat Park:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
There are criticisms of it, some of which are in the criticisms section of the Wikipedia article, and look to be valid.
I never liked when people talked about debunking an experiment that was honestly done and just needed refutation or at least correction. If researchers publish research that was honestly done and then later found to have statistical flaws, or that is disproved with a larger sample size or whatever, I wouldn’t say it had been debunked. I’d say it was refuted or corrected or refined or whatever. If it was a “research” study where the group publishing it knew is was junk designed to promote an agenda or sell a product, then the term debunked is fair.
It's all fair. All studies are flawed but some are useful. As a paradigm shift for addiction I could see it being less than a home run. As a statement about happiness it's all well and good if for no other reason than an analogy and potential positive finding.
FUN FACT:
The lead researcher of Rat Park a few years later delivered me from the womb. My dad was doing his PhD there at SFU at the time.
I often feel like that my inflammatory illness is related to the fact that I lost all my friends in my 20's and came from a dysfunctional family.
The upside is that I've been suicidal since I was 15 so if Johnny Reaper comes in the form of loneliness cancer I'll have been done a subtle favor.
Also it's just an aside but God isn't real.
Living life alone makes your life shorter, but it sucks enough that it'll feel a lot longer anyway, so it balances out!
I'm no longer living my life alone, but I greatly cherish the time that I did.
I find being alone wonderful.
"Life is very long when you're lonely."
-Steven Patrick Morrissey
Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing.
BINGO!
(this always gets brought up every single time, like a mantra that people have to keep saying to convince themselves. So it's on my bingo card.)
https://vimeo.com/384844632
If you're going to talk shit don't end your sentence with a conceptual preposition. You're making us all look bad."
#AFVP
and for those of us who are not fluent in gibberish?
That's really interesting because I also started getting my inflammatory illness after losing all my friends.
I'm not razzing you but if you need a pal I'm here for you. These are trying times.
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Do scientists just randomly publish obvious nonsense now?
The causation is obviously in the other direction: Healthy people socialize more.
Proposing the inverted causation, without even examining the alternative is ridiculous. This is just trash science.
Having a correlational result and using it to pretend that one has to cause the other with absolutely no mechanism is not science, it is reading tea leaves.
A healthy person has more opportunities and more abilities to engage in social activities. The less healthy a person becomes the rarer those opportunities become. Basically every single health condition, especially the most common ones like obesity, make it harder for people to engage in social activity.
The alternative explanation is pretty simple and does not require some magical mechanism whereby social interactions are somehow causing your body to age slower.
Introverts probably socialise less because they find it more tiresome or find fewer opportunities they would enjoy. Would they fall under "unhealthy"?
So what?
Certainly introverts who are healthy socialize more. And the idea of an introvert as someone who blatantly refuses social interaction is ridiculous.
Exactly right. I doubt we can get to causation unless we conduct proper long term experiment instead of just looking at correlations and assuming causation goes one way.
The study says social bonds are associated with lower inflammation. It's well documented that inflammation causes anxiety and depression. How does this affect one's social activity? Negatively, the mechanism is very clear - you don't socialize if you are depressed and anxious. And somehow they assume the reverse casual relationship without explaining the mechanism for it.
I wonder what fraction of people today have literally no friends (perhaps this could be examined using a questionnaire and points system to determine who counts as a real friend vs mere acquaintance). The number of people with "zero" must surely be rising, especially among the young.
I think it's more about the concept of mental isolation than some magic hard number of "friends" (whatever way you define it). You can have 100 close friends that you regularly talk to and hang out with in your free time and still have noone to talk to regarding certain issues. Speeking from a military/PTSD perspective, a single person who you might not even share that much with but who you can talk to about a particularly traumatic thing might be worth more than all close friends and family in the world. Because they will never understand what you really feel like since none of them have experienced it.
It's a real test of how real a friendship is. There are lots of people who enjoy spending time together, talking, laughing, remembering the good times, everything's great. But start to open up about some real trauma and you will drive 90% of them away.
They dont have tools, dont know what to do. But more importantly, someone who was in the same situation or did not studied it a lot is simply incapable to truly understand. They can nod, listen, validate, but wont be able to puzzle out half said things, badly expressed things. They won't be able to see logical consequences of what you talk about unless you point them out.
Meanwhile, someone with the same experience, even if not friend, will be able to understand much more and more easily.
It is not so much about some moral or relational failure on their side, it is simply that it is impossible to imagine feelings and situations you never had.
Varies by friend. Some are open to it, others not so much. In general I've found that talking about trauma with friends isn't very useful even if they are willing to engage.
That's easy.
Just search instead for 100 duck-sized horses capable of tiny acts of kindness and understanding. Much higher success rate, much lower variance.
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As someone in this group, I think there are a surprising number of middle aged people without any friends. If you move or lose your friend group (or never had one) it seems harder than ever to find friends.
I wouldn't call myself middle age (though I'm not THAT far off, and past middle age for men in my family), but I'd agree and say I could count my total friends on a single finger, and I really don't even like him that much... and he knows it, and probably feels the same.
Acquaintances, though, I have many. Many of I talk to regularly, but would never consider them a friend, because well, I know almost nothing personal about them. A former boss that I meet up with anytime we are in the same city for dinner and drinks, I've known for nearly 20 years, but I don't know his wife's name, I know he has 4 kids, and I've met them all in passing, but no clue what their names are, etc.
Maybe I'm weird, and maybe I'm a bit lonely, and maybe it has taken a couple decades to realize I squandered all of my in-build friends from childhood, but I'm not sure I'd do it differently. I've had a semi-successful life, and most of my high school friends still live in their hometown, have dead-end manual labor jobs, or have died/disappeared from drug use.
Therapy tells me I pre-reject friendship so friendship doesn't reject me, and I agree with it, but don't feel like changing the pattern.
> I pre-reject friendship so friendship doesn't reject me
LOL that would describe me perfectly as well I think. I have not had "close" friends since I was in my early 20s. Then everyone moved away and we all started our separate lives.
The next group of friends came along when I had kids, and parents naturally became friendly because we would see each other at kids activities, sports, etc.
Then the kids grew up, and there was nothing bringing that group of people together anymore. I still see and talk to one or two of them but it's pretty infrequent.
Now, the idea of maintaining a real, close friendship just sounds like too much work. I'm happy enough just living my life on my terms.
Most friendships are just formed of the people we see regularly due to circumstance. They may be pleasant but they are not deep, and they will fall apart as soon as circumstances change.
That was true for me, I moved 15 years ago and my friend group went to zero practically overnight, never recovered. Now middle aged and don't even have many acquaintances. I do, however, have a few somewhat problematic family members and relatives, more in that category than I would like.
Its not great but also not a huge problem - I believe now I have some amount of Schizotypal personality spectrum, and have all my life, though I never admit that to most people IRL since the label freaks people out.
Friends come from having opportunities for interaction with people. People take that for granted though early in life when they are essentially forced into these situations through schooling, but after completing that don't give themselves such opportunities any longer. If you find yourself without friends in middle age, evaluate your own time. Are there opportunities in your life to speak to others? Taking up hobbies where you have a chance of interacting with others is a great way to make friends.
In other words, friends won't drop into your lap. You have to go where fish are actually biting and cast out your line.
Having a kid caused me to lose my friend group. Everyone else is childless and don't understand the difficulty of making certain plans or don't care I guess. Though people tell me I'll make new ones soon through kid activities.
Have you tried going to a church or a country club or a bar? There is also a find friends option on most dating apps. I really wish that you’d find at least one friend. If you’re in Toronto I could meet up with you at a cafe or a pub.
It also depends on what exactly you count as “real friends”. If you set the standard just a little bit high, many people only have their family, or not even that. And you can have friends and still feel alone.
real friends are people who don't abandon you when you do something they don't like. the problem is, until that happens you can't tell the difference.
I dunno, you cam turn what you said into "real friends is an enabler of whatever I do and a doormat".
Someone leaving after x did something they dont like ... may just be former real friend with a backbone and moral values.
no, the reverse is that a real friend would confront you and help you correct what he thinks is a mistake, or at least discuss it to understand why, instead of canceling the friendship and worse stabbing you in the back.
if they can't confront someone for what they think is a mistake, then it's them who have no backbone, and potentially also the enabler, because you can't change someones behavior by walking away from them.
Or when something bad happens to you.
These days the bar for that thing seems low. Like making a post on Facebook.
My only real „friend” is my wife.
Over years I lost contact to all the ppl I considered friends.
I dont have time to nurture long distance relationships.
After studies we all moved away 200-300km from each other.
I have a lot of „pals” or „gaming friends”. But those ppl wont show up 4am at night to pick you up from a street fight.
I’m missing „meaningful” connections. Its easy to find ppl who dont care.
To be fair, I'm not sure I'd want to be friends with someone who gets into street fights at 4:00 a.m. My cut-off would be midnight.
a lot of people have friends but we only “interact” via a screen!
This is my main concern. At 46 i’m in excellent physical condition, do well financially and am incredibly lucky to have the wife and kids that I do. I really want to live for another 200 years.
I just have absolutely zero friends or interactions with people who aren’t my wife and kids. Haven’t for probably 15 years now. I work remotely and 99% of the people I work with are offshore so very little overlap in work times. So the occasional teams message on a group channel is it. No friends or even acquaintances. I occasionally find myself craving the little notification icon on X to let me know some stranger liked my post. I recognize that this is not optimal.
The gym is essentially my hobby but max interaction is the occasional fist bump or head nod. I spend 90 minutes there 6 days a week.
Its to the point where other people aren’t even real to me anymore, I can go literally months without a real life conversation.
Not complaining but it does worry me from the longevity aspect
Definitely tougher to make and maintain friend relationships at this age. Most of my group comes from church but think about other social settings or clubs that might provide opportunities to make connections.
The other suggestion is to not worry about who initiates what. I make it a habit of reaching out to people and don’t mind if I am the one doing so the majority of the time. It is so easy, for me at least, to fall into the trap of keeping track to make sure the people “care enough”.
Hope that helps and hopefully my entirely unasked for advice wasn’t inappropriate. Only responding because I am a similar age and struggled with the same.
In my 30s, church became my only source of friends and acquaintances. However even then, I only made two “true” friends I still meet up with outside of church. Three, if I count my wife who I consider my best friend :)
The rest seemed like friends while we attended the same church, but quickly vanished as soon as we left (the particular church, not the faith). Maybe more of those relationships could have been nurtured to last if given more effort, but as both my wife and I are introverts, it wasn’t easy.
I’m in my early 40s now. We still attend church, but we find the whole social aspect of it draining. We attend worship…then go home.
Yeah, I hear that. Similar experience. I think that is probably to expected though. I guess I am ok at this stage in life with a couple “true” friends. I am probably two ahead of most my age.
I think that's the thing, so many friends are situational friends. Wife had a couple she made us hang out with because our sons were friends. Suddenly sons aren't friends anymore so we no longer hang out. Not mad at them, totally get it. I think perhaps remote work, modern living (such as entertainment on demand) takes many people out of those situations and that drives the loneliness epidemic.
Appreciate the advice. Definitely something I need to make happen if its going to happen.
Humans are social animals, and if I’m being pretty reductionist this paper states “being social is healthy for social animals. Being healthy means longer life spans”.
So not too much of a surprise there.
Edit: still valuable to do research even to confirm whatever seems to follow logically. Not trying to discredit that!
I am neither social nor an animal. What exactly is the mechanism of action, what is it about going to church or whatever that decreases this nasty interleukin-6? And how can carried out most minimally, or made into pills?
Unless you're a robot, you are a social animal
Animal from the muppets is an animal. Animal from the Anti-Nowhere League is an animal. But the Elephant Man was not an animal, and neither am I. Moderation rules prohibit me from showing you how social I'm not.
Also, surely feeling part of a subreddit might also invoke the same processes?
Edit: What about social rejection? Surely that might be a better variable than “social ties”.
Well of course. When you feel you belong you don’t stress as much.
"there were no significant associations with short-term stress markers like cortisol or catecholamines."
My friends are objectively bad for my health vs. how well I take care of myself without their influences.
What I suspect is common WRT these studies is lonely people become self-destructive, reaching for stuff like alcohol and/or comfort eating, i.e. harmful substitutes for relationships they miss.
But I don't really have those issues. I can be super content spending most time solitary with regular impersonal interactions at cafes and grocery stores. Just having a modicum of peaceful sharing of space with others tops up my socializing needs, beyond that it's fast into diminishing returns territory.
- extremely introverted person who never developed a dependence on others for self-worth and/or happiness
What I sometimes wonder about these studies is whether we have established causation. Is it that socializing makes people healthier or do healthy people socialize more?
From reading this it seems to me there is a wide gap between what happens at the molecular level and the social level, and they are very eager to jump it?
Anecdotally I agree with the message, but the research looks weak indeed.
A simple snapshot assessment and some scoring of an individual's (entire, self-reported!) social life is too simplistic. The measurements would have to be performed throughout the life of each participant with sufficiently high frequency.
For what it's worth, the dataset they used does in fact have measurements spanning 30 years of adulthood, and similar papers from that dataset leveraging the longitudinal data have found similar conclusions.
Why it happens is less clear. It could be stress effects, or it could be something like people with more social support are more likely to get help going in for preventative care etc.
If someone starts now, we may see results in 50 years?
You're the lucky guy today: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11852352/
Social ties correlate with all kinds of beneficial traits, outcomes and privileges, in a very complex and bidirectional causal relation: sociable people have much better economic and career prospects, healthy middle class people have the opportunity, time and resources to engage in social activities, raising a family is a high energy activity not everybody can afford that basically "generates" a substantial web of social links, which in turn support the person in their gray years, and so on and so forth.
So the finding here is that healthy, wealthy people with a support network age just like healthy, wealthy people with a support network.
FTFS (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462...):
> All models adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic variables selected a priori for their potential to confound associations between CSA and biological aging indicators. Covariates included age (in years), sex (male vs. female), race/ethnicity (White, Black, Other), educational attainment (12-point ordinal scale), and log-transformed current household income (USD). These variables were treated as exogenous predictors—assumed to temporally precede both CSA and biological outcomes—and were included to block potential backdoor paths and minimize bias.
> [...]
> Educational attainment and income reflect stratified access to material and psychosocial resources that affect both health behavior and biological risk processes (Adler and Newman, 2002). Treating these covariates as exogenous minimizes bias due to confounding while avoiding over-adjustment for potential mediators or introducing collider bias (Schisterman et al., 2009).
from a certain perspective, they've found that if I tell you nothing more about a person than their lab test results on some biomarkers, you can make a better-than-random educated guess about how much social connection they have in their lives.
that's kind of interesting, though very far from the causal claims in the university press release.
>The cumulative effect of social advantages across a lifetime
> Covariates. All models adjusted for ... age, sex, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and log-transformed current household income.
Let's look at something else which wasn't controlled for at all: doing physical activities.
People who, for example, run every week or bike every week often do so because they have a group of friends who also does that, and doing such a physical activity also builds friendships better than not doing such activities.
Perhaps exercising is both correlated with health and with building groups of friends.
Or perhaps exercising is correlated with being attractive, and being attractive is correlated with building social connections.
... I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this study shows correlation only, and there are so many confounding factors I consider it pretty tenuous.
That could be a factor, though 1) the study found no correlation with cortisol levels which is affected by exercise, and 2) income and education are highly correlated with physical activity levels already, so wouldn’t put too much hope on that.
Aging is systematic accumulating damage.
"Healthy systemic accumulated damage" is therefore a more honest way to put it, exposing it as completely ridiculous.
Thank goodness that longevity efforts have now become well established biotech and pharma goals around the world.
I like to remind myself that, in biology, all the arrows are two-way
There's no such thing as "healthy aging". Aging is deterioration. It's unhealthy by its very nature.
I think the clear implication of the phrase "healthy aging" is a lower-than-average rate of deterioration with respect to increasing years on earth.
It's like, you actually can describe one of two burgers as "healthier" even though they're both unhealthy. One is just less harmful. It's a valid use of language.
Probably why women outlive men. Also wars, and hypergamy.
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They need to cancel out the whole human civilisation as a confounding factor in order to conclude something useful. Linking genetic and social factors is something I cannot decide to laugh or amaze.
I don't really see what you mean? It's well known and widely accepted that environmental factors influence gene expression. Social factors are a very large part of our environment.
“healthy aging” is an oxymoron.
I wish these studies would dive deeper into the mechanisms that prompt healthy aging, rather than just saying "social ties".
The few that come to mind are laughter, stress, exercise, and cognitive engagement.
It might be interesting to see if diet changes as a result of social ties as well. We can make an educated guess that stronger social ties means less time eating alone.
Surely it isn't just the social ties themselves.
Is correlated with*
Is caused by*
Is causing*
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All of those things were true thirty years ago (car-centric society, inequality, etc.) and yet loneliness wasn't as bad.
I think technology is almost certainly more to blame here. Endless online entertainment, social media, dating apps, etc. have all erased in-person social lives.
The essay “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital” which touched on many of the GP poster’s points, came out in 1995. This has been happening for a long time. The pandemic just made it a lot worse.
Lots of Western European countries have phones too. It took time to get where we are, eg for rents/mortgages/college to outpace wages enough to seriously impact work-life balance.
If anything, I'd say young people drive less than previous generations.
I blame the fact that nowadays it's possible to live your entire life comfortably in solitude. People used to form relationships not out of pleasure, but out of necessity - it was impossible to farm land without family, and even in a city it was difficult to get shit done without at least some connections with neighbors and such. Once this necessity disappeared because most services started to function perfectly, so did social connections.
The whole borrow a cup of sugar was real for my parents growing up. Now? You can get it delivered in less than an hour.
Imagine blaming the president for not having friends lol
In this case, it works.
His arguments is that people who voted for Trump made decision to destroy "social fabric". Which is true, it was vote with the hope harm will be done to liberals, trans, low level goverment workers they hate.
It is not argument about loss of personal friendship, but about values those Americans have. And those values do not have space for social fabric other then domination over "other".
> It is not argument about loss of personal friendship, but about values those Americans have.
They're quite linked, eg after 1954 Brown vs Board of Education, many cities closed all kinds of meeting grounds like pools, libraries, schools, parks, playgrounds etc to prevent desegregation. Loss of such places contributes to loneliness. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming#Desegreg...
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We respect everyone's right to their own religious (and indeed, ideological) convictions, but please don't invoke religion in order to make ideological arguments here. You've been doing it repeatedly, and it's not what HN is for.
I do appreciate you looking out for the community. It's a strange rule for you to say a person's worldview can't be included in comments about how to live, effects of worldview's on society, and so on. Especially when the topic is community's effect on health with the parent comment exploring how our worldview drives our prioritization:
"Car-centric lifestyle, few third places, low work-life balance, high and increasing inequality, underdeveloped social safety net, employer-tied social benefits, etc all tied together with American individualism. If we want prosocial, community-oriented behavior, we have to actually prioritize it."
Either supporting a connected, loving society or responding to that comment requires a foundational justification for it. I noted that popular philosophies encourage selfishness, disconnects, anxiety, depression, and hate. Whereas, the older worldview, the Bible, produced individuals with more peace, work ethic, stable families with decades-long marriages, Western democracy (eg the Constitution), and so on. Solving the problem requires building on the right foundation (eg Christ & the truth).
You mention you respect all's religious convictions with some censorship apparently but all claims shouldn't be treated the same. Jesus lives perfectly, works miracles, raises from the dead, and has biographical evidence approaching Julius Caeser. Then, His Gospel impacts 4,000 people groups with all of them reporting life transformations and miracles. Countries founded on Judeo-Christian principles turn out to be the best ones to live in with the most freedoms while the atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu countries still jail or kill those disagreeing with them. Scientific discoveries actually confirmed the Bible more, too.
Whatever has strong evidence with high, global impact should always be allowed:
https://www.gethisword.com/evidence.html
The biggest issues, though, is we will all face the Lord Jesus Christ during Judgement Day. He promised every knee will bow, some willingly and others fearfully. He will render to each for their works, from day to day life up to moderation or lawmaking decisions. Our whole life might be replayed second by second with Him asking if each decision prioritized our God, His character, His truths, and love for others.
So, we have to answer questions like "why have a lifetime of social ties? with God both designed us for and commanded us to love others as ourselves. Also, to bring them into fellowship with Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins, into the Church which is like a family, help with their earthly needs, and God uses them to do the same. It multiplies starting with hearing the Gospel and His truths. Jesus said "blessed are those who are not offended by me" so please don't be and please allow God's truths on Hacker News.
> Countries founded on Judeo-Christian principles turn out to be the best ones to live in with the most freedoms while the atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu countries still jail or kill those disagreeing with them. Scientific discoveries actually confirmed the Bible more, too.
This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that's unacceptable on HN. It breaks these guidelines:
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
It's a long-established norm on HN that it's not acceptable to wage battle or engage in debate on the grounds of nationality or religion:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
It's just HN's form of the age-old dinner-party principle. When we're trying to have an interesting discussion and someone makes an argument on the basis of the superiority of a nation or religion (or race or any other identity), it causes offence in people who don't belong to the identities that are asserted to be superior, which can lead to heated arguments, or at least discomfort, and makes everyone want to quickly leave the dinner and go home.
I was raised in a Christian family, and I have respect for Christian teachings and those who have faith. We need you to show the same respect for this community that you would expect people to extend towards your faith, by respecting the guidelines and the community's norms.
On HN we're just trying to have a healthy discussion, and the introduction of arguments based in the superiority of any religion's teachings are well known to take discussions in an unhealthy direction, so we need you to stop doing it please. The same principle applies to any religious belief, ideology or other worldview, including atheism. This is not a place for evangelism or activism, it's a place for curious conversation.
I suspect that HN's rationale is far less the basis of a worldview than that citing a (mainstream, contemporary) religious foundation is a red flag to the HN commentaritat's bull, and will shift the discussion from the site's prime aims of "intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation":
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404>
Dang's post cites politics, which though worthy of (some) discussion also tends the same way.
Mind too that the result need not be intentional, it's just how a public-discussion site, even a comparatively well-mannered and well-behaved one such as HN, works.
Does this mean I should encourage my beautiful young wife to join the local stitch and bitch?
Obligatory "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
Holy crap there is a boat load of spurious correlation here.
Obligatory link https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Section 2 and 3 of the study[1] go deep into their analysis methods, you’ll need something a bit more solid than “I’ve read about correlation vs causation once” to counter it.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462...
Does social media presence also count?
No, only real social ties, that are there for you practically, and can hug you or help you move.
Yes, each post negates one Sunday mass.
To the downvoters: have you run a clinical trial?
The journal mentioned in the article (Brain, Behavior and Immunity - Health) has a few submissions related to this topic, like the one that examines CRP levels and social media use: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37224891/
Even if your social ties are drinking buddies?
Especially then.
People in the Greek or Italian blue zones, would let you take away their daily wine drinking with buddies over their 100+ year old dead body...
Hah, true. I guess it also shows the difference between social drinking and only hanging on the bottle by yourself.
(Though for the "blue zones", I've read some suspicions that the true secret of them is plain old corruption - with some of the "supercentenarians" having died long ago and only living on in the records, so family, friends or complicit buerocrats can collect their pensions. Not sure if this is widespread enough to explain the entire effect though)
If you are confident in the quality of birth records from rural Sardinia in the 1920s there shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, and to make matters funnier the Seventh Day Adventists bought the brand and added themselves to the list.
But… there is one thing that seems to hold up. One of Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed diets came to these enclaves and displaced traditional diets, incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease has spiked. That’s real.
I bet we could measure a parallel effect on social media displacing real social activity wherever it goes.
> But… there is one thing that seems to hold up. One of Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed diets came to these enclaves and displaced traditional diets, incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease has spiked. That’s real.
Yeah, no disagreement here. It would be a miracle if a food that is designed and produced with the only intention to have people eat as much of it as possible had no bad consequences. That's before all the biological evidence we have.
The processed food/obesity debate seems similar to me to the climate debate. The evidence is well-researched and mostly very clear and most of the "debate" around the topic is with people who want to muddy the waters because they have personal stakes in it in some way - be it financial, political or psychological.
Blue zones correlated stronger with pension fraud than lifestyle.
I mean, I've met old but still active Italians - it's not the wine that enabled them to stay healthy this long. Italians by and large drink less than other Europeans anyway.
>Blue zones correlated stronger with pension fraud than lifestyle
That's just racist (those lazy-cheating southerners) bullshit "myth-busting" attempt that does the rounds. There was no different between these areas and others nearby with regards to pension fraud (or with regards to them being specially prone to it) that explains this. And there were no pensions to be had for those people well into the 1980s anyway, meanwhile everybody in those rural places knows everybody else since children...
> And there were no pensions to be had for those people well into the 1980s anyway, meanwhile everybody in those rural places knows everybody else since children...
Hailing from a much poorer country than Italy I can assure you, you can have everyone in on it.
I've spent four years in (northern) Italy and was impressed by the level of cleverness they displayed going around their overbuilt bureaucracy and tax system. It was both impressive and familiar really.
Not something normally admirable, but the Italian government (whichever might be in power at the moment) seems to think it's still 2005 or so and that the middle class will just take whatever is thrown at them.
"If nobody needs you to be alive you will die faster"
Gee thanks Science, you see now why people prefer Stupidity over you?
The science part is determining that life situation "showed slower epigenetic aging and lower levels of chronic inflammation."
What if I just want to spite my enemies with my continued existence? They will shake their fist angrily at the sky for decades to come.
Having enemies is a symptom of chronic inflammation in more ways than one.
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