Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.

  • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I had a very strange feeling reading this article alone and on my phone. Overall a very interesting read. It helps explain some of the minor decisions I’ll make in life, like always choosing a checkout with a cashier regardless of the length of the line. Sometimes I converse with the cashier or someone in line and it does slightly improve my mood in a way thats difficult to explain.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Mass ignoring of a pandemic, making it unending, tends to do that. People know they’re all full of shit and it never goes back to being the same. Some people try extra hard to pretend, maybe even aggressively, but it’s a rug-pull on the whole social scene. It becomes a bummer and people just don’t want to play anymore.

    Plug maga. Just a trash fire all the time.

    Plus enough progressives getting offended by non-bigoted things, under the guise of being against bigotry, that simply talking becomes tense and exhausting, which they somehow convert into a victory condition in their heads, because if they didn’t they might notice how stupid they’re being.

    I think people are looking to hang out with others less because too many people are just turning into idiots. I know you might say “turning into???” but there are levels.

    And all that’s assuming you can afford to do stuff.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      I agree. I’ve been called a “social butterfly” a lot, especially in factories I worked at, because I liked to banter with my coworkers if we had similar interests. Even if we didn’t, I could always find something to talk about.

      Now? Nah. I think the general populace who I am more than likely to interact with daily aren’t as pro-progress as I had originally thought when I was growing up.

      The social contract has been shat on, and I don’t see it ever getting cleaned until a lot more people start to care about things other than themselves.

  • JoYo 🇺🇸
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    1 day ago

    If you say hello to someone, they’ll typically say hello back to you. If you give somebody a compliment, they’ll typically say thank you.

    no way, people just pretend they can’t hear you over their airpods while staring at you.