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Re: The Biggest Lie Of A Generation: A Life Online Is A Life Well Lived

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In article <sr55hk$38g$10@news.freedyn.de>
<governor.swill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Time to charge tech CEOs with subversion and treason.
>

Satisfying every need on the internet is hardly a life at all.

Imatched with a guy online last month who asked me for my 
Instagram handle 30 minutes before our first date when I was 
already on my way out the door. After a brief back-and-forth 
where we almost pivoted to just drinks, the date, which had 
already been on the calendar for a week, was canceled because he 
was “kind of tired.” The restaurant was only a 10-minute drive 
from his neighborhood or a 15-minute scooter ride since it’s 
downtown Denver.

There’s an 87 percent chance he stayed home and watched porn, a 
nearly 20 percent chance he smoked weed, and a safe bet he did 
both at the same time.

Conventional wisdom suggests the proliferation of dating apps 
has made us more connected than ever. Now I wonder if most 
Americans can see through the cliché.

Tinder, the nation’s most popular dating app, has now been on 
the market for a decade with its debut in 2012. Singles seem no 
closer to long-term romance, however, with the number of U.S. 
adults living without a spouse or partner rising ever since, 
according to the Pew Research Center.

Marriage in the United States is at an all-time low, and remains 
in such steep decline that married people will soon be in the 
minority if not already. Less than 50 percent of heterosexual 
adults are married, and only 1 in 10 gays have tied the knot 
seven years after Obergefell, according to Gallup.


https://www.statista.com/statistics/195951/marriage-rate-in-the-
united-states-since-1990/
The ineffectiveness of dating apps reflects the cynicism of our 
addiction to tech. Rather than bring the marriage rate up, these 
platforms, which have fundamentally changed the dating game, 
have instead have been effective at accomplishing the very 
opposite. They keep Americans single.

Today the internet is the most popular forum for couples to 
meet, with more Americans partnering up online than through 
friends or colleagues. More than 44 million Americans report 
dating online, yet just 3 in 4 have ever successfully made it to 
the dinner table or a coffee shop while fewer and fewer see 
marriage on the horizon. More and more Americans might find 
companionship on the internet, but the mode of introduction is 
bringing down broad chances of success.

Instant gratification on a smartphone from a person’s bedroom 
takes comparatively a lot less time and effort than a 10-minute 
drive for an evening of small talk and potential awkwardness, 
especially when the next best match is always just one swipe 
away. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly half of 
Americans say dating is harder today than it was a decade ago.

That being said, I can’t help but notice our modern way of 
dating has seeped into the rest of our relationships. Our online 
conditioning to scan through certain traits we desire in our 
romantic partners seems to have bled into how we vet our friends.

When I became one of nearly 30,000 people to move to Colorado in 
the summer of 2020, I knew no one in Denver, let alone the 
entire state, and just about everything was closed. I used the 
Meetup app at first to find new people and sometimes snag a 
sought-after camping permit. It felt like I was dating for 
friends, which in every practical sense I was, whether I found 
them online, at church, or in the gym. People came and went, 
flaking felt routine, and ghosting was just as common. When 
there are so many people to choose from, decision paralysis 
ensues, just like dating. For a while, I thought I was just bad 
at making friends. And then I realized, no, my generation is 
just as terrible at making friends as it is dating (albeit some 
of my neighbors decided to disassociate over my controversial 
conviction that there are only two sexes, no kidding).

Things fell into place when I 1) stopped trying to pick my 
friends with a certain precision, and 2) actually spent time 
with people. Those lessons seemed to come awfully late at 24, 
but also somehow early.

I can’t count how many conversations I’ve had since moving 
across the country in which people about my age complain of an 
unfulfilling social life before they tout a list of character 
preferences down to income level and blow off game nights, 
parties, and road trips. Weed, video games, and door dash might 
fill the void, but the data suggests otherwise.

According to a Harvard University survey published in February 
last year, 36 percent of Americans reported “seriously 
loneliness.” Sixty-one percent of those in prime dating age, 18-
25, said the same.

The results are based on a survey conducted in October 2020 when 
lockdowns remained coast to coast ahead of an election, but the 
numbers are not far off from pre-pandemic surveys. According to 
an NPR report on a poll from the health insurer Cigna in January 
2020, “more than three in five Americans are lonely, with more 
and more people reporting feeling like they are left out, poorly 
understood and lacking companionship.” And loneliness left 
unchecked can be even worse for people than obesity.

But time alone doesn’t always correlate to loneliness, the 
latter of which is the result of not knowing how to be alone 
well — a problem the internet has exacerbated. This summer 
became especially enriching when I swapped my extra time online 
for literature and a dedication to the mountains. After all, I 
make my living on the internet.

My greatest lessons this year came from someone who lived 2,000 
years ago, and not from Jesus, though church on Sunday has 
become a mandatory ritual. Coming across “Meditations” by Marcus 
Aurelius, who was the last great Roman emperor, forced me to 
entirely recalibrate my online habits. Studying the ancient 
classic has now motivated me to seek out a place to rent in the 
mountains once my lease is up next summer, where I can read, 
write, and run all in a routine that’s up with the sun and down 
with the sun. Any more time streaming Netflix in a crowded city 
where you don’t even know your neighbors feels like a waste of a 
life.

Americans appear to be lonelier than ever, especially my own 
generation. At the same time, we’re also online more than ever, 
with about 1 in 3 adults reporting a “constant” presence on the 
internet. That number is up to nearly half for 18- to 29-year-
olds.

Is it really a surprise then, that there’s such a mental health 
crisis when so many have fallen into the fallacy of the 
internet? That the internet, accessible on our palms 24 hours a 
day, can be the source of total fulfillment? Is living in the 
Metaverse, where developers want to integrate virtual sex, 
really the key to a life well lived? The answer is an absolute 
no.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/10/the-biggest-lie-of-a-
generation-a-life-online-is-a-life-well-lived/

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Re: The Biggest Lie Of A Generation: A Life Online Is A Life Well Lived P Ratt <richard@power.net> - 2022-10-10 17:52 +0200

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