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Comment by EZ-E | Hacker News Reader

Something I noticed, is that young people commonly suffer from loneliness when making the transition from student life to working life.

Leaving the friends from student life... And not really able to make meaningful friends during working life. I had several people talking to me about this

Now, I have no idea whether it is a recent thing or not.

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I think that people these days are not as comfortable with being on their own as they were years ago. I grew up in the 1970s and 80s and as we weren't continually interconnected with everyone else we spent a fair amount on time on our own. You became accustomed to planning ahead, travelling on your own to meet your friends with no communication, if they weren't there you either went home again or tried someone else's house.

There were also, I think, more people into hobbies such as stamp collecting and model making. They were fairly solitary for much of the time.

I've nothing scientific behind this but it seems to fit with what I see, we don't feel lonely and lost if we don't have continual stimulation.

Very true, as someone who grew up in the 80s and mid-90s, we usually met "friends" for an hour or so in a day and the rest of it was spent with solitary pursuits and perhaps with family. These days we're "connected" 24x7 thanks to the Net and particularly mobile. Almost everything we do is either over these mediums or at least shared on them, commented upon, collaborated and so on.

Individual activities like gardening, woodworking, philately, reading a book, birdwatching, stargazing, painting and so on are either increasingly waning or being substituted by their "online" and "connected" doppelgängers.

> Very true, as someone who grew up in the 80s and mid-90s, we usually met "friends" for an hour or so in a day and the rest of it was spent with solitary pursuits and perhaps with family. These days we're "connected" 24x7 thanks to the Net and particularly mobile. Almost everything we do is either over these mediums or at least shared on them, commented upon, collaborated and so on.

Yes, and on the other hand it sometimes feels as if this leads to social fatigue. Meeting someone face to face sure felt different and more...worthwhile (for lack of a better term) growing up in the 90s, when it was the only way to keep in touch with friends. Compare this to today where social gatherings are preceded, surrounded and accompanied by constant, always and immediately available, often lesser ways of communicating - whether it's social networks, group chats, messages.

Of course I don't want to paint a pure black picture - I enjoy those options as much as the next guy, but it comes with side effects I guess.

I've met many people in their early twenties who probably would love to see friends for an hour a day. I think if people were hanging out with friends for an hour a day they wouldn't have this problem

It happens, I went through this. It sucks. I was in grad school and didn't have many friends at all. It took getting a job where I made some life long friends at work (in different groups though). I've since moved out of that state but stay in touch with them. I found the high school to college transition hard and then the college to grad school transition even harder (at in grad school was the worst).. even though I was surrounded by similar people! :) Most of the time I focused on finding a girlfriend. I now regret not enjoying my own time more and seeing the optimistic side of being single.

Instead of being mired in loneliness, a key thing is to start doing things you enjoy that give you an option to meet others. Join a meet up, take tennis lessons, play golf .. ! Join a church or other community.

My gut feeling is that "work" (as it we know it now) is pathological. The fact that it's considered best practice to separate work and friendships, says a lot about the nature of work. Our modern age conception of work is literally 'soulless'.

This leaves me to think why it is considered best practice to separate work and friendships. It's certainly not frowned upon in most places to make friends with your coworkers, to go for drinks after work or to meet up on weekends.

I think you can be friends with some people but most, don't be Facebook friends necessarily. It would also depend on the size of the company etc...

Separating work from friendships makes frequent job-hopping much less painful. People in general care less emotionally about their work because the companies show absolutely no loyalty to the workers. When most people leave in less than two years, there's less of a reason to expose yourself.

Then there's risks involved in exposing personal opinions to people at work. If you two have a falling out due to different political ideologies, religions, hobbies, etc., that can make continued work more difficult.

Finally, it has the potential to foster a workaholic culture at the job. Why leave work when your "family" is there? But when that is the norm of the company, workers can feel compelled to work ridiculous hours, like Japan's work culture.

Happened to me a dozen or so years ago when I left the uni. In the end, what worked was rekindling some of the older friendships. I didn't make any permanent friends in the 8+ jobs I've worked at.

It's really worth putting a lot of effort into hanging onto your old student friends.

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