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> I talked with my nephew about this, since I noticed he and his friends never really have sleepovers and such like our generation did, and he cited this very reason. His friends are more fun to be around in a Discord call than in person.

To each their own, I suppose, but I find this unhealthy. I would encourage my child to be interactive in person, not to hide behind the computer. I say this as a WFH IT employee who games - the desire to be away from people in person, the desire not to interact with others, the disdain for in-person contact, are all symptoms of a problem in my view.

I don't mean it to say I think less of people who are like this, or that they are worthy of derision. I simply think it is bad for the individual and the community.

That said, I would say my nephew is significantly more social than most people in my generation were, because he is able to get in 5 hour calls with his friends every night, whereas that might happen only once every few weeks in my case, at best. He's learning and socializing way more than even my most social peers were able to growing up.

But that’s unfortunately a rather useless form of socialization, as most of his life interactions will be face to face. Job, romantic life, etc.

there's nothing wrong with online from my perspective, but there is when it's the only form of interaction. If you only spend time online with your close peer group you're never exposed to content far outside of the norm, and you don't get a diversity of communication mediums. You are literally handicapping your ability to communicate.

My experience has taught me this is just untrue. My various jobs have been 100% remote for the last 6 years, so being comfortable with video and voice calls is essential to that.

Going back to when I was a high schooler, I was closeted and in boarding school, which admittedly had a significant built-in social life (that was of little interest to me), but I was also able to have a long distance close friendship for years thanks to Google Talk. I dare say some of my most important and formative social moments in my high school years were over Google Talk with my small group of friends. Sure we had antics in the dorm at my boarding school etc., but these were minor and fleeting interactions versus the deep and meaningful relationships I had over Google Talk, and anyone I actually cared about at boarding school also interacted with me that way, a good bit.

One of the things that's different about modern videogames is that it's better to be at home with your own Xbox or PlayStation or PC if you want to play with your friends.

We have 4 Wii controllers because when the kids were younger they could play with friends and the games didn't take a lot of explaining.

Going further back, you needed an opponent, probably because the systems were doing all they could to keep track of the action and couldn't generate an opponent, too.

A couple of times my son has had a friend bring an Xbox and monitor over to play in the same room at the same time. Given that most Xbox's are connected to big (and fragile) TVs, a "LAN party" would be quite a feat.

on one hand, i think the death of couch coop & splitscreen has had a deeply underappreciated impact on how kids choose to recreate & interact, otoh i remember all the elbows thrown over screen cheating or the crummy madcatz controller and can't help but think that kids today are probably having a far more harmonious bonding experience.

I remember a distinct evening where I got in trouble because I was at a friend's place and playing Super Mario Kart on the SNES for too long instead of coming home. Had we had an opportunity to play online it wouldn't have been a problem.

I don't really know, I am old enough to have experienced this, and LAN parties in the late 90s were indeed fun, but they took a lot of planning, expenses, and parents driving you there. I've been online since I was 15 and when we finally didn't have to pay by the minute everything was a lot better. No more coordinating for a full weekend, etc. That said, I have zero negative memories of splitscreen, except that the person who owned the game/console was always a lot better due to more practice...

Coddling social anxiety is not a good argument for WFH. There's a difference between introversion (needing time away from people to recharge) and social anxiety (not speaking up or interacting differently in person vs online). Unless you're banking on some cyberpunk future where people only ever interact online, social anxiety is a maladaptive disorder to be confronted, not a personality quirk.

And FYI there are plenty of extroverted engineers. Some of us actually enjoy team sports as well as technical problems.

"Coddling?"

Social anxiety is a genuine mental illness, and a protected disability. This kind of arrogant, ableist crap is exactly why we need to destroy the cultural norm that everybody being in the office all the time is the only way to do work.

It sounds like you use "protected" here with the intention of forming part of an argument -- presumably that social anxiety should be protected? Isn't that circular?

In the United States, 'protected" in this context means 'legally protected', in this case by the ADA. Employers are required to give reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities.

I'm using "protected" in the sense that it is a genuine disability, recognized by modern medicine and law, and as such anyone who suffers from it is entitled to the full protection of the ADA in the US.

It also means that anyone disparaging it like that in the workplace is guilty of discrimination against a disabled person, just as if they had called someone with an amputated leg a "worthless cripple", or mocked a hearing-impaired person for not being able to hear them when they whisper in a meeting.

Social anxiety is as much of a mental illness as the fear leaving a bad impression on a date, fear of spiders or fear of doing poorly at an interview and enjoys the same kinds of legal protections. Which is none.

...You do know that social anxiety disorder is a genuine and recognized mental illness, right?

Or are you just one of those people who thinks that all mental illness is just a lack of sufficient gumption?

SAD is not social anxiety, please pay attention to what you’re replying to.

Social anxiety and social anxiety disorder are different like rectangles and squares are different.

I'm inclined to ask what your qualifications for such an opinion are.

> Unless you're banking on some cyberpunk future where people only ever interact online

...you're in one!

You could flip the script right back at the people afraid of interacting with people online.

This is me. I find it much easier to converse online. I also am content staying in my house for years on end (as COVID has shown) and getting my social interaction from text on a computer screen.

The internet has been my main source of social contact since I was 12 (at which point I just stopped going outside and spent all my time building websites), so I guess I've adapted to this way of living.

> so I guess I've adapted to this way of living.

Humans are almost infinitely adaptable, but if the vast majority of the world doesn't adopt a lifestyle similar to yours I fear you're really going to miss out a big part of what "living" includes. One large component: diversity, both in content and medium.

There's also the real and serious worry about "not going outside". this is terrible for your health and also has a huge corelation with poor diet and lack of exercise. You're so much more than your eyes, hands and brain.

Conversely, If the vast majority of people keep commuting and building skyscrapers just to present some charts and graphs to each other in person because grandpa CEO doesn't know how to use Zoom and HR wants to monitor you at all times, we're going to be wiped out by climate change anyway, so pick your poison I suppose. I, for one, choose survival.

I mean, I was being a little hyperbolic when I said I stopped going outside completely. I actually still played sports throughout High School, but just felt that the majority of my social interaction was through the computer.

During COVID is the first time I really stopped seeing other people (other than my wife and kids) and I actually enjoyed it. I have my own yard and house, so I do go outside on the occasion still, and make sure to get the mail each day. Some days I sit on my porch in the morning, if it feels nice. I do body weight exercises and yoga and I am having a full gym built in my basement.

That said, I still don't see many other people and I don't feel like my social needs are lacking.

I enjoy my life, it is good.