Open Thread: September 2011

Pavitra

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.

Also, it's getting easier and easier to work, study and live for weeks without talking to anyone else than the grocery store clerk. I don't think that's a particularly good thing from a mental health perspective.

Talking with your mouth, or talking? Because it's not clear to me that talking online is significantly worse than talking in person at sustaining mental health. I suspect getting a girlfriend/boyfriend will do more for your mental health and social satisfaction than interacting with people face-to-face more.

If you mean a face-to-face bf/gf, you're not actually disagreeing with Kaj. Also, I concur with his points about social deprivation leading to lethargy, based on personal experience.

5Kaj_Sotala15y

Personally I find that if I don't hang out with people in real life every 2-4 days I will get increasingly lethargic and incapable of getting anything done. To what degree this generalizes is another matter.

1luminosity15y

I've been working from home for a year now. I don't get out and see people often, my family live far away, so I don't have many opportunities to see people in person. The exception is, my brother is staying with me while he studies at University. There have been a few periods however where he's been away up with our parents, or off at a different university in a different state. I have a few friends I talk with regularly online through IM, and it helps, but the periods when my brother was away were still very difficult and I was getting very stressed towards the end, even though we don't interact all that much on a day to day basis, and even though I've always been much more tolerant and even thriving on loneliness than most people I know. Maybe video chatting with people would be an adequate substitute? I haven't tried that, but my anecdote is that IM / talking online alleviates some of the stress, but goes nowhere near to mitigating it.