Comment by jerryuen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerryuen | Hacker News Reader

I found this study to be a good reference but I question how useful some of the data are for 20-30 years old people nowadays because:

1. The study started in 1938, which is a very different time comparing to today. Young people has way more options to enjoy life alone such as traveling, playing video games, watching youtube by themselves just to name a few.

2. The participants are mostly 90 years old now and it is understandable that they prefer relationship comparing to 20 years old folks nowadays.

3. Also, I don't see any information about the amount of friends. Is it the same having 1 friend vs 100 friends vs 1000 friends on facebook? Probably not.

4. Just seeing some random participants in their 70' in year 2000 saying they are more happy with friends is not really useful for people today. It would be nice to see the chart moving based on different time (2000 vs 2019) for different generation group.

5. "the search for happiness can become a source of unhappiness", is kind of depressing and confusing. Is going out with a friend consider "search for happiness"? I "can become" a billionaire buying lottery tickets, does that mean I should or shouldn't buy the ticket? It is based on the success rate and this article is missing that data.

I say you should evaluate from time to time if having friends or not (and how many) make you better or happier. I disagree that spending time with others ALWAYS make you happier. For example, I dislike traveling with large group of friends due to noise, planning and logistic issues.

You raise some good points.

I also believe personality types play a large part, for example I'm an introvert, and while spending time with others makes me happy - that can easily be negated if I spend too much time with others or don't have a chance to come up for air (e.g. some alone time).

Not to mention the personality types of others as well. I have introverted friends whom I can quite happily spend weeks at a time with (low energy, deep conversations, no awkwardness with silence), and on the other end of the scale there are friends who are extremely extroverted whom I cannot spend more than several hours with (high energy, shallow and constant changing of topics being discussed, a feeling of awkwardness when there is silence).

I agree, being introverted definitely seems to impact the amount of time you want to spend with others, though I am maybe somewhat different in my preferences. I absolutely enjoy spending time with people, but even spending time with other introverted folks can be tiring for me, because sometimes I just want to sit in a quiet room completely alone. (Many of my other, also very introverted friends, disagree and can spend nearly all of their time with like-minded people. Which can be a little awkward.)

Yep. Though I am gregarious, I grew up very isolated with very little interaction even with parents and my biggest problem as an adult is remembering to make time alone for myself because if I do not I grow less patient with people around me. But I also know that many people need to always be with people and I wonder: am I a result of a strange/bad upbringing? So I have committed to spending time with people but there is nothing I love more than a week totally alone and my happiest memories are months where I lived completely alone. One trick for balance: living in countries where I do not speak the language is an excellent way to be around people but have peace.

Have you tried going over to countries where you cannot even read the language? E.g. Korea, Japan? I found the experience very refreshing and surreal in a good way.

Yep. In Russia - now I can read the letters but only with concentration. I want to spend more time in Asia. It really helps me notice the space reading takes up in my seeing and also, how important wonder is in fun. I spend so much time wondering what food I am buying, what is behind that door, what those people are protesting etc and that energy is like ... embers for creativity and makes it easier for me to admit that even when I can read it all, understand it all, I still really don't know anything much.

I'm also an introvert. I get exhausted when spending a lot of time with other people. One thing I've noticed though is that when I do spend time with people, I prefer getting to know new people rather than hanging out with people I already know. I guess this is some subtype within introverts, because the "stereotype" is that introverts have a few close friends - Instead I have lots of shallow relationships and I am terrible at keeping close friends because I never spend time with them...

> Young people has way more options to enjoy life alone such as...

I've never quite bought this argument. Yes, the choices are different. 100 years ago travel might be by train. Or hitch-hiking. Instead of video games you had a deck of cards and played solitaire. Today we have MMORPGs, back then it was again cards, sitting around a table. They didn't watch YouTube, but absolutely read books and newspapers.

Things you could do alone back then were kind of boring, while you can do really engaging stuff alone nowadays. Like talking to other people over the Internet.

> the search for happiness can become a source of unhappiness

It can become maladaptive reward seeking behaviour, similar to addiction.

Rephrasing it like this reminds me of this SMBC comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/conscious

> Young people has way more options to enjoy life such as traveling, playing video games, watching youtube by themselves

This is killing time not enjoying life.

I can understand someone thinking video games and YouTube are just killing time (although I don't agree), but traveling? That's pretty much universally accepted as one of the best things you can do to improve yourself.

This is a cliche about traveling. Most young people that I have seen traveling in Thailand or Bali do not seem like improving themselves.

Only few are genuinely interested in the world around them.

Of course we will need some data to support my point :-)

Of course we will need some data to support my point

Does hundreds of years of travel writing and tens of thousands of biographies of people who travelled before going on to do amazing things count?

Tens of thousands? There is some 5 milion tourists pers year to Bali and 35 milion to Thailand. Not to mention other destinations. So tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number) is just an rounding error.

So I guess here is your answer.

What I simply meant is that travelling for most people is just a form of leisure not a life enhancing experience.

I don't agree. Very few people do anything significant enough to warrant a book about their life, but everyone who travels lives a better life afterward.

tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number)

There's more than 80,000 in the biography section of Amazon, and that only includes the ones in print right now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20530350

> Most young people that I have seen traveling in Thailand or Bali do not seem like improving themselves.

How do you know? The benefits of travel don't come instantly like some binary "travel" door you walk through. Travel sculpts your character over time in small ways and small interactions. And why would it need to be an active self-improvement process? On of the beauties of travel is how passive the a-ha moments are, you just have to pull the trigger to go in the first place which many people cannot even do beyond a "someday I'll go" dream they carry to their grave.

There are different ways you can travel. You can do it on a shoestring budget, sleeping rough and working odd jobs in the process to sustain yourself. This I believe is very challenging and enriching. The other alternative is to just take a bunch of money and go to country where it goes a long way (like Thailand) and then spend time in hostels, eat out and basically live a life of partying and leisure. This I believe is much less valuable.

That's pretty much universally accepted as one of the best things you can do to improve yourself.

I'm not sure about that, most modern travel seems to be just another form of consumerism.

Not universally. For example, I disagree. I've lived in three countries and the experiences have been incredibly rewarding and interesting. But I've traveled to dozens of countries and while I enjoy those trips (that's why I did them after all!) it's very superficial. I know people like to be exposed to different cultures and ways of life, but I feel you just can't really meaningfully do that in only a week or two from a hotel and with no responsibilities.

Very much this. I travelled around Europe and what's left to me of these trips have almost nothing to do with being exposed to other cultures and that stuff. I agree that a bunch of weeks of traveling, especially if you don't know the language, is very superficial. My memories of these are mostly about the time spent with the people I travelled with —mostly family.

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