Forcing people to do things they don't want or enjoy _is_ dystopian, and definitely unhealthy.
If a community relies on forced interaction, perhaps it is not a community at all, just a bunch of captive people in a sort of abusive relationship.
Learning basics of history, chemistry, etc. is good even if it is boring, because it enhances our understanding of the world.
And interacting with people in person is good even if it is sometimes annoying, because humans are social creatures.
To ignore the benefits of social interaction is an extremist view. To think that it is healthy that millions of people glamorize isolation and laugh along at how annoying it is to talk to people, is to cheer on a very unhealthy trend.
As I alluded, I think the pendulum will swing back toward normality in time. We are a social species, and we need in-person social interactions. If one feels like interacting with the grocer is an undue, unnecessary burden, then they are as mentally unhealthy as someone who can't walk a flight of stairs is physically unhealthy.
We're in the phase 4 - weak ones creating hard times. There's so many spoiled people who can't appreciate anything that requires an iota of hard work. It's the time we actually give it up and let them lead us to failure. Then, out of hardship - new generation will emerge that will pull us up.
If we were in the midst of the industrial revolution, would you be calling those speaking out for shorter work days and a better work-life balance, "weak"? Where did you draw the line in the first place?
You are missing the point here.
I love working out. I just refuse to go to, say, LA Gym to do so, and no one should be forcing me to go.
I love learning. I just refuse to pay tens of thousands of dollars, and I don't want to be forced to do so.
I love my job, but it is a _job_. I socialise with my friends and family, not with my coworkers.
I would argue that if you cannot socialise outside work, maybe you are the one with an unhealthy attitude towards it.
It may be a luxury to enjoy one's coworkers. Maybe I hit the jackpot. But it seems weird to me that people don't socialize at all with anyone at their job.
In any case, I agree - work isn't ideally the only social outlet for people. The point is that for a lot of people, that was/is the only time to get interaction with others, and yes, people should be forced to interact with others a bit (not by law, but by good habits and social norms).
I'm lamenting a larger social trend that is riding the WFH wave. My broader point is that, in my opinion, the online trend of "being a loner is cool, humanity sucks, why would I ever want to talk to people" is bad, and I think the group of people who think that way is a subset of the WFH advocacy crowd.
Like I said, WFH has benefits, some of which I currently reap, and perhaps I am overreacting or projecting! I haven't formulated my ideas into a paper, I opened them to discussion.
But with an idealization of the office experience, I disagree. I view it as a relic of the industrial age where-in output was from an assembly-line and so required everyone to be present physically.
In the knowledge era, a lot of work like programming can really be done effectively at home and asynchronously or just by using video and text communication.
For a lot of people, the office experience is almost a prison-like experience with very low freedom and control at the office. Also, there is even more time for socialization for those working at home and have family at home. Instead of just seeing family at night and on the weekends, at least can have lunch together and spend more time together so WFH is not synonymous with social isolation.
A harmonious civic life requires virtues like chivalry, propriety, patience, tolerance, and courage. These must be practiced in a social setting, whether one wants to or not.
The deterioration of public life, like in an office setting, will inevitably lead to the deterioration of those traits which are necessary for a healthy society.
(ymmv, I prefer working from home, for a lot of reasons, but the benefit of social isolation is not one of them)
What exactly is this comment based on? All of the research says the opposite of this. Forcing one's self to do things one doesn't like makes you a resilient and capable person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha1ZbJIW1f8.