Comment by yakkomajuri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yakkomajuri | Hacker News Reader

I can definitely relate. What's funny is I've always been really social and open to talking to strangers, plus I come from a culture where this is accepted and encouraged (Brazil).

However, I've been working remotely for 7 years now and recently became a solo founder, and I realized I'm having a fair amount of social anxiety. At the previous two companies, I was working remotely but still had people online to chat to, and would meet in person once in a while. Now as a solo founder I've just been working from home and I noticed that when I was leaving the house to buy groceries or work out that was my "break time" and I somehow just wanted to be more alone so I always had my headphones on.

That meant that I became someone who's running away from social interaction the more I actually needed it. And that when placed in a social situation I'm suddenly anxious whereas before this all came very naturally to me (I've also spoken in public very often etc).

How I'm coping:

- Got a WeWork membership

- Leaving the house without headphones

- Striking up conversation with uber drivers, cashiers, etc

- Making an effort to go to events (even flying somewhere at my own expense to speak at a small event for the first time in years)

Remote work is absolutely brutal to a cohesive functioning society. I know people are going to slam me for saying it but is honestly true. People forgot how to interact with each other because the forcing function that gets everybody mixed together into the same pot got taken away. And if you don’t take some fairly extreme steps to counter it, you’ll be completely alone and isolated, subject to algorithmically chosen feeds that are completely unique to you and detached from the community around you.

It’s really quite dystopian and anti-human if you ask me. We’ve already lost so much shared mediums—nobody watches the same shows, reads the same media, etc. which in isolation is completely fine. But something has to be shared with other real physical humans and it has to be more than just occasional grocery store visits, run-ins at the park, etc.

I dunno quite how to articulate it very well though. It’s just remote work has a nasty side effect of making humans even more isolated from people not like themselves. It makes us all increasingly divided and “othered”. And that isn’t good for anybody.

> People forgot how to interact with each other because the forcing function that gets everybody mixed together into the same pot got taken away.

A lot of offices don't force you to interact with each other, much less in meaningful ways.

> And if you don’t take some fairly extreme steps to counter it, you’ll be completely alone and isolated

Are "having more time to meet with friends and family" or "having time to do hobbies with other people" extreme steps?

I have friends and family, but staring at a computer 8 hours or more a day is corrosive to my mental health.

And when I am in an office, I do interact with people, in meaningless and meaningful ways, whether I am forced to or not.

I know this does not apply to everybody, but I function best with constant low level social interaction. I should have picked a different career, but I didn't have that foresight.

I agree. I have been fully remote for a bit over 2 years, and I myself feel a change. In the early days I had a managerial role so I felt the need to visit office and deal with employees, colleagues and customers. Office is 5 miles so not too far, I just avoid going as my family health issues may require my intervention. Now that I am an IC, and the health issues are not sorted, my visits have reduced, and I think it is slowly changing me for the worse - in terms of discipline, social interactions and even productivity which you think would be higher from home. Thankfully though I am starting to recognize some of the patterns and working to fix them but you can fix productivity, you can not fix lack of socialization.

you wouldve been downvoted into the seventh layer of hell for saying this three years ago.

I think remote work should have been accompanied with a reduction in the working week.

Everybody is working more hours in a day with remote work, it would only be fair to have the friday in return.

On headphones: I recently got a set of Aftershokz headphones to use as sleep headphones that worked with my custom earplugs plugged in.

They work amazingly for that purpose, but I was not at all prepared for how much more social these would (re-)make me.

Listening to music helps me relax. If I could, I'd have something on at all times. (Jazz in the morning, KEXP in the afternoon, classical at night.) With these, I can talk to people and hear them crystal clearly while listening to whatever I have on. I don't need to compromise like I did (and do) while wearing AirPods (even in transparency mode). This has made me more receptive to striking up conversation.

On coworking: couldn't agree more. Being around other people has been great for my mental health, even if I'm not talking to them. I'm also the kind of person that needs work and home life to be physically separate and needs a commute to make work feel like work. Taking the bus into work is scratching that itch well.

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