Why are other people the magic fix for everything? Hanging out with people can be just as much of a waste of time as watching Paradise Hotel, or whatever. If you walk over to your friends place for three years and hang out with the same three people every day, what has that given you? Maybe it was fun, but did you grow as a person and expand your mind? Or did you crack the same old jokes and references from the same cult movies that you've always done, and whine about the same problems that you had yesterday and still are doing nothing about, and bicker about something on the comical Seinfeld-level of pettiness?
"But it is it's own reward". Yes, but the same can be said for video games, computers, TV, or whatever else we've decided to label as "bad", probably because we are either 1. know nothing about it 2. did it in excess and now think it is the devil.