Depression is definitely a factor for many people. But the death of 3rd spaces is fairly well documented. The problem is that many people don’t know how to make friends. Friends very rarely happen instantly, they usually are a result of repeated and consistent interactions. Adults rarely seek out situations that would give them those types of interactions outside of work and school.
In a weird way, having emotionally available and supportive parents is absolutely a privilege. People are able to develop empathy in spite of bad parents, and good parenting isn’t a guarantee to a good person, but parenting is a major factor for life success. I wish it weren’t, and I hope we can build a society that could guarantee every child full opportunities.
Eh, still about 50-50 with these people. I’ve sent an email with 4 nicely formatted and numbered questions and had them respond only to question 3. Like… You read some of it, decided to answer one, and then give up with no other acknowledgement? Shit is wild.
Calls and easily sharing my screen are 90% of my use cases for Discord. The entire appeal of it initially was that it was a more functional Ventrilo with both text and voice channels. Hopefully something FOSS gets further developed by the time Discord completely shits the bed.
It’s definitely hard to know when being overly enthusiastic ends and when love bombing begins. I agree that it isn’t always necessarily malicious but, as with most everything, clear open communication is the solution.
Push back when you see it. Remind them that we have a chance to reset, and they don’t have to act the same way here that they did on reddit.