Body Doubling
There was a thread on Reddit recently asking what leisure time was like for people before radio, TV, and the Internet. Someone mentioned a memoir they&#x27;d read from the early 1900s and the part that stuck with them was how <i>social</i> everyone was.<p>After work, people would go to friends houses, putter around town and catch up with neighbors, visit shops where they knew everyone, etc.<p>I can&#x27;t but think that <i>so many</i> of the malaises that people suffer today, which we ascribe as individual psychological problems, are really just a result of how profoundly lonely and isolating media consumption is. (The irony of posting this on the Internet is not lost on me.)<p>We are a tribal species. We need the company of others in our physical environment in order to feel safe and at home. Obviously, some amount of solitude is important too, but for a communal species like Homo sapiens, being alone or around strangers most of the day is the environmental equivalent of being in a desert with no shade.