> Over and over again, studies[0] find that people think that their past conversations went worse than they actually did and that future conversations will go worse than they actually do. But when you just make people talk to each other, they end up having a nice time and feeling more confident[1] about their conversational abilities.

[0]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15298868.2020.18...

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210312...

Annual sales of antidepressants in North America are about $8 billion.

> People are more alone than ever, but they’re not feeling much lonelier than they used to. So maybe all this extra solitude is...fine?

Okay but the data examined for "more alone" is US data with unclear age range (most likely adults). But the data examined for "not feeling much lonelier" is UK data and US school teenager data. I feel like there's a massive blind spot with the fact there's no US adult data...?

There is an interesting phenomenon called "the Firehouse Effect" that is similar but on a group level.

The idea is that if you take a group of humans and isolate them, they will begin to believe wilder and wilder ideas and communicate those ideas amongst themselves. This happens because the group is not routinely "reconciling" with broader society which in turn is slower to adopt new ideas.

It's named after firemen who would spend a lot of time together in firehouses.

https://absoluteengagement.com/blog/are-you-stuck-in-the-fir...

I'd enjoy it for fun, to pass the time, to read a dozen follow-up articles. But as a one-off post to learn and inform myself? Ugh.

Unrelated, but two of the many links have ChatGPT referals. I'm not sure what to think of it. I guess it's fine?