What’s “third place”?
Comment on What's the deal with male loneliness?
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 5 weeks ago
Too many cars. No more third place.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
In sociology, the third place refers to the social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Examples of third places include churches, cafes, bars, clubs, libraries, gyms, bookstores, hackerspaces, stoops, parks, theaters, among others
kandykarter@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Places that aren’t home or work. Social places, like bars.
Dogiedog64@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The colloquial “third place” is, as I understand it, a (usually) public place OUTSIDE of Home or Work where people can meet, hangout, play, or just exist without the expectation of spending money or being productive in some way. Examples would be Parks, Libraries, old-timey Public Houses and Cafes, Playgrounds, Forests and Wilderness within walking distance, and more.
Car culture killed a lot of that by removing the ability to reasonably walk places outside major metro areas, as businesses relocated to cities, and because they straight up increased the fatality rate for walking substantially. Internet Culture also killed it since you can just talk to your buddies through the Demon Rectangle instead of meeting IRL.
bradd@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Automotibles are not car culture. If anything car culter turns a garage into a third place, by your definition, and brings other people out of their houses and out of the workplace, to meet. Car culture is more an adaptation people have made due to the advent of the automotible and the problems you attribute to “car culture”. Everything has expanded and is cut up by streets and shit because automotibles are useful… as a side effect has made it harder to have a third place, as you have pointed out, and so people who engage in car culture actually overcome the challenge by integrating automotibles into their culture, they persevere.
I would actually make the same argument for internet culture. The internet isn’t internet culture, and if anything Internet culture has allowed people to express themselves through the intenet, embracing it and integrating it into their lives rather than just living beside it. For people people who consider themselves part of internet culture, the internet is their third place where they play.
With that said, it’s still an interesting idea. I do think we pay a high price for the luxuries that we have today and it’s not well understood. Having infrastructure designed around automotibles, for example, fucking sucks.
burgersc12@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
This is basically it. It costs money to hang out with people IRL, everytime, all because of cars. We are all spread out so far now, except in a handful of places. Even without factoring in cars, the amount of activities that people can do for free or cheap is dwindled to basically nothing. This is simplistic, but the reality is no one can really afford real friends anymore.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Funny you should phrase it like that.
My uncle is a machinist specializing in automotive engine repair and modification. Over dinner last month, he mentioned that he’s used to seeing middle age customers for hot rod engine builds, midlife crisis “Always wanted to do this” kind of guys, but lately he’s been seeing men in their teens and twenties come in wanting heads ported and polished and shit like that.
They’re not spending money on women because women have made themselves impossible to want, so young men are turning their attention to things like cars.
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 5 weeks ago
So you’re saying they want their heads polished by a man because women are unattainable? Interesting…
nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Others have explained it (places where social interaction is the primary intent - not home and not work) but I’ll add - old European cities (and most smaller towns) have some sort of public square. Many have lasted to this day and are still used. We can still build them, we but our chosen form of urbanization isn’t that conducive to it so we don’t. In North America in the 80 and into the 90s, malls we’re 3rd place. Then they started aggressively going after loitering in malls since simply sitting in a mall doesn’t produce economic activity. Many malls died and many are still dying. Those that survived achieved the - nobody goes there to chill anymore. Just to buy what they need, maybe eat, and then leave. Nobody plans to “meet at the mall” anymore.
Murvel@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Oh, too many cars! Absolutely, makes sense…
SoftTeeth@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
How much time do you willingly spend in public interacting with others?
There was a lot more of it happening before society required everyone to have personal transportation.
I’m an introvert so I am at home, work, or errands. I probably would talk to a lot more strangers if I had to use public transport and it wasn’t so expensive to do anything fun in public.
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
You would?
I use public transit daily and hardly ever interact with anyone. Maybe there is one interaction every 100 days? I don’t frequently see two strangers interacting either, it’s unheard of except maybe for retirees with effectively infinite time.
Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
A challenge for you (or anyone interested in taking it up): Once a day, while waiting for public transit, pay attention to the people around you. Does anyone have something interesting about them (hair, clothes, jewelery, weird keychain thing on their phone, etc.)? Ask one identified person about it. See someone who looks like their on the verge of tears? Ask them “Hey, is everything ok?”
9/10 times you’ll have a brief Q-A-back off interaction, but sometimes it’ll turn into a longer conversation. Yes, it feels awkward. Yes, in some places you’ll come across as rude (keep your dominant culture in mind - you probably wouldn’t try this in some place like Finland or something). But I’ve had some very interesting experiences doing this in the past (usually with the ones who look upset - if you’re willing to be a sympathetic ear you might just make that person’s day).
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Bar culture and vining is still very much alive but I think people are less inclined to go to those places alone now.
oyo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I would posit that the internet and abundant screen entertainment contributed to killing third places far more than cars. The US has had a car culture for a very long time. (I’m not saying that makes it a good thing.)
isaaclw@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Maybe. But if people had the sqme amoubt of screen time and wqlked or biked, or took public transit there would be more forced interaction than there is in car culture.
I think they go hand in hand. And right now we got both.