You probably have fewer friends than your grandparents did. Study after study shows that we are getting lonelier and more isolated than ever before. Across a range of different countries, we are seeing fewer friends less often. And one of the reasons most commonly cited is because we are lacking what Ray Oldenburg called 'third spaces.'
In the 1980s, Oldenburg made a distinction between our third space, which is any place that we meet somebody outside our work or our home. At home, your first space, you live with your family or your housemates. At work, your second space, you talk with colleagues and go to meetings. In both settings, there is a way of doing things, a way of talking, a way of thinking, of even feeling.
Of course, we need both. We need home and family. We need work and colleagues to thrive. But we also need a third space to see our friends. We need a coffee shop, a pub, a library, a bookshop, an evening class, or whatever. We need somewhere where we can exchange ideas with other people and just shoot the breeze just a bit.
The problem, though, is that thanks to technology and various political or cultural reasons, these third spaces are dying or dwindling. We use social media, gaming, text messages, or the internet as surrogates, but they are insufficient. We need to take more seriously the third spaces around us. We need to commit to other people in a place that isn't our home and isn't work, because it's only there that we can develop the relationships that we are so sorely missing.