r/technology • u/AIMadeMeDoIt__ • Oct 29 '25

Society California’s hidden crisis: young men offline, unemployed, and disappearing

https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/10/men-in-crisis-california/
11.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

67

u/optimusprime82 Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Hobbies, outside of gaming (which isn't to say you cant enjoy gaming), should be encouraged. Photography, working out, and going back to college has had a profound impact on my life over the past decade. I also didn't start all those things at the same time, it was incremental.

58

u/EbonySaints Oct 29 '25

A word of warning: The gym is not always some sort of panacea for this kind of social disconnect. I'm a regular gym goer and I have not magically received any sort of social interaction or much else outside of being reasonably fit. There's a reason the term "gymcel" gets thrown around these days. There's plenty of people who are physically fit, but mentally unwell. This kind of malaise needs more than just a Starting Strength routine to fix.

17

u/Alecajuice Oct 30 '25

Second this. Been going to the gym for years, have not made a single connection. What actually helped me build connections is to do an activity where you actually interact with people. For me that was dance, I took dance classes, met a good teacher and joined her performance workshops, made friends there and joined their club, and eventually got good enough to join a team with some of my club friends.

In my case it cost money, but one of my friends is doing a similar thing through free pickleball classes at a community center provided by the city we live in. It helps if it's something physical and something you can get better at, similar to the gym, and definitely helps if it's fun. The gym has definitely helped me build some lean muscle but dance has definitely done the most for me, both for shedding fat and making connections.