urban tribes
while traveling, i finished a book called "urban tribes" which was tagged with the byline "are friends the new family?" it explored lifestyle changes wrought by the trend of people moving away from their parents, usually starting with college.
without a family nearby, the social support structure that develops looks different from people who are physically close to their family. particularly this book looked at the trend of "delaying marriage." in the case of the author, for a twenty year period starting at ~20 and ending at ~40.
for these two decades of the author's life, his life was strongly defined by his peers, who he lived, worked, and played with. he didn't make life decisions (including romantic relationships) without the approval of his tribe.
in trying to figure out what made his group more special than just a bunch of friends, he defined several criteria:
after loosly describing urban tribes, the author traced some of the social trends that lead to their formation, and particularly the drop in involvement with more traditional organizations like the shriners or the chamber of commerce.
if i were fitting my own biases, i would say he was describing the dehierarchicalization and decentralization of social life in america.
i haven't belonged to something that could be described as an urban tribe since high school, but i can see similiar close-knit structures with some of you here.
i attribute my lack of a strong, cohesive social group predominantly to a) an extreme social awkwardness while i was in college and b) moving around a lot. i'm done with both of those things, but most of my friends still don't live in albuquerque. ;)
aside from the normal bits of socializing (which i'll again couch in my own personal biases and term "sharing the free entertainment available in the universe (e.g. hiking, bicycling, picnicking, cooking, exploring, playing)") the first thing i thought about while reading the book was having a "hacking group" to get together with. i spend a fair number of non-social hours writing code, and there is no reason some of those couldn't be done openbsd "hackathon"-style. those would probably be more useful and fun than sitting in the dark working on sekret scripts anyway.
without a family nearby, the social support structure that develops looks different from people who are physically close to their family. particularly this book looked at the trend of "delaying marriage." in the case of the author, for a twenty year period starting at ~20 and ending at ~40.
for these two decades of the author's life, his life was strongly defined by his peers, who he lived, worked, and played with. he didn't make life decisions (including romantic relationships) without the approval of his tribe.
in trying to figure out what made his group more special than just a bunch of friends, he defined several criteria:
- high relationship coefficient: any person in the tribe personally related to most other people in the tribe. the number of connections between members was high.
- self-selection: the group (or the people in it) selected it's own members and decided who was "in."
- group identity: people in the group felt like they belonged to a distinct, identifiable organization. there was a sense of inclusion and belonging.
after loosly describing urban tribes, the author traced some of the social trends that lead to their formation, and particularly the drop in involvement with more traditional organizations like the shriners or the chamber of commerce.
if i were fitting my own biases, i would say he was describing the dehierarchicalization and decentralization of social life in america.
i haven't belonged to something that could be described as an urban tribe since high school, but i can see similiar close-knit structures with some of you here.
i attribute my lack of a strong, cohesive social group predominantly to a) an extreme social awkwardness while i was in college and b) moving around a lot. i'm done with both of those things, but most of my friends still don't live in albuquerque. ;)
aside from the normal bits of socializing (which i'll again couch in my own personal biases and term "sharing the free entertainment available in the universe (e.g. hiking, bicycling, picnicking, cooking, exploring, playing)") the first thing i thought about while reading the book was having a "hacking group" to get together with. i spend a fair number of non-social hours writing code, and there is no reason some of those couldn't be done openbsd "hackathon"-style. those would probably be more useful and fun than sitting in the dark working on sekret scripts anyway.