Bored Panda spoke about neighborly life, and why we no longer seem to know who our neighbors are with Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. She is a Licensed Counselor, Professor, and the Chair at the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University. She explained to us what has happened over the past half a century in the United States.

“A lot of things have changed over the last 50-60 years that have created obstacles to getting to know our neighbors,” she told us.

“We're more independent and less inter-dependent than we used to be. We're also more peripatetic—the number of people who grow up and stay in their hometowns or family neighborhoods has diminished so we don't have the connections with neighbors or others in the community that people used to cultivate over the years and even over generations,” the professor explained to Bored Panda.

“We are often ‘strangers in a strange land’ when we move into new cities for our jobs,” Professor Degges-White said. Technological developments have also pushed us away from interacting with our neighbors.

“Something that we often don't think about if we're living in a modern home is that up until around 50 years ago, here in the US, air conditioning wasn't common, so people would sit outside on their front porches to stay cool. This ‘front porch sitting’ also led to conversations with neighbors who were strolling by.”

According to the professor, there was a focus on engagement, and folks wanted to “get to know their neighbors.”

“Kids also had a lot of free time that would be spent outside because there was more freedom to run, to be loud, and to engage with other kids in the neighborhood.”

Fast-forward to the present day, and things are very different. We may live more modern lives, but we’ve also become more isolated from the rest of the neighborhood. How we socialize and amuse ourselves has profoundly changed, as we increasingly rely on digital communication and entertainment.

“Now, thinking about today, many of us have AC in our homes, front porches have shrunk in size as we have seen the ‘backyard paradise’ expand,” Professor Degges-White said.

“People focus on their patios or decks, creating an ‘oasis’ away from the ‘real world.’ In addition, kids are hooked up to electronics, and the majority of their connecting and socializing with other kids is through electronic means,” she noted.

“They play video games together, use social media to chat, and can have a huge network of acquaintances that they can Facetime and Snapchat without ever having to leave their rooms,” the professor pointed out that kids tend to spend much more time indoors these days, instead of outside.

“Safety is another reason that folks are less likely to get to know their neighbors—kids don't have the free rein they once did to roam the block or run errands for their parents due to fears about abduction,” she said that there seems to be a general lack of trust in the people living around us.

“Mistrust of what others do and the sensational news stories about ‘the neighbor who didn't look like a violent criminal/kidnapper/rapist/murderer’ raise the fear level. We may not even be aware of how these stories affect us unless we pause to consider why we're hesitant to speak to a neighbor or wonder about why someone's shades are always drawn.”