Third Places
“Where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came”, and these days it feels like a distant memory.
Connection before a “Connected” world
People around my age and older might remember leaving home just for the sake of it, getting a call on the landline and agreeing to meet outside in the afternoon. Others might remember going somewhere straight after leaving school and spending the afternoon doing anything except studying. In my experience I remember bringing my friends home for a few hours just to play videogames or meeting at a park on the weekend to play with a ball.
But if we look away from the outings with friends, there were also places where you met people outside your school circle. Places like Cyber-cafés were my childhood haven: paying for an hour of computer time meant rushing through schoolwork, then losing myself in flash games or just joining strangers in a local Counter-Strike match. Arcades were a great place to hang out but I sadly enjoyed them during their decline and not their golden age like others before me. This was also seen in pop culture with shows like Cheers, Friends and How I Met Your Mother also having these kind of places: Cafés and Bars/Pubs where you could just meet people, become part of a community or just hang out with your friends after a long day.
All of these places were catalogued by Ray Oldenburg as “Third Places” and defined as “Neutral, accessible spaces fostering spontaneous interaction, distinct from home (1st) and work (2nd).” and sadly these spaces are becoming less common the more our society becomes “Connected” compared to the other two.
Connection Lost but still on (the) line
Society has changed since the early 2000s leaving us more busy despite our mere 24 hours. My own routine of leaving at 7 AM and returning at 8 PM after work and gym leaves me tired, wired and done for the day. So at what time do I go to a place to just hang out? or an even more important question is: where do I go?. Places are becoming less personal, corporatized businesses prevail over locally owned stores and owners prefer customers who consume and leave.
Sure, there are places that made their whole business model into becoming third spaces like modern hobby shops and co-working spaces. Here’s the catch: you go for an activity, then leave. Profits vanish when people linger.
People have changed too, with the internet you can now talk face to face with friends at just the press of a button and there is no need to meet in person. This means that people become trapped in little bubbles. Why hangout if your friends are constantly sending you tiktok or instagram reels while chatting through whatsapp/telegram? You can satisfy your social interactions of the day during the downtime at work or after getting home.
Paradoxically Lonely
So with all these tools and connectivity, why everyone feels so lonely compared to before?. What happens if your friends aren’t at their phones? It becomes a modern version of waiting for letters. And in the time when letters were used, you could just go to the third places and talk with other people while you waited for the reply of your friend. Now? you just dwell in mindless entertainment hoping it fills the need of connection.
Third places are a place “Where everybody knows your name” just like the Cheer’s theme song says, you don’t have to text them everyday or talk to them every time you go. You just exist there as part of the community and are available for any social event or interaction.
Discord servers are touted as “Gen Z’s third places” but butting into a virtual chat buried in infinite scroll lacks the courage and tangible stakes of interrupting a real conversation. Digital interactions build convenience; physical spaces build trust.
We must reclaim third places, starting today: Go to a pub with friends and interact with strangers maybe while watching a football match, stay a while in a bookshop and compliment people on the books they picked up, become sociable in a world where spontaneous social interactions are becoming weird!
I still have more to learn about these places so I reached out and got some reading materials like Ray Oldenburg’s book “The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community” and Jan Gehl “Cities for People”. As I explore Oldenburg’s case studies and Gehl’s blueprints for human-centered cities, I’ll share how we can rebuild these spaces. In the meantime: strike up one conversation this week where algorithms can’t eavesdrop.