On ‘Third Spaces’ and the epidemic of loneliness

Picture this. You’ve just come out of a lecture, with four hours to go until the next. What do you do? Do you go home and do the dishes that have been piling up for three days? Or do you go to the library to try (but of course ultimately fail) to get some work done? Work or home? The sinking feeling at your lack of options isn’t just disappointment at your boring life, it’s longing for something sociologists Oldenburg and Brissett coined as ‘The Third Space’ forty years ago.

Third spaces can include public libraries, community centres, cafes and public footpaths. Despite this variety, they share two basic requirements: they are not workplaces or homes, and their main purpose is to allow free socialising. True third spaces are dwindling, yet they remain as necessary as ever for two main reasons.

Firstly, they improve our mental health. In this era of individuality, where most are concerned only with themselves, their career, their nuclear family, and in turn are only cared for by this small group of people, it is no wonder that good mental health seems unattainable. Instead of crumbling under deadline or domestic induced pressures, third spaces allow interaction with a range of different people. If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a community to nurture an adult.

Secondly, third spaces are inherently revolutionary. In true third spaces people are free to talk to whoever they want, regardless of social class thereby dismissing any existing social hierarchy. Therefore third spaces, although more common historically, have always been villainised. For example, coffee houses in the 1600’s were shut down by Charles II due to the free discussion of dissent and revolt within them. Charles II recognised that coffee houses, like all third spaces were vital to social progress, progress that if left unchecked, might have led to the absolution of the throne he sat on.

Despite their necessity to the wellbeing of the individual and wider society, due to the lack of money made by third spaces their numbers have recently declined, and thus finding a third place to thrive and form connections in is a chore. It’s no surprise then that we all spend hours rotting in bed or being unproductive in the library. The world we live in offers us no alternative. The only solution is to make an alternative. But sandwiched between relentless rounds of laundry and essays that always seem to be due in four hours it is doubtful that new third places will suddenly spring from the ground like an oasis in this desert of isolation. That inane question again comes to mind. Work or home? And so the monotony continues.