These spaces encourage casual social connection and are essential for community building.
It’s crazy how easy it is to feel isolated when there are so many people all around us. University and other school settings are the environments in which we’re surrounded by the most opportunities for social connection and community-building, yet so many students still suffer from the feeling of loneliness.
People I know have reported feeling as though they aren’t connected to their universities, that they go to school for class and then come home, living in a state of separation from the places they inhabit. “University doesn’t feel like an experience,” my friend confessed the other day.
On this topic, I highly recommend the video essay “third places, stanley cup mania, and the epidemic of loneliness” by YouTuber Mina Le. She delves into this phenomenon, namely in the context of young people having difficulty forming strong social connections in an age where so much of our connection happens online. The cure? Third places.
Third places are spaces whose primary function is social connection. While the first place is the home and the second place is work, the third place is somewhere that’s accessible to the public with little or no monetary restriction, and provides the opportunity to just casually hang out. In a third place, you might run into people without planning to or meet people you might not have met under normal circumstances. Think community centers, public parks, lounges, and cafés.
One reason third places are so special is that there is little effort required to have these social connections. It’s increasingly difficult these days to make plans, with conflicting schedules and the stress of university. Third places are low-pressure and low-commitment, and provide the thrill of spontaneity as well as the comfort of familiarity.
In The Atlantic, journalist Allie Conti wrote about the “forgotten art of hanging out” and the decline of third places as leisure becomes more privatized. With rising prices and growing mistrust among individuals, third places have become less accessible. I would argue that as we grow older, third places also become more and more difficult to find. As kids, we had mandated third places in the form of recess, and it seems like most of high school was spent hanging out in random stairwells and hallways rather than learning.
Once we graduate school entirely, third places become nearly non-existent, especially for people who work from home or simply work too much. In university, we’re at a unique point where third places are everywhere, but nobody is forcing us into them. It’s therefore up to the individual to seek them out, and I think everybody should do so.
I’m a huge fan of third places, and have always been at my happiest when there’s been a good third place to engage in. My entire CEGEP experience was one big third place, because I lived, went to school, and worked in the same building. This sort of community enhances life so much and is essential for well-being. Third places at and around Concordia include student lounges, the library (if, like me, you spend 95 per cent of your time there mindlessly chattering), and Frigo Vert, the quintessential third place.
Of course, third places do still require effort from the individual—they aren’t an instant cure for a lack of connection. The key is that they provide practice and opportunities. It’s too easy to come into school everyday and never truly engage. But if you’ve been craving a better sense of community, go to the third places.
