As gathering places shrink, some find community through screens

Oscar Rodríguez and Amanda, whose last name was not provided, grew up in Sunset Park just one block apart. Even though they had mutual friends, they never met.

That changed recently during a Pokémon Go event in Sunset Park, when the two friends realized they had grown up on the same street.

Rodríguez said he has had similar experiences with other people too, building deeper friendships through the virtual game.

“Now we go out to dinner. Sometimes we hang out, we socialize,” Rodríguez said.

In Pokémon Go, players gather in physical spaces to find, catch, and train virtual creatures called Pokémon. Participants use their phones to navigate and catch as many as they can.

The story of Rodríguez and Amanda, both Community Ambassadors for the game, shows how virtual tools, including social media platforms often blamed for rising loneliness in the United States, have also become tools for building community.

Reddit, in search of connection

This January, a Sunset Park resident reactivated the neighborhood’s subreddit after several years of inactivity.

“It was frustrating that there wasn’t a Sunset Park Reddit group,” said u/jsm1, who asked to be identified only by his Reddit username.

Often described as “the front page of the internet,” Reddit is a social media platform where people post, discuss, and rate content. Its groups, known as subreddits, are organized around a place, topic, or activity.

The group’s current moderator, a longtime New Yorker and longtime Reddit user, envisioned a multicultural space that “would be useful for the community because it has automatic translation,” where people could post in Spanish, English, and Mandarin.

“I want the space to reflect what the neighborhood is,” u/jsm1 added, referring to Sunset Park’s multicultural character.

Although it may still be too early to bridge cultural divides, the subreddit has quickly become a digital space where users share neighborhood information, ask for help, or offer different kinds of services.

Since its reactivation, the group has grown by nearly 50 percent to around 1,200 members and 1,000 weekly visitors by late February. According to the moderator, user posts reflect a strong desire for artist groups, cafés, and places to read.

“There’s a lot of longing for third places,” u/jsm1 said.

Third places in Sunset Park

The term “third place” was coined by urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989 to describe spaces outside the home and workplace where people build social meaning. Parks, libraries, shopping centers, community centers, and churches are all examples of third places.

Sunset Park is an example of a third place in the neighborhood, a space where people build social meaning beyond work or home. Photo by Leonardo March.

According to some reports, third places in the United States have been disappearing because of a mix of economic pressures, social media habits, and pandemic-related changes.

In Sunset Park, that shortage of third places was identified in a 2022 neighborhood report that cited the lack of “central gathering spaces” in the area. In a similar way, the Sunset Post has reported on the gap left in the community by construction at the recreation center in Sunset Park.

The park itself serves as the biggest third place of all, where the broader community gathers during the summer. But in the winter, people need to find alternatives.

The loss of gathering spaces where people form connections, repeated across many communities, helped prompt an advisory from then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy on an epidemic of loneliness in the country.

Alternatives from the digital world

In the past, travelers gathered around a campfire to tell stories. In the 21st century, Campfire is an app used to coordinate Pokémon Go meetups.

Pokémon Go users are turning a game into a way to build real community. Photo by Leonardo March.

From the outside, these gatherings may look like a group of people staring at their phones. But that view hides a deeper meaning that goes beyond a shared moment of play.

“It’s like motivation. I still want to go out even when the weather is terrible,” Amanda said about the meetups. “And you have this group you can turn to when people are traveling out of town, or even on holidays. You have a group you can turn to that feels like home. And I really like that.”

Despite reporting that often points to technology as a cause of loneliness, Reddit and Pokémon Go have taken on some of the roles once filled by third places, helping create community in Sunset Park.

Maybe for newer generations, everything really is within reach of a screen.