There is a simple model that for decades has been used to describe the structure of everyday human life. It is known as the concept of the three places. According to this view, each of us has the space of home, where family and personal life unfold, and this is considered the first place.

There is the space of work or study, where our professional and social interactions occur, and this becomes the second place.

And then there is the third, the living space in between: the coffee shop on the way, the park where you hide your true self, the library, the bar around the corner, any place where a person briefly steps out of their roles and simply breathes among other people.

I bet you still think that you are living in this concept! For many decades, it was assumed that within these three points a person receives their primary warmth, growth, and sense of meaning. But if we look honestly, today this map increasingly fails to match the reality in which the modern human actually lives.

Recent statistics reveal a shift that is becoming difficult to ignore. Before you read more, I want you to see this 50 second clip 

How and where people spend their time 1930-2024 

In 1930s for decades percentage between family - friends- school/colleagues were equal in 20%. Family was the leader. in 1940s friends became more than your family. in 80s family was not your even third tier anymore. and now... the reality is so different, even though we lie to ourselves and to the world that family is the most important thing! Is it? 

For a vast number of people, the first place is now online space. The second is a narrow circle of friends. The third is colleagues. So, between online and friends, colleages become that place where you can breathe easier? In many cases what we say we value is lower on the list of where real time and attention are actually spent. 

This is where a subtle but very important fracture appears.

We still think and speak in the language of the old paradigm. In the collective memory, the image remains intact: home as the source of warmth, work as the field of realization, the third place as the space of living human breathing. The formula still sounds right. Am I right? ir an U right? Almost flawless. Almost… comforting!  And this is where I want to ask an uncomfortable question.

Do you even notice that the structure of your life has already changed? and that along with it, the quality of how you live may have quietly shifted too? This is not the level of ideas! or analysis! This is at the level of the body, at the level of that very warmth this model once promised to deliver.

The body of the modern person is increasingly having a very different experience! Remember, body ALWAYS live in the reality, in the now. 

People spend hours online not because they have forgotten how to live, but because the digital environment removes an enormous amount of friction. There is less awkwardness. Less unpredictability. Less demand to metabolize other people’s emotions in real time. Online space offers the feeling of connection quickly and with far less perceived risk. You can actually be who you are without masks... and if someone doesn't like what you are saying - you click a button "block this asshole"... 

And slowly, a quiet functional substitution begins. What the third place once provided, weak social ties, spontaneous encounters, the felt sense of being woven into the fabric of the world, is increasingly simulated through digital presence.

Before, the third place functioned as an almost invisible but critically important social adhesive. It allowed the nervous system to discharge. It created weak social ties, the very ones that research has repeatedly shown to be essential for psychological well-being.

Today the pattern is shifting. Online delivers fast dopamine without physical presence. Friends often remain a narrow, closed circle (like 14% of your time vs. Online is like 61%). Colleagues, by design, maintain primarily functional relationships (about 8,5%).

Formally, contact exists. Physiologically, nourishment is far less guaranteed. No wonder people are all feeling lost. Because there are no real human contact anymore! no responsibility anymore - just words, promises... lies! No wonder you feel as if something is missing. You are missing a genuin human experience - the touch, the passion of connection, those kisses in the middle of the night where body feels hot, but your mind is still half-sleeping, but you are already in that passionate human body to body connection... 

So, something far more sensitive is happening within marriage... Culturally, we still inherit the idea that marriage is the natural center of adult life, that it is where depth, stability, and true closeness are meant to live. This is supposed to be the safest place for you. This is the place where you are supposed to take off all your weapons of the day, masks and your armor. This belief is so deeply embedded in the collective psyche that it is rarely reexamined through direct personal experience.

But if we listen not to the idea, but to the lived sensations of many people inside relationships, the picture becomes more complex. More and more women and men within committed partnerships report not an expansion of life, but a steady accumulation of load, a quiet layering of obligations, domestic coordination, emotional logistics, the constant background of “have to” that slowly begins to outweigh the living impulse of “want to.” And you don't feel safe inside your home anymore, you have to hide, because you feel like you're being monitored and controlled and you can't relax anymore. 

I began to notice this weight in my own body long before I could name it clearly. There is a steady, persistent heaviness, the growing sense that parts of the relationship were beginning to feel less like nourishment and more like another layer of responsibility to carry... on top of all other problems you must "decide" 

And at that point, something essential becomes visible. The paradigm continues to live in cultural memory. But the real ecology of human life has already changed... decades ago! LOOOOOOOONG time ago! This video is an invitation to look honestly. First, you are gently anchored in the familiar, almost “healthy” model:

• home
• work
• a living third space

And immediately, these are tied to the most powerful human values, deep satisfaction, warmth, meaning, personal growth. This matters. Because what follows is a very subtle cognitive shift. You are not accused. You are not persuaded. You are simply invited to look carefully:

Do your three primary places still truly look like this today?

And for the attentive reader, something inside begins to move. It is an uncomfortable question. A grown question. Because it inevitably leads to the next layer of inquiry. If the center of gravity of life HAS ALREADY shifted into online space, hybrid forms of connection, and narrower, more fluid social circles, then which forms of closeness genuinely nourish the human nervous system today? And which ones do we continue to maintain largely out of cultural inertia rather than embodied truth?

Perhaps the most honest conversation of our time begins right here. Not with the rejection of family. Not with the romanticization of solitude. But with the sober recognition that the environment has changed, the rhythm of human contact has changed, and the psyche is adapting in real time — faster than our social myths are able to update.

The only real question is whether we are willing to see it.