I do think there is a trend of taking too much time or too much handsoff approach to hamsters which lends itself to hamsters not being particular friendly toward humans. I think people sometimes just forget that part of animal husbandry is making sure that your animal is tamed and able to interact with humans for their sake.
Perhaps, but it's also difficult to deny that hamsters are much less naturally handle-able and active compared to many other rodents, and their nocturnality is a major hindrance compared to many of the other popular choices; this was the gist from what I recall of the anti-hamster-as-good-companions arguments. Honestly, if I didn't have any connection to hamsters and looked objectively at the choices out there as a first-time small mammal to expose to my kids, I'd probably go with guinea pigs (which is actually my least preferred commonly-kept rodent, though my reasons for finding it uninteresting is probably what makes it so good for kids, i.e. they're the ultimate middle ground as well as incredibly docile) or gerbils (though they are illegal where I grew up in CA, for everywhere else, they have a lot of the perks of hamsters yet offer a lot more interactivity, both from temperament and activity).
Well, it's useful to describe coloring but it leads people to not understand that just because your Syrian hamster is black, doesn't make him a difference species.
Sure, though I greatly appreciate that it has been for a while the commonplace practice to include scientific names. I very much welcome that and think it's a sign of progress in labeling compared to the early 00s and prior. Even the usage of Djungarian and Siberian comes from the scientific literature (and the confusion surrounding all that stems from scientists, so can't blame the pet industry on that), so there's certainly an attempt to be clearer. And I see many more places use Syrian as well as Campbell, whereas I don't recall anyone doing that around me in the 90s.
I remember this as a child and it was common that the pet stores would encourage you to buy them in groups of 2 or 3. It's not clear to me why the decline other than this community on HH is a bit insular and people repeat the same information over and over like it is proven truth without stopping to think about why it is considered true. So when keeping pairs went out of fashion, it was highly discouraged.
Unfortunately, it seems the online hamster community all around has this habit (particularly those based in North American it seems? particularly on FB), which is what made me want to offer an alternative voice. As to the concept of grouping, it's been my experience that hamsters are rather hardy, to which their popularity as a "beginner pet" is partly owed, and for the Phodopus species (especially Campbells and Robos), they have a pretty high tolerance for sociality (even if natural inclinations are toward a looser structure) and typically adjust fine (whether they thrive or not is up to debate). I think this is why pet shops of yesteryear were quick to recommend keeping multiples, but exceptions will exist (especially with smaller enclosures), and the advent of social media perhaps brought to light the more gruesome exceptions, which led many folks to react with a better-safe-than-sorry approach, in line with your point. As you stated though, I think if one is attentive, then pairing when introduced at a very young age should be fine in the vast majority of cases.
To be clear though, it's certainly possible that pairs legitimately fail much more often than I realize and perhaps I'm off-base here. It's also certainly possible that the population genetics actually evolved to more solitary preferences in captive individuals over the last couple decades. Hard to say without hard data.
I think it's possible to keep pairs but you do have to pay attention to the cage dynamics and be able to recognize the signs of one hamster bullying another and know when to separate before something bad happens. I think in some ways in the wild if two animals have a falling out, it's easier for them to go their separate ways then in captivity where they have limited space and resources. Probably too many new owners keeping pairs and not understanding that sometimes you need to seperate caused the community to just tell people not to keep pairs at all.
The concept of looser social structures in the wild is an interesting concept, and an argument I encountered before for why captive dwarf hamsters shouldn't be kept together despite frequent interactions naturally. IIRC from one of my undergrad ecology courses (ages ago, so take with a grain of salt!), there are I think 7 levels of sociality? Regardless, sociality is a spectrum and not a binary state, and even among just the Phodopus species we see a pretty well-established range of social preferences. I would interpret this as grouping is possible, but the difficulty/chances of success increases from Robo to Campbell to WW. And larger enclosures (plus decreasing opportunities to fight, e.g. more bedding, two sets of everything, more enrichment, etc.) probably helps a lot. Of course, introduction at a very young age (ideally littermates) has a major influence.
I've also heard the argument that hybridization contributes to the breaking down of social dynamics. That certainly sounds like a plausible hypothesis, and could possibly explain the observations of falling outs between bonded pairs years down the line (perhaps even among littermates). While the whole point of my OP was to downplay the exaggeration of hybrids, it's undeniable that introgression does exist, and earlier generation hybrids are commonplace, so I certainly see this as a strong possibility.
I remember when hamsters were basically kept in giant glass store displays and there were 15-20 hamsters in a bin. You could reach in and pet the hamsters. Though since they were sleeping during the day all it did was wake them up. I could understand why hybrids would be more common then. That could also explain why hamsters were considered more "friendly" since they got more human interaction at a young age. Now hamsters are kept in separate 10 gallon tanks instead of the free for all. I did bring home a female hamster when I was a kid who was pregnant. I am sure other moms complained to the store like like mine did about now having 10 hamsters instead of just 1... Back then the labels (at least where I lived) were Golden Hamster, Russian Dwarf, and Winter White. Chinese hamsters were not a thing when I was a kid.
Ah, the old days . I vaguely recall something like that too, especially in the more mom and pop independent shops that were sometimes a bit more grungy.
Something to keep in mind too is that a lot of those early hybrids probably eventually had lines that ended, thus are unlikely to have contributed to modern-day stock.
There were more independent, owner-run shops back then too, and I think that factor also encouraged more human interactions, both with the shop staff as well as potential customers (and especially kids, who will be more awkward on average and train the hamsters to be more tolerant). I also think that meant there were more locally-bred hamsters, from within the shop, local breeders (which I think was much less discouraged back then), and accidental litters (especially, as aforementioned, when there was significantly less care toward proper sexing); the decreased stress from being shipped far distances en masse (especially if born within the shop itself) may have had a pretty large effect on taming. On a side note, I kind of feel that hamsters today seem much more nocturnal than how I remember them from before, I wonder if that's also due to these factors. Food for thought.
