Nicholas Kristoff in the NY Times:
Loneliness crushes the soul, but researchers are finding it does far more damage than that. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide; it breaks the heart literally as well as figuratively. Loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and more lethal than consuming six alcoholic drinks a day, according to the surgeon general of the United States.
I don't know that anyone has run the numbers, but you have to think that increasing loneliness – in the latest surveys, a majority of Americans report experiencing loneliness more than occasionally – is part of what is driving our rising death rates.
Kristoff nods toward what I think is a major causal factor, and a major reason that getting richer doesn't necessarily make you happier:
One of the paradoxes of humanity is that while we (along with other primates) evolved to be social creatures, wealth drives us toward solitude. When we have the resources, we stop sleeping eight to a hut and build a big house with high walls, and each family member has a private bedroom and bathroom — and then to afford the mortgage we work so hard that we never manage to have meals together.When poor people move, they call their friends and everybody gets together to load and carry, but once people can afford to they hire movers. Which is nice, not having to surrender those Saturdays to toting boxes, but another tie is broken. Multiply this by a hundred.
To me the biggest disappointment of the Internet has been its inability to do more than sand the edges of loneliness. Back in the long-ago 90s I thought that I could easily find online the kind of smart, wide-ranging discussion I longed for, but I instead I found only niche interests and a lot of shouting past each other, which is why I eventually made my own place.
Early on, some thought that Facebook and other social media would bind us together, but many experts now think these platforms have instead made us more lonely.
Because time spent online decreases the time when we might actually talk to other people, and for some it increases the sense that they are being left out of all the fun.
This is a global problem. Britain and Japan both have Ministers of Loneliness, and Sweden has a Minister for Social Affairs who has made fighting loneliness her main mission. These offices have come up with a wonderful array of programs to bring people together, which I will extract from Kriftof's piece:
The steps to tackle loneliness aren’t grand, high-tech or expensive. In fact, one of the strategies is simply to get people back into old-fashioned patterns like eating meals together, holding parties and volunteering to help one another out. . . . For King Charles’s coronation in May, Britain organized a day of “The Big Help-Out” to encourage people to come together and volunteer, and an astonishing six million people did so. The response was so impressive that this may become an annual event. . . . Britain oversees public-private partnerships that collectively knit millions of people together with programs like nature walks, songwriting workshops and community litter pickups. . . a singalong organized by two local charities . . . The other organizer was the Glamour Club, founded five years ago to bring people together. “We’re on a mission to establish a Glamour Club in every village, town and city in the U.K.,” said Janice Moth, its founder. The club, which started in the English town of Worthing, holds meetings that people attend in their most glamorous clothing. . . .
As for physical infrastructure to address loneliness, one example is the “chatty bench,” adopted in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. This is a park bench with a sign encouraging strangers sitting there to chat with each other; in a Northern Ireland town, the sign says: “Sit here if you are happy to chat with passers-by.”
And here's an idea I posted here a while back: reach out to an old friend. According to the study I cited, most people vastly underestimate how much old friends would like to hear from you.
As for physical infrastructure to address loneliness, one example is the “chatty bench,” adopted in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. This is a park bench with a sign encouraging strangers sitting there to chat with each other; in a Northern Ireland town, the sign says: “Sit here if you are happy to chat with passers-by.
ReplyDeleteThe irony of it, given that all three countries are notorious for their widespread and frequent use of "homeless-proof" benches and other forms of hostile architecture.
Still, even with the hypocrisy, it's technically better than here in America, as we totally lack even those meager lip-service gestures toward bringing people together.
Hostile architecture illustrates what I think is the biggest root cause of this issue - the disappearance of the public commons, and the encroachment of private ownership onto public space. If we want people to socialize, they need places in which to do so - but in the modern world, such places are exceedingly hard to find.
Even where community spaces exist, they're almost always deficient in terms of amenities provided, accessibility via pedestrian traffic or high-quality public transit, etc.
Talk a walk through the downtown of a city near where you live, and try to find a public place where you and a dozen other people could get together to throw a birthday party, complete witha cake; or where you and a few friends could meet weekly to play D&D; or where you could host a chess tournament, or hold a screening of a film, or practice musical instruments together, etc.
You might find some public parks, open to the elements, with relatively meager accommodations. If you're lucky, you'll have access to a "community center" that isn't neglected and falling apart, and which isn't already being utilized to maximum capacity by other people or groups.
But even then, such locations are not likely to be in a terribly convenient location to be reached on foot from where you live or work, and they're likely only accessible in the middle of the workday and closed at times that would actually fit the schedules of many people. And they're almost CERTAINLY not located close to things which enable people to spend considerable stretches of time outside the home, like convenient sources of affordable food.
Part of the problem with the absence of public space is homelessness; housed people will not congregate where the homeless do. The point of unsleepable benches is to make those spaces available for other people to sit on. Until we solve the problem with homelessness it will be very hard to improve public spaces.
ReplyDeleteAlone doesn’t mean lonely. Depends on how one spends their alone time. I relish quiet.
ReplyDeleteAfter perusing the article and seeing the different words -- loneliness, social isolation, despair -- being used interchangeably, I'm confused. Trying to work it out myself, I see loneliness as needing to connect with someone or something and having neither to connect to. Social isolation can cause loneliness. Here dedicated social space might help. But social isolation and loneliness are not the same thing. As Susi said, you can be alone (in social isolation) without being lonely.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, you can can be amongst friends and still feel lonely, even in the midst of a conversation. Perhaps the better word here is despair (not loneliness). I think of despair as self-abandonment, the inability to connect with oneself, a serious problem, not one to mess with. You can forget about dedicated social spaces working here. Despair and betrayal are two words that should never permit synonyms. Each is serious s**t.
Lastly, a comparison to smoking 15 cigarettes? Really? When scientists tell me cigarettes kill over time, then show me the evidence, I listen. When they tell me 15 cigarettes does this and 20 does that, I shut off my hearing aids and go back to day dreaming. (Trust me, daydreaming and being hard of hearing are made for each other. And, no, I'm not lonely.)
@John
ReplyDeleteYet another reason why we need to spend the money to house the homeless. If basic human decency isn't compelling enough for society, perhaps the argument that it's in people's own best interest so they can enjoy public spaces will fins some traction.
It occurred to me recently that as abhorrent as the old notion of public "flophouses" is to us today, it's still better than nothing, which is effectively what we're doing today.
When the gorram Gilded Age can be said to have done a better job addressing a problem than we are able/willing to do in the present day, something is very wrong with society.
I guess I'll add my voice to the chorus of those who rather enjoy their quiet, alone time. I think I was made for that suburban withdrawal.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is that Kristof talks in terms of what "we" evolved for and what "we" need. I'm sure there are a lot of lonely people, and that's not good. I find "Eleanor Rigby" heartbreaking, too. But a lot of humans are genuine introverts, and many prefer small groups and close friends for their social interactions. Suburban walls aren't just some mistake "we" really long to break free from.
I do like a lively street scene, with cafes, open-air markets, dar un paseo, all that. But there, you're not actually called upon interact with everyone (or anyone), and if you want to turn in on yourself or be serious and read, you can do that too. And there's a place for the mere flaneur, for the Fernando Pessoas among us. But when someone starts talking about how we should all do community work together, I always feel like I'm about to be shoved into a Mao poster.