Study: Loneliness, Social Isolation Greater Health Problem in US Than Obesity

Study: Loneliness, Social Isolation Greater Health Problem in US Than Obesity
studyfinds.org

Look, there are people all around us. Neighborhood streets have, what, 50 people on them? People congregate at churches, bars, coffee shops, even Wal-Marts.

Loneliness is a self-inflicted problem. I'm not saying that to belittle it, I'm saying it because the reasons most people give for being lonely have nothing to do with the actual reasons.

Real, authentic human connections banish loneliness with a ruthless effectiveness. And you can make one with anyone. But we never want to make an authentic human connection with just anyone. We place conditions on the people we're willing to get close to. And paint ourselves into a very lonely corner by doing it.

I used to get lonely a lot in my mid-twenties. I had a bar I went to, a coffee shop I frequented, and good friends at both of them. But I was still lonely. It took a lot of self-inquiry, but eventually I realized that I didn't have a loneliness problem, I had a status problem that was presenting as loneliness. I wasn't seeing my life as having turned out the way I wanted it to, so I was beating myself up over it.

Psychological problems respond really well to talk therapy. Unfortunately that's not a very good solution. We don't have the resources to give everybody with the problem therapy. Instead I think we need to adopt a similar approach that's being used for suicide prevention. Train "gatekeepers" to identify at-risk individuals and get them the help they need, and increase awareness in the general public.

I wish we could do more. But without massive a public investment in psychological health, personalized treatment will remain a luxury solution for those who can afford it.

There's also the problem that, even if the infrastructure were there, that doesn't mean people will take advantage of it. Loneliness is tied very closely to the pride part of the brain, nobody wants to admit they have a problem and seek out help for it.

[1] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/lonely-die.as...

It's quite another thing not to have any friends.

Most of the people in the coffee shops around here have their noses buried in their laptops or books, and when they talk to people they mostly talk to friends who they went to the coffee shop with. Very few people are actually meeting new people and making new friends with random people at coffee shops.

Bars are geared towards hanging out with people you already know, or hitting on strangers. I'm not sure how many people are making new friends there, unless they're relatively extroverted.

Therapy these days is kind of weird. Because insurance companies don't want to pay much, it's geared towards short-term, behavior-oriented therapy. That might help with certain conditions like phobias, but I'm not sure how much it can help with deeper issues. There are other types of therapies, but because insurance mostly doesn't cover them, they're not really practical for most people (not to mention that they're out of fashion these days, as most therapists want to practice CBT because that's what the insurance covers and that's what they're taught in school as being "scientific", "modern", and "evidence-based" -- even when there's evidence it doesn't actually help).

I do think the modern world, especially for people who spend a lot of time online or consuming a lot of media like TV, movies, and games, can be pretty lonely, or at least devoid of deep human contact. I'm not sure what the solution is, apart from unplugging and spending a lot of time and effort in making connections. But being psychologically ready to do that in the first place is an achievement in itself.