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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#251

Post by hestipod »

dvtv75 wrote: post #231
hestipod wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My life was destroyed by medical errors and my present situation is the culmination of things collapsing and not being able to shrink anymore. Been saying for ages I am gonna lay the story out here and hope for some miracle plan. Intend to post tomorrow morning. Was going to today (keep stalling out of fear of negative or null results, and things keep happening) but this morning my amazing 1mpbs spotty rural internet…

You will get negative responses, accept that before you post. Perhaps there is some value to be gained from the negative responses, but you will also get people who care enough trying to help. Some of those will look negative, but read everything and sit on them for a few days. I'm sure you've figured out that it's really hard to offer helpful advice to someone when you don't know their situation, which is something…

It's up but I think dead. Crossing my fingers.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#252

Post by bluntfang »

oldcynic wrote: post #52

Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…

There's the concept of a 3rd place[1]. Traditionally a male-centric idea, but as the gender equality gap decreases they will be more and more important for everyone.

Basically, there are 2 standard places that adults spend most of their time: Work and Home. The 3rd place is a community space like a barber shop, and allows people to participate in their community, meet people, share ideas, ect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#253

Post by mancerayder »

DenisM wrote: post #201
oldcynic wrote: post #52

Interesting. No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community. We don't share a sense of place any more, we move around from job to job, families spread around the country or globe. We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. We haven't even kept the sense of virtual community that the BBS's had - social networks amplify dissent and engageme…

FWIW, my gym instructor proposed that the gym could be the new church - a place for people to come together. I don't feel it works out (he he), but it might be an interesting place to start thinking. I posted this list of suggestions earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16425522

I work out at a gym, and my workout takes about 1h15 to 1.5 hours, and then I have a shower and a commute. But if you have time to socialize during a workout, you either have a lot of free time or you're doing it all wrong.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#254

Post by stcredzero »

fapjacks wrote: post #246
stcredzero wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty confident that human beings aren't going to come up with a new way of reducing friction at the interfaces of its tribalism without changing the definition of human being. This is manifestly false. We went from murdering all out-group, to cultures of hospitality to strangers. We went from killing all members of defeated groups to enslaving them, then eventually went on to abolish slavery. We went from unfet…

Oh, you're one of those people that thinks we're exceptional from our historical counterparts. Or exceptional as Americans from the rest of the world. You would do well to read some of that history you're supposed to be pulling clear examples from. And you should really take a look at what our "much more sophisticated notion of humanity and the self" does every day in unfortunate shithole countries around the world.…

Oh, you're one of those people that thinks we're exceptional from our historical counterparts. Or exceptional as Americans from the rest of the world.

Neither of those follows from the gp comment. (Careful, your biases are showing!)

And you should really take a look at what our "much more sophisticated notion of humanity and the self" does every day in unfortunate shithole countries around the world. Or even what we do in nice countries.

You make some good points. However, I didn't say we were done; Just that we've made undeniable progress.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#255

Post by sage76 »

colmvp wrote: post #57

I think loneliness is especially bad for men as we are prone to hide our mental health and true feelings/emotions, not seek medical attention when we need it, and generally have less intimate discussions with friends as compared to women. So a lot of men end up suffering loneliness for a long period of time without any emotional support. It feels like one of those things which creeps on you, and before you know it, y…

> It feels like one of those things which creeps on you, and before you know it, you aren't attending social events, you don't have much energy or confidence, your perception of others becomes skewed, and it all seems pretty helpless.

And yet, nobody wants to hang, or even meet up for a simple dinner. Am I the only one who makes an effort to keep up with friends, with little reciprocity?

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#256

Post by WorldMaker »

doughj3 wrote: post #60
hestipod wrote: post #21

I am incredibly lonely. Health and financial circumstances pushed me into the worst possible social situation...isolated in rural unconnected America where the only two people I regularly see resent me and it has had a severely negative effect on my already miserable health over the years. Being middle aged it magnifies the issue as it's harder to connect as you age anyway due to life's progression. I saw huge number…

> A "remote social life" is not even close to the same thing and chats online or the phone with "disposable friends" and strangers who have a clear and easy disconnect from your real life don't fill the hole a lack of enduring, present human contact leaves and usually take precious energy with no real benefit. Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anecdotally, I and others I know have formed deep, meaningful rela…

I don't think "deep, meaningful relationships with people online" can truly be effective as a solution until we solve the "endorphins/oxytocin/dopamine deficiency problems". As a species we evolved a ton of inter-related neural pathways that "feed" on inter-personal physical touch as a activator. (Everyone could use at least one 20 second hug a day to light up those pathways.) Loneliness is going to remain a problem, despite well formed and meaningful online relationship groups, so long as people remain touch deficient. It's quite possible we could medicate that visceral, species-wide need away in the near future, but at least for now, physical relationships are always going to have that profligate advantage of primal neural hormone joy that we need to feel less "lonely", even and especially in a crowd of (virtual) friends.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#257

Post by laurex »

A) I'm in the midst of some broad-based research around loneliness and technology, and if you'd be willing to take a 5 minute survey, or even better, spread it beyond the tech community, I'd appreciate it so much. I'm working with a number of respected academics in the field, and currently the goal is looking at a significant data set to better identify opportunities. This research will be shared publicly. Here's the link if you're willing to share http://bit.ly/connecting-survey

B) this article in particular seems a little lacking in convincing evidence, but I think there's a good argument to be made that in the world of Psychology and social science, there's rarely one factor that can be causally identified for cultural issues. That said, there does seem to be enough evidence to support the idea that social connection, and even our self-perception about social connection, has real impact on health and societal factors. Caveat: I have not read this author's book, but the title does seem to imply he's got an outlook he may promote.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#258

Post by WorldMaker »

spiralx wrote: post #248
nylonstrung wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that you highlight going to church as a non-religious person as the best way to deal with isolation emphasizes the real issue at play here: that civil society is increasingly non-existent to the point that non-religious social outlets outside of work don't exist for the majority of people

Have non-religious social outlets ever existed in any great numbers though? I can't think of any widespread institutions that provided community other than sheer physical proximity, which itself would largely be a 1:1 relationship with church membership in most places.

Fraternities, Unions, Social Clubs.

Admittedly, the largest Fraternities have religious components themselves (the Freemasons, especially), and Churches themselves at times have fought the big Fraternities as "competition", but arguably the big Fraternities are kept separate and distinct from Churches for strong reasons, and tend to sway more secular with the biggest religious ties being calls to charitable service.

I've often wondered if it was possibly past time for a revival of the Oddfellows in America, which at one point was a huge entirely secular Fraternity (whose biggest remaining impact is a lot of fascinating 1900s-ish architecture in most major American cities): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Order_of_Odd_Fello...

There's also a lot of interesting similarities to classic Fraternities/Unions/Social Clubs reflected in cosplay/fandom Unions and Social Clubs such as the multiple Starfleet Fleets (including Barfleet), the 501st, the Ghostbusters Locals, etc. Admittedly fandom/cosplay can be their own religion of a sort, but such things are extremely secular.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#259

Post by noobhacker »

laurex wrote: post #257

A) I'm in the midst of some broad-based research around loneliness and technology, and if you'd be willing to take a 5 minute survey, or even better, spread it beyond the tech community, I'd appreciate it so much. I'm working with a number of respected academics in the field, and currently the goal is looking at a significant data set to better identify opportunities. This research will be shared publicly. Here's the…

My guess is you'll get more traction if you describe some of your affiliations to establish credibility. Personally I never fill out non-random sampled online survey because the resulting studies aren't likely to be valid.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#260

Post by remar »

mancerayder wrote: post #253
DenisM wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, my gym instructor proposed that the gym could be the new church - a place for people to come together. I don't feel it works out (he he), but it might be an interesting place to start thinking. I posted this list of suggestions earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16425522

I work out at a gym, and my workout takes about 1h15 to 1.5 hours, and then I have a shower and a commute. But if you have time to socialize during a workout, you either have a lot of free time or you're doing it all wrong.

I've never really understood how people seem to socialize between work sets. I've tried and it just completely kills my focus and momentum between sets.

I've noticed the people at my gym who seem to talk the most are the ones who don't really come to train, but to just casually exercise. They don't seem to be following a particular program, or even know what they're doing when it comes to performing certain lifts etc.

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