.loneliness {
position: relative;
}
Like all things in life, loneliness is not absolute in origin. Depending on your circumstances, combined with external levers, loneliness is not easy to pinpoint, but there are a few common externalities.
For the blue collar worker you have your typical financial concerns that make you overwork or worry about not having enough work to provide for yourself and or family. Spending time on people is a luxury most people with financial concerns simply cannot afford. If you are lucky you’ll be working too much to be lonely and it’ll only hit you when you have time to catch a breath.
Screen time is certainly a factor but not a cause. It’s a symptom of a sick society with failed systems, infrastructure, architecture, family structures and communities.
Depending where you are in the world, design of your community or should I say the lack of, will play a large role. If it takes a 30 min drive to see a friend be say a 5 minute walk, it becomes easier to remove yourself from face to face interactions.
The constant rise in cost of living puts financial stress on families, which in turn translates to personal stress, health problems, obesity and so on. This fuels a feedback loop that ultimately leaves little to no room for interaction with anyone. The easiest way to medicate that issue is you guessed it, with a screen.
Then you have your constant exposure to media and the team effect of polarization. People are brainwashed by nonstop streaming of irrelevant crap which makes them feel like crap and further remove themselves from society. Add in social media which amplifies all of these effects. The grass is always greener on the other side and this seems especially true through social media lens. Down the depression hole we go which further removes us from interaction.
We make deliberate effort to improve “mobility” and “accessibility” through roads and infrastructure which alienated public transportation projects. If you are lucky to live in a small walkable community, you might stand a chance at running into someone you know to strike up a conversation, but otherwise good luck talking to everyone speeding down a road. Even small rural communities in walkable cities are getting less friendly to foot traffic in certain parts of the world due to vehicle congestion.
Let’s not forget the convenience of online shopping. As awesome as it is, we simply don’t get as much stimulation as we would going outside and seeing people face to face, whether we talk or not is irrelevant.
For kids there are video games. Can’t play? No problem, watch others play. Society norms have changed. In countries like US, depending on where you live, talking to others outside comes across as odd and unwelcoming. We are so concerned about everyone’s need to be left alone that we ignore their silent plea to have anyone take any interest in their life.
Consumer choices have been negatively shaping people to feel more individual. When everything is customized to your liking, it’s hard to think as a group, for the benefit of the collective. This in turn leads to more consumerism, heightened expectations and disappointments when those expectations are not met.
Information has a large role to play in spread of loneliness. Having to choose from thousands of products online vs just getting one or two choices, shapes our expectations. Before, I’d you wanted to buy some nice bed sheets, you’d go to a store and maybe make a day out of it. Go to the mall, eat out, do things with others, relatives, friends. Now you click a button and spend days or hours looking at thousands of search optimized product titles which may or may not have anything to do with what you searched for. All the consumer choices and information like reviews, while seemingly great, just cause more mental fatigue, stress and ultimately contribute to a host of factors, some of which are tied to loneliness.
This is just scratching the surface. My point being, we are brining this onto ourselves in many different shapes and forms.
