Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 146 posts

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#61

Post by [deleted] »

tempbi0ps3 wrote: post #57
whatshisface wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-essential guidance has little bearing on whether or not someone should engage in non-essential visits, as policymakers do not schedule the virus.

It also seems to have little bearing on how essential an activity is, and it hastens the ongoing consolidation of our economy into a small number of enormous companies. Personal anecdote: I need a biopsy from a specialist surgeon who does not treat respiratory diseases and does not reside in a hospital. Sorry. That's non-essential. I haven't been able to get it done, and it's been months. I'm also on COBRA, so...cloc…

[deleted]

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#62

Post by kaybe »

wwweston wrote: post #46
Trasmatta wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this me. I haven't been able to see friends or family since March 15th. So I haven't even touched another human in that long. It's been really bad for my mental health. I have a hard time empathising with people who say they've been super lonely but still live with family.

Feeling it too. Last few weeks I decided that I was going to negotiate some limited contact (occasional masked walks and hugs) with a few select people. This is arguably a little irresponsible of me; I have a housemate who is a social worker and not isolating, which makes me a potential link in a transmission chain. But on the other hand, we're spending nearly zero time together in shared spaces (we literally go week…

I think it should be fine if you form a very small group and only ever meet these same people (optimally outside with a bit of distance of course). It shouldn't be that much different from people living in a medium-size household and much better for mental health.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#64

Post by kharak »

briefcomment wrote: post #27
ericol wrote: post #13

More or less for my entire life I've had the idea that my social needs were not on par with the rest of the people, and this quarantine seems to have proven just that. Bear in mind I do enjoy social life; when I was living in Spain in my 30s (and single) I had a very active social life, and had a moderate (~30) amount of friends split in 2 groups with which I continuously interacted. When I left Spain for my place of…

Can you really call living with your family isolation? There are people out there who live with no one, aren't near family, and can't see friends because of the lockdowns.

This fits me, and I have 0 problems with it. Do I want to see my friends again? Yes. But as I don´t live in my home country anymore, I´m accustomed to only seeing friends and families a couple of times a year.

Takes a bit of effort and empathy to remember that I'm an outlier and people truly did suffer during lockdown.

I really wonder, how many people are there like me? What's the distribution? You naturally hear mostly from social people and extroverts. Hope there are some studies going on right now.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#65

Post by djsumdog »

rb808 wrote: post #24
mensetmanusman wrote: post #21

We need to ban solitary confinement in prisons.

I have a lot more sympathy for animals in the zoo as well.

I have never liked zoos! The animals look so sad. The San Diego and Cincinnati zoos are very large and that helps, but I still don't enjoy going to them. The reptiles are usually fine, but many of the mammals really shouldn't be locked up like that. A polar bear swims up to 600km a day in the wild.

I like aquariums. Most fish are fine in a big enough tank; turtles too. I avoid aquariums with Dolphins or Whales. Considering how much they swim in the while, that seems cruel too.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#66

Post by colechristensen »

Trasmatta wrote: post #32
briefcomment wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you really call living with your family isolation? There are people out there who live with no one, aren't near family, and can't see friends because of the lockdowns.

Yep, this me. I haven't been able to see friends or family since March 15th. So I haven't even touched another human in that long. It's been really bad for my mental health. I have a hard time empathising with people who say they've been super lonely but still live with family.

I feel you, me too. I also had a relationship fall apart late last year and did quite a lot of my own social isolating at the time combined with my natural inclination to hibernate around the winter solstice because of lack of light.

My closest friends also moved away in part motivated by the situation.

I really don't remember the last time I interacted with another human who wasn't selling me food or through a computer or phone (which helps of course but is no substitute).

There are probably a lot of us out there. If it weren't for a couple of cat monsters I probably would have lost all of my marbles by now.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#67

Post by 0xFFC »

nprz wrote: post #41
chrisseaton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone's saying they're aiming at herd immunity any more, are they? The European and North American countries opening up, which is all of them, are just saying they have the situation generally under control enough to relax restrictions.

I mean it will continue to spread until that percent of the of the population is infected. Containment is not possible. So right now it's a balancing act of opening up the economy and preventing an explosive outbreak. The hope is a vaccine will be created soon and a large proportion of the population will gain immunity through a vaccine rather than just naturally contracting the virus.

Yes. Those restrictions were from the time we were thinking the virus is more deadly than this (1-2% IFR).

Now with more publications, data suggests an IFR of 0.1-0.6%. Which is pretty low and does not worth crashing the economy.

This does not mean vulnerable people has to pay the price no. It is trade off. We have to reopen and go back to normal, while helping vulnerable people.

Even some paper suggest far more infections than we thought.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#68

Post by colechristensen »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #44
selimthegrim wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess he can eat the same food all the time now then

The one person I know who had covid said they didn't want to eat anything. It wasn't just that you lose taste/smell, it's that everything tasted/smelled funny.

Is it a permanent loss of taste or do your senses come back after?

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#70

Post by esotericn »

Er, yeah, I've been saying this for months.

We are social animals. Literally just existing is stressful at the moment for most of us, because there's a constant urge that is not being satisfied.

Not only for socialisation but simply the low-level stress of constantly having to 'check yourself' when you realise literally everything you'd normally be doing is either disabled or handicapped in some way.

To me, lockdowns feel like some sort of irrational loss aversion strategy. If you gave me the option in, say, 2017, of halving my mortality rate for a year, but the cost was that I had to endure relatively strong anxiety for that year, there's no way I'd take that bet regardless of my age.

Mucking around with your mental health is not wise. Add on top of that all of the economic effects, the political effects of dividing populations, domestic abuse, "non-essential" healthcare like dentistry, and so on and so forth, and honestly I reckon it's been a net negative.

Post reply on HN