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Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#81

Post by ummonk »

0xFFC wrote: post #67
nprz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infe…

The IFR is proving to be ~1%.

For 0.1-0.6% to be true, 50-100% of NYC would have to have gotten infected with COVID-19...

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#82

Post by taneq »

vmception wrote: post #54
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.

Yeah, similar boat. I was content with the arrangement for about two months. I finally relaxed my shelter in place a little before memorial day. The point of living in a desirable area and within a city was to randomly meet people that also had their life together, while working on the career and financial circumstances that allow you to do this. With SIP, everything closed, and ongoing social distancing none of that…

> Even when thinking of the protests as having some allure for being social

I have wondered if there’s an aspect of that in the huge turnouts. People are unemployed and isolated, and joining the protests gives them a chance to feel like part of something.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#83

Post by taneq »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #76
ericol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. But it's not the same, and I'm in this boat as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23460927

The article is about severe social isolation, meaning you don't interact with another person in any way. > the researchers had 40 socially-connected healthy human adults spend 10 hours (9am to 7pm) alone, with no social interaction and no other social stimulation (e.g., twitter, email, reading fiction). I'm not even sure what I could do during the day to avoid social interactions to this extent.

I do wonder what the participants were allowed to do. It’s possible they just measured the effects of terminal boredom.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#84

Post by searchableguy »

I wonder what people will think of criminal and justice systems after this (probably nothing). We send people to prisons all the time for extended period without outside contact in an abusive environment between the real nasty criminals and authorities.

Is it really a good idea to send someone to prison for months for a small mistake that many might end up making and getting caught?

Is overusing imprisonment for different types of crimes okay?

A murderer will be fine in a prison since they are harmful for the society but someone stealing food because they couldn't afford any doesn't seem as harmful that they need being locked up.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#85

Post by dominotw »

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've been going to protests. Can you try that maybe? I felt lots of camaraderie. I've been wearing facemasks and a face shield which makes it a little hard to interact with people in crowd though.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#86

Post by searchableguy »

smcameron wrote: post #45

I've lived alone my whole adult life. I haven't seen anyone I know since March 8. Doesn't seem to bother me. Guess I'm a freak.

I think there is also difference in the type of people. I feel people on the spectrum are able to empathize over text more than others and so can socialize somewhat more or feel less need to.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#87

Post by dwaltrip »

quickthrowman wrote: post #60
dwaltrip wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus alone also doesn’t schedule human behavior. I’m not sure exactly what you are implying.

If that is the case, why were non-essential businesses shut down and shelter in place orders enacted all over the world?

I was simply trying to point out the other side of what I felt was an overly rigid line of thinking from the GP.

The shutdowns were a tactic taken with limited information and imperfect effectiveness. I don’t think it was the wrong thing to do. However, we could have and should have had a more effective, sophisticated, and timely response across the board.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#88

Post by esotericn »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #80
esotericn wrote: post #70

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…

There are also mental health consequences to large-scale death and hospitals being over capacity. Would you choose a year of watching your friends and family randomly die over a year of staying home most of the time?

I believe my comment about halving mortality addresses this.

They're already likely to arbitrarily die - if in 2017 I could reduce that probability by half (coronavirus roughly doubles mortality across all age groups) by having everyone stay inside or perform the various rituals like standing far apart, wearing masks etc I wouldn't do it.

If instead of decreasing life expectancy by less than a year it were something like 10 (and so we went full hazmat, disallowing things like even entering a supermarket in favour of MRE deliveries) then the calculus would be different.

The main inescapable issue, which exists lockdown or not, is visiting elderly or immunocompromised relatives, not because of the absolute risk, but because of the impact that being able to say "my visit probably killed Grandma" would have.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#89

Post by dominotw »

taneq wrote: post #82
vmception wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, similar boat. I was content with the arrangement for about two months. I finally relaxed my shelter in place a little before memorial day. The point of living in a desirable area and within a city was to randomly meet people that also had their life together, while working on the career and financial circumstances that allow you to do this. With SIP, everything closed, and ongoing social distancing none of that…

> Even when thinking of the protests as having some allure for being social I have wondered if there’s an aspect of that in the huge turnouts. People are unemployed and isolated, and joining the protests gives them a chance to feel like part of something.

All my friends are doing this to get out and protest. I've also started doing it from the weekend.

Re: Forced social isolation causes neural craving similar to hunger

#90

Post by rabidrat »

nprz wrote: post #35
chrisseaton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly its scary the talk of another year like this. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting you will not be able to leave your house for another year. I think everywhere has concrete plans to re-open everything short of mass gatherings pretty soon. That's the cautious countries and the less cautious countries alike.

Currently around ~5% of the US has contracted COVID. 60-70% of the population needs to become infected in order to gain herd immunity. Meaning we're about 7% of the way to herd immunity. We still have a long way to go.

That's only if infection grants lifetime immunity. Other coronaviruses (like those that cause colds) only grant immunity for 4-12 months. We don't know if this coronavirus is the same, but if it is, we may not be able to achieve that herd immunity without biannual vaccinations.
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