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Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

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Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#2
Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level, and impairs sleep. As he writes in his book Loneliness, "these changes in physiology are compounded in ways that may be hastening millions of people to an early grave."

Can anyone link to any research supporting these claims?

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#3

Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level,…

It's generally weird to me that newspapers articles seem to be exempt from the expectation to cite their sources.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#4
“Economics basically says you should be concerned about your own short-term interests. There’s more division in society, more segmentation; there’s less identity with a national or global persona, but rather on the family or the individual. People aren’t as loyal to their employers, and employers are certainly not as loyal to their workers.”

I thought that mainstream economics has been moving towards the other direction. More socialized policies, more emphasis on the collective that individual property right and rights in general, ever expanding role of goverent in the name of greater good for the society at the cost of individuals etc.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#5

Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level,…

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cacioppo+loneliness

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#6
post #3

Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level,…

It's generally weird to me that newspapers articles seem to be exempt from the expectation to cite their sources.

They also consider themselves exempt from the common practice that text in quotes contains sentences the people quoted have actually said or written.

I.e., the author may as well have pulled it out of her ass, and you would be none the wiser. That's old school quality journalism for you.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#7
While I've made plenty of bad decisions myself, I think a large part of why I've always been extremely lonely and isolated is that I was raised with very little sense of family or community. Growing up an only child, my parents apparently never thought it was worth me meeting the 80% of my cousins that lived in the same country, but somewhat far away. My parents themselves had scant friends or associates (at least during my memory) and hardly ever anyone over to visit the house.

That's why if I'm ever somehow in the position to have a child of my own, I won't be able to. I wouldn't trust my ability to raise anything but an ice cold stranger.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#8
post #4

“Economics basically says you should be concerned about your own short-term interests. There’s more division in society, more segmentation; there’s less identity with a national or global persona, but rather on the family or the individual. People aren’t as loyal to their employers, and employers are certainly not as loyal to their workers.” I thought that mainstream economics has been moving towards the other direct…

I don't buy this mechanistic explanation. Society has gone through progressive levels of specialization and this has never been a problem before, so either there's a really drastic "nonlinear" effect, or there's something different about this society.

My personal suspicion is that it has more to do with people broadly thinking that "others" are not good enough for them.

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#9
post #3

Loneliness, it turns out, is as bad for your health as smoking, or being obese. The research that Prof. Cacioppo has done with colleagues also adds to the growing body of work that shows how bad loneliness can be for your health. It shows that loneliness suppresses the immune system and cardiovascular function, and increases the amount of stress hormone the body produces. It causes wear and tear on a cellular level,…

It's generally weird to me that newspapers articles seem to be exempt from the expectation to cite their sources.

They got it from an anonymous source, obviously. ;-)

Re: Life of solitude: A loneliness crisis is looming

#10
I actually live a quite isolated existence. I dont really like most people and am very happy this way (I can read, program, play games, make music etc. in peace and not deal with the tediousness of having to interact with people I find boring) However, I do occasionally meet other people (maybe a bit like me in some ways) and we get on incredibly well. Every week or two when we feel sociable I will meet one of them for intense session of something. Also the people I really get on with could be any age/sex, one is a 50 yo man, another is a 20 yo girl.
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