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The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

boston.com

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Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#51

Post by drbawb »

kleer001 wrote: post #22
drbawb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and having others show up to confirm or criticize the work helps. I actually had a rather interesting experience last night where an "outsider's perspective" ended up being the exact insight I needed. My roommate stepped outside to socialize with me while I was repairing my Mustang: which has been having intermittent ignition problems since we replaced the ignition control module 6 months ago. --- To set the stage:…

Reminds me of the rubber duck debugging, only tangentially, but in the same spirit.

I'm surprised how effective this sort of 'debugging' can be. I'd love to know more about the mechanisms which make this sort of "verbal problem solving" tick.

I wonder if it's as simple as mapping the problem onto parts of your brain which aren't often tasked with this type of critical thinking.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#52

Post by mattgreenrocks »

rhema wrote: post #33
nreece wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the same may hold true for other public networks like Twitter, Instagram etc., although [unlike Pinterest] they have a higher abandonment rate.

In the paper, Pinterest users say social networks like Twitter and Facebook are for promoting one's self to others.

This is a taboo thing to say, because social media implies connection (however weak).

I limit my use of Twitter/FB for this reason alone. It becomes nauseating to constantly consume a stream of self-promotional blurbs.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#53

Post by insky »

gregschlom wrote: post #43

> People make this error, thinking that being alone means being lonely, and not being alone means being with other people Loneliness isn't solitude, it's isolation. That's why one can feel so lonely sometimes even with thousands of people around.

Yeah, and you can feel isolated even with close friends and family.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#54

Post by insky »

Just a side note, as someone that works at home a lot, physically by myself. Others can treat you with suspicion.

A few neighbours have colluded and perceive me to be a monster. I am male, and my partner (female) travels to work. I think they just don't get self-employment / working from home, and what looks like a role reversal.

I'm quite a friendly guy but their hostility (they have been quite mean) is starting to make me feel isolated and quite unwelcome in my own house and garden. When I'm actually quite happy to be on my own (providing I have enough external stimulous).

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#55

Post by dccoolgai »

a_bonobo wrote: post #31

Interesting side note on the history of the US Forest Service and its interest in the study of loneliness: In the 1930s and 1940s (and probably later, too) the US Forest Service employed something like fire-watchers, men who would hike out on their own with little equipment into the forests to their station, which was a single fire lookout tower in the wilderness [1]. There they would sit on their own and scan the ho…

Author Edward Abbey ("The Monkeywrenh Gang", "The Brave Cowboy") also worked in the NPS fire lookout towers.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#57

Post by nilkn »

Xcelerate wrote: post #4

As someone who spends a good deal of time alone because I enjoy solitary pursuits, I disagree with the article when it claims that alone time is a form of "liberation", "freedom", and gaining "control". It's been my experience that people who use terms like these to describe their solitude don't actually really enjoy it much at all and tend to only seek this alone time as a manifestation of an avoidant personality. I…

This seems unnecessarily presumptive. While it may be true that using terms like "liberation" and "freedom" implies at least a somewhat avoidant personality, I think you're really venturing too far to extrapolate from that that such people don't actually enjoy being alone.

Case in point: I would probably use those terms sometimes to describe alone time, and yet I enjoy the hell out of it. I don't seek alone time to "demonstrate autonomy" -- I seek it because I enjoy it, period. Part of the reason I enjoy it is because of the autonomy it involves, but I've never once isolated myself just to prove to myself that I have some sort of autonomy.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#58

Post by nilkn »

reinhardt wrote: post #10
Spearchucker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude I absolutely love being alone and "liberation", "freedom", and gaining "control" all resonate with me. No idea what "manifestation of an avoidant personality" means. "Relaxing", "exciting", and "interesting also apply. I do know that I'm terrible in a team and prefer working alone.

You sort of proved his point. Your preference for working alone is because you avoid being in a team.

How in the world do you know he avoids working in a team? Nothing he wrote implies that at all. "Preferring" to work alone doesn't even remotely mean he avoids teams. He could be working in a team all the time. That's completely consistent with also seeking out alone time during other moments in your life.

By your logic, someone who prefers leisure over work must apparently avoid work.

Re: The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around

#60

Post by Dewie »

alashley wrote: post #5

I think when people emphasize their ability to spend an inordinate amount of time alone, they are looking at it as a unique "quality," something that sets them apart from others. We all need our alone time, and a few aspects of personality development occur when we are reflecting on the social interactions, encounters and relationships we've had. But too much time alone, I think, eventually leads to feelings of despa…

> I think when people emphasize their ability to spend an inordinate amount of time alone, they are looking at it as a unique "quality," something that sets them apart from others.

And? I'm sure that a lot of people that crave social interaction a lot view it as a positive quality. Being a sociable person is almost always viewed as a positive trait (not that people that want to be alone a lot can't be sociable, too). But when some people emphasize their preference for being alone a lot, we immediately tend to first assume that there is something wrong with them.

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