How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
nytimes.com
How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
1–10 of 243 posts
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#2you're all idiots.
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#3I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up.
Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more clearly than the NYTimes piece) between what it calls loneliness of emotional isolation and loneliness of social isolation, and, to me, its examples like the condition of married couples who moved far away are much more salient (and convincing) than reliance on surveys and dry statements like "loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline" and "increases risk of heart disease by 29%".
Am I missing something?
P.S. One cool thing I learned about from reading about Cacioppo's research is that when designing a survey about loneliness you can't ask questions like "do you feel lonely?" because it's much too ambiguous and people end up giving incoherent useless answers. I never thought something so basic could be so confusing to people.
[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/loneliness
[2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#4[deleted]
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#5I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again.
The national highway system was great for a nation on the brink of all-out war. We needed to move troops, tanks, people, supplies quickly and efficiently. This system ended up being used to separate black people from working class whites. Naturally we have drug and violence problems in those communities that were segregated from the more educated and affluent white population.
Terrible. I wish I could be governor or something and make sure that we stop this. It makes me sad.
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#6I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Older research is generally given less credence than newer research because of certain assumptions which may or may not be accurate:
* That the researchers looked into previous research, examined those results, and are either replicating them (thus adding extra evidence to those hypothesis), or have found some sort of flaw in how the research was gathered.
* That the researches have, in their research, looked into multiple previous studies, including the old one you referenced, and synthesized them all for their new research.
* It's often been shown that older research studies are flawed in some way, especially in certain fields, such as nutrition, so older studies should be held suspect (really the newer studies should be held with just as much skepticism, but they never are)
Again, the assumptions that this is done is not necessarily what happened in reality, but without media or laypeople doing their own research into things (and neither have time for that), it's usually a useful greedy heuristic to assume newer research is better and more accurate than older research.
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#7I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again. The national highway system was great for a n…
You could get involved in local politics, and maybe eventually even run for governor. Is there anything stopping you?
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#8I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again. The national highway system was great for a n…
We city apartment people aren't better at socializing with our neighbors, probably even worse. The stereotype that cities can be harsh and unfriendly is very much rooted in reality.
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#9I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again. The national highway system was great for a n…
[deleted]
Re: How Social Isolation Is Killing Us
#10I like the article, but I gotta ask: why the focus on "new research"? Is "old research" not good enough? I suppose it might not be, but some of it should really be at least brought up. Here's a book from 1974 [1] by Robert Weiss, whose first (sample) chapter [2] reads very similar to the NYTimes piece, and covers many of the same issues, even before the internet was around. In particular, it draws the line (much more…
Right. It's not an issue of technology, for the most part, but it's the way American cities are designed. Instead of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods where people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds live, and stay put, we have suburban fortresses where people live in a box, never talk to their neighbors, drive a box to work, work in a box, then do it all over again. The national highway system was great for a n…
I can imagine the sprawling suburbs would be really hard to live in, obvious benefits in lower cost housing and more green space but the isolation and need for a car seems pretty terrible.
I live in Barcelona and the majority of people live in flats/apartments, my apartment building is like a large family, mixture of retirees, families, young couples and mixed flats of people just out of university. Everyone knows each other and relies on each other, for our neighbours' 90th birthday almost the whole building (10 flats) took her cake and stayed and chatted and had fun. (My partner and myself are both foreigners here and we're still accepted into the culture and events like this. IMO it's really hard to overstate how crucial this sort of interaction and sense of belonging is in a large city. What intensifies this even more is in Barcelona the first floor of a lot of apartment buildings is where there are shops/bars/butchers/restaurants etc. For most of my food and leisure needs (including the gym for example) I don't need to go more than 400m, this also creates social situations where you bump into the same people and staff over and over creating a real village feel.
Here's a great shot of Eixample, a district in Barcelona divided by distinctive grids that lends itself to these 'micro' village communities. http://lh4.ggpht.com/-I28z_xwspR0/UdgqfgPxzCI/AAAAAAAAqCY/Mj...
Sorry that was quite the tangent to go off on!