How Social Isolation Is Killing Us

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.

* 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.

I think this passage is key, I had not heard this postulated before:

"New research suggests that loneliness is not necessarily the result of poor social skills or lack of social support, but can be caused in part by unusual sensitivity to social cues. Lonely people are more likely to perceive ambiguous social cues negatively, and enter a self-preservation mind-set — worsening the problem."

Because the NYT is a newspaper and they need a reason to publish a news article. This is known as a "hook." The hook in cases like this will be something new being published. It's hard to hook readers by announcing: What we've known since the 1970s still holds true. Just doesn't work.

Indeed.. while waiting for the new research to come out, read Marcus Aurelius, Erich Fromm and Hannah Arendt. Maybe throw in some Roman and Greek classics. That should "help a bit".

The problem isn't that we don't know how to live well and healthy and sleep soundly, it's that we want to be healthy and sleep soundly without living that way. We don't want to be simply just and honest and go from there. Well, joke's on us, the truth remains where it is, waiting for dithering people to stop being scared of it.

It seems like a sense of community is extremely important for a society, particularly with the connection there seems to be between community and happiness (my understanding is that much of the happiness that religious people get is from the community, for example). Still, I haven't seen a great idea as to how one can be fostered (though there are some decent ideas about what you as an individual can do to get a better sense).

Also we used to think that heart disease risk is mostly tied to diet and exercise. But it's still the #1 killer in the United States. So every protective or risk factor needs to be considered. As such, new research linking heart disease, CVD, CHD to loneliness, friendship or marriage is interesting.

And It doesn't stop there. Loneliness is also tied to breast cancer, lymphoma and obesity : http://outcomereference.com/causes/59

Just show an interest in people, without being creepy. Respect boundaries but show you are a good listener and ask questions that show that you have listened and do care. Rather than shotgun everyone, just be friendly and interested and concentrate on developing relationships with people that appear interested in you.

It is also important to not rush things. If you perceive a connection with someone - don't ask them around to your house for drinks immediately, but develop the relationship for a few more meetings before taking it to the next level (I mean this from a platonic point of view).

Also consider your appearance and personal hygiene. Are you dressed about the same as everyone else? Try to be better dressed than average without being extreme. Have you too much deodorant? Are you freshly showered? Do you have bad breath?

Try to ask a family member or honest friend the tough questions about yourself.

Just repeatedly showing up to these things and making an effort to talk to these people a bit each time and eventually I stopped being a stranger to people and started getting invited to private events they hosted. It might have helped that the meetups I focused on were often board game related (or movies or dinners or theater) and I'm a board game nut, though. I'm also getting more and move involved with my local writer's group (hosted two writer's workshops last year).

I've gone to several software development meetups and had really poor experiences befriending people there. People seem to be more shy or standoff-ish, or the focus is too much on the lecture or 'hacking in a corner' and not on a group activity, so that might be part of it. Oh, also I think too many of those people go to those for 'professional networking' purposes and not to have some fun talking about technology and making some genuine connections, so it feels a little artificial, too.

Some 10 years ago I joined a new management team in the company I was working for, and our director took us on a trip to a seaside town where we would work on a "teambuilding" activity, we would do some sailing. Sailing a midsize boat when you know zero about it can be very demanding. You are solving problems all the time to yourself, to the crew and to the ship. At the end of those two days sailing we were a completely different team. I felt that I had made 3 new friends and spotted a new enemy, a person I couldn't get along with. I keep their friendship till this day.

Who has no shortage of friends? People with obvious value propositions. Rich or influential people. Well connected people. Good looking people. People who already have a lot of friends. It's strange to think about it in economic terms, but I've found it's a very useful abstraction.

the problem with reddit is that there is too much news, outrage, and hype there.

But even introverts need some social interaction.

> Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns.

I'm currently three months into a stretch of solitude as I focus fully on building an online business. While not prone to loneliness, there are films I won't watch and songs I refuse to play because they remind me too much of friends and loved ones.

Which is to say, loneliness is like a lever that you have at least some control over. But it still stabs at you unexpectedly sometimes.

Although perhaps saudade is the better term for this feeling. And I'm not too sure if it's an entirely undesirable emotion.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitud...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade

Spot on. I was an Anthropology major in college, and this is the single most important takeaway from my education.

Even a few decades ago, families often at least lived with or close to the elder generation (grandparents) which created a greater sense of community and history. At some point it was decided that elder persons should live by themselves, or they were not welcome in their adult children' homes (or there was no room for them there.)

I think what you say about tribes is interesting -- I think people tend to create their own "tribes" either with friends, workmates, hobbies that are communal etc.

I really like Venkat’s write-up about masks[0]. Large cities, dense yet impersonal, strain our voice masks. Smaller communities, what you likely experienced in the rural area when you were not outside alone, can be psychologically healing but on the other hand strain our exit masks. Everyone has their own tipping point—you seem less susceptible to exit mask stress than me, for example.

[0] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/05/20/pretending-to-care-pret...

Personally I think it’s a crapshoot: your expectation might be true or these workers might become recluse and replace the time commuting with sitting at home (especially if they tend to be in a neighborhood that favours individualism over collectivism, isolation over community).

i feel you man, I feel you

Making friends is hard. I am a lot more social than I used to be now but I have a wide and shallow list of people I get along with. I don't feel there is anyone I am actually close to (other than my wife and kids). So don't take my advice too closely because I am definitely not a model for socialisation, I spend most of my free time child raising and studying.

If I can give one piece of advice it is that you should get involved in some activities. Be it sports, gaming, joining a hackerspace, whatever it really doesn't matter what it is as long as there is some level of complexity that keeps people hooked and enough to keep you interested as well. You will find that in situations of mutual difficulty you find the people you actually like and the people who actually like you. As long as you aren't a completely antisocial arsehole you should develop a connection to someone eventually if you just throw yourself into it. Listen to people when they talk, almost everyone has some interesting story lurking away inside them. Even if you don't like them at all you can at least be entertained by the occasional anecdote or bizarre circumstance. The important thing is to try and you might surprise yourself.

That sounds like my version of hell.

I think the best thing you can do is ask people to do things with you. Many will say no, but that's okay. Eventually you'll make friends.

Be happy where you are. It's essentially a form of self-delusion. And I DARE you to watch Ren & Stimpy's "Stimpy's Invention[1]" and not be happy, at least for a little while.

[1] in which Stimpy invents "The Happy Helmet" and Ren is his ... involuntary happiness subject. And yes - it's on YouTube.

"I don't think you're happy enough! That's right! I'll teach you to be happy! I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"

I'm sorry, but that is not how it works.

You are what's making you unhappy, and that's what you have to change. The good thing is you have plenty of free time to do it in, and all the power to do it.

I still don't connect to most folks, but that's ok. I found a few.

But I also moved countries, so the stakes changed and so did my relationship with the world around me. Best thing I've ever done.

Long version:

I have a couple recommendations that could help you to connect with people better if you can take a couple minutes to read this, its a little longer than I would like but I really think that you can turn things around. I am by no means an expert and I have struggled with isolation myself at other times in my life, but I do feel like I have made some small improvements so my guess is you could to.

First off, while I think a location can be either conducive or adverse to the type of lifestyle you would like, I think a big part of how well or poorly you fit into a place is on you - you get out of it what you put into it (or something like that). That sucks to hear and you probably already know it and I think it is the truth. The only reason I say that is to caution you to not overlook what might be around you already. That being said, I have a buddy who I feel like was in a similar situation until he picked up and move to Portland kind of on a whim (after doing similar things with other places) and this time it worked out for him (so far), but he probably had to be ready and open to good things happening or else it would have been like it had been before in other places.

More importantly, I think it is way easier to connect with people outside of what we typically think of as "social" situations. I've never liked going to bars to meet people or any kind of mixer situation although these days I'm much better at it. What really did it for me was to go way out of my comfort zone and do volunteer activities that forced me to do things I really didn't feel like doing but I kind of put myself in a situation that made it hard to give into my desire to bail. The main one for me was political volunteering, starting during the primaries of this year and going into the general election. The outcome was devastating but the process and the changes I felt were pretty amazing. The actual work required connecting with total strangers in situations where I otherwise never would have: registering people to vote (talking to people on the street, going to large festivals and walking around and talking to strangers), going door to door to talk to people (mostly giving information but also trying to convince people to vote and giving them my personal opinions), and phone banking (talking to random strangers who were mostly in my city but who I would never likely meet). All these things were really uncomfortable at first but once I met the organizers involved and got excited by their excitement and passion I would sign up for something and then it was like "well, guess I gotta do it". Lock yourself into something that can't really hurt you but that pushes you outside your comfort zone.

After doing all of that, at 30 years old I felt like I had kind of finally figured out how to be a part of my own environment (as opposed to a mindless drone only focused on going from A->B). I haven't found my "next thing" yet, but since then I've found many social situations to be easier than they used to be, even something as stupid as buying a car was 10x less stressful than it used to be for me (and I got a couple grand better of a deal than I usually would have). Once you get over knocking on the door of a strangers house and realizing that a) most people are actually pretty cool and b) the vast majority of the time you are going to be totally fine no matter what, a lot of other things feel like a cakewalk. I met more new people in 6 months than in the prior 6 years and since we were all going to a similar stressful time, connecting was easy for once (even though aside from politics personality wise nobody was that similar to me).

All that to say this: forget (or at least, demphasize) the typical social stuff and find a cause that you can get on board with, just pull the trigger and show up and say "what can I do?". Don't spend ages shopping around for something to do (I've done that, I had no less than 60 bookmarks from a volunteermatch.org at one point before this, never did a single one of them), look around in your area (volunteermatch.org is not bad if you don't abuse it like I did), find anything that will involve working with other people you don't know (both other volunteers and strangers ideally, which is a lot of things) and just sign yourself up and do it. In my experience once you are actually there, nature kind of takes its course. I may be lucky in that but my problem has largely been hesitation. If you are male you will find in a lot of volunteer situations that you will be one of the few men and your contributions will be appreciated if you don't hold back and give it your best shot. You won't have to deal with the weirdness of finding a like-minded social group to fit into and honestly, I enjoyed the interactions I had more than I usually would have in a purely social environment (sometimes working towards a common goal that isn't job is more fun than just hanging out).

I know this was long as hell but your comment got the juices flowing, sorry if it was a slog but I've had my perception change quite a lot over the last year (in some ways at least) and I would like to think that other people can have a similar experience.