Slate
Loneliness Is Deadly
Social isolation kills more people than obesity does—and it’s just as stigmatized.
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Robert Neubecker/Slate
In a society that judges you based on your social networks, loneliness can feel shameful.
Over the winter I moved from New York City to Portland, Ore. The reasons for
my move were purely logical. New York was expensive and stressful. Portland, I
reasoned, would offer me the space and time to do my work.
Upon arriving, I rented a house and happily went out in search of "my
people." I went to parks, bookstores, bars, on dates. I even tried golfing. It
wasn't that I didn't meet people. I did. I just felt no connection to any of
them.
Once social and upbeat, I became morose and mildly paranoid. I knew I needed
to connect to people to feel better, but I felt as though I physically could not
handle any more empty interactions. I woke up in the night panicked. In the
afternoon, loneliness came in waves like a fever. I had no idea how to fix
it.
Feeling uncertain, I began to research loneliness and came across several
alarming recent studies. Loneliness is not just making us sick, it is killing
us. Loneliness is a serious health risk. Studies of elderly people and social
isolation concluded that those without adequate social interaction were twice as
likely to die prematurely.
The increased mortality risk is comparable to that from smoking. And loneliness is about twice
as dangerous as obesity.
Social isolation impairs immune function and boosts inflammation, which can
lead to arthritis, type II diabetes, and heart
disease. Loneliness is breaking our hearts, but as a culture we rarely talk
about it.
Loneliness has doubled: 40 percent of adults in two recent surveys said they
were lonely, up from 20 percent in the 1980s.
All of our Internet interactions aren’t helping and may be making loneliness
worse. A recent study of Facebook users found that the amount of time you spend
on the social network is inversely related to how happy you feel throughout the day.
In a society that judges you based on how expansive your social networks
appear, loneliness is difficult to fess up to. It feels shameful.
About a decade ago, my mom was going through a divorce from my step-father.
Lonely and desperate for connection, she called a cousin she hadn’t talked to in
several years. On the phone, her cousin was derisive: “Don’t you have any
friends?”
While dealing with my own loneliness in Portland I often found myself
thinking, "If I were a better person I wouldn't be lonely."
“Admitting you are lonely is like holding a big L up on your forehead,” says
John T. Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, who studies how loneliness and
social isolation affect people’s health.
He admitted that on an airplane he once became acutely embarrassed while
holding a copy of his own book, which had the word Loneliness
emblazoned on the front cover. He had the impulse to turn the cover inside-out
so that people couldn’t see it. “For the first time I actually experienced the
feeling of being lonely and everyone knowing it,” he says.
After the public learned of Stephen Fry’s suicide attempt last year, the
beloved British actor wrote a blog
post about his fight with depression. He cited loneliness as the worst part
of his affliction.
“Lonely? I get invitation cards through the post
almost every day. I shall be in the Royal Box at Wimbledon and I have serious
and generous offers from friends asking me to join them in the South of France,
Italy, Sicily, South Africa, British Columbia, and America this summer. I have
two months to start a book before I go off to Broadway for a run of Twelfth
Night there.
I can read back that last sentence and see that,
bipolar or not, if I’m under treatment and not actually depressed, what the fuck
right do I have to be lonely, unhappy, or forlorn? I don’t have the right. But
there again I don’t have the right not to have those feelings. Feelings are not
something to which one does or does not have rights.
In the end loneliness is the most terrible and
contradictory of my problems.”
Most of us know what it is like to be lonely in a room full of people, which
is the same reason even a celebrity can be deeply lonely. You could be
surrounded by hundreds of adoring fans, but if there is no one you can rely on,
no one who knows you, you will feel isolated.
In terms of human interactions, the number of people we know is not the best measure. In order to
be socially satisfied, we don’t need all that many people. According to Cacioppo
the key is in the quality, not the quantity of those people. We just need
several on whom we can depend and who depend on us in return.
As a culture we obsess over strategies to prevent obesity. We provide
resources to help people quit smoking. But I have never had a doctor ask me how
much meaningful social interaction I am getting. Even if a doctor did ask, it is
not as though there is a prescription for meaningful social
interaction.
Both Denmark and Great Britain are devoting more time and energy to finding
solutions and staging interventions for lonely people, particularly the
elderly.
When we are lonely, we lose impulse control and engage in what scientists
call “social evasion.” We become less concerned with interactions and more
concerned with self-preservation, as I was when I couldn’t even imagine trying
to talk to another human. Evolutionary psychologists speculate that loneliness
triggers our basic, fight vs. flight survival
mechanisms, and we stick to the periphery, away from people we do not know
if we can trust.
In one study, Cacioppo measured brain activity during the sleep of lonely and
nonlonely people. Those who were lonely were far more prone to micro awakenings, which suggest the brain is on alert for
threats throughout the night, perhaps just as earlier humans would have needed
to be when separated from their tribe.
One of the reasons we avoid discussing loneliness is that fixing it obviously
isn’t a simple endeavor.
Even though the Internet has possibly contributed to our isolation, it might
hold a key to fixing it. Cacioppo is excited by online dating statistics showing
that couples who found each other online and stayed together shared more of a connection and were less likely to divorce
than couples who met offline. If these statistics hold up, it would stand to
reason friendships could also be found in this way, easing those whose instincts
tell them to stay on the periphery back into the world with common bonds forged
over the Internet.
Me? I moved back to New York.
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