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Loneliness reshapes the brain
- yamazakiwi 4y agoIt annoys me that this article keeps equating being alone to loneliness. Not everyone feels lonely while alone for extended periods of time. I can spend months alone and never feel lonely.
- achairapart 4y agoI'm a bit like you, I do like my time being alone and I almost never feel lonely. But I also know people who do silly things when facing the fear of being alone. For them, perhaps being alone equals to loneliness. For sure, it makes them suffer.
- nicoburns 4y agoWhen you say you can spend months alone, do you mean literally alone - not interacting with anyone during that time at all?
- danwee 4y agoI would say they mean minimal interaction: going to the supermarket and say 'Thanks' to the cashier and things like that...
- yamazakiwi 4y agosometimes minimal, sometimes absolute zero
- yamazakiwi 4y agoI used to do it a lot in the military, months alone in a server room on a ship, eating alone because I'm working nights. This might sound like a nightmare to some but it's my most extreme example and I loved it. Honestly, it's relaxing not having to deal with people's problems all the time. I deal with people very frequently in my current role and I miss the peace and quiet. Most psychologists will tell you "we're very social creatures" but I was VERY social for so long that now it just feels like a waste of my time. People are quick to throw their problems on everyone around them, I get tired of the neediness, the games people play, the ego trips, all of it. It's sort of like a been there, done that, not interested anymore.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThat is being alone, without really being alone. I like it, too. I find it relaxing to know everyone is around, but also not have to interact directly with anyone individually.
- yamazakiwi 4y agoThat's an interesting point, I didn't think about that. That probably contributes to a positive experience for some.
- giantg2 4y agoAnd some people can be with others and still feel lonely.
- syedkarim 4y agoAnd it’s also possible to experience loneliness while being surrounded by people.
- jimt1234 4y agoThis ^^^ Being surrounded by people and feeling lonely is a lot worse than simply not being around people.
- lapcat 4y ago> It annoys me that this article keeps equating being alone to loneliness. It doesn't: "Social isolation, a related condition, is different — it’s an objective measure of how few relationships a person has. The experience of loneliness has to be self-reported"
- yamazakiwi 4y agoIt does... It states that yes; ironically, it also uses them interchangeably multiple times throughout the article.
- throwanem 4y agoThe next article from Quanta I see that's not at least this sloppy will be the first. It requires a good deal of critique in the reading to extract anything of value.
- _yb2s 4y agoExactly, the two are quite different. I have felt very lonely when at home with a romantic partner in a bad relationship. At other times, I have felt no loneliness while in the wilderness by myself for extended time periods, knowing I have a great network of friends, family, and a supportive partner whenever I need them.
- carapace 4y agoI think what you're talking about is "solitude", which is a kind of inverse of loneliness in that gives you a kind of inner strength rather than taking health away.
- LanceMagnussen 4y agoscary to think how it has an actual physical outcome
- Jensson 4y ago> social isolation and environmental monotony So not just loneliness, but boredom in general.
- elevenoh 4y ago>In one experiment conducted in Switzerland, after volunteers took psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, they reported feeling less socially excluded. >lonely people tend to focus excessively on unpleasant social cues, such as being ignored by others take mushrooms help fight the epidemic of victim mentality ;)
- LoganDark 4y agohehe I wish~
- GalenErso 4y agoAre we lonely if we are on HN?
- bacchusracine 4y agoThat's my secret. I'm always lonely.
- vstm 4y agoYou merely adopted the loneliness, I was born in it :-(
- cubefox 4y agoIn general, we have a lot of interactions online, but unfortunately those do not have the positive effects physical contacts have. On HN we are normally not even "online friends" with specific other users. The users are identifiable just as some little grey nickname. Who even is this "GalenErso" guy? Or "cubefox"? What are they up to? We might as well all post anonymously, the outcome would basically be the same. That's not a natural way to interact, no wonder the brain breaks a little if it does not much else.
- politician 4y agoNot to mention that HN has specific technological countermeasures to prevent genuine conversations between two users from developing. Specifically, the response rate limiter and the absence of a response awareness or notification system.
- dnissley 4y agoAlso no DMs (unless you have > X karma?)
- david_allison 4y agoNo DMs: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
- pram 4y agoWhen I was in my early 20s I was on a weird night shift for work, so I didn’t do anything outside. I only talked a bit to some coworkers, and everyone on the internet was sleeping when I was awake. Additionally I never saw the sun during the winter months. I started developing really bad paranoia, and began hearing voices in my dreams. Like random fabricated female/male voices having unintelligible conversations. So yeah I was going literally crazy. I’m not surprised at all that my brain was probably physically decaying.
- PicassoCTs 4y agoParanoia is a side effect of the brain repairing ones self-esteem. The world is ignoring you, you are more unimportant then ever and totally social isolated (night shift or service jobs in other countries does that to you). But at least, important government organizations and conspiracies are out to get you. Guess the next chance to really connect with people will be, when we all meet at the server farm to burn this nightmare down.
- CadmiumYellow 4y agoDuring the initial covid lockdown I lived alone. I didn't see another person face to face from the first week of March 2020 til the end of May. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that long but by the end of that period of time I was experiencing mild hallucinations the majority of the time. I saw things moving in my peripheral vision that weren't really there and I frequently heard what I thought was music playing, but when I went to investigate it it would just be some very minor environmental noise like a tree branch scraping the side of my apartment building. I completely believe that isolation does weird things to your brain. I'm glad I didn't have to experience it any longer than that!
- Llamamoe 4y agoThis is so weird to me. My life has gone bad, and I've spent close to a decade in social isolation, often many months at a time. While I'm definitely not fine, it's weird to read about how badly much shorter and less intense experiences affect people.
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- doodlesdev 4y agoWhile the article is super interesting and talks about many different scientific finding I think there's an excerpt that's really important to pay attention to: > Of course, the chicken-and-egg question about all these findings is: Do differences in the brain predispose us to loneliness, or does loneliness rewire and shrink the brain? According to Bzdok, it’s not currently possible to solve this puzzle. He believes, however, that the causality may point both ways. So the truth is "Loneliness Reshapes the Brain" might not really be true and it's possible it's the other way around. Anyhow we understand so little about the brain we'll probably just be speculating for a few decades about this. However, one thing's sure, we are social animals, and that 100% means being isolated is bad for whatever your body has evolved to do over the course of millennia.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 4y agoWell I'm fucked
- getYeGone 4y agoHard not feel like shit. Yesterday there was an article on reddit about how so many young men are single and sexless, which is certainly true for me, going on 5 years. In addition to the loneliness. Feels like an epidemic.
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y agoMake your life an RPG. Begin by greeting strangers and creating a list of small goals that gradually increase in complexity till having sex. If you require assistance, please include your email address in your profile.
- skilled 4y agoThe society we live in shoves loneliness down your throat and goes on to celebrate that. So, the only way out is to live through that slump and figure out who you are in this world, because it doesn't matter if you have 100 or 0 people around you - when life comes knocking, it will only ever knock on your door. Having said that, I'd imagine that most people who are lonely do eventually come to the realization that they're confusing their emotions with reality. No medication will ever fine-tune your minds frequency to be able to hear your own voice that lives in your head. And I think most crafty people in this world do eventually figure out that this life's short, and that spending your time worrying about bullshit (or worse yet, kicking yourself down deliberately) isn't worth it. But I digress... If you haven't gotten to the Existential Loneliness stage yet, I suppose you're afforded some luxuries to carry on for a while still...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 4y ago> The society we live in shoves loneliness down your throat and goes on to celebrate that. I primarily blame the Internet (or more generally, online interaction). Aside from little bits of oasis like HN (which, of course, still has no shortage of its own problems), the Internet is a big toxic brew of hate. Sometimes old school hate (racism, etc), but hate over everything else. Hate for people who like Teslas, or iPhones, or pickup trucks, or cars in general, or single family houses, etc. It feels like everyone believes the rest of the world wants to hear them bitch. (yes, here I am, bitching) No wonder everyone feels lonely, it is hard to get any connection in such an environment. Sometimes I think it endangers my own sanity, the more I am exposed to it, and I kinda want to /dev/null everything but wikipedia. LOL.
- Damogran6 4y agoIs it, though? Yes, hate for something other people love (Teslas in your example) is everywhere, but the most successful places are those that let you regulate that, regulate it for you, or the culture refuses to accept it. I'll disengage from Twitter when it's too negative and when I return its better, either because the russian trollfarm is sleeping, or Twitter notice I disengaged and works to 'do better'.
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoEvery day that goes by, Wallace's Infinite Jest becomes truer and truer. The thesis of the book is that modern entertainments just make it easier to be alone.
- pelorat 4y agoLiving reshapes the brain.
- agumonkey 4y agoSometimes I noticed is that if I spend too long alone, and I can walk in nature, it fills a kind of social need. Nature is lively. By the time you finished exploring the surrounding you're ready to enjoy your cave again.
- sourcecodeplz 4y agoNo one is perfect. Having shitty friends is better than no friends.
- lapama 4y agoAnd what's the best thing to do about it, if you are socially excluded and cannot move out in the short term?
- paparush 4y agoLoneliness is not a phase.
- 10xDev 4y agoLockdowns were a severe mistake and we are still paying for it.
- jkmcf 4y agoIn retrospect, I agree with you. Between masking --especially promoting masking with inadequate masks--, lockdowns, and anything else tried, they were met with 50% resistance which nullified any potential, positive effect.
- 2devnull 4y agoThis isn’t a very useful discussion without reference to displacement, geographically and socially. When we compare our atomized society to others and note the contrast, rarely to we correctly pinpoint the cause of the atomization. It’s very obvious, displacement and cultural change are the root cause. Humans benefit from homeostasis. If they have homeostasis they will optimize culture for human needs and the common good. Disruption to that homeostasis brings a number of ills, isolation being just one of many.
- cubefox 4y agoIsn't atomization simply a consequence of the Internet? People go out less because they can use social media and Netflix, which doesn't make us as happy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- BizarreByte 4y agoIt has messed with me pretty badly. I’m trying to change my life to get out of the hole I find myself in, but it’s really difficult.
- ROTMetro 4y agoKeep your head up fam. You've got value and the right people will see it!
- irrational 4y agoThis is one of the downsides of losing our religion (REM has entered the chat). Churches used to provide a community for people to combat loneliness. We've replaced this sense of community with... well, nothing really.
- notmindthegap 4y agoNot just losing religion, but losing every source of shared purpose that people have historically relied upon. Religion is bad. Having kids is increasingly looked down upon. People are losing any and all sense of professional duty. And yet, no alternatives have been offered.
- plaguepilled 4y agoHaving kids is a neutral life choice, so I don't want to say one thing or another there. But, to any potential parents out there: please don't have kids because you're lonely. Its not a healthy context for a child to grow up as a partial remedy for their parents' problems.
- dc-programmer 4y agoIf it is just a case of people losing their religion, then people would be substituting their time with secular communal activities like bowling leagues or freemasonry. Instead everyone just became a shut in. I believe the real reasons run much deeper
- 000ooo000 4y ago'The Third Place' is an interesting theory related to this stuff. Can certainly see how the decline of the third place fits in with a lot of the comments here.
- uoaei 4y agoThey have very much done that with Marvel characters and Twitch streamers. Relationship with a personal god is only the most parasocial relationship, but there are many flavors of this. I have noticed that among many peoples with regular access to TV and the internet, small talk often veers toward the consumption of popular culture and various impressions and opinions about those consumption products. Religion is a mythic lens through which to view reality, a framework of archetypes to superimpose on a chaotic world, to make it feel more comprehensible, and thus safer. For many they can reach a sense of safety by communing with others about the recognizable values and behaviors of their favorite fictional characters. Now you don't even have to know the people you're talking to, because you can assemble in pseudonymous fanbase forums to find that community. You see it in everything from K-pop Twitter to Star Wars reddit.
- proc0 4y agoLike everything in nature, socializing has a function, and it has been increasingly eroded by technology. Even a few thousand years ago it was the deciding survival factor. As we move deeper into the information age, it seems more and more inconsequential. In my own life, a broader social circle has mostly proven to be at best good entertainment, at worse it can hurt you, but usually is just wasted time. You meet people, learn their incredibly mundane and predictable lives (not excluding myself here), and then life happens and you don't see them ever again, or at least not enough to make a difference. Having a social network of people to constantly talk to is not needed unless we go back a few thousand years in time... which, to be fair, could happen with some global catastrophe, however if civilization keeps going, I think socializing will be about sharing thoughts, and not so much about physical proximity.
- trieste92 4y agoYeah I think I'm done with this website after reading this
- dorchadas 4y agoSeriously. What a depressing and dehumanizing view of the world. I moved away from my entire social circle two years ago, and it's been extremely rough. I knew people here when moving, and have made good friends, but it's not the same. I miss the deep interactions and just the shared experiences I had with all my friends back home - I seriously consider moving back pretty much every single day because of it. Discord and other messaging apps are nothing but a simulacrum of actual interaction. Physical interaction is what matters; I've become more and more convinced of that recently - and more and more Luddite because of it. But the real world is physical, not digital, and I think too many people forget that. Shame very few others seem to view this and keep pushing for tech that'll make us more and more disconnected for little upside (looking at you, chatbots). Deep, in person social connection is a must and I truly question whether the GP is as well off without it as they think they are.
- ablyveiled 4y ago>In behavioral studies, lonely people picked up on negative social signals, such as images of rejection, within 120 milliseconds — twice as quickly as people with satisfying relationships and in less than half the time it takes to blink. Depression smells like a significant confounding factor here. Indeed, the article may be re-written "depression reshapes the brain", which, like, yeah, ok.
- seydor 4y agoThe studies linking loneliness (as in aloneness) with blood pressure need to be corroborated with more systematic studies. There is certainly a bias to consider socializing as something pleasant but often it is not. For people who are OK being alone, it's actually mostly other people that are the stressors, not alone-ness https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/loneliness-and-stroke-or-heart-attack https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...
- danayfm 4y agoMoved to the US many years ago after living in Asia and in Europe and I've struggled the most here in making friends and meeting new people. I thought it was me and even moved to a bigger city in the US and still find it hard to make meaningful connection with anyone. Like others mentioned maybe it's the American capitalism, or internet. I think also maybe cars (greater distance, individual travel, road rage, etc.) influence in how we feel lonely but still surrounded by people.
- dadjoker 4y agoThis comports with this study I saw recently. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01453-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01453-0 And yet in the name of "safety" and "protection" our betters forced isolation on everyone, and we are reaping the results.
- ThinkBeat 4y agoThis magazine seems to come up on the front page nearly every day. I find it to be uneven in how and what it covers. If it is a subject matter on which I have some actual knowledge sometimes I learn something, but more often I am disappointed.
- 2-718-281-828 4y agoany prolonged experience or activity shapes the brain ... duh
- 000ooo000 4y agoStruggling with loneliness for the first time in my life, at the moment. My core group of friends, whom I've known for 25+ years, all each had a kid in the space of a year. The pandemic made keeping those friendships alive difficult, but the kids turned it up a notch. I was gaslighting myself for a while that they were just busy, but when I heard about a couple of social things that I wasn't invited to, I realised that the friendships weren't on hold, they were hanging up. As an experiment, I stepped back and started to match the effort they were putting in and sadly I haven't spoken to some in months, some years. Working remotely, I need to make a real effort to maintain some social element in my life but having lost this core group of friends has been a huge blow; I have pretty regular dreams about it. Stoked to learn my brain is atrophying as a result!
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago> I stepped back and started to match the effort they were putting in How did you do it? Have you created an Excel spreadsheet and questioned them about their degree of effort, which you then compared to your level of effort? You added everything up and your column was higher than their column? I went through this approximately a year before you. Loneliness in this period is caused by your slow response to external change, as well as life telling you to make a life for yourself.
- trieste92 4y ago> I was gaslighting myself for a while that they were just busy, but when I heard about a couple of social things that I wasn't invited to, I realised that the friendships weren't on hold, they were hanging up. I feel this. It's incredibly painful to make that kind of realization and it's hard not to be resentful about it This happened to me and I was bitter about it for about 2 years, should've been in counseling but didn't even realize I was bitter
- 8bitsrule 4y agoThere a lot of natural stimuli missing ('environmental monotony') in an artificial Antarctic station's winter. Article didn't seem to address how factors like 'monotony' were distinguished from 'social isolation' (with 7 colleagues) as causal to brain changes ('lost prefrontal volume') in Neumayer. The headline is a stretch ... there are millions of less-privileged people living in Siberia and northern Canada who survive endless harsh winters 'living off the land' in a natural environment with only a few people near them ... how 'reshaped' are their brains?
- senectus1 4y agoNo mention of how this might not apply to those of us that are naturally introverted and didn't really have a "loneliness" problem.
- nickd2001 4y agoA few suggestions to counter how lonely modern society can be. (1) If you're religious, get as involved as much as possible with your community, if you aren't, but are kind of searching, and not opposed to organised religion, try going to various religious events see what people believe and if its for you. (2) Learn, or pick back up, a musical instrument and join an amateur group - anything from formal e:g local wind band / brass band / orchestra , to an informal band, advertising for a member at guitar shop or online. If you can't find anything, place an ad yourself, people will reply for sure (3) Volunteer. e:g Feeding homeless Or get involved in some community thing or positive local politics, making locality better, possibly environmental activism of a kind even if just getting some trees planted to improve an area, (4) Avoid living in posh places where people are "aspirational" , where managers live, (this is not a problem for people who can't afford that in the first place ;) ) instead live somewhere with more soul, more blue collar, where people need each other more, reach out to each other more, have jobs that are more about serving others than "using" them. Just my 2p, YMMV.
- greenhearth 4y agoCan they just not pill up the chemicals used in social interactions? Cure your loneliness the modern way!
- FrontierPsych 4y agoI think loneliness is a choice except for exceptions. I've read all kinds of things about California and how shallow it is, and especially in Los Angeles. I think the people who say this must be meeting different people than I do, or trying to meet different people. They want to meet high-end celebrities and just get pushed off or whatever. I know auto mechanics, plumbers, financial planners, accountants, programmers, retail clerks, manufacturing plant managers, teachers. All of them are exactly like they would be in any other state. They don't sit around trying to sell a script to Hollywood studios, or try to get into acting. Plumbers are plumbers. I had a GREAT group of hikers I used to hike with - friendly and down-to-earth and real. But, I have to go out and FORCE myself to meet people. It's not like high school or university where you are surrounded by everyone your own age, and all you have to do is show up and there's a group there for at schools. I've gone to computer groups meetings, business group meetings, and all kinds of groups. But I have to get my ass out and go. It kinda sucks to get off my ass and motivated, but what else can ya do? Some groups did suck, I must say, but I just got out of them and go to other ones that turns out great. Loneliness is a choice. I guess if you lived on a farm and the nearest neighbor was 30 miles away, that would be different, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
- koolhead17 4y agoloneliness and solitude are two different things.