
Study: Loneliness, Social Isolation Greater Health Problem in US Than Obesity - ytNumbers
https://www.studyfinds.org/loneliness-social-isolation-alone-obesity/
======
vinceguidry
Loneliness is a psychological problem masquerading as a social one.

Look, there are people all around us. Neighborhood streets have, what, 50
people on them? People congregate at churches, bars, coffee shops, even Wal-
Marts.

Loneliness is a self-inflicted problem. I'm not saying that to belittle it,
I'm saying it because the reasons most people give for being lonely have
nothing to do with the actual reasons.

Real, authentic human connections banish loneliness with a ruthless
effectiveness. And you can make one with anyone. But we never want to make an
authentic human connection with just anyone. We place conditions on the people
we're willing to get close to. And paint ourselves into a very lonely corner
by doing it.

I used to get lonely a lot in my mid-twenties. I had a bar I went to, a coffee
shop I frequented, and good friends at both of them. But I was still lonely.
It took a lot of self-inquiry, but eventually I realized that I didn't have a
loneliness problem, I had a _status_ problem that was presenting as
loneliness. I wasn't seeing my life as having turned out the way I wanted it
to, so I was beating myself up over it.

Psychological problems respond really well to talk therapy. Unfortunately
that's not a very good solution. We don't have the resources to give everybody
with the problem therapy. Instead I think we need to adopt a similar approach
that's being used for suicide prevention. Train "gatekeepers" to identify at-
risk individuals and get them the help they need, and increase awareness in
the general public.

I wish we could do more. But without massive a public investment in
psychological health, personalized treatment will remain a luxury solution for
those who can afford it.

There's also the problem that, even if the infrastructure were there, that
doesn't mean people will take advantage of it. Loneliness is tied very closely
to the pride part of the brain, nobody wants to admit they have a problem and
seek out help for it.

~~~
pmoriarty
It's one thing to hang out with friends at a coffee shop and beat yourself up
over life not turning out the way you wanted it to.

It's quite another thing not to have any friends.

Most of the people in the coffee shops around here have their noses buried in
their laptops or books, and when they talk to people they mostly talk to
friends who they went to the coffee shop with. Very few people are actually
meeting new people and making new friends with random people at coffee shops.

Bars are geared towards hanging out with people you already know, or hitting
on strangers. I'm not sure how many people are making new friends there,
unless they're relatively extroverted.

Therapy these days is kind of weird. Because insurance companies don't want to
pay much, it's geared towards short-term, behavior-oriented therapy. That
might help with certain conditions like phobias, but I'm not sure how much it
can help with deeper issues. There are other types of therapies, but because
insurance mostly doesn't cover them, they're not really practical for most
people (not to mention that they're out of fashion these days, as most
therapists want to practice CBT because that's what the insurance covers and
that's what they're taught in school as being "scientific", "modern", and
"evidence-based" \-- even when there's evidence it doesn't actually help).

I do think the modern world, especially for people who spend a lot of time
online or consuming a lot of media like TV, movies, and games, can be pretty
lonely, or at least devoid of deep human contact. I'm not sure what the
solution is, apart from unplugging and spending a lot of time and effort in
making connections. But being psychologically ready to do that in the first
place is an achievement in itself.

~~~
idle_processor
Mind linking to some of the compelling evidence against CBT?

~~~
pmoriarty
[http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/bruce-wampold-
psychot...](http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/bruce-wampold-
psychotherapy-effectiveness)

~~~
chillacy
That doesn't say that CBT doesn't help, but that all therapy helps equally:

> With some qualifications. I would put the _differences_ between various
> types of psychotherapy at very close to zero percent... It turns out that
> treatment is just as effective without the particular ingredient. ...As long
> as what they’re doing is believable, accepted, is given by a therapist who’s
> skilled and believes in the treatment as well, the treatment tends to go
> well.

------
fallingfrog
Loneliness and obesity have a common origin, or at least significantly
overlapping causes. They both derive from living in an environment that is a)
substantially different from what we are evolved for and b) loaded with social
pressures and saturated with advertising that pressures people into making bad
choices.

There's no way you can argue that obesity is anything other than a conflict
between the environment we evolved for, and the one we live in. Anywhere you
go in America, you are surrounded by cheap empty calories, sugar and white
flour, both highly addictive substances, and also surrounded by advertising
urging consumption of the above. For us to _not_ have an obesity epidemic
would be astonishing.

By the same token, the only kind of negotiating power the modern worker has in
finding a good salary is the power to quit, and so people quit often and
early, which leads to them moving frequently away from the friends they've
managed to find. All of us are also surrounded by messages telling us that for
our lives to mean anything we must work longer, and spend more money, which
doesn't leave much time for forging social bonds. Again, you can argue that
nobody is _forcing_ you to make these choices- but for us to have an epidemic
of loneliness is completely unsurprising.

~~~
vorpalhex
> There's no way you can argue that obesity is anything other than a conflict
> between the environment we evolved for, and the one we live in

I'll bite. Obesity occurs because our food is too cheap. Especially in the US,
our food is horrendously cheap for a ton of calories. I (by some mistake)
bought a $4 taco the other day that was about 1000 calories (and quite good).

We went from having people dying from hunger, to having too much food
available for extremely low prices. I eat on about $50 a week and live like a
damned king - fresh gourmet bread, chicken and steak twice a day, hand folded
pasta, imported olive oil, etc.

A few hundred years ago and you were doing well to have some soup and a piece
of bread on a daily basis. Now I can get a decent bottle of wine for below $8.

> By the same token, the only kind of negotiating power the modern worker has
> in finding a good salary is the power to quit, and so people quit often and
> early, which leads to them moving frequently away from the friends they've
> managed to find.

I don't think that's it either. I think, just like food has gotten to be too
cheap and too readily accessible for our primate brains, we've managed to fake
having friends. I can send a facebook friend request and get it accepted by
anyone, I can have a drink with coworkers after work, or talk over the water
cooler about game of thrones - and none of those are meaningful friends.

Again, it's too "cheap" to form faux relationships. There's a (probably
entirely unsourced) quote that it takes about 18 months to know a person. How
many people do you spend quality, non-work time with, at least one or twice a
month, for at least two years? For most people that may not even include their
spouse.

------
0xcde4c3db
This link appears to be little more than a reworded version of the APA press
release [1]. I'm still not sure where the actual study is.

[1] [http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/lonely-
die.as...](http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/lonely-die.aspx)

~~~
network_ops
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691614568352](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691614568352)

Done by a Prof. at BYU

edit: Here's the original BYU new article as well:
[https://news.byu.edu/news/prescription-living-longer-
spend-l...](https://news.byu.edu/news/prescription-living-longer-spend-less-
time-alone)

------
microcolonel
I feel like this also plays into, and off of, political division. I have had a
great number of people who would have been friends, or at least acquaintances,
ex me completely for one moment of political disagreement. I also figure the
more isolated you become from direct human contact, the more the increasingly-
tailored information you see confirms your own dumb ideas. These dumb ideas
then become your deepest-held convictions, and you ex the people around you
because of just how disturbing the disagreement seems.

In addition, finding people to date and have romantic relationships is pretty
weird these days. On the one hand, there are dating apps, which seem like they
would give you a lot of opportunity to meet new people, but mostly just give
you enough information about people to swipe left. If you're a guy, also can
no longer court the single women at your employer (even from other
departments) without potentially imperiling your entire livelihood.

Most of the guys I talk to from a generation or two before me say they met
their lifelong friends through a friend or through somebody they were dating,
often through people they no longer talk to.

It seems like there are a lot of factors, mundane and complex, that could
contribute to isolation these days, especially if you're a 7 or below.

------
pixilz
Can confirm, am loneliness.

~~~
tomcam
My heart's with you. Email in profile

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rndmind
What is with the influx of link-bait articles on this website? This is
y-combinator not The Sun tabloid.

------
daodedickinson
And the causality can be linked to websites like Facebook as easily as cancer
to cigarettes.

~~~
dionidium
I'd say it's more like the link between secondhand smoke and cancer, which is
to say widely believed and seriously overstated.

This stuff was trending upward far before social media. See e.g. Putnam in
Bowling Alone for a far more convincing explanation.

Facebook is the snake oil you're being sold as the cure for something that was
already on its way up.

~~~
seasonalgrit
You're misinformed when it comes to secondhand smoke. From the NIH:

"The U.S. Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a
nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent."

"There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke."

\-- [https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-
prevention/risk/t...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-
prevention/risk/tobacco/second-hand-smoke-fact-sheet)

~~~
dionidium
Not really the point of this thread. Analogies should elucidate, not distract.
My bad.

Maybe we'll get a chance to argue it another time :)

------
yotamoron
From Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society" (written in 1970): "In these essays,
I will show that the institutionalization of values leads inevitably to
physical pollution, social polarization, and psychological impotence: three
dimensions in a process of global degradation and modernized misery. I will
explain how this process of degradation is accelerated when nonmaterial needs
are transformed into demands for commodities; when health, education, personal
mobility, welfare, or psychological healing are defined as the result of
services or "treatments"."

------
Nevaeh
Perhaps digital interaction can help alleviate the negative symptoms of
loneliness and social isolation. One can join any community which shares their
interests and interact in real-time.

[https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/IRL](https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/IRL)
[https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Creative](https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Creative)

However, I am unsure if virtualization of social interaction is beneficial in
the long run.

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becga
Don't think the US can match Japan for loneliness/isolation.

~~~
crocal
I don't know. When I was living there, interpersonal relationship among
Americans always seemed very shallow and greedy. Generally the first contact
was very welcoming, then, nothing beyond that. It felt as if any socialization
was first and foremost a kind of investment. If after a probe, the ROI did not
looked promising, the line would go dead almost instantly. I remember very
well asking myself how such a society could not eventually lead to very lonely
people. Fortunately, I was not looking for friends, because I did not bring
back so many from there, and most of them are actually first generation
immigrants.

------
pvdebbe
Witt: Do you ever feel lonely?

Welsh: Only around people

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trophycase
Humans aren't wired to drown in interactions with strangers all day.

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expertentipp
yeah... people

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwjLCQLSsAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwjLCQLSsAw)

