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Loneliness, Social Media and Mental Health
Over at the New York Post my friend Karol Markowicz has a great column about the emerging crisis that is loneliness. She writes,
“We’re increasingly living our lives on the Internet, alone amid vast digital crowds. Social media have replaced socializing. We’re all guilty of staring too often at our phones. We curl up at night with the latest Chrome browser.”
Karol wrote this column several days ago, but it rings even more true with a cry from help over the weekend from Pete Davidson, an SNL comic. Entertainment sites like The A.V. Club are reporting,
Davidson—who has talked openly over the last few years about living with Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as other ups and downs related to his mental health—deleted his Instagram account yesterday after posting a comment in which he said that “I’m doing my best to stay here for you but I actually don’t know how much longer I can last. All I’ve ever tried to do was help people. Just remember I told you so.”
In this epidemic of loneliness centered around our online lives, even the cries for help are coming online. And sadly, Davidson’s depression seems to at least partially stem from online bullying in the wake of his relationship to singer Ariana Grande.
In the Wall Street Journal last week there was another troubling piece about loneliness among baby boomers:
Baby boomers.About one in 11 Americans age 50 and older lacks a spouse, partner or living child, census figures and other research show. That amounts to about eight million people in the U.S. without close kin, the main source of companionship https://t.co/rd87V1My0T
— John Batchelor (@batchelorshow) December 17, 2018
I’ve been reading a great book at the recommendation of Ben Domenech (podcast discussion via the link) and Senator Ben Sasse called Deep Work. The author, Cal Newport, spends a significant amount of time discussing how online life inhibits our ability to think and work deeply; we’re merely wading in the shallows. Our online addictions aren’t just impacting our abilities to think deeply, but perhaps feel and communicate deeply as well. It’s not helping boomers or millennials socialize in the real-life world.
In New York Magazine recently there was a fascinating piece about the “Children of Ted” – folks obsessed with the anti-technology writings of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski (which were, as the piece notes, astoundingly prophetic and actually worth a read). But there’s got to be a better way to fight back against the impacts of technology on our brains and psyches short of becoming acolytes of the Unabomber. Right? Here’s hoping.
Published in Culture
If you want to learn about the neuroscience of why people need people, get the book Healing Developmental Trauma. On page 26 it lists a couple of researchers. Dr. Drew Pinsky has interview those guys, Porges and Schore. Listen to that first, and then skim the book for what you are interested in. Everyone that is going to have children should get that book. You don’t have to read it straight through because so much of it is about pathology, which may not serve you. So even though it’s a thick book it really isn’t a big deal.
One thing about the TV weather person that killed her self (mentioned in the article), she just had eye surgery. That stuff is notorious for complicating your life and causing excess stress and depression. She was having all kinds of problems with her eye surgery. If you are forced to do that, just get the best recommendation on a doctor that you can.
Social media is done me a lot of good, but my concentration is clearly shot from it. I was allergic to people before, and it clearly made it worse. LOL
We had a session at church about reaching out to old men, because men especially do not respond well to isolation.
There is a law that no one can appeal, no court can overturn or any legislature can amend and that’s the law of unintended consequence.
Almost everything we have done since the 1960s has brought us to this point. From no-fault divorce to the proliferation of retirement “communities” to abortion on demand we have made virtually every part of our immediate families disposable. Now, modern feminism is trying its damnedest to criminalize the courtship process. An innocent joke or compliment can cost you your job and future earnings. I weep for my children, my sons especially.
I’m not sure which is the chicken or the egg: does depression lead to loneliness or does loneliness lead to depression? I think, too, that most people are introverts, and some may not like that tendency (although it works for me!) So social media allows them to “connect,” only they begin to realize that the connection is superficial. So their loneliness spirals into more disappointment.
Maybe people, most of all, need to figure out how to be comfortable in their own skin; that they don’t need to be like everyone else; that being alone doesn’t need to lead to loneliness; and that they can be their own worst enemy, if they depend on social media. I don’t use any of those platforms, spend most of my time alone, and am at peace. Not always, but mostly.
Good insight, Susan. The answer doesn’t have to be an either-or. People are complicated, and can fall victim to “feedback loops” of causation.
Thanks, @arizonapatriot. I think, too, that we much prefer to blame others or something else, rather than reflect on our own role in the process.
Social media in its many forms (I include online video games) satisfies hunger and cravings while leaving you undernourished. I suspect there is a drug metaphor which would be more exact (I first considered carbon monoxide poisoning).
Actual social abilities atrophy over time. Being ‘social’ from the privacy of your own home is almost effortless; leaving the house becomes daunting.
As if on cue, I just started reading Ben Sasse’s new book and there’s a lot of discussion of these issues. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in this topic.
I am starting to wonder if the intro-extroversion scale is highly malleable.
We are living in an era of declining social institutions – church, clubs, etc.
These things provide a check for even the introverted or depressed. In a healthy environment, repeated absence should incur some curiosity and outreach from others in the organization, thereby halting whatever feedback loop exists between loneliness and depression without unduly interfering in personality quirks.
I agree bigly. “Haven’t seen him online lately” isn’t much of a call to action – particularly if you don’t have any other method of contacting a guy.