Why is loneliness dangerous for us?

Mark Manson

Entrepreneur, author of the bestsellers “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” and “Everything is Sucks. A book about hope.”

Loneliness is at the root of many problems related to mental health and social well-being. But no one seems to understand how to talk about it and how to solve them. And although loneliness is a widespread phenomenon, we still know little about how and why it occurs.

What do we know about loneliness

To begin with, here are a couple of well-known facts that are similar to the truth:

• Loneliness is common in the Western world. Many studies in the USA and Europe showthat from 30 to 60% of people experience loneliness or admit that they do not have daily meaningful contact with others. Surprisingly, young people called feel lonely more often than older people.
• Loneliness is bad for us. Authors of the studies claimthat it shortens life expectancy as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It always seemed rather ridiculous to me to keep such statistics, but this does not change the essence: loneliness is harmful to health, both physically and mentally. It increases risk of developing anxiety and depression. Single people have more problems with heart and blood pressure and weaker the immune system.

What we don’t know about loneliness

Why does it occur

Loneliness affects countries in the Western world differently than others. There are many theories why this happens, but there are still no clear answers.

Some believe that it’s all about the Western culture of individualism, which places less importance on family or society. Others blame urbanization and cultural norms that encourage home ownership, living alone, working independently, and so on.

Some point to demographic changes: People are having children less often, moving from city to city more often and spending less time with older people. And some point to the decline of religiosity, arguing that religion has historically been the core of human community and camaraderie.

Any of these reasons could be true. Or all of them.

How to deal with it

Again, there are many theories, but we don’t know much for sure.

Online communication via devices seems like a poor substitute for the moral support we get from being around other people. Social media and video games are like diet soda for our mental well-being—it tastes like real-life communication, but doesn’t provide any emotional “calories.” And in this case it is bad, because we are “starving”.

Loneliness depends on both the quality and quantity of our social interactions. Not only do we need to see people we know often, but we also need to feel some degree of closeness and trust towards them.

At the same time, in some places there is a struggle against loneliness. For example, in the UK appointed “Minister for Loneliness.” And in Denmark achieved success by promoting a system of co-living, where retirees and young families who need help with children share the same living space and can support each other.

Overall, loneliness still remains a significant problem. So much so that pharmaceutical companies even are thinking about whether they can create a cure for loneliness in the same way they created antidepressants (please, not this one).

But that still doesn’t explain why I believe loneliness is the hidden root of many social and cultural problems.

What threat does loneliness pose?

From a psychological point of view, we are social animals. We derive much of our life’s meaning and purpose from our relationships with others or from our perceived role in society at large.

We have such a strong need to connect with other people that our ability to form functional beliefs about ourselves and the world around us is limited. tied up with our relationship. Empathy is like a muscle: if you don’t use it, it gets weaker.

That is why, when we observe over and over again what motivates fanatics, conspiracy theorists and extremists, we find a constant loneliness. Rejection and social isolation radicalize people. When a person is devoid of affection and understanding, he clings to illusory ideas of revolution and saving the world in order to gain a sense of purpose.

Hannah Arendt, a mid-20th century philosopher, was a German Jew who escaped the Nazis. After the war, she spent years studying totalitarianism, the rise and fall of fascism, communist revolutions, and the horrors of the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Mao. She tried to understand why these leaders gained supporters so quickly, despite their policies of terror.

Arendt then wrote book “The Origins of Totalitarianism”. It runs more than 500 pages, and in the end the author comes to a startling conclusion: loneliness makes people susceptible to the contempt and fragmentation that lead to the breakdown of functional societies into extremism and violence.

In short, this is the point. When we are cut off from the social connections that allow us to empathize and ground ourselves, the only way to understand the world is to adopt a radical all-or-nothing attitude. Following these views, we begin to see the need for a decisive overthrow of the status quo. We see ourselves as either victims of circumstances or saviors of society.

Perhaps this is the main threat of social networks. They don’t necessarily make us lonelier, more selfish, or more bitter. They simply allow lonely, selfish, and angry people to organize themselves and be heard like never before.

Previously, if a person was a radical Marxist who wanted a revolution, or believed that Bill Gates was implanting chips in poor African children, he kept his delusional ideas to himself. Otherwise, he could not avoid awkward silence and sidelong glances, and he would no longer be invited to children’s birthday parties.

So people were silent. And gradually the impression developed that the majority were fine and that everything would be fine.

Now everything is different. Somewhere on the Internet there is always a forum full of people with the same crazy ideas. What do people with similar but strange beliefs do when they get together? Right. They convince themselves that they will save this damn world thanks to their amazing knowledge. That is, they are going on a crusade. And everyone around them has to listen to their nonsense when, encouraged by their “friends” from the Internet, they begin to explain that the movie “Armageddon” is actually an encrypted message from QAnon that Bruce Willis does not just run a criminal network, but is A 16-year-old boy who is being held captive…

So what am I talking about? Oh yes, loneliness.

Perhaps Arendt’s arguments can be looked at from a different angle. There is a risk that extremists will seize power when radicals with fringe views find it easier to mobilize and organize than the moderate majority. Historically, economic crises, pandemics, famines, and so on have led to such a mobilization of extremes. It seems that social media and smartphones have inadvertently made it even more possible today.

But who knows. I could be wrong about everything, because we still don’t know enough to say with complete certainty.