It seems to be an epidemic. Vast amounts of psychologists talk about the perils of loneliness. Depression, hallucinations, and addiction are all byproducts of loneliness. Even the body’s ability to heal itself, fight off disease, and your chances of recovery from cancer are impacted if you feel lonely.
Being lonely is as much of a risk factor as smoking – Dr. Shimi Kang
So what can we do? Why do so many people feel lonely in the age of communication? I will contend there are two main reasons for it.
We have lost our ability to connect.
Sure, we can pick up our phones and send a text message instantly, and get a cute emoji back for our efforts, but that isn’t truly connecting with someone. Even if the text is deep and meaningful, most communication isn’t written. A text misses out on the quiver in our voice, or the pauses we make while trying to explain our feelings. But a phone call can’t replace an in-person conversation.
We mainly communicate through body language: Facial expressions, hand gestures, the way we sit and engage in the conversation, all play a role in our communication, and they’re all lost in SMS. True connection comes from a physical presence, from touch, from eye contact. An emoji simply isn’t going to cut it when it comes to true emotional expression.
If we were completely ignored by everyone we came across, it would feel worse than being tortured. – William James
We are afraid of being vulnerable.
Every day, we see the cute things our friends’ kids have done on Facebook. Instagram shows us the new car someone bought. We see headings, “So-n-so is in a relationship.” We see all the good things that happen to people, because people generally don’t want to acknowledge the bad things that happen. They don’t want to talk about the report card that barely passed. They don’t want to mention the bills that aren’t getting paid. And they certainly don’t want to admit they settled for their new partner because their self esteem is so low, they didn’t want to be alone any longer.
Thirty years ago, our friends and our neighbors knew so much more about our lives. They saw the good, but also some of the bad. Today it’s so easy to control the message we publish, that we get to leave out the things that make us appear ordinary, damaged… Human.
It would be a bad idea to talk about all your fears and shortcomings on Facebook. Those topics are best discussed with close friends, in person. But that can only happen if we connect with people.
Loneliness is a crisis. It affects our health, our well being, our sense of fulfillment, our joy, our longevity. It even affects our ability to be compassionate and caring towards other human beings. It is one of the worst conditions a human can find themselves in, and sadly its more and more common every day.
Stop reading this blog, and go meet people. Make those connections, be vulnerable, not just in your sorrows and fears, but in your joys and ambitions too. Humans thirst for connection.