Loneliness, The Unavoidable
What makes you happy? Psychology: Ninth Edition in Modules responds “most people mention- before anything else- close, satisfying relationships with family, friends, or romantic partners” [Bercheld 1985]. In summation, happiness is often dependent on social interaction. People who live alone and have little to no interaction with others begin to exhibit qualities associated with insanity- a person is said to have psychological disorders for making up people who do not actually surround them. Ironically, Americans of the present generation are increasingly isolating themselves through “social” media. The absence of genuine human interaction has led to increased numbers of people feeling depressed or even suicidal. Though loneliness is a harmful feeling, Americans have found it to be gradually more unavoidable.
Look at the various types of relationships. Whether friendly, parent-child, close, open, or serious; those involved- at some point- become lonely. “Nurse- Patient is described as a fundamental resource for meaning in life, dignity and thriving among nursing home patients” (Journal of Medical Internet Research). We decide whether or not to remain in that relationship solely based on attention. When there is too much attention, we go crazy, and when there is not enough attention, we feel earnestly deprived. Either way, not all relationships will be satisfying. There too, can be negative attention, for example, downfallen celebrities. Actress, Winona Ryder, after getting out of a relationship with Johnny Depp, became depressed. She fell into some bad habits, but later received treatment. Another instance is singers Chris Brown and Rihanna. After he beat her up, she admitted to still caring for him. ...
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...ss. Some contributing factors include relationships, age, and social media. Loneliness may even be a feeling that you cannot get away from. No matter how hard you try just to run away, loneliness will eventually catch up to you. It is not necessarily a step in life that you can step over entirely. Though you may have not encountered loneliness yet, at some point in life you will. The thing about loneliness is there is no warning; like death, when it comes for you it will overtake you. “One of the greatest self- perception changes over the past decade is how Americans see themselves in relation to others. For all the technological advances in the past decade, the desire for human connectedness remains” (Barna Group). “Ubuntu (oo- BOON-too), explained Desmond Tutu [1999], expresses the fact that my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours” (Myers).
What is loneliness? Loneliness is an intricate and usually emotional reaction to isolation or absence of companionship. In the book ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck many characters such as Crooks and Curley’s Wife have experienced loneliness. Crooks is lonely because he is black. Curley’s wife is lonely due to being the only female at the ranch and having no one to converse with.
Loneliness is the sadness resulting from being isolated or abandoned. Being lonely is almost always directly connected to relations between people, or the lack there of. Mother Teresa once said “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” In John Steinbecks classic novel, Of Mice And Men, the three characters, Crooks, Curley’s wife and Candy struggle with loneliness in different forms because of characteristics that they can’t control. All three characters deal with their loneliness by searching for companionship with others on the ranch and this works out differently for each of them.
We immediately resolve to our phones or tablets as a remedy to loneliness. However this doesn’t solve the problem, rather, it makes it worse. The lonelier we are, the more technology we surround ourselves with, resulting in a difficulty to physically communicate with others; it is a paradox. Consequently, the gadget in our hands acts as barrier, neglecting human relationships. “ At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mails.” This clearly describes the negative role in which technology diminishes the exchange of experiences, and interactions, for example talking about your day, or to just spend time as a family. In my opinion if one is texting at the dinner table, it immediately displays a lack of interest and reluctance to
Because we are connected with so many people, we don’t realize that something is missing in our lives and that is solitude. In my experience, even if we get few minutes to be alone, we spend that looking at our phones and laptops. For example, in school if we are waiting outside of class for teacher to come, everyone is looking at their phones, never talking to each other or sharing knowledgeable things with each other. Not only that even if we have breaks in between the class, students just take out their phone and start staring at it till the break ends. While hanging out with friends, we spend most of time on our phones. I remember, once I lost my phone and I was feeling completely discombobulated. I felt lost and wondered what was going on in world and was feeling left out. Not only solitude but also technology has resulted in loss of face-to-face conversations. Most people think that technology has enhanced our social skills but it is not true, it has actually abated our social skills. We can say that it has led to awkwardness when we talk to each other face to face, so we just prefer talking through texts or
The purpose of Philip Slater’s book The Pursuit of Loneliness is to “reach some understanding of the forces which are unraveling our society” for his readers (xxii). It is a common conception that America is the best country, an idea which is substantiated by economic figures. However, Americans are not happy. According to Slater, “all societies frustrate certain human needs and satiate others (because) humanity and any particular society’s idea of what humanity should be is never very exact” (2). In America, the gap between reality and perception is growing farther and farther apart, at human expense. Americans work their entire lives for the future, in the pursuit of economic security, which ultimately leads to continued unhappiness in the present. American culture “struggles more and more violently to maintain itself, (but) is less and less able to hide its fundamental antipathy towards human life and human satisfaction” (122). Slater’s book teaches people about the existence of the “wide gap between the fantasies Americans live by and the realities they live in,” in the hopes that this will inspire people to react in positive ways (xxiii).
It is an act to ultimately benefit one self. Conversely, it is also what is known as self-righteousness, where one claims to be charitable and or virtuous towards others, when all the while there is a hidden agenda to benefit one-self. The so-called “friendship” is only to benefit the oneself. Unfortunately, this type of self-love can lead to loneliness and loss of true friendships. As much as people may believe that true friendship is not necessary, it is our inherent human need to be in a relationship with other human beings, and/or to develop a form of friendship. To prove the theory that friendship is necessary, an article published by the Journal of Clinical & Diagnostic Research suggests that there is a correlation between loneliness and psychiatric disorders. According to this study, they stated that as human beings, we are a social species which require safe and secure social surroundings to survive. Friendship and/or social relationships are essential for mental and physical well beings (Mushtaq, R., Shoib, S., Shah, T., & Mushtaq, S. (2014). Without social interactions, loneliness ensues, and loneliness can lead to various psychiatric disorders like depression, alcohol abuse, child abuse, sleep problems, personality disorders and Alzheimer’s disease, just to name a few. Not to mention, it can also lead to physiological disorders. Most importantly, loneliness can have serious consequences for mental and physical health of people (Mushtaq, R., Shoib, S., Shah, T., & Mushtaq, S.
Various studies such as one survey which concluded that the mean size of networks of personal confidants decreased from 2.94 people in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. Similarly, in 1985, only 10 percent of Americans said they had no one with whom to discuss important matters, and 15 percent said they had only one such good friend. By 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to, and 20 percent had only one confidant (Bercovici). In addition, a 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier (Marche). By analyzing all of this compiled data it is evident that the sense of loneliness is on the rise especially after the launch of Facebook in 2004. Thus this has led critics to correlate the increased use and number of Facebook users with the noted increase in loneliness. This in turn has led critics to hypothesize and condemn the social network as the not so social network and therefore believing that Facebook causes loneliness. But is this all
The first influential factor to the atrophy of social life that Eitzen writes about is moving away. Americans nowadays are always on the go – if moving is the most convenient idea, they will move with no regard to formed relationships that will soon be broken. People are often forced to move in order to follow a job or because of problems within the family. Constantly moving about causes a decline in intimate relationships. This is also true in people who live alone. The lack of regular and reliable social interaction can lead to a less sociable personality and less motivation to form real relationships. Real relationships are what lead to a healthy social life.
The majority of society has SNS’s, and some of these users are considerably lonely. But just because the statistics of loneliness and social networks are increasing at the same time does not mean the two are related. Loneliness is expected to become a growing trend in the next decade is because of the growing number of older individuals, not the advance in Social Networking Sites (Aarts, Peek, and Wouters 942). This rise of elders in society is a result of the Baby Boom era. During this period of time, an abnormally large amount of babies were born, and now these people are getting older. This means that there is a much larger population of elderly people than usual, and these older individuals are more likely to become depressed and lonely. Many losses come with old age, such as loss of a working atmosphere, physical mobility, or loss of a spouse/child (Aarts, peek, and Wouters 942). Each of these things can be responsible for feelings of loneliness and a reason behind growing loneliness. Also, quality of life is a major factory in whether or not loneliness becomes an issue in one’s life. Certainly a person who deems themselves to be successful, with a healthy marriage, children, and a stable job will not be as lonely as someone who does not. Social Networking sites do not cause people to become lonely when the factors outside of SNS’s have all the power to do
Communication is a vital component in feeling complete, but however as seen with both sadness and love, there is always a balance to allow the capability of feeling. Out of everything in this world, satisfaction is difficult to attain, and somehow no matter what we do, we seem to paradox the very thing we want. The compatibility of ourself with others creates the greatest difficulty in this world. Loneliness is a fabrication within our own existence that simply serves as a way to provide us with unhappiness. The fact is our happiness derives also from the same very things that cause unhappiness, but one thing remains in this world that we all are trying to escape from, infinite loneliness.
Turkle provides dialogues of individuals who avoid social interactions at all cost and would rather communicate through technology, as it is just an inconvenience to have direct confrontations. These dialogues strongly support Turkle’s argument that we’re creating a greater gap between others and ourselves. The reason we are lonely is because we place less effort into building relations with others.
Sorkin, D., Rook, K. S., & Lu, J. L. (2002). Loneliness, lack of emotional support, lack of com-
And, at some point or another, everyone experiences it. However, Dr. Gary J. Kennedy at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine explains that chronic, or long-term, loneliness can have devastating effects on multiple aspects of life, and is being recognized as a public health issue.
Some may argue that technology helps us not feel lonely because technology is the way to escape reality for a bit and the internet can reconnect with our friends and family from around the world. We can save time by “shopping” online and communicate quickly by “email than postal mail” (Franzen 428). We can also communicate via webcam, especially for college students away from their family. It’s a way to reconnect with our love ones and stay in contact with our friends. We want to be “able to share our lives with others” and technology “allows us to do that with music, videos, pictures, and texts” (Arnett 477-479).
Before technology, face to face communication was a normal everyday thing and loneliness was a problem that was rarely talked about or experienced. People went about their day without checking their phone every five minutes or so to see if anyone liked the status they posted or feeling lonely when nobody new liked it. In new studies more and more people have feelings of loneliness and depression. However, more people now use social medias such as Facebook, twitter and instagram. While it is true that technology mainly sites such as Facebook can lead to a person feeling alone, it is also true that it depends on how you use the technology, either to your advantage or as a depressant.