Loneliness: Connecting to Disconnect

In a world more connected than ever before, why are we still so lonely and disconnected? What are we doing wrong?

A 2019 study conducted by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tried to make the leap from correlation to cause by taking into account the pre-existing mental health problems of participants in the year before their research. They followed 6,000 kids aged between twelve and fifteen and found that those who used social media for over three hours a day were twice as likely to develop mental health problems compared to those who unplugged. The set-up of the study suggested that it was more than likely that internet usage triggers mental health issues, rather than the correlation being in reverse.

Guess what? This is not a revelation. We know the internet is damaging. It’s easy to come up with a list of potential easy the internet might cause emotional harm: cyberbullying, heightened self-consciousness, exposure to damaging and disturbing content, time-wasting, missing out on real-world experiences, substituting real friends for virtual ones. Nobody seems to be particularly infatuated with the internet, it’s just there. But, it doesn’t just affect kids. Without meaning to, we all find ourselves drawn into our phones, tablets and computers for hours on end. These internet binges are almost always followed by a kind of hollow, disappointed confusion. Where has the time gone? What have I done?

A 2007 UNICEF study of happiness in twenty-one economically developed countries ranked UK’s young people last. But why are the British so unhappy? They have computers and phones. They have access to free healthcare and education. They are probably never going to experience hunger or war. So then, where is this unhappiness coming from?

In my second book, Keshav, we go into detail about the various subjects that make us unhappy, but most notably standing out is social media. It is a fairly recent phenomenon that is now occupying a central role in the lives of not just young people, but everyone across the world, and it is also changing how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Should we stop using social media altogether? Well, studies that randomly assign groups to delete social media apps for four weeks find that, after those four weeks are up, these groups feel notably less depressed and lonely. However, similar studies also showed that people who used social media very moderately were slightly happier than those who didn’t use it at all. Makes sense I guess...? We all need to stay connected, particularly now more than ever. The ‘optimal’ level seems to be around thirty minutes a day.

So, where does the ‘unhappiness’ bit come from. In their book The Teenage Brain, Amy Ellis Nutt and Frances Jensen highlight the role of the THP hormone. In adults, when they are stressed, THP is the hormone that the brain releases to allow them to become less stressed. In younger people, however, THP does the opposite. Rather than taming the monkey, it is like letting it loose. They get stressed, THP shoots out, and they get more stressed. Social media increases stress (obviously), and stress in young people increase stress further, so it follows that time spent on social media isn’t exactly ‘unwind time’.

One of the longest and most famous studies of all time took 286 men from a university and tracked them from 1938 onwards. From the moment they grew up, grew old, fell in and out of love, had children, work promotions, health scares, and existential panic attacks. After almost eighty years, only nine were still alive. The project continued by following their children, and it is still going on today. The results of the original study come as a surprise...

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This article is condensed from a section of my book Keshav: Ancient Wisdom for Focused Living, which you can get (anywhere in the world) here.

If you like this post, do like and share with your connections and network too. And I will continue to put my work out there for us all.

Prayers and Love,

Vinay

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