Loneliness is transforming American society. Whether it’s the desire to be alone or the unwilling loneliness, people spend more time on their own. And it affects democracy.
Loneliness by numbers
There are two aspects to the problem of loneliness.
One is unintentional loneliness. The surgeon general reportedly declared loneliness an epidemic in 2023. One poll found that 30% of adults aged 18 to 34 are lonely every day or several times a week. And mental health professionals fully agree that social connection is positive for our mental health.
The second type of loneliness is by design. FOMO, out of fear that he has missed, to momo, to missed joy, to be alone.
Tiktok has videos of people celebrating when people cancel their plans.
Last month, author Derek Thompson, who published an article on social isolation in the Atlantic, discovered some plain statistics on social isolation.
School boys and girls interacting with friends outside of school have declined by 50% since the early 1990s. Women with pets interact with animals more than face-to-face contact with her friends. Every hour with a man, they spend seven hours watching TV.
Sandegan and loneliness
Local tech worker Eduardo Rosenfeld, 27, said he wanted to stay home and socialize remotely. But he doesn’t think he’s secluded himself, and he says that his social interactions are almost happening now.
“I’m going to the gym, I’m going home, I’m jumping on my PlayStation, I’m going to talk to eight of my friends online, and I need to drive for 20 minutes to sit I don’t hang out with them in person at someone’s house,” he said. “You can do that while you play the game. It’s a different world right now.”
However, Rosenfeld is isolated from social media. He unplugged the plug about 10 years ago.
“I’m studying in San Francisco and I’ll see my San Diego friends having a great time,” he said. And it just became really hard to deal with and manage, so I removed everything and felt better after that. ”
What does all of this mean for democracy?
Unlike Rosenfeld, those who quarantine themselves by choice take interactions with others via social media.
The problem is that when those conversations turn into politics, the tone can be brutal. Political chat can be toxic and threatening. This is far from the time when social media was expected to be a platform for deliberative democracy among citizens.
And it’s just that anonymity, the lack of face-to-face nature of social media, reinforces hostility. Yale historian Tim Snyder said when people are alone they are looking for a “big, false community” to join. He calls social media an incubator for getting mad.
“The sad thing is, if you are forced into artificial isolation by machines, your politics will be general and predictable,” he said. Victim. You can’t really change anything. Therefore, you need a big strong man to come for you and make things clean. And it’s predictable, it’s sad, and it’s incredibly boring, too. ”
The solution is for people and kids to go out there and join sports teams, take part in art classes, go on field trips and ban smartphones at schools, Snyder said.
Meanwhile, 92-year-old San Diegan Delores Lukemet said she was painfully lonely.
She says she can go for days without meeting or talking to anyone, and spends hours watching Fox news every day. Her worldview is that California and the rest of the world are in awful form, and she said she placed her faith in President Trump to fix both.
