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Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Loneliness is also described as social pain – a psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections. It is often associated with a perceived lack of connection and intimacy. Loneliness overlaps and yet is distinct from solitude. Solitude is simply the state of being apart from others; not everyone who experiences solitude feels lonely. As a subjective emotion, loneliness can be felt even when a person is surrounded by other people. Hence, there is a distinction between being alone and feeling lonely. Loneliness can be short term (state loneliness) or long term (chronic loneliness). In either case, it can be intense and painful.

The causes of loneliness are varied. Loneliness can be a result of genetic inheritance,^[1] cultural factors, a lack of meaningful relationships,^[2] a significant loss, an excessive reliance on passive technologies (notably the Internet in the 21st century),^[3] or a self-perpetuating mindset.^[4] Research has shown that loneliness is found throughout society, including among people in marriages along with other strong relationships, and those with successful careers. Most people experience loneliness at some points in their lives, and some feel it often.

Loneliness is found to be the highest among younger people as, according to the BBC Loneliness Experiment, 40% people within the age group 16-24 admit to feeling lonely while the percentage of people who feel lonely above age 75 is around 27%.^[5]

The effects of loneliness are also varied. Transient loneliness (loneliness which exists for a short period of time) is related to positive effects, including an increased focus on the strength of one's relationships.^[6][7] Chronic loneliness (loneliness which exists for a significant amount of time in one's life) is generally correlated with negative effects, including increased obesity, substance use disorder, risk of depression, cardiovascular disease, risk of high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.^{[8][9][10][11]} Chronic loneliness is also correlated with an increased risk of death and suicidal thoughts.

Medical treatments for loneliness include beginning therapy and taking antidepressants. Social treatments for loneliness generally include an increase in interaction with others, such as group activities (such as exercise or religious activities), re-engaging with old friends or colleagues, and becoming more connected with one's community. Other social treatments for loneliness include the ownership of pets^[12][13] and loneliness-designed technologies, such as meetup services or social robots (although the use of some technologies in order to combat loneliness is debated).

Loneliness has long been a theme in literature, going back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, academic coverage of loneliness was sparse until recent decades. In the 21st century, some academics and professionals have claimed that loneliness has become an epidemic,^[14] including Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States.^[15] However, this claim has been disputed, with critics arguing that loneliness has not increased, but rather only academic focus on the topic has.^[16]

Causes

Existential

Loneliness has long been viewed as a universal condition which, at least to a moderate extent, is felt by everyone. From this perspective, some degree of loneliness is inevitable as the limitations of human life mean it is impossible for anyone to continually satisfy their inherent need for connection. Professors including Michele A. Carter and Ben Lazare Mijuskovic have written books and essays tracking the existential perspective and the many writers who have talked about it throughout history.^[17][18] Thomas Wolfe's 1930s essay God's Lonely Man is frequently discussed in this regard; Wolfe makes the case that everyone imagines they are lonely in a special way unique to themselves, whereas really every single person sometimes experiences loneliness. While agreeing that loneliness alleviation can be a good thing, those who take the existential view tend to doubt such efforts can ever be fully successful, seeing some level of loneliness as both unavoidable and even beneficial, as it can help people appreciate the joy of living.^[2][19]

Cultural

Culture is discussed as a cause of loneliness in two senses. Migrants can experience loneliness due to missing their home culture.^[20] Studies have found this effect can be especially strong for students from countries in Asia with a collective culture, when they go to study at universities in more individualist English speaking countries.^[21] Culture is also seen as a cause of loneliness in the sense that western culture may have been contributing to loneliness, ever since the Enlightenment began to favour individualism over older communal values.^[19][7][2]

Lack of meaningful relationships

For many people the family of origin did not offer the trust building relationships needed to build a reference that lasts a lifetime and even in memory after the passing of a loved one. This can be due to parenting style, traditions, mental health issues including personality disorders and abusive family environments. Sometimes religious shunning is also present.

This impacts the ability of individuals to know themselves, to value themselves and to relate to others or to do so with great difficulty.

All these factors and many others are often overlooked by the standard medical or psychological advice that recommends to go meet friends, family and to socialise. This is not always possible when there is no one available to relate to and an inability to connect without the skills and knowledge on how to proceed. With time a person might become discouraged or develop apathy from numerous trials, failures or rejections brought on by the lack of interpersonal skills.

As the rate of loneliness increases yearly among people of every age group and more so in the elderly, with known detrimental physical and psychological effects, there is a need to find new ways to connect people with each other and especially so at a time when a whole lot of the human attention is focused on electronic devices, it is a challenge.^[22]

Relationship loss

Loneliness is a very common, though often temporary, consequence of a relationship breakup or bereavement. The loss of a significant person in one's life will typically initiate a grief response; in this situation, one might feel lonely, even while in the company of others. Loneliness can occur due to the disruption to one's social circle, sometimes combined with homesickness, which results from people moving away for work or education.^[2][7]

Situational

All sorts of situations and events can cause loneliness, especially in combination with certain personality traits for susceptible individuals. For example, an extroverted person who is highly social is more likely to feel lonely if they are living somewhere with a low population density, with fewer people for them to interact with. Loneliness can sometimes even be caused by events that might normally be expected to alleviate it: for example the birth of a child (if there is significant postpartum depression) or after getting married (especially if the marriage turns out to be unstable, overly disruptive to previous relationships, or emotionally cold.) In addition to being impacted by external events, loneliness can be aggravated by pre-existing mental health conditions like chronic depression and anxiety.^[2][7]

Self-perpetuating

Long term loneliness can cause various types of maladaptive social cognition, such as hypervigilance and social awkwardness, which can make it harder for an individual to maintain existing relationships or establish new ones. Various studies have found that therapy targeted at addressing this maladaptive cognition is the single most effective way of intervening to reduce loneliness, though it does not always work for everyone.^[4][23][24]

Social contagion

Loneliness can spread through social groups like a disease. The mechanism for this involves the maladaptive cognition that often results from chronic loneliness. If a man loses a friend for whatever reason, this may increase his loneliness, resulting in him developing maladaptive cognition such as excessive neediness or suspicion of other friends. Hence leading to a further loss of human connection if he then goes on to split up with his remaining friends. Those other friends now become lonelier too, leading to a ripple effect of loneliness. Studies have however found that this contagion effect is not consistent – a small increase in loneliness does not always cause the maladaptive cognition. Also, when someone loses a friend, they will sometimes form new friendships or deepen other existing relationships.^{[25] [4][26][27][28]}

Internet

Studies have tended to find a moderate correlation between extensive internet use and loneliness, especially ones that draw on data from the 1990s, before internet use became widespread. Contradictory results have been found by studies investigating whether the association is simply a result of lonely people being more attracted to the internet or if the internet can actually cause loneliness. The displacement hypothesis holds that some people choose to withdraw from real world social interactions so they can have more time for the internet. Excessive internet use can directly cause anxiety and depression, conditions which can contribute to loneliness – yet these factors may be offset by the internet's ability to facilitate interaction, and to empower people. Some studies found that internet use is a cause of loneliness, at least for some types of people.^[3][29] Others have found internet use can have a significant positive effect on reducing loneliness.^[30][31] The authors of meta studies and reviews from about 2015 and later have tended to argue that there is a bidirectional causal relationship between loneliness and internet use. Excessive use, especially if passive, can increase loneliness. While moderate use, especially by users who engage with others rather than just passively consume content, can increase social connection and reduce loneliness.^[32][33][34]

Genetics

Smaller early studies had estimated that loneliness may be between 37–55% hereditable.^[35] However, in 2016, the first Genome-wide association study of loneliness found that the heredity of loneliness is much lower, at about 14–27%.^[1] This suggests that while genes play a role in determining how much loneliness a person may feel, they are less of a factor than individual experiences and the environment.

Other

People making long driving commutes have reported dramatically higher feelings of loneliness (as well as other negative health impacts).^[36][37]

Typology

Two principal types of loneliness are social and emotional loneliness. This delineation was made in 1973 by Robert S. Weiss, in his seminal work: Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation.^[38] Based on Weiss's view that "both types of loneliness have to be examined independently, because the satisfaction for the need of emotional loneliness cannot act as a counterbalance for social loneliness, and vice versa", people working to treat or better understand loneliness have tended to treat these two types of loneliness separately, though this is far from always the case.^[39][21]

Social loneliness

Social loneliness is the loneliness people experience because of the lack of a wider social network. They may not feel they are members of a community, or that they have friends or allies whom they can rely on in times of distress.^[38][21]

Emotional loneliness

Emotional loneliness results from the lack of deep, nurturing relationships with other people. Weiss tied his concept of emotional loneliness to attachment theory. People have a need for deep attachments, which can be fulfilled by close friends, though more often by close family members such as parents, and later in life by romantic partners. In 1997, Enrico DiTommaso and Barry Spinner separated emotional loneliness into Romantic and Family loneliness.^[21][40] A 2019 study found that emotional loneliness significantly increased the likelihood of death for older adults living alone (whereas there was no increase in mortality found with social loneliness).^[40]

Family loneliness

Family loneliness results when individuals feel they lack close ties with family members. A 2010 study of 1,009 students found that only family loneliness was associated with increased frequency of self-harm, not romantic or social loneliness.^[41][21]

Romantic loneliness

Romantic loneliness can be experienced by adolescents and adults who lack a close bond with a romantic partner. Psychologists have asserted that the formation of a committed romantic relationship is a critical development task for young adults but is also one that many are delaying into their late 20s or beyond. People in romantic relationships tend to report less loneliness than single people, provided their relationship provides them with emotional intimacy. People in unstable or emotionally cold romantic partnerships can still feel romantic loneliness.^[42][21]

Other

Several other typologies and types of loneliness exist. Further types of loneliness include existential loneliness, cosmic loneliness – feeling alone in a hostile universe, and cultural loneliness – typically found among immigrants who miss their home culture.^[19] These types are less well studied than the threefold separation into social, romantic and family loneliness, yet can be valuable in understanding the experience of certain subgroups with loneliness.^[17][21]

Lockdown loneliness

Lockdown loneliness refers to "loneliness resulting because of social disconnection due to enforced social distancing and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar other emergency situations."^[43]

Demarcation

Differences between feeling lonely and being socially isolated

There is a clear distinction between feeling lonely and being socially isolated (for example, a loner).^[44] In particular, one way of thinking about loneliness is as a discrepancy between one's necessary and achieved levels of social interaction,^[45] while solitude is simply the lack of contact with people. Loneliness is therefore a subjective yet multidimensional experience; if a person thinks they are lonely, then they are lonely. People can be lonely while in solitude, or in the middle of a crowd. What makes a person lonely is their perceived need for more social interaction or a certain type or quality of social interaction that is not currently available. A person can be in the middle of a party and feel lonely due to not talking to enough people. Conversely, one can be alone and not feel lonely; even though there is no one around, that person is not lonely because there is no desire for social interaction. There have also been suggestions that each person has their own optimal level of social interaction. If a person gets too little or too much social interaction, this could lead to feelings of loneliness or over-stimulation.^[46]

Solitude can have positive effects on individuals. One study found that, although time spent alone tended to depress a person's mood and increase feelings of loneliness, it also helped to improve their cognitive state, such as improving concentration. It can be argued some individuals seek solitude for discovering a more meaningful and vital existence.^[47] Furthermore, once the alone time was over, people's moods tended to increase significantly.^[48] Solitude is also associated with other positive growth experiences, religious experiences, and identity building such as solitary quests used in rites of passages for adolescents.^[49]

Transient vs. chronic loneliness

Another important typology of loneliness focuses on the time perspective.^[50] In this respect, loneliness can be viewed as either transient or chronic.

Transient loneliness is temporary in nature; generally it is easily relieved. Chronic loneliness is more permanent and not easily relieved.^[51] For example, when a person is sick and cannot socialize with friends, this would be a case of transient loneliness. Once the person got better it would be easy for them to alleviate their loneliness. A person with long term feelings of loneliness, regardless of if they are at a family gathering or with friends, is experiencing chronic loneliness.

Loneliness as a human condition

The existentialist school of thought views individuality as the essence of being human. Each human being comes into the world alone, travels through life as a separate person, and ultimately dies alone. Coping with this, accepting it, and learning how to direct our own lives with some degree of grace and satisfaction is the human condition.^[52]

Some philosophers, such as Sartre, believe in an epistemic loneliness in which loneliness is a fundamental part of the human condition because of the paradox between people's consciousness desiring meaning in life and the isolation and nothingness of the universe.^[53] Conversely, other existentialist thinkers argue that human beings might be said to actively engage each other and the universe as they communicate and create, and loneliness is merely the feeling of being cut off from this process.

In his 2019 text, Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence, Darius Bost draws from Heather Love's theorization of loneliness^[54] to delineate the ways in which loneliness structures black gay feeling and literary, cultural productions. Bost limns, "As a form of negative affect, loneliness shores up the alienation, isolation, and pathologization of black gay men during the 1980s and early 1990s. But loneliness is also a form of bodily desire, a yearning for an attachment to the social and for a future beyond the forces that create someone's alienation and isolation."^[55]

Prevalence

Thousands of studies and surveys have been undertaken to assess the prevalence of loneliness. Yet it remains challenging for scientists to make accurate generalisations and comparisons. Reasons for this include various loneliness measurement scales being used by different studies, differences in how even the same scale is implemented from study to study, and as cultural variations across time and space may impact how people report the largely subjective phenomena of loneliness.^[33][56]

One consistent finding has been that loneliness is not evenly distributed across a nation's population. It tends to be concentrated among vulnerable sub groups; for example the poor, the unemployed, and immigrants. Some of the most severe loneliness tends to be found among international students from countries in Asia with a collective culture, when they come to study in countries with a more individualist culture, such as Australia.^[21] In New Zealand, the fourteen surveyed groups with the highest prevalence of loneliness most/all of the time in descending order are: disabled people, recent migrants, low income households, unemployed, single parents, rural (rest of South Island), seniors aged 75+, not in the labour force, youth aged 15–24, no qualifications, not housing owner-occupier, not in a family nucleus, Māori, and low personal income.^[57]

Studies have found inconsistent results concerning the effect of age, gender and culture on loneliness.^[58] Much 20th century and early 21st century writing on loneliness assumed it typically increases with age. In high-income countries, on average, one in four people over 60 and one in three over 75 feels lonely.^[59] Yet as of 2020, with some exceptions, recent studies have tended to find that it is young people who report the most loneliness (though loneliness is still found to be a severe problem for the very old).^[60] There have been contradictory results concerning how the prevalence of loneliness varies with gender. A 2020 analysis based on a worldwide dataset gathered by the BBC found greater loneliness among men, though some earlier work had found the opposite, or that gender made no difference.^{[58][21][61][56]}

While cross-cultural comparisons are difficult to interpret with high confidence, the 2020 analyses based on the BBC dataset found the more individualist countries like the UK tended to have higher levels of loneliness. However, previous empirical work had often found that people living in more collectivist cultures tended to report greater loneliness, possibly due to less freedom to choose the sort of relationships that suit them best.^[58][62]

Increasing prevalence

It has been suggested that Loneliness epidemic be merged into this section. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2024.

In the 21st century, loneliness has been widely reported as an increasing worldwide problem. A 2010 systematic review and meta analyses had stated that the "modern way of life in industrialized countries" is greatly reducing the quality of social relationships, partly due to people no longer living in close proximity with their extended families. The review notes that from 1990 to 2010, the number of Americans reporting no close confidants has tripled.^[16] Worldwide though there is little historical data to conclusively demonstrate an increase in loneliness. Several reviews have found no clear evidence of an increase in loneliness even in the US ^{[citation needed]}.

In 2017, Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States, argued that there was a loneliness epidemic. It has since been described as an epidemic thousands of times, by reporters, academics and other public officials.

Professors such as Claude S. Fischer and Eric Klinenberg opined in 2018 that while the data doesn't support describing loneliness as an "epidemic" or even as a clearly growing problem, loneliness is indeed a serious issue, having a severe health impact on millions of people.^{[63][64][65][66]} However, a 2021 study found that adolescent loneliness in contemporary schools and depression increased substantially and consistently worldwide after 2012.^[14][67]

A comparative overview of the prevalence and determinants of loneliness and social isolation in Europe in the pre-COVID period was conducted by Joint Research Centre of the European Commission within the project Loneliness in Europe.^[68] The empirical results indicate that 8.6% of the adult population in Europe experience frequent loneliness and 20.8% experience social isolation, with eastern Europe recording the highest prevalence of both phenomena.^[69]

In Australia, the annual national Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has reported a steady 8% rise in agreement with the statement "I often feel very lonely" between 2009 and 2021, responses indicating "strongly agree" rose steadily by over 20% in that same time period. This is a reversal of the trend seen from the start of the survey in 2001 until 2009 where these figures had both been steadily decreasing.^[70]

Loneliness was exacerbated by the isolating effects of social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[71][72]

In May 2023, Murthy published a United States Department of Health and Human Services advisory on the impact of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the United States.^[72] The report likened the dangers of loneliness to other public health threats such as smoking and obesity.^[73][74] In November 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a "global public health concern" and launched an international commission to study the problem.^[75][76]

Effects

Transient

While unpleasant, temporary feelings of loneliness are sometimes experienced by almost everyone, they are not thought to cause long term harm. Early 20th century work sometimes treated loneliness as a wholly negative phenomenon. Yet transient loneliness is now generally considered beneficial. The capacity to feel it may have been evolutionarily selected for, a healthy aversive emotion that motivates individuals to strengthen social connections.^[6] Transient loneliness is sometimes compared to short-term hunger, which is unpleasant but ultimately useful as it motivates us to eat.^[23][21][77]

Chronic

Long-term loneliness is widely considered a close to entirely harmful condition. Whereas transient loneliness typically motivates us to improve relationships with others, chronic loneliness can have the opposite effect. This is as long-term social isolation can cause hypervigilance. While enhanced vigilance may have been evolutionary adaptive for individuals who went long periods without others watching their backs, it can lead to excessive cynicism and suspicion of other people, which in turn can be detrimental to interpersonal relationships. So without intervention, chronic loneliness can be self-reinforcing.^[21][77]

Benefits

Much has been written about the benefits of being alone, yet often, even when authors use the word "loneliness", they are referring to what could be more precisely described as voluntary solitude. Yet some assert that even long-term involuntary loneliness can have beneficial effects.^[78][7]

Chronic loneliness is often seen as a purely negative phenomena from the lens of social and medical science. Yet in spiritual and artistic traditions, it has been viewed as having mixed effects. Though even within these traditions, there can be warnings not to intentionally seek out chronic loneliness or other conditions – just advise that if one falls into them, there can be benefits. In western arts, there is a long belief that psychological hardship, including loneliness, can be a source of creativity.^[7] In spiritual traditions, perhaps the most obvious benefit of loneliness is that it can increase the desire for a union with the divine. More esoterically, the psychic wound opened up by loneliness or other conditions has been said, e.g. by Simone Weil, to open up space for God to manifest within the soul. In Christianity, spiritual dryness has been seen as advantageous as part of the "dark night of the soul", an ordeal that while painful, can result in spiritual transformation.^[79][7] From a secular perspective, while the vast majority of empirical studies focus on the negative effects of long term loneliness, a few studies have found there can also be benefits, such as enhanced perceptiveness of social situations.^[7][80]

Brain

Studies have found mostly negative effects from chronic loneliness on brain functioning and structure.^[25] However, certain parts of the brain and specific functions, like the ability to detect social threat, appear to be strengthened. A 2020 population-genetics study looked for signatures of loneliness in grey matter morphology, intrinsic functional coupling, and fiber tract microstructure. The loneliness-linked neurobiological profiles converged on a collection of brain regions known as the default mode network. This higher associative network shows more consistent loneliness associations in grey matter volume than other cortical brain networks. Lonely individuals display stronger functional communication in the default network, and greater microstructural integrity of its fornix pathway. The findings fit with the possibility that the up-regulation of these neural circuits supports mentalizing, reminiscence and imagination to fill the social void. ^[81]

Physical health

Chronic loneliness can be a serious, life-threatening health condition. It has been found to be strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, though direct causal links have yet to be firmly identified.^[8][82] People experiencing loneliness tend to have an increased incidence of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity.^[9]

Loneliness has been shown to increase the concentration of cortisol levels in the body and weaken the effects of dopamine, the hormone that makes people enjoy things.^[9] Prolonged, high cortisol levels can cause anxiety, depression, digestive problems, heart disease, sleep problems, and weight gain.^[83]

Associational studies on loneliness and the immune system have found mixed results, with lower natural killer (NK) cell activity or dampened antibody response to viruses such Epstein Barr, herpes, and influenza, but either slower or no change to the progression of AIDS.^[9]

Based on the ELSA, a study found that loneliness increased the risk of dementia by one-third. Not having a partner (being single, divorced, or widowed) doubled the risk of dementia. However, having two or three closer relationships reduced the risk by three-fifths.^[84][85] And based on the large UK Biobank cohort, a study found that individuals who reported feeling lonely had a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease.^[86]

Death

A 2010 systematic review and meta- analyses found a significant association between loneliness and increased mortality. People with good social relationships were found to have a 50% greater chance of survival compared to lonely people (odds ratio = 1.5). In other words, chronic loneliness seems to be a risk factor for death comparable to smoking, and greater than obesity or lack of exercise.^[16] A 2017 overview of systematic reviews found other meta-studies with similar findings. However, clear causative links between loneliness and early death have not been firmly established.^[8]

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Loneliness
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