I’m curious what the research says about interacting online in e.g. Discord servers and other forums for niche communities. Also, is calling your childhood friend on the regular more or less potent than meeting IRL but recently-made friends?
Besides, smoking has largely been banned from buildings, so that habit doesn't make it convenient to gather with others, except perhaps huddled outside the door.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
I could've sworn there was a paper, (or maybe just an article? can't remember), a long time ago about the community on a Mediterranean island somewhere? The thesis was that people there were living abnormally long lives because of the Mediterranean style food they ate, and how socially active and interconnected they were in old age.
So for example, it's possible that if you already have chronic illness, a disability, or any other kind of health issues, you're more likely to have higher social isolation and therefore be more lonely, in addition to having a higher mortality risk. There's an outside variable (your health) that is correlated with both (loneliness and mortality), but that doesn't necessarily mean that loneliness causes mortality. If this were the case, we could defend claims like "autism increases mortality", because we already know that autism increases social isolation.
The challenge here is that healthy people don’t desire to be around unhealthy people.
Society provides no incentive or social benefit for otherwise healthy people to be around the unwell to call the ambulances. Even as a nurse, hospice worker or caregiver, the pay/benefits are non existent for the amount of emotional and physical labor needed for care.
The problem is that this article is overstating the effect on mortality because its not controlling for confounding factors very well.
The loneliness-associated protein study linked in TFA doesn't seem to control for health status. So preexisting conditions may have affected the correlations.
I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still think that it's a good idea.
Or, "we're adults, just do it". The U can't actually stop of-age students from volunteering for local organizations, or joining churches, or playing soccer in a city park.
I'm quite serious about this, by the way. To attend a church (other religious traditions will do, but I'm partial) means not only to involve yourself in a community, but to situate yourself in a story which provides meaning and makes sense of the world.
All the government programs he advocates for are just pale imitations of the vibrant communities that humans were made for and which modern society has done its best to destroy.
And I would not agree with religion providing sense of the world. It's another coping mechanism to deal with absurdity in the world. There is a reason people fallback to religion when times get tough.
I'm no fan of organised religion, but this is a pretty wild take to me. "The church" has been around for the best part of 2000 years. It's been wildly political for most if not all of that. It doesn't show much sign of disappearing any time soon.
And, among this admittedly weird fragment of the population, those of us who think the things churchgoers affirm and derive meaning from and value are true and good are mostly already going to church, and those of us who think they're not so true and mostly not so good shouldn't be going to church, no matter how sorry our asses.
Words like "community", "fellowship", "connection" are used a lot, but there's no obvious checklist for me to follow when I wake up Sunday morning feeling like a piece of shit and having no desire to inflict myself on others.
Religion discourages critical thinking, consumes time and money, enforces conformity through social pressure, and expose individuals to guilt, shame, or manipulation by institutions with histories of abuse or corruption.
Modern leftism is essentially a reincarnated Christianity:
- "the government" is their Trinity. Just "believe" and eventually the right one will get elected and fix everything.
- legislation and regulations are their Bible.
- police (an arm of the government) are the scapegoat/substitute for our sins.
- tithing through higher taxes
- feel bad about yourself (historical racism / sexism that they keep bringing up) but turn to the light (leftist progress, signalling) and ye shall be saved
- forces of evil: those who want smaller government and personal freedom.
- prosperity gospel: welfare and fiscal recklessness because we can just turn on the money printer
- signalling: businesses are pressured to display leftist icons or slogans to signal their inclusion in the faith.
I think a good study would be the effects of likes, upvotes and karma on overall lifespan. I’d bet that people who gain more upvotes and positive engagement in general probably live much longer than people who are chronically downvoted or ignored.
As someone who spends a lot of time alone, one of my big fears is having a medical emergency, even just choking on food, and dying from something that would be easily avoided had another person been in the house. I've gone and looked up how to give myself the Heimlich maneuver on myself, and play out that scenario in my head all the time... or trying to get to a neighbor's house or just outside where someone might see me. Mindfulness won't help if this is how I meet my fate, actually community and relationships would.
My great-grandmother was different. her husband died young. she had 50 more years of life after that. She gardened, she sewed, she pickled and canned. She established a strong personal identity and experienced evergreen personal growth. She was a happy woman, cackling all of the time when we'd visit. When she died at 95, it was a surprise, she seemed very alive and healthy shortly beforehand. She died in her sleep, no chronic diseases.
Makes me think that 32% might be traced to psychological/sociological factors.
softwaredoug•1h ago
lapcat•53m ago
mongol•41m ago
stared•15m ago
Medical emergencies might be a cherry on the cake - but let's not forget that most diseases are not instantaneous - and sooner these are cached, less harm.
trentnix•12m ago
No mistake, almost all of us can refer to an anecdote of an elderly relative dying soon after their spouse. It can be both tragic and, in hindsight, romantic. But really, the consequences of loneliness are often and unfortunately quite practical.