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 loneliness-associated protein study linked in TFA doesn't seem to control for health status. So preexisting conditions may have affected the correlations.
When you are chronically ill, socializing falls pretty rapidly down your list of priorities.
Maybe the researcher above touches on these things, but more generally, there should be a standardized probability and statistics exam for ALL aspiring scientific researchers, and a high score should be the minimum cutoff. The influence that a statistically flawed study can have over our collective futures is too dangerous.
What you say sounds true about chronic illness and isolation. These researchers are looking at research done using actual interventions and real results.
What should they do to analyze this more than RCTs and then meta-analysis of RCTs?
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... Tackling social disconnection: an umbrella review of RCT-based interventions targeting social isolation and loneliness
once I heard Feynmann say in a youtube video that (paraphrasal) "we don't know what causes gravity, we just know that it exists, it's a property of matter"
then I realized, our experiments never show causation, they only show correlation. gravity has 100% (in our experience) correlation to matter. admittedly, that's a pretty good correlation, but for all we know, gravity causes matter. energy too, apparently.
David Hume was famous for arguing in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that we can't observe it and we instead have a "custom" or habit of expecting effects to follow causes.
> After the constant conjunction of two objects—heat and flame, for instance, weight and solidity—we are determined by custom to expect the one from the appearance of the other.
Religious philosophers have sometimes gone to the extreme of occasionalism, where they've maintained that patterns and regularities in nature were just habits or customs that God chooses to follow:
Its frustrating, because cohort study experimental designs like these can in principle chip away at reverse causality (i.e. observe loneliness exposure before a cardiovascular disease prognosis, compare difference-in-difference between treatment/control), but the meta-analysis doesnt clearly state whether this constraint was applied. But even a study like this would have issues with medical participation, so that would need to be controlled, preferably with a prospective design.
She's not wrong...
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.
And if the person is unsure whether the situation is critical, they might try to "sleep it off" rather than driving or getting a ride, because ER is also kind of expensive and you could be stuck there all day.
We cannot explore the possibilities of truth if we do that, but I can appreciate the due diligence. It’s a tricky subject, but life experience informs many of us that there is something more going on than “I materially feel like shit”.
There is a taboo element to loneliness that isn’t often discussed, and that is “I feel hurt that I can be left alone, or that anyone can be left alone or isolated”. So, while the source of the isolation could be material, the feeling that manifests from it is an actual hurt that one feels from the actual thing (isolation). For example, we may be killing our elders when we isolate them in care facilities.
I can’t say if we have the sense as a society to accept data that suggests this pain can be linked to mortality. Isolation in itself isn’t the killer, it’s the pain of “well how could any society leave anyone alone”, and such a phenomenon can be witnessed in the macro outside of yourself (how can we leave people on the street? Etc).
Loneliness and isolation is often in sequence, after abandonment, or negligence, or unforgivingness (if the person “deserved” the isolating). A phantom, immeasurable pain. And even more painful, to deny it afterwards.
The problem is that this article is overstating the effect on mortality because its not controlling for confounding factors very well.
Of course there is. If you are alone at home, who calls an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar condition? If you are living together with someone, the chance they are arund while it happens is all thats needed to skew the statistics.
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.
My mother in law lost her husband when she was in her early 60s, and I was worried that she would suffer the same fate as your grandma. She sold her house after a few years to escape the ghosts and moved into a condo near me. Her social schedule is jam-packed.
There is so much to be said about having your own identity, hobbies, and passions.
That was quite common for much of the 20th century.
I've been married for over 30 years and we both have our own independent identities and successes (as well as shared ones). We are still very close and loving. Neither needs the other to live but after so long our emotional involvement with each other is as deep and foundational as the roots of a great tree. Losing her (or her me) would be utterly devastating and how we identify ourselves has nothing to do with it.
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.
I was alone, but luckily I was only 19 and healthy at the time. But I came away with a new understanding of the dangers of these things and whys there’s so much advertising to older people it. I can imagine a frail individual not surviving something like that if alone.
I’m thankful my dad is into tech and has an Apple Watch. He does a lot of walking, watch is good to keep him mobile. But just last year he stepped backward off a curb and fell in a parking lot. The Apple Watch went off and was ready to call for an ambulance had he needed it.
20 years ago he was worried about falls with his mom, he was thinking of solutions for this and wanted to make a device the seniors would need to check-in with every hour. A missed check-in would trigger a call to emergency contacts. The various monitors on the watch seem much more elegant and less annoying, while being a step up from Life Alert.
However, with the Apple Watch needing a smart phone, charging, and general know-how, I don’t see it as a viable general purpose safeguard for seniors. At least not for a while longer. I don’t think my would get a smart watch for fall detection, and she’s made some comments that worry me. I think she’s fallen several times and hasn’t really told anyone.
It's like someone advises you to go to the gym and you say but I drive everywhere. Yes they're not conflicting. In fact unless you live in a place like NYC or London, you need to be good at both.
I think I feel you and I hope that if something like that were to happen, you would have people willing to offer and give that help and you'd be willing to ask for and receive that help.
I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still think that it's a good idea.
In their homes? It's a mountain of liability. The elderly tend to be a combination of paranoid and senile.
The first time they misplace a checkbook or forget some valuable was already given to some grandchild they'll accuse the most recent new guest in memory of stealing.
And that's just one of an infinite number of possibilities having spent zero time dwelling on it.
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.
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.
So I guess you have:
bad company < no company < good company
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.
https://cyclingwithoutage.org/
We're an international movement whereby volunteer cyclists pedal passengers around on what is essentially a small couch on wheels. The elderly get out into their neighbourhood while engaging with volunteers in conversation, jokes, and memories. The benefits of even brief but regular social connection are lasting, as we hear from medical professionals and care home workers and the residents themselves and their families.
There's a great TED Talk on it which inspired us to start a local chapter almost eight years ago. We are in high demand and growing so if you're looking for a healthy way to serve others, consider getting in touch with your local chapter (or starting it!)
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.
Thanks!
He's posting about two substantial (~10-30 pages) papers per week to the arXiv, in various areas of mathematics. He claims to have developed "Alpay Algebra: A recursive language for thought" and what he's written about it looks to me like (1) it was actually written by an LLM and (2) it's basically word/symbol salad. (He has some papers about it on the arXiv. The first isn't particularly bullshitty, but uses a great deal of formalism to say almost nothing. Later ones look like grandiose AI-written slop. And he has some web pages that are just grandiose AI-written slop.)
I repeat: none of this needs to cast any particular doubt on what he writes about loneliness. He might be an AI-driven mathematical crank who also has wise thoughts about loneliness. I might just be wrong about his being an AI-driven mathematical crank, though I'd be pretty surprised. Or, for that matter, his post about loneliness might be AI-written but none the less correct. (It's the kind of thing I would expect an LLM to be able to write something reasonable about -- though in that case it would be advisable to double-check the references.) But it doesn't inspire confidence.
I've heard of some efforts to pair retirement homes and preschools in some way, to benefit both, and I'd love to see that idea work in some way. I expect it to have many liability challenges but would be so good for both parties.
The authors mean increased /odds/, not likelihood (probability). WHy does it matter? Well, when your whole paper is a statistical exercise, misusing basic statistical language in the abstract is not a great sign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness_epidemic#Causes_of_...
Yes, that's my only issue with the article :)
Even as an introvert I can easily see if I didn't have a partner and access to friends and socialization I'd be significantly more likely to kill myself.
Before my mother started joining more retiree clubs I could literally see on her face how much more weathered and haggard she was. The isolation was physically visible on her face.
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?
The causality is reversed. Unhealthy people socialize less, this explains every correlation result cited, it is a simple explanation, which doesn't need to invent some mystic force which turns people healthy, when they talk to other people.
Unless there is incredibly strong evidence that the reversed causation is wrong, no other explanation should be accepted over it.
Is it generally understood as feeling (being in a particular state of mind) as being lonely or just lacking social interactions in general, regardless of how one feels about it? Those two things, to my understanding, aren't the same. For example, I never had friends, and generally, I despise people. I have no "social life," and I wouldn't even be able to clearly define what it is without googling. If I lost my voice, I wouldn't notice that it happened for about a week. However, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Does that increase my mortality risk by over 30% or not? I only skimmed the sources, but may read it later.
There was the famous incident involving Gene Hackman. His care taker was his wife. The wife collapsed/died due to Henta virus and he passed a week later oblivious to what had happened to her. If Gene Hackman and his wife had more proactive support network (the kids or friends FaceTime them everyday), maybe this tragedy could have been avoided.
And what, pray tell, works? He goes on:
>Those programs in Barcelona where almost half the people stopped feeling lonely? The mindfulness stuff that works in just two weeks? Even the robot pets for elderly people “it all works”. We’re not talking about maybe or possibly here. This stuff actually works. What gets me is that fixing loneliness doesn’t require some massive revolution. Twenty minutes of mindfulness a day. A weekly volunteer shift.
Slop.
I am lonely because I have dealt with too many assholes. And if it kills me sooner, good. Humanity is a garbage species full of opportunistic and adversarial people just waiting to find new people to exert power over.
I can't wait to leave this hellhole.
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.
The ones who should do this study would be the CIA. They could remotely kill people by giving them negative social feedback all the time. It would also give weight to online harassment complaints.
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.
Why?
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.
Humans were not made for anything, and for most of the existence of our species, there were no churches, indeed no buildings of any kind. Until ~10k years ago, with the development of agriculture and permanent settlements, humans lived in relatively small hunter-gatherer groups. These communities may indeed have been "vibrant", but they were organized around family and survival, not religion.
Contrary to your claim, churches and organized religion have been made possible by modern society, not destroyed by it. It's unclear where exactly you see the destructive causes, apart from the progress of science that has tended to undermine religious belief?
In the United States, churches are tax-exempt. In that sense, they are promoted by the government in a crucial way.
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.
If giving gifts at Christmas required me to declare solemnly that I was doing it in the name of the incarnate Son of God and that the presents under the tree had actually been delivered by flying reindeer, then I wouldn't do it; I'd find some other way of being nice to the people I love that didn't require me to lie.
So, anyway, perhaps your point is that I could find a church that doesn't expect me to actually believe, or say, or sing, any of the usual churchy things, and then I could go there every week. I suppose I could. But I think all those things Christians believe are somewhat load-bearing for Christianity and suspect that going to church every week while remaining an atheist wouldn't actually get me most of the benefits that regular churchgoing is alleged to give the people who do it.
But i DO still celebrate christmas. Not for ME, but as an excuse to connect with family and friends. In other words, i don’t go to church and subject myself to nodding to 60 minutes of nonsense (to me). Instead I join for christmas lunch / dinner. The socializing part. The good part. If my family was not catholic then i’d just throw a nice new year’s party instead. Again - just to get everyone together.
I have a friend that celebrates Hanukkah and i’ve occasionally joined their family to celebrate as well.
What does belief in a religion have to do with participating in social events that happen to be rooted in religion?
Maybe i don’t “get it”?
I'm not making that claim. I'm addressing the reverse: someone who refuses to go to church ("participating in social events ") because he doesn't believe the dogma. And so I brought up that many people have no such reservations about participating in Christmas traditions and activities.
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.
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.
It sounds nice to someone like me who doesn't do any organized religious stuff, because the money and things donated there go back to their little community or for maintaining the building and things like that. I see firsthand how that kind of church drastically helps her have a sense of community in an increasingly digital-first world.
For me, church increases my blood pressure. I was forced to attend church as a child and didn’t believe any of the stuff by the time i was an older teen. Going to church feels patronizing to me, since i don’t believe any of it. And i’m bitter that i was “forced” into it by my parents. They never at ANY point asked me if I want to continue going, and I know for certain that even if i spoke up they would have ignored me. Ugh.
Anyway i’ve had good luck making friends at my local Y, through friends of friends, and occasionally work.
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.
Maybe a sport or hobby club or some other thing you're interested in where people have a specific motivation to get together, bonding and forming "community" more naturally?
The trouble is it just seems a bit too serious every time I've been. I don't believe any of it, and I can't believe anyone with intelligence could believe it either. But unlike, say, WWE-style wrestling, there are way too many people taking it far too seriously. You never hear of atrocities or stupidity happening because someone took wrestling too seriously. Are there churches that are more like wrestling?
Is there anything you do take super seriously? The environment, your job, parenting, a specific hobby or something? Something you think other people are missing out on by not experiencing? Looks like a club based on that would work better for you.
This is all hearsay and anecdotal, mind you, and I admit I have not done the research here. It's not a condition I have, nor do any of my friends. I believe it's happening, but the claim of "just attend church" doesn't seem to being paying off to me.
It may be hard to find them online in order to "talk" to them though, and of course that's the whole point :-) Selection bias at work.
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.