WEBVTT - Why Being Alone Might Be Better Than You Think 0:00:15.476 --> 0:00:24.396 Pushkin. If you're a fan of the Happiness Lab, you've 0:00:24.396 --> 0:00:27.796 surely heard about the powerful benefits of social connection as 0:00:27.796 --> 0:00:30.636 well as the dangers of its opposite, loneliness. 0:00:31.236 --> 0:00:34.876 Loneliness is strongly associated with an increased risk of heart 0:00:34.916 --> 0:00:38.356 disease and dementia, and depression and anxiety. 0:00:38.676 --> 0:00:41.756 This is doctor Vivigmerty. Back in twenty twenty three, when 0:00:41.756 --> 0:00:44.876 he was Surgeon General, he famously issued a landmark public 0:00:44.916 --> 0:00:48.276 advisory to sound the alarm about the negative effects of loneliness. 0:00:48.796 --> 0:00:50.796 Vivic joined us on the show a few years ago 0:00:50.996 --> 0:00:54.676 for an episode about the dangers of isolation. During that conversation, 0:00:54.996 --> 0:00:57.636 he referred to our country's lack of social connection as 0:00:57.636 --> 0:01:00.676 an epidemic, one that he argued was deadly. 0:01:00.676 --> 0:01:03.636 And if you looked at the degree of life shortening, 0:01:03.716 --> 0:01:07.796 it appeared similar to the immortality impact of sloping fifteen 0:01:07.836 --> 0:01:12.236 cigarettes to day and greater than the mortality impact of obesity. 0:01:12.636 --> 0:01:15.636 Vivik also told us that the health problems associated with 0:01:15.716 --> 0:01:19.116 loneliness were growing. One recent report by the World Health 0:01:19.196 --> 0:01:22.876 Organization found that one in six people worldwide is affected 0:01:22.876 --> 0:01:26.236 by loneliness, and Vivig found that rates of loneliness in 0:01:26.276 --> 0:01:28.956 our own country can be as high as twenty two percent. 0:01:29.556 --> 0:01:32.396 And just to put this in context, twenty two percent 0:01:32.396 --> 0:01:35.276 of adults in the United States is more than the 0:01:35.276 --> 0:01:38.996 percentage of adults who smokes cigarettes. It's more than percentage 0:01:39.036 --> 0:01:42.596 of adults who have diabetes, So this is exceedingly common. 0:01:43.356 --> 0:01:46.116 It's no surprise then, that news reports these days are 0:01:46.116 --> 0:01:49.276 brimming with scary stories about the terrifying costs of the 0:01:49.316 --> 0:01:53.236 loneliness crisis. I mean, the World Health Organization has argued 0:01:53.316 --> 0:01:56.596 that loneliness is linked to an estimated one hundred deaths 0:01:56.796 --> 0:02:01.316 every hour. Scary stuff, right, Well, that's why this week's 0:02:01.316 --> 0:02:03.956 Happiness hot take is bound to be a very, very 0:02:03.996 --> 0:02:08.116 fiery one, because today's happiness hot take is this, Lately, 0:02:08.236 --> 0:02:10.236 I've been starting to think think that all this talk 0:02:10.276 --> 0:02:13.676 about the dangers of loneliness might be a little overblown, 0:02:14.236 --> 0:02:16.836 or at the very least counterproductive in ways that our 0:02:16.916 --> 0:02:20.356 lying minds don't realize. Today's happiness hot take is that 0:02:20.396 --> 0:02:22.756 we desperately need to change how we think about and 0:02:22.796 --> 0:02:25.916 how we talk about loneliness, because the science shows that 0:02:25.916 --> 0:02:28.756 there are lots of unexpected benefits that can come from 0:02:28.756 --> 0:02:36.836 a little more alone time. Our minds are constantly telling 0:02:36.876 --> 0:02:38.676 us what to do to be happy. But what if 0:02:38.716 --> 0:02:41.236 our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying 0:02:41.276 --> 0:02:43.316 to us, leading us away from what will really make 0:02:43.396 --> 0:02:46.596 us happy. The good news is that understanding the science 0:02:46.596 --> 0:02:48.316 of the mind can boind us all back in the 0:02:48.396 --> 0:02:51.556 right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor 0:02:51.596 --> 0:03:02.076 Laurie Santos. When you think about loneliness, what comes to mind? 0:03:03.076 --> 0:03:07.876 I was studying happy TOSTV work and there were lots 0:03:07.876 --> 0:03:12.116 of ntating geese outside my bedroom window and they did 0:03:12.156 --> 0:03:15.396 that honking noise which still fills me with dread. 0:03:15.716 --> 0:03:18.876 For doctor Faye bound Alberti, a historian at King's College 0:03:18.916 --> 0:03:22.476 in London, loneliness conjures up the sounds she remembers hearing 0:03:22.556 --> 0:03:25.276 when going through a rough breakup as a college student. 0:03:25.156 --> 0:03:29.276 And it made me feel a very kind of profound 0:03:29.356 --> 0:03:32.396 and physical sense of loneliness that linked to other times 0:03:32.436 --> 0:03:35.236 I've heard those geese and the sort of the isolation 0:03:35.316 --> 0:03:35.836 attached to that. 0:03:36.556 --> 0:03:39.556 Fay is the author of a biography of loneliness, The 0:03:39.596 --> 0:03:40.636 History of an Emotion. 0:03:40.996 --> 0:03:44.516 I'm also a historian of medicine emotion in the body, 0:03:44.596 --> 0:03:48.436 and I write about feeling between the classical period in 0:03:48.436 --> 0:03:48.996 the present day. 0:03:49.116 --> 0:03:51.156 I came across phase work one day when I was 0:03:51.196 --> 0:03:54.276 scrolling through social media and saw her tweet asking what 0:03:54.316 --> 0:03:56.156 loneliness sounds like, and. 0:03:56.116 --> 0:03:58.516 The responses were really interesting. Some people said, when they 0:03:58.516 --> 0:04:00.996 were alone in their flash at night and they hear 0:04:01.036 --> 0:04:03.796 that click click noise when the radiations start to tend 0:04:03.796 --> 0:04:07.356 themselves off. Some people talked about hearing the whistling down 0:04:07.356 --> 0:04:10.796 the chimney when they were alone in their Some people 0:04:10.916 --> 0:04:14.276 found the sort of morning bird call, the twittering of 0:04:14.316 --> 0:04:17.596 the birds in the morning isolating, because it reminded them 0:04:17.596 --> 0:04:19.596 that yet in the day they were waking up alone. 0:04:19.956 --> 0:04:22.556 Other people said, oh, when they're walking past a pub 0:04:22.636 --> 0:04:25.916 or a bar and you can hear people chatting inside, 0:04:26.196 --> 0:04:28.916 and often you get that blast of warmth, don't you 0:04:28.956 --> 0:04:30.476 at the same time as you walk past, And that's 0:04:30.516 --> 0:04:33.356 another kind of sensorial feeling, and all of which is like, oh, 0:04:33.396 --> 0:04:35.556 I don't have that, And so those are the kinds 0:04:35.556 --> 0:04:37.756 of things. It was wanting to open up a conversation 0:04:37.836 --> 0:04:40.236 about physical experiences of loneliness. 0:04:40.476 --> 0:04:42.556 I love you sharing the pub example, because it feels 0:04:42.596 --> 0:04:44.996 so desceral to me. I spent a year in the 0:04:45.076 --> 0:04:48.276 UK in grad school in Bristol, when I didn't really 0:04:48.276 --> 0:04:50.796 know anybody, and I had that exact experience, like walking 0:04:50.796 --> 0:04:52.636 by the pubs and you hear the sort of din 0:04:52.756 --> 0:04:55.676 of chatter and you just feel this deep sense of 0:04:55.996 --> 0:04:58.916 not having social connection with yourself. It's so sad, not 0:04:59.156 --> 0:05:02.316 just the sound, but also for me, I have the smell, 0:05:02.636 --> 0:05:04.716 like when you're walking by and you get this blast 0:05:04.756 --> 0:05:06.956 of sort of old beer smell, that like you could 0:05:06.996 --> 0:05:08.476 be in there with those people, but you're not, and 0:05:08.476 --> 0:05:10.436 you just kind of feel so by yourself. 0:05:10.716 --> 0:05:13.356 It's really interesting, isn't it. I think does nothing like 0:05:13.436 --> 0:05:16.756 other people's relax sociability to make you think, oh, I 0:05:16.916 --> 0:05:20.036 miss that. Loneliness is very much part of the body 0:05:20.076 --> 0:05:21.756 as well as the mind, and I think that about 0:05:21.756 --> 0:05:23.916 all our emotions. And one of the things that I 0:05:23.956 --> 0:05:26.156 know as a history of emotion is that with the 0:05:26.236 --> 0:05:28.716 rise of the scientific medicine, we separated our mind and body. 0:05:28.916 --> 0:05:30.996 It was also seen as a physical thing before the 0:05:31.036 --> 0:05:33.476 rise of scientific medicine. It made the body of machine 0:05:33.516 --> 0:05:36.636 that produces and the mind this kind of complex organ 0:05:36.796 --> 0:05:38.916 which is reduced to brain. And we tend to think 0:05:38.956 --> 0:05:42.596 of emotions like loneliness as being cognitive processes, but they're 0:05:42.676 --> 0:05:44.716 very felt. We feel them in the body. Those in 0:05:44.796 --> 0:05:48.396 terms of our emotional reactions, but also in terms of 0:05:48.476 --> 0:05:51.716 our memories, the ways in which memories of experience get 0:05:51.756 --> 0:05:52.556 locked into the body. 0:05:53.156 --> 0:05:55.156 In order to understand what we might be getting wrong 0:05:55.156 --> 0:05:58.636 about the loneliness crisis, I wanted to better understand where 0:05:58.636 --> 0:06:01.316 this feeling comes from in the first place. And that's 0:06:01.356 --> 0:06:03.396 why I was so excited to have Faye join me 0:06:03.476 --> 0:06:06.956 for this episode. Because fins take on the historical origins 0:06:06.956 --> 0:06:09.316 of loneliness differs from that of a lot lot of 0:06:09.316 --> 0:06:12.676 the academics I hang out with. You see, my colleagues 0:06:12.676 --> 0:06:15.676 have long assumed that loneliness is a product of biology, 0:06:16.156 --> 0:06:19.476 an emotion that has been shaped over generations by natural selection. 0:06:20.156 --> 0:06:23.516 Humans are, of course, social primates. We rely on one 0:06:23.556 --> 0:06:26.996 another for survival. Loneliness can therefore be thought of as 0:06:26.996 --> 0:06:30.076 an evolutionary signal, one that's built to help us avoid 0:06:30.116 --> 0:06:33.476 the dangers of isolation. Loneliness is there to alert us 0:06:33.556 --> 0:06:36.396 that we need to return to the safety of the tribe. 0:06:36.476 --> 0:06:39.196 Under this view, one would predict that our species has 0:06:39.236 --> 0:06:42.316 been experiencing this yucky feeling for a long time. But 0:06:42.436 --> 0:06:45.796 Fay argues that that's not the case. Her historical analysis 0:06:45.836 --> 0:06:48.196 has found that loneliness, at least as we think of 0:06:48.196 --> 0:06:51.436 it today, didn't really exist before the nineteenth century. 0:06:51.596 --> 0:06:53.996 I think often people think about the history of emotions 0:06:53.996 --> 0:06:57.116 as being people felt the same, just the landscapes were different, 0:06:57.156 --> 0:07:00.076 but the emotions themselves were changed by the landscapes. 0:07:00.436 --> 0:07:03.596 And Fay says that being lonely before the Industrial Revolution 0:07:03.876 --> 0:07:07.476 meant something entirely different than it does today. Loneliness was 0:07:07.556 --> 0:07:10.596 used interchangeably warnliness, and it just meant being alone. It 0:07:10.676 --> 0:07:13.876 just meant being solitude. There wasn't anything like the emotional 0:07:14.076 --> 0:07:18.036 weight that it has today. So when Wordsworth talked about 0:07:18.316 --> 0:07:21.476 wondering lonely as a cloud, he just meant he was alone. 0:07:21.676 --> 0:07:24.276 At that point, you could be warmly or you could 0:07:24.276 --> 0:07:27.036 be lonely, but you would not have that sort of 0:07:27.036 --> 0:07:29.676 sense of emotional loss and lack that we have today. 0:07:30.396 --> 0:07:33.156 I find this so striking. The ache that I got 0:07:33.196 --> 0:07:35.876 walking by a crowded pub back in grad school, or 0:07:35.876 --> 0:07:39.196 that sense of invisibility that newly rejected Fay felt listening 0:07:39.196 --> 0:07:42.716 to those geese. They says that people didn't really experience 0:07:42.756 --> 0:07:44.796 that feeling for most of human history. 0:07:45.116 --> 0:07:48.156 If you imagine in the early modern period, when God 0:07:48.236 --> 0:07:50.596 is always there, you're never actually alone. If we are 0:07:50.716 --> 0:07:53.476 aware of something bigger than ourselves, we are less likely 0:07:53.556 --> 0:07:55.876 to feel lonely. And so it's only when you have 0:07:56.036 --> 0:07:58.996 the decline of religion as the only explanation for why 0:07:58.996 --> 0:08:02.356 we're in the world, and the rise of urbanization and 0:08:02.756 --> 0:08:07.116 economic individualism. All of these kind of transformations make us 0:08:07.116 --> 0:08:10.076 into smaller parts, and they don't give us that kind 0:08:10.076 --> 0:08:12.876 of sense of the collective or collective identity. So round 0:08:12.916 --> 0:08:15.196 about eighteen hundred you do get more and more people 0:08:15.236 --> 0:08:19.396 talking about loneliness. People aren't any longer feeling that they 0:08:19.476 --> 0:08:23.276 are enough on themselves with themselves. We've got the rise 0:08:23.276 --> 0:08:26.676 of the individual, the decline of the collective. So those 0:08:26.716 --> 0:08:30.836 are the broad patterns I think that affect our emotional state. 0:08:31.836 --> 0:08:34.756 Fay points to two famous stories of isolation that nicely 0:08:34.796 --> 0:08:38.396 illustrate the different emotional reactions that people had to solitude 0:08:38.436 --> 0:08:42.756 before and after this rise of the individual. Story Number one, 0:08:42.876 --> 0:08:45.996 the old school version of solitude, is from Robinson Crusoe, 0:08:46.156 --> 0:08:49.676 the famous novel by Daniel Defoe published in seventeen nineteen, 0:08:50.036 --> 0:08:52.476 in which the main character is shipwrecked on a remote 0:08:52.476 --> 0:08:56.836 island for twenty eight years. Story number two. The more 0:08:56.876 --> 0:09:00.476 modern notion of solitude is from Castaway, the award winning 0:09:00.516 --> 0:09:03.396 movie released back in two thousand, in which the actor 0:09:03.476 --> 0:09:06.476 Tom Hanks survives a plane crash and spends four years 0:09:06.476 --> 0:09:08.636 struggling to survive on a deserted island. 0:09:09.236 --> 0:09:11.596 So robis and Cristo when he's kind of cast adrift, 0:09:11.836 --> 0:09:14.596 it follows the convention of being this sort of pestling, 0:09:14.676 --> 0:09:18.836 this spiritual journey, this notion of being in isolation or 0:09:18.876 --> 0:09:22.676 solitude as a way of understanding oneself better. And if 0:09:22.716 --> 0:09:26.716 you compare that to Castaway, it's very much about the 0:09:26.756 --> 0:09:28.836 loss of other people and how do we cope. And 0:09:28.876 --> 0:09:31.996 for me, that's such a sort of fantastic transition in 0:09:32.036 --> 0:09:34.796 what's happened across the period that I'm talking about. We 0:09:34.876 --> 0:09:38.996 are not alone with God anymore. We are alone with ourselves, 0:09:38.996 --> 0:09:41.516 which for many people is quite terrifying, because what do 0:09:41.596 --> 0:09:42.636 we do when we look inward? 0:09:43.116 --> 0:09:45.756 Psychologists have been looking at what happens when modern people 0:09:45.756 --> 0:09:48.796 get stuck alone and have to look inwards, and it's 0:09:48.796 --> 0:09:52.956 not pretty. Take one famous study by psychologists Matt Killingsworth 0:09:52.996 --> 0:09:56.116 and Timothy Wilson. They brought subjects into the lab and 0:09:56.196 --> 0:09:58.716 asked them to sit alone in a room without distractions 0:09:58.756 --> 0:10:02.116 for fifteen minutes. No cell phones or internet access, not 0:10:02.196 --> 0:10:05.076 even a pennrot paper. The one thing subjects did have 0:10:05.116 --> 0:10:07.596 access to was a machine that gave out a mild 0:10:07.636 --> 0:10:12.436 electric shark. Participants were not told to shock themselves, but 0:10:12.716 --> 0:10:15.356 when faced with the boredom of actually sitting alone with 0:10:15.396 --> 0:10:18.436 their own thoughts for fifteen minutes, twenty five percent of 0:10:18.476 --> 0:10:22.076 women and sixty seven percent of men voluntarily chose to 0:10:22.116 --> 0:10:26.116 shock themselves. They thinks that part of our version to 0:10:26.196 --> 0:10:28.716 sitting alone with our thoughts in the modern day comes 0:10:28.756 --> 0:10:31.036 from how we talk about what it means to be alone. 0:10:31.596 --> 0:10:34.836 We have this language of loneliness, which is global. Now 0:10:34.956 --> 0:10:37.396 we talk about it as an epidemic. So we have 0:10:37.516 --> 0:10:42.796 produced this medicalized, problematic notion of loneliness as something bad. 0:10:42.956 --> 0:10:45.676 And what happens is that people think, oh, that must 0:10:45.676 --> 0:10:48.596 be what I'm feeling, and I think that that also 0:10:48.676 --> 0:10:52.636 increases loneliness. If we say that loneliness is one thing 0:10:52.756 --> 0:10:55.436 that's inevitable, we medicalize it, so it's like a disease 0:10:55.476 --> 0:10:57.716 that comes from outside, not a product of how we live. 0:10:57.996 --> 0:11:00.836 Then what we're doing is we're massively over simplifying. 0:11:01.636 --> 0:11:03.836 This is phase big concern with the idea of a 0:11:03.916 --> 0:11:07.956 quote loneliness epidemic. It makes loneliness sound like one single 0:11:07.996 --> 0:11:12.156 conditioning you either have or don't have, when in reality, 0:11:12.276 --> 0:11:15.356 they argue, loneliness is much more complicated than that. 0:11:16.036 --> 0:11:19.116 I talk about loneliness really as a cluster of different emotions, 0:11:19.156 --> 0:11:22.836 because it's not a single emotion. It's a peculiar state 0:11:23.276 --> 0:11:27.076 that might be composed of grief and sadness, it might 0:11:27.156 --> 0:11:31.476 be composed of resentment or anger. And so the particular 0:11:31.476 --> 0:11:34.036 emotions that make up loneliness depend on where we are 0:11:34.076 --> 0:11:37.196 in our lives. There are pinch points where we might, 0:11:37.236 --> 0:11:40.636 for instance, get married, get widow, get divorced, or even 0:11:40.636 --> 0:11:43.156 be a teenager going to have to college, and we 0:11:43.236 --> 0:11:47.116 feel some sort of transitory sense of loneliness which is 0:11:47.156 --> 0:11:50.436 in relation to our circumstance and actually a very positive 0:11:50.436 --> 0:11:53.076 thing because it means we're ready for the next stage 0:11:53.076 --> 0:11:55.676 and what do we want. And that's different to the 0:11:55.756 --> 0:11:57.996 kind of chronic loneliness that can settle in when people 0:11:58.036 --> 0:12:01.356 aren't able to connect and maybe they're disadvantaged by health 0:12:01.516 --> 0:12:06.036 or economics or geography. Those sort of nuances I think 0:12:06.076 --> 0:12:08.916 are very very important. Otherwise we start thinking that a 0:12:10.236 --> 0:12:12.796 who's just lost her husband of thirty years is going 0:12:12.836 --> 0:12:14.876 to be feeling exactly the same kind of loneliness as 0:12:14.756 --> 0:12:17.036 a teenage boy who is online all at the time, 0:12:17.036 --> 0:12:18.796 but asn't our friends. I mean, it just seems to 0:12:18.796 --> 0:12:20.836 be obvious and these are not the same emotions, so 0:12:21.116 --> 0:12:23.476 we can't have a one size fits all approach. I 0:12:23.516 --> 0:12:25.996 think that a lot of the emotional experiences we have 0:12:26.076 --> 0:12:30.116 are opportunities for growth and development. If your psyche and 0:12:30.236 --> 0:12:33.076 body is saying something is missing, it's an opportunity. If 0:12:33.076 --> 0:12:34.716 we treat it all us a bad thing, what we're 0:12:34.756 --> 0:12:37.676 doing is closing down the opportunity for growth. We're closing 0:12:37.716 --> 0:12:41.116 down the opportunity of connection, and we're really taking away 0:12:41.156 --> 0:12:44.756 what are the different complex kinds of emotions they're going 0:12:44.796 --> 0:12:47.436 towards this state. We need to really drill down into 0:12:47.476 --> 0:12:50.436 that because it's so subjective, so our interventions need to 0:12:50.436 --> 0:12:50.996 be tailored. 0:12:52.236 --> 0:12:53.996 When we get back from the break, we'll meet a 0:12:53.996 --> 0:12:57.436 psychologist who's trying to follow phase advice, someone who's trying 0:12:57.476 --> 0:12:59.636 to drill down into the language we use to talk 0:12:59.636 --> 0:13:02.956 about loneliness so that we can fight this feeling more effectively. 0:13:03.516 --> 0:13:05.956 She'll break down what we get wrong about loneliness and 0:13:06.076 --> 0:13:08.556 what we can do better when the happiness Lab returns. 0:13:08.636 --> 0:13:20.276 In a moment, when I first started studying this topic, 0:13:20.436 --> 0:13:23.676 I actually really struggle to be alone. I had this 0:13:23.756 --> 0:13:27.956 perception that being alone is loneliness. You know, I had 0:13:27.996 --> 0:13:31.516 never considered that these two are separate things. One moment 0:13:31.556 --> 0:13:34.796 that really comes to mind is in college, I had 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:39.716 sort of a lunch plan. It fell through, and I thought, Okay, well, 0:13:39.796 --> 0:13:42.276 I guess I'll just go to the dining hall and 0:13:42.516 --> 0:13:43.436 eat by myself. 0:13:43.796 --> 0:13:43.996 Now. 0:13:44.036 --> 0:13:46.956 I walked in the dining hall and I realized that 0:13:46.956 --> 0:13:52.116 pretty much everybody was chatting with others. I remember feeling 0:13:52.116 --> 0:13:55.396 in my body pretty anxious, like, oh my gosh, I 0:13:55.436 --> 0:13:58.156 have to sit by myself, and how are other people 0:13:58.196 --> 0:13:59.596 going to perceive me? 0:13:59.876 --> 0:14:00.036 Right? 0:14:00.476 --> 0:14:03.116 This is Mikaela Rodriguez, a new colleague of mine in 0:14:03.156 --> 0:14:06.276 the psychology department at Yale and an academic expert on 0:14:06.356 --> 0:14:08.796 what we tend to get wrong when it comes to loneliness. 0:14:09.236 --> 0:14:11.516 I mean, it's a little embarrassing to say, but I 0:14:11.596 --> 0:14:13.556 did worry are other people going to think that I'm 0:14:13.596 --> 0:14:16.636 weird that I have no friends. And so anyway, I 0:14:16.716 --> 0:14:18.636 found a spot in the very back of the dining 0:14:18.676 --> 0:14:20.916 hall that was a little bit more sort of secluded 0:14:20.956 --> 0:14:24.076 where other people wouldn't really see me, and I ate 0:14:24.116 --> 0:14:27.316 my lunch, but just sort of felt kind of awkward 0:14:27.356 --> 0:14:27.956 the whole time. 0:14:28.516 --> 0:14:31.716 Mikhaela's interest in the psychological effects of loneliness began back 0:14:31.756 --> 0:14:32.916 when she was a college student. 0:14:33.436 --> 0:14:36.796 This is really I think common, especially in that age, right, 0:14:36.876 --> 0:14:40.516 and often on social media, seeing that other people at 0:14:40.596 --> 0:14:43.596 least seem to be having these really rich social lives 0:14:43.596 --> 0:14:46.396 and traveling and going to parties. It feels like there's 0:14:46.436 --> 0:14:49.756 this expectation that we also need to be very social, 0:14:49.796 --> 0:14:52.556 and that if we're not, that there's something wrong with us, 0:14:52.676 --> 0:14:55.036 that we're doing something wrong. I think there is this 0:14:55.196 --> 0:14:59.276 understanding that, well, if you have, for example, depression or 0:14:59.276 --> 0:15:02.756 an anxiety disorder, it's not necessarily that there's something wrong 0:15:02.796 --> 0:15:04.996 with you, right, It might be something's going on in 0:15:04.996 --> 0:15:07.676 your brain, there's this chemical imbalance, as people say, right, 0:15:07.876 --> 0:15:12.196 there's other genetic, environmental factors. But I do think that 0:15:12.236 --> 0:15:15.596 when it comes to loneliness, there still is this perception 0:15:15.676 --> 0:15:18.796 that if you're lonely, it's something about you. You know, 0:15:18.916 --> 0:15:22.396 you're not able maybe to make those connections. You're not 0:15:22.476 --> 0:15:25.476 socially skilled enough, And so it does feel like there's 0:15:25.516 --> 0:15:28.076 an extra level of sort of shame that's attached to 0:15:28.116 --> 0:15:31.116 loneliness that maybe we're not seeing anymore with these other 0:15:31.196 --> 0:15:33.796 sort of mental health, negative sort of emotional. 0:15:33.436 --> 0:15:37.156 Experiences, and studies have shown that the stigma associated with 0:15:37.236 --> 0:15:40.756 loneliness can have big consequences for people who happen to 0:15:40.756 --> 0:15:42.396 be a bit solitary by nature. 0:15:42.796 --> 0:15:48.756 When American adults are told about a hypothetical person who 0:15:48.796 --> 0:15:51.796 likes to spend their time alone, those people rate that 0:15:51.876 --> 0:15:57.596 person as less desirable, as a friend, less attractive, less competent. 0:15:58.356 --> 0:16:02.316 We make these sort of negative evaluations and negative assumptions 0:16:02.316 --> 0:16:03.476 about that person. 0:16:03.836 --> 0:16:06.876 And MICHAELA says that these negative assumptions have only gotten 0:16:06.916 --> 0:16:08.276 worse in the last few years. 0:16:08.956 --> 0:16:12.316 There are so many articles I feel like I see 0:16:12.316 --> 0:16:16.716 one every single day on the dangers of loneliness. But 0:16:16.756 --> 0:16:21.236 even in sociology, philosophy, public health, these related fields, we 0:16:21.276 --> 0:16:25.316 see that the vast majority of research on these topics 0:16:25.396 --> 0:16:27.796 is looking at sort of the dangers of being alone 0:16:27.836 --> 0:16:33.196 and the serious risks associated with loneliness, and I recognize 0:16:33.276 --> 0:16:37.676 that you know, these messages are intended to be helpful 0:16:37.756 --> 0:16:40.996 and to encourage people to go out and seek social connection, 0:16:41.156 --> 0:16:44.436 which course, as we know, is very important. At the 0:16:44.476 --> 0:16:47.876 same time, a few years ago, I sort of wondered 0:16:48.276 --> 0:16:52.916 whether these messages that we're receiving might have unintended negative consequences, 0:16:53.196 --> 0:16:55.396 Might they be counterproductive. 0:16:56.076 --> 0:16:59.476 Mikaela decided to test this directly. She had subjects read 0:16:59.476 --> 0:17:02.676 a news article that either discuss the risks of being alone, 0:17:02.996 --> 0:17:05.636 like most news articles do these days, or one that 0:17:05.716 --> 0:17:08.436 talked about the benefits of alone time. She found that 0:17:08.476 --> 0:17:11.316 the simple apt to reading one article about the downside 0:17:11.316 --> 0:17:14.956 of solitude changed subjects beliefs about the dangers of being alone. 0:17:15.476 --> 0:17:18.356 The participants who read the negative news article assume that 0:17:18.396 --> 0:17:21.076 being alone would feel less enjoyable, that it would make 0:17:21.116 --> 0:17:24.276 you less hopeful, and that overall you'd be less healthy. 0:17:24.476 --> 0:17:27.036 Okay, so makes sense, right. The information that we get 0:17:27.076 --> 0:17:30.156 from the media, we know influences our beliefs, But how 0:17:30.156 --> 0:17:33.116 did these beliefs that we hold about being alone actually 0:17:33.356 --> 0:17:35.196 influence our day to day experiences. 0:17:35.876 --> 0:17:38.836 To test this, Michaela recruited a different group of subjects. 0:17:39.316 --> 0:17:42.116 She first surveyed their beliefs about alone time, and then 0:17:42.116 --> 0:17:45.396 divided her subjects into two groups, those who had positive 0:17:45.436 --> 0:17:48.316 beliefs about alone time and those who thought more negatively 0:17:48.356 --> 0:17:52.436 about solitude. She then used a procedure known as experience sampling, 0:17:52.756 --> 0:17:55.116 in which researchers pink people at random times of the 0:17:55.196 --> 0:17:58.196 day and ask how they're feeling to test what happened 0:17:58.316 --> 0:18:00.916 when the two different groups of subjects got stuck in 0:18:00.956 --> 0:18:02.556 short moments of solo time. 0:18:02.996 --> 0:18:06.836 People who believe that being alone is bad, right, that 0:18:06.876 --> 0:18:09.876 it's inherently lonely, that it's harmful for their well being. 0:18:10.636 --> 0:18:14.076 Whenever they were alone in their daily lives LORI, they 0:18:14.156 --> 0:18:20.916 felt significantly lonelier, more anxious, more stressed, more bored They 0:18:20.916 --> 0:18:25.076 felt worse right. Interestingly, though, when we look at people 0:18:25.356 --> 0:18:29.756 who view being alone as a positive experience, we see 0:18:29.756 --> 0:18:32.476 the opposite. We see that when they spend time alone, 0:18:32.556 --> 0:18:36.956 they actually experience a decrease in loneliness and a decrease 0:18:36.996 --> 0:18:39.956 in stress, and a decrease in anxiety and boredom. Not 0:18:40.036 --> 0:18:43.876 only that, they also experienced increases in positive emotions like 0:18:43.916 --> 0:18:45.196 contentment and relaxation. 0:18:45.436 --> 0:18:48.476 These findings are pretty incredible. How we think being alone 0:18:48.596 --> 0:18:52.476 is supposed to feel influences how being alone actually feels 0:18:52.476 --> 0:18:55.676 in the moment, and Mikaela has observed this striking effect 0:18:55.796 --> 0:18:59.476 again and again. Take for example, her recent study exploring 0:18:59.556 --> 0:19:02.796 cross cultural differences in people's perceptions of loneliness. 0:19:03.116 --> 0:19:07.636 We recruited participants from nine countries, and this was spanning 0:19:07.876 --> 0:19:11.396 six continents an except Antarctica. Really hard to find people 0:19:11.436 --> 0:19:14.196 there to take our studies, so almost every continent, i 0:19:14.236 --> 0:19:19.356 will say, And so we had for example, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, 0:19:19.396 --> 0:19:23.916 South Africa, couple others, and essentially we wanted to know 0:19:24.156 --> 0:19:28.956 how adults in these different countries view being alone, to 0:19:28.956 --> 0:19:33.556 what extent do they think being alone is positive or negative, right, 0:19:33.596 --> 0:19:38.676 beneficial or harmful. We see that in countries like the US, 0:19:39.196 --> 0:19:44.196 the UK, Poland in other words, countries that are more individualistic, 0:19:44.596 --> 0:19:49.596 people view being alone as more negative, as more unhealthy, 0:19:50.156 --> 0:19:54.476 whereas people in Japan and Mexico, two very different countries 0:19:54.556 --> 0:19:59.156 but both we would consider collectivistic countries viewed being alone 0:19:59.196 --> 0:20:02.396 as significantly more positive and healthier. 0:20:02.636 --> 0:20:05.156 What are some of the hypotheses for why collectivist culture 0:20:05.196 --> 0:20:06.076 is value solitude? 0:20:06.116 --> 0:20:09.076 For one of the things we know about more collective 0:20:09.516 --> 0:20:14.676 cultures is that people view the self as more interdependent. 0:20:14.756 --> 0:20:18.276 So what I mean is that people view themselves as 0:20:18.316 --> 0:20:24.356 an individual as intertwined with their family members, their friends, 0:20:24.436 --> 0:20:28.676 their community. In other words, who I am is linked 0:20:28.716 --> 0:20:31.956 to who you know, my friends and family are. And 0:20:31.996 --> 0:20:36.836 so I think that actually changes what being alone means, right, 0:20:36.876 --> 0:20:40.316 Because when I'm physically alone, yes, I'm by myself. But 0:20:40.396 --> 0:20:44.556 if I have this sense that my identity is always 0:20:44.716 --> 0:20:48.436 tied to my loved ones, then maybe that aloneness is 0:20:48.476 --> 0:20:52.236 actually less threatening because even though I'm physically by myself, 0:20:52.356 --> 0:20:55.636 I'm carrying my mom, right, I'm carrying my dad, I'm 0:20:55.676 --> 0:20:58.396 carrying my two little sisters with me all the time. 0:20:58.636 --> 0:21:02.396 I'm carrying these sources of meaning with me wherever I go. 0:21:03.236 --> 0:21:06.676 Whereas in more individualistic cultures, we know that the self 0:21:06.756 --> 0:21:10.596 is really viewed as a DiscT entity that is not 0:21:10.756 --> 0:21:14.076 connected really to anybody else. Right, We're unique, We're our 0:21:14.076 --> 0:21:14.756 own person. 0:21:15.316 --> 0:21:15.756 I will not. 0:21:15.916 --> 0:21:18.356 You know, it's not that that's inherently better or worse. 0:21:18.436 --> 0:21:21.076 These are just sort of different ways of viewing oneself. 0:21:21.476 --> 0:21:25.236 But if we do see the self as independent and 0:21:25.316 --> 0:21:29.236 not linked to other people, then I think when we're alone, 0:21:29.276 --> 0:21:32.316 we really are sort of disconnected, right, and so I 0:21:32.356 --> 0:21:37.076 think there could be this sort of protective effect of 0:21:37.196 --> 0:21:40.356 having this more interdependent view of the self. 0:21:41.476 --> 0:21:44.196 Mikaela's work seems to be bearing out what historian Fay 0:21:44.276 --> 0:21:47.676 Bound Alberti said earlier that how a culture thinks being 0:21:47.716 --> 0:21:51.836 alone is supposed to feel influences how being alone actually feels. 0:21:52.436 --> 0:21:55.156 In this and so many other studies, Mikaela has found 0:21:55.156 --> 0:21:57.156 that if you believe alone time is going to suck, 0:21:57.396 --> 0:22:00.796 then you're alone time will feel luckier and lonelier. And 0:22:00.836 --> 0:22:04.076