I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.
Sounds like you have an introvert trait (in the Myers Briggs sense), which does not mean despising human interaction but that even though you enjoy it, it’s taxing at some level (but you get some benefit at another level). If this is the case, the rejection comes from energy being exhausted (no one enjoys being exhausted) and you have to recharge your social interactions batteries.
At some point you may have intuitively associated meeting with people with that exhaustion and balanced your NN towards “not meeting” by default, hence the doominess feeling.
Active, conscious steps I took to get me out of that:
1. Recognise that being social brings you something internal (mood improvements)
2. Recognise that being social costs you some energy (depletes a battery)
3. Stop self-bashing for “not being social” at times (battery needs topping up)
4. Create a positive feedback loop instead of a negative one, by having less long/intense social interactions but more frequent, so that the battery never truly runs out and has time to recharge quickly
This takes time as the NN has to be retrained to break the default fight or flight reaction of staying in the safe zone at home.
It’s a bit like enjoying running a marathon and have a happy and relaxed mind following that, but the body is exhausted and certainly doesn’t want to run again back to back as it needs time to recover.
The introvert trait will not go away but the battery can be trained and improved in capacity, and end up looking forward to meeting people as long as it’s properly managed.
Protip: Volunteer somewhere. Or just find people who enjoy your company.
If you're treating this like a diet or exercise regimen, it will probably turn out the way most of those turn out.
Instead, maybe think about the other people involved and consider them important as well. There are plenty of people that need some attention, care, resources, advice, and so on. If people come to rely on you, it is motivating, meaningful, and is more in line with the Golden Rule. I'm sure most of us would rather be friends with someone than be their weekly dose of socializing.
If you really don't like people, help out animals. Or the environment. Or "the commu ity". As long as it's part of a team.
On the opposite end of the scale: go to a sporting event and cheer on the home team. You’ll be in an energetic group with common purpose, and no expectation to hold a conversation of any kind.
My point was that "how am I minmaxing my life?" is a poor foundation for a healthy relationship on an ethical level if not a practical one. Go ahead and start with being focused on others and trust that the personal benefits will follow.
Cheering on an underappreciated club might have the same benefits, but I'm mostly doubtful that consumer activities, albeit fun and mildly social ones, qualify as being externally focused.
What if you don't feel social interactions bring you anything positive at all? I get exhausted _and_ depressed by meeting people. Totally not worth it.
My father just died, my mother is depressed. That's a natural, normal, healthy reaction to a traumatic externality.
Being depressed as a result of meeting people that you don't want to meet seems perfectly normal to me. Talking to someone when you don't want to talk to them seems like it would only get you more depressed.
Your mother isn't depressed because your father died. You should not be feeling depressed because you meet some people you'd rather not. It seems like there are some unhealthy internalizations going on that can be identified by talking to someone (for a start). I hope for the best.
This was on purpose, as "brain" is a fuzzy, complex thing whereas taking a license to use NN as a (limited) model of learning and reinforcement echoes to some much more precise concept including its behaviour and corner cases that many around here know about when playing with CUDA but fail to make the leap that our brain/mind/psychology (see? fuzzy!) works quite the same way.
I’m the same way, so I built in a fix to my lifestyle. When I was single I always lived with a roommate. Most times I preferred meeting friends than going home after work. And I chose to marry someone who loves social interaction so now we kind of balance each other out.
Worst period of my life was single and living alone. Way too easy to go home after work and never meet or talk to anyone outside of work.
What helps is building awareness of your attention/desire traps and consciously manipulating the system that is you to optimize it. That can take the form of depriving yourself of things you "want" (looking at screens is real common) to let yourself get bored to seek out that attention fix somewhere else, it could take the form of creating a regular reminder with a calendar app, it could take the form of convincing someone else to keep you social... you don't have to be a slave to your built-in drives, they're often really stupid and too easily satisfied.
I think this is common. In small/tribal communities, this is often mitigated by group events on a regular basis, as well as smaller circles that all check on each other.
I think the key to attain ever-lasting happiness is to commit ourselves to doing kind or selfless deeds as a habit [0]. Scientifically it's been observed that when we make someone happy the same region lights up in our brain [1] when we do something to make ourselves happy.
Coupled with meditation that makes you more mindful so you can be more kind (kindfullness), you can attain a state of mind in which you can remain happy most of the time. The problems of the world will continue to be there but those will decreasingly have lesser impact on your inner state of happiness.
Hold your horses a bit here. Just because some mental model works for your, please don't do blanket statements for entire human civilization.
I for example pursue many utterly selfish hobbies without any proper meaning to me or anybody else, full of objective dangers that can kill me in case of lack of attention (or pure bad time at bad spot situation), last time this Sunday (ended up with scratches all over me after some nasty snow field slide, albeit this is very rare outcome).
The only meaning of those things (hiking, climbing, diving, paraglide, ski alpinism etc.) is feeling 200% alive, being extremely content with my life which can be described as... you get it... happiness. Climbing to the top of some peak doesn't have any proper meaning, it has been done 1000s before and will be done after me, the only meaning is how it feels during and after the adventure.
Maybe its just juggling words and we both mean same thing at the end, but I know far too many people technically unable to find long term happiness, to see how that sucks. Most of them are these highly-driven super-competitive types that have lives that look great on outside... but only if you don't know them very well.
> I for example pursue many utterly selfish hobbies without any proper meaning to me or anybody else ... the only meaning of those things is feeling 200% alive
> Climbing to the top of some peak doesn't have any proper meaning, it has been done 1000s before and will be done after me, the only meaning is how it feels during and after the adventure.
I don't quite understand what is your concept of meaning. You say that you pursue all these difficult and dangerous things that make you feel 200% alive and extremely content with your life. I wonder, how much more meaning could you ask for? To me, feeling completely alive while immersed in something is pretty much the definition of a meaningful activity! Happiness and contentment seems to be a nice bonus caused by the realization that you are in the middle of something that feels very meaningful to you.
Well then we have different views on what a meaningful activity is for us. I don't have an exact definition per se, but it would go along: changing the world for the better, if only by slightest amount. Helping others. Improve myself (debatable since its usually a tough workout and exposing oneself to dangers changes personality a bit for the better).
Maybe its about about direction - inwards vs outwards. Dunno. But climbing some big rock, risking my life definitely doesn't feel like it has big meaning to me. I am not saving anybody hanging there. But it makes me happy. Working for some NGO, being a doctor or improving peoples lives would definitely be in the category of work with purpose/meaning.
Display behaviors such as willful risk taking and demonstrating physical prowess that greatly increase your mating market value are far from meaningless or purposeless. That they also make you happy in themselves is wonderful, but even if they made you miserable and you just chose to do them anyhow they would still have meaning and purpose.
An act of kindness is a way to express our gratitude toward the society and/or nature by contributing with our skills and resources. It makes us feel that we have something valuable to offer and that certainly gives meaning to our life.
For me, I just feel like crap. I've run a marathon before and done a lot of other types of exercise, but that 'glow' that people report having is not something that I've ever gotten. I don't feel good after a workout or during one; I feel tired, gross, and irratiable.
The trick is pre-planning. When you commit to events with groups, the desire to not let anyone down overrules all else. Then you realize you have fun anyway!
Most of my weekends are already assigned and I purposely allow for some rest days. And I usually allow for some spontaneous requests to hang out.
I'm happier than I've ever been and I know more people now than I've ever known.
You still need time to yourself so you should respect that but knowing that these people care about me is nice :)
You may be like me. I discovered when I did a teaching gig that I love being at the centre of attention. If you have an opportunity to try giving some talks, you may find that you really enjoy it. Having a schedule where you have to show up and do that kind of thing helps (or at least it does for me). Speaking of which, I really need to find some place to give talks around here...
nah..social connections frequency is not the only factor for long living. if a person goes out every day and meets friends and stuff but drinks a bunch of alcohol and smokes and does not care about sleeping properly then he/she is doomed more than a loner who is trying to keep healthy lifestyle.
Sounds like an exact description of me, except one major difference:
> I am in such a better mood for a few days
I get incredible anxiety after meeting people that disappears after a few days. It's not worth it at all and I'm extremely happy if I just avoid people.
I started doing grubhub just because it forces me out of the house a few times a day. It really shakes things since I work from home on my career work.
you can be talkative or you can go in to deep meditation in the middle of a crowd. whatever be it do it consciously. remove all guilt and all negativity from it. experience everything deeply - silence or noise.
I wanted to show how much we tend to condition ourselves. I don't have the intention to make fun here.
It's good you are asking about the how - please see once you think "I am <something>" - this is what will determine your whole behavior on many levels and this is what you will become in many ways. Try to be conscious through the day and see every decision you are making - is it in some way based on the idea of yourself? A simple pattern of a mind "I will (not) do that because I am (not) a ...".
One way to go beyond this is to see clearly - every single moment of your life you are not "somebody" defined. Instead according to the situation around you become somebody. In the office you become an office worker and behave in one way, at home you become a family member and behave another way, at a party with friends it is again another way. Sometimes you can even forget to "be someone" and just be - for example in moments of great joy or intense activity.
Just see if you can observe this through your day - you should see yourself that your personality is flexible, it is not set in stone. See if you can find where does it come from, what defines it - I promise you this discovery will be one of the most wonderful things happened to you.
This is as much as I can give you via a text message.
I found this study to be a good reference but I question how useful some of the data are for 20-30 years old people nowadays because:
1. The study started in 1938, which is a very different time comparing to today. Young people has way more options to enjoy life alone such as traveling, playing video games, watching youtube by themselves just to name a few.
2. The participants are mostly 90 years old now and it is understandable that they prefer relationship comparing to 20 years old folks nowadays.
3. Also, I don't see any information about the amount of friends. Is it the same having 1 friend vs 100 friends vs 1000 friends on facebook? Probably not.
4. Just seeing some random participants in their 70' in year 2000 saying they are more happy with friends is not really useful for people today. It would be nice to see the chart moving based on different time (2000 vs 2019) for different generation group.
5. "the search for happiness can become a source of unhappiness", is kind of depressing and confusing. Is going out with a friend consider "search for happiness"? I "can become" a billionaire buying lottery tickets, does that mean I should or shouldn't buy the ticket? It is based on the success rate and this article is missing that data.
I say you should evaluate from time to time if having friends or not (and how many) make you better or happier. I disagree that spending time with others ALWAYS make you happier. For example, I dislike traveling with large group of friends due to noise, planning and logistic issues.
I also believe personality types play a large part, for example I'm an introvert, and while spending time with others makes me happy - that can easily be negated if I spend too much time with others or don't have a chance to come up for air (e.g. some alone time).
Not to mention the personality types of others as well. I have introverted friends whom I can quite happily spend weeks at a time with (low energy, deep conversations, no awkwardness with silence), and on the other end of the scale there are friends who are extremely extroverted whom I cannot spend more than several hours with (high energy, shallow and constant changing of topics being discussed, a feeling of awkwardness when there is silence).
I'm also an introvert. I get exhausted when spending a lot of time with other people. One thing I've noticed though is that when I do spend time with people, I prefer getting to know new people rather than hanging out with people I already know. I guess this is some subtype within introverts, because the "stereotype" is that introverts have a few close friends - Instead I have lots of shallow relationships and I am terrible at keeping close friends because I never spend time with them...
I agree, being introverted definitely seems to impact the amount of time you want to spend with others, though I am maybe somewhat different in my preferences. I absolutely enjoy spending time with people, but even spending time with other introverted folks can be tiring for me, because sometimes I just want to sit in a quiet room completely alone. (Many of my other, also very introverted friends, disagree and can spend nearly all of their time with like-minded people. Which can be a little awkward.)
Yep. Though I am gregarious, I grew up very isolated with very little interaction even with parents and my biggest problem as an adult is remembering to make time alone for myself because if I do not I grow less patient with people around me. But I also know that many people need to always be with people and I wonder: am I a result of a strange/bad upbringing? So I have committed to spending time with people but there is nothing I love more than a week totally alone and my happiest memories are months where I lived completely alone. One trick for balance: living in countries where I do not speak the language is an excellent way to be around people but have peace.
Have you tried going over to countries where you cannot even read the language? E.g. Korea, Japan? I found the experience very refreshing and surreal in a good way.
Yep. In Russia - now I can read the letters but only with concentration. I want to spend more time in Asia. It really helps me notice the space reading takes up in my seeing and also, how important wonder is in fun. I spend so much time wondering what food I am buying, what is behind that door, what those people are protesting etc and that energy is like ... embers for creativity and makes it easier for me to admit that even when I can read it all, understand it all, I still really don't know anything much.
> Young people has way more options to enjoy life alone such as...
I've never quite bought this argument. Yes, the choices are different. 100 years ago travel might be by train. Or hitch-hiking. Instead of video games you had a deck of cards and played solitaire. Today we have MMORPGs, back then it was again cards, sitting around a table. They didn't watch YouTube, but absolutely read books and newspapers.
Things you could do alone back then were kind of boring, while you can do really engaging stuff alone nowadays. Like talking to other people over the Internet.
I can understand someone thinking video games and YouTube are just killing time (although I don't agree), but traveling? That's pretty much universally accepted as one of the best things you can do to improve yourself.
Not universally. For example, I disagree. I've lived in three countries and the experiences have been incredibly rewarding and interesting. But I've traveled to dozens of countries and while I enjoy those trips (that's why I did them after all!) it's very superficial. I know people like to be exposed to different cultures and ways of life, but I feel you just can't really meaningfully do that in only a week or two from a hotel and with no responsibilities.
Very much this. I travelled around Europe and what's left to me of these trips have almost nothing to do with being exposed to other cultures and that stuff. I agree that a bunch of weeks of traveling, especially if you don't know the language, is very superficial.
My memories of these are mostly about the time spent with the people I travelled with —mostly family.
There are different ways you can travel. You can do it on a shoestring budget, sleeping rough and working odd jobs in the process to sustain yourself. This I believe is very challenging and enriching. The other alternative is to just take a bunch of money and go to country where it goes a long way (like Thailand) and then spend time in hostels, eat out and basically live a life of partying and leisure. This I believe is much less valuable.
> Most young people that I have seen traveling in Thailand or Bali do not seem like improving themselves.
How do you know? The benefits of travel don't come instantly like some binary "travel" door you walk through. Travel sculpts your character over time in small ways and small interactions. And why would it need to be an active self-improvement process? On of the beauties of travel is how passive the a-ha moments are, you just have to pull the trigger to go in the first place which many people cannot even do beyond a "someday I'll go" dream they carry to their grave.
Tens of thousands? There is some 5 milion tourists pers year to Bali and 35 milion to Thailand. Not to mention other destinations. So tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number) is just an rounding error.
So I guess here is your answer.
What I simply meant is that travelling for most people is just a form of leisure not a life enhancing experience.
I don't agree. Very few people do anything significant enough to warrant a book about their life, but everyone who travels lives a better life afterward.
tens of thousands of biographies (if there is really such a number)
There's more than 80,000 in the biography section of Amazon, and that only includes the ones in print right now.
I think the real value of spending time with others is having a support network. I often don't do well in groups and simply don't enjoy it so I do a lot of things alone. But the major drawback is that I don't have much of a support network outside of close family. I am definitely worried that if something happens to me nobody will help me.
There are proximate causes, and ultimate causes. You have identified an ultimate cause for social behavior. A proximate cause would be that we do it because it makes us feel better.
May be not a popular opinion but I think we feel happier when we spend friends because it helps us forget about ourselves and inner dialogues. I don’t mean it in a sad or depressing way but our mind chatters all the time and it’s exhausting for the body’s resources.
Spending time with others gives us break from that.
I was not aware of this quote and I don't really think that all problems are caused by this, but I did notice the said inability. It's is astonishing how people are unable to be in silence and with themselves. The constant need for some drowning noise: radio, TV, Youtube, just headphones with some music 100% of the time they are awake. As if they are afraid to hear something unpleasant if it becomes quiet for a minute.
I, otoh, find it very meditative. And my recent hobby/passion/activity are the long (in time and duration walks— 30-100km). These are organized events, so lots of people go, sometimes in thousands (most choose shorter distances though), but I go alone and it is so… healing(?) experience. For 5-18 hours you are just with yourself and your thoughts. There is nothing you can do, just walk. Sure, one can listen to audiobooks or music, but I choose not to—it spoils the experience somehow.
Its a good quote but I don’t think society and world can support this. Why is there a room to begin with and why do you have to be forced to sit down in it. Completely counter intuitive. Same reason why meditation works for those 20 min.
It is just a quote from Pascal's Thoughts so more like haiku or ad hoc observation then a commandment.
You don't need to sit 24 hours alone in an empty room - you just should be able to - this is my interpretation.
It is like '- Master, how long should I meditate? - 20 minutes is enough. - But I don't have time for that. - If you don't have time then meditate for one hour.'
It is just me, or does "at least once a month" not really seem like regular interaction with friends?
I'd have thought at least once a week would qualify as regular. Once a month seems really irregular, I couldn't imagine seeing my friends only a dozen times a year. Is this common?
This is just how it is when you get older. You’ll see friends maybe once a month for an average of 4 hours or so, basically 0.5% of your year. The rest of the time you spend sleeping, eating, working, occupying yourself with other activities that make up life. One day you might just wake up and realize all your friends are dead and buried, and if you are the last one left then you know you’re next. It’s over. Where did life go?
This really depends. Would say the biggest factor is kids.
Also, a revelation I’ve had as a millennial gay man is because the rate of having kids is relatively low among gay men in particular, anecdotally gay male friends stay in touch at a higher rate than straight counterparts even as we get older.
Not necessarily always a good thing, though. Especially in SF gay culture feels even more “Peter Pan” like.
Daily was common when I was a teenager. Every other day was common in college. Weekly was common right after college. Now with a full time job, family, house maintenance, etc. I probably average once every 2 months or so and I'm amazed I even have that much time to spend with friends. I'm looking forward to retirement.
Once a month seems about right, and for me it's not the same group of friends necessarily.
My wife and I have some couple friends and our schedules are hardest to align. (Kids, work, family time). And then we both have some single friends without kids, with which we can just choose any time and it will probably work to meet up.
That's just part of getting older and starting a family I suppose. Priorities shift a bit :)
It is irregular I agree, and it is common. Depending how you slice it though; does communicating daily over the net count as surrogate of interaction? At what rate?
I need to spend time with people. I feel miserable when I don't. I doesn't matter if it's quality time, I can literally be doing nothing useful but if I'm sharing that time with someone else then it's all good.
The irony is that I frequently don't because of some circumstances that I live in, but I'm working hard to change change that.
I'm pretty much the opposite. I can get along with people and I never have problems with others, but I just can't stand being with people. It completely drains me, and I tend to become depressed for a few days afterwards. It doesn't matter if the interaction is "pleasant" or not.
It is interesting how people are different. Perhaps some group evolution survival strategy? If all people liked being with other people, we would basicall end up all in single place and discover new places and new people far away more slowly. And if all people hated company, we could not build anything big such as towns or countries.
How about people openly disrespecting you under the guise of friendship? (I've seen this happen thousands of times, never understood why people tolerate it)
How about backstabbers? How about people envious of you?
My point is - does it really have the same effect on you, regardless of the quality of relationship?
I've always wondered about these kinds of studies.
For example, let's say we took a loner and gave them a 24/7 health monitor system that also helped apply preventative and corrective treatments, would someone live just as long as someone with a social support network? Presumably at some point in the near future we're going reach that level of technical accessibility for the average consumer, I would wonder perhaps if the results would change when systems like these become commonplace.
I'd also be curious to see if the same thing regarding happiness could be said if someone had similar support networks that close friends bring, but without human interaction. For instance if same loner was to live out on an island alone but had reliable and easy access to all physical needs, lacked any serious threats to his well being, had enough to keep him busy, would he be just as happy as the those that responded in that report?
If loneliness causes poor health habits, a machine that cures poor health habits would be an exquisite device for psychological torture - removing the possibility of death while preserving all the yearning for it. Asimov wrote a story once about that -- a selfish and suffering God who tortured brilliant souls by giving them eternal life so they would help God in God's quest for a method of suicide that would kill an immortal.
And in the context of the story, would it not be plausible that they would acclimate to being isolated from their peers? There is precedent. In WW2 there were Japanese soldiers that remained fighting their war for decades after Japan surrendered, cut off from anyone that they could feasible interact with as they still believed they were deep in enemy territory, coming out only when their commanding officer relieved them of duty.
The BBC ran a phenomenal article here [1] detailing a wide array of data on the longevity of people through the ages. How long did higher class Ancient Greeks live? Ancient Greece dates back to starting around 3,300 years ago. In spite of their remarkable technological achievements they remained almost entirely ignorant of medicine. They relied on a system based around the 'four humors' - blood, phlegm, yellow/black bile. They had no clue about germs or any other basic fundamentals of modern medicine. Vaccines? You need to wait about 3,000 years. And their hygenic habits are the sort we'd find pretty questionable. For instance they obviously did not have rolls of 2 ply at their toilets. Instead what they had were sponges - butt brushes. One guy'd do his business. You'd come in, and give the well used sponge a swirl about in some water. For the fancy toilets, you might give it a swirl in some vinegar. And then you'd have your go.
So how long did they live? The BBC article mentioned a 'census' of the longevity of individuals we now are familiar with. The median life expectancy was 72 years. Pythagorus - 75, Hippocrates - 90, Plato - 80, etc. Of course there's some some selection bias there, but there is also other evidence of their longevity as well. For instance in Ancient Rome one could not hold the office of Consul until reaching the age of 43, first office was not available until age 30. Another mildly intriguing part anecdote there is that the life expectancy declined pretty substantially for those born in the latter part of the civilization (after 100BC) to only 66 years. The likely culprit there is the installation of significant public piping systems... made out of lead. They inadvertently poisoned themselves for centuries.
The article also goes on to analyze numerous other sources than tend to paint a recurring picture: there was high infant and youth mortality, but people who made it to adulthood tended to have a life expectancy not all that different than we do today. It seems to suggest that a large part of our increased life expectancy is not from the trillions of dollars we've spent on trying to find a [profit making] pill for everything, but instead from very simple things like access to clean water and food.
This BBC article intends to surprise the reader, and I think the reader has to be extremly cautious with its content. Yet, it briefly mentions that the Roman longevity concerned only the nobility.
> all working-class people who were buried in common graves. The average age of death was 30, and that wasn’t a mere statistical quirk
Back to the BBC article, some of its source are dubious, and I suppose they were selected only because of their "selling power". For instance, the paper on Victorian life expectancy was debated here[^0] with much skepticism.
There was no magic longevity potion those of means had. All they had over the common class are the things we all have and take for granted today - protection from the consequences war and mostly stable access to clean food and water. The upper class of times back then arguably less so on both accounts than even a lower class individual today. This was the whole point. It's not like you could attribute their longevity to sophisticated medicine, because it literally did not exist at the time.
> It seems to suggest that a large part of our increased life expectancy is not from the trillions of dollars we've spent on trying to find a [profit making] pill for everything, but instead from very simple things like access to clean water and food.
That's a massive leap.
Other things that killed a lot of young people are:
* childbirth
* infection
* disease, including the occasional plague that decimates a population.
Not to mention the quality of life difference of not losing non-fatal body parts and function to disease and infection.
Of course you're correct that these also had higher, and probably much higher, mortality rates. But what matters is overall impact. Let's say that x% fewer people die in childbirth today. What would that mean? What you'd start by doing is seeing the cause of death for a large sample of people in times past. So let's say you look at 100,000 people. How many would have had mortality caused by childbirth? It'd be extremely negligible and almost certainly in the single digits if not fractional. Keep in mind you're looking at all deaths, not just deaths of women who gave birth. And so that x% improvement results in a comparably small gain - childbirth being safer does not have a major quantitative impact because its rate as a general killer was, and is, very low.
What would be killing people? All the way up until the mid 20th century famine was one of the biggest causes of death. Famine and related issues all the way up until the mid 20th century was a huge killer. For instance in the early 1900s around 27 million people died in famines with a world population of about 1.7 billion. [1] That's 1.6% of the entire world dying of famine in one year! Now go back 3000 years with all the difficulties that entails.
And then consider things like food poisoning. We consider it, as a cause of mortality, mostly eradicated in the developed world. Yet it was such a pernicious killer that "eradicated" translates to 3,000 deaths from foodborn disease per year in the United States alone [2]. And now once again, go backwards in time to imagine how radically worse things would have been. To give that number some contrast consider measels. The vaccination was introduced in 1963. In the decade leading up to the immunization 400-500 died per year from it. [3] In other words foodborn disease is a bigger killer today than measels was before there was a vaccination for it. This isn't some anti-vax thing, but trying to give perspective to how and why people have died throughout the ages.
True but I was referring specifically to a line in the article attributed to one of the director's of the study:
"Robert Waldinger, the current director of the study, summarized – in what is now one of the most viewed TED Talks to date – the findings from decades of research. The main result, he concluded, is that social connections are one of the most important factors for people’s happiness and health. He said: “Those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier, and the loners often died earlier”."
Hence why I was musing about whether it was conclusive to actually say that the whether it was that act of having close relationships itself that made him see this result, or if the longevity he was seeing was a result of the inherent monitoring and support that occurs with peers. For instance, a spouse may notice a lump on her partner's back, or friends pitching in after someone is let go from a job. If we could somehow control for that support network, would that equalize the life spans of people in a study like this?
To be fair, this is just useless speculation. I doubt very much that it would be possible to run an experiment like this.
I’m currently spending time traveling and can sometimes go stretches without much interaction. I mostly stay at hostels and it’s wierd how that kind of communal sleeping arrangement makes me feel better even if I’m not actively interacting with people there. I think this was mentioned in the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger, about how we’ve evolved to sleep in large groups and that doesn’t really happen anymore.
I guess a big part of the benefits come from being able to feel part of something. Even if you don't interact directly with others, you can still feel like you belong, like you are part of something. Just being there might work in many cases.
If you are unable to achieve that, you can easily feel like shit no matter the amount of interaction you have with others.
I doubt there's an answer to that question that applies to the general population.
Some people are miserable without social interaction and others dislike it intensely.
And even if someone manages to build some statistics that proves the general answer is "yes", I suspect said answer will be of very little practical use to a given individual.
Happiness is exactly the same in every human being - is just a certain type of chemistry. In which ways people find access to it depends on person, environment, society and your background - this is what is unique.
But all these things are indirect and involve (unreliable) mediums. There are ways to access this directly and be happy and ecstatic every single moment without literally anything.
This is correct and congruent with what science knows as of today. I sometimes wonder how the world will look like when we would have evolved our science to (perfectly) control the ratio of chemicals inside us.
Imagine, happiness on a click. Something like quick dopamine release without side effects.
I am afraid such happiness would destroy us. Or make us a docile sheep with no ambitions. At least part of humanity accomplishments is because challenges induce chemical imbalances, they take you out of your comfort zone.
I would like to add that this science already exists for thousands of years in such sophisticated form that it does not require external chemicals but rather focuses on enhancing what our body can naturally produce.
Imagining this gives you a bit of entertainment, but experiencing this makes imagination a childish game :)
In my experience no human is ok with being socially isolated for a long period of time. But difficulty with forming healthy social relationships makes the experience of attempting to "warm up" to others very unpleasant to people who don't get social exposure to begin with. Especially for anyone that performs extensive introspection it is very difficult and the experience can be interpreted as unhappiness.
I think maybe being with others is most pleasant when one has a healthy relationship with one's self.
It's a bit incongruous to talk about "all humans" when you haven't experienced them all. Asking for a citation is asking for a justification for this generalization, not for a citation about the experience itself.
I mean, if the argument was "no human I've met can stand being alone for long periods of time", the obvious problem is selection bias: you don't meet people who like being alone.
Talk about straw-man. I never said "no human i've met",you interjected that to make yout argument. I did generalize but you seem to be missing what i was trying to say.
To rephrase: based on my own experiences I don't believe a human can achieve inner peace and happiness without at least some social contact once in a while.
I'm not even arguing with you, let alone constructing a straw man to argue with. I'm simply explaining why an explanation that justifies a belief is appropriate here. I don't care what you believe, I care why you believe it.
> I think maybe being with others is most pleasant when one has a healthy relationship with one's self.
I don't agree with the rest of your points, but the quoted one is key.
No studies to back this up, but I would say that you are decidedly better off being alone than being with (for lack of better word) evil people.
These are degrees of evil that seem to be tolerated but that's another topic.
In the end, it's literally all in our minds. It's technically in our control (balance of chemicals). Maybe we should devise a way to control them sentiently.
My plan is to run for President or get into politics atleast. Watching all these Geezers having the time of their lives in their 70s and 80s has made up my mind. Just look at Ralf Nader, Ron Paul and Rush Limbaugh ranting and raving away with the energy of 10 year olds. It's that social mojo they are tapping into man. If I can wake up everyday troll the country, get a pat on the back from my buddies in my 90s...I think I'll die reasonably happy.
Hmmm, what about social contact with family members? How long does the interaction need to be to count? Would coffee qualify or chatting to other parents for five minutes each day on the school run? Once a month does feel like a very low threshold to me - but I can see how a lot of people's social contact could be dominated by family. It'd be interesting to distinguish between that and no social contact at all.
Sounds like an echo chamber of thoughts. Also spending time reading a book at the very least is spending time with another person because it is written BY another person.
I'm not really antisocial. In fact, I can become overtalkative at times when in a social setting. But, given the option, I never seem to want to 'get out' and socialize. Though, when I force myself to, I am in such a better mood for a few days. Then, back to normal, and avoiding social gatherings again until the next time.