Health & Medicine - Posted by Jennifer Fitzenberger-Arizona on Monday, June 21, 2010 12:00 - 13 Comments 
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(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ...Lonely? It all depends on your perception
Being lonely takes a toll on both physical and mental health, but what is lonely for one person, may not be for another. "The portait of the lonely person is difficult to paint, because what is really important is what is in your head," researchers say. (Credit: iStockphoto)
U. ARIZONA (US)—Hoarding friends on Facebook—or followers on Twitter—won’t do much to stave off loneliness if those relationships lack any kind of strong connection, new research finds.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
The study also suggests that superficial relationships can not only result in feelings of detachment, but also contribute to certain health-related problems.
“There is an association between social networks and health but the precise mechanism is not understood,” says Stacey Passalacqua, who recently earned a doctorate in interpersonal and health communication with a minor in psychology from the University of Arizona.
Passalacqua and Chris Segrin, head of the communications department at UA and lead author on the papers, studied individual perceptions of stress and social support to understand ways loneliness may be linked to health.
The study of 265 adults ages 19 to 85, showed that stress serves a crucial function for those who reported being lonely. Lonely people were prone to have fewer close connections, were less apt to manage daily stressors well, and tended not to keep up on their health. Also, lonely people don’t get adequate sleep.
Details appear in the June issue of Health Communication.
Segrin notes that age does not predict whether a person will be lonely and living away from close friends and family does not have a negative effect. Also, having relationships mediated by digital modes is not necessarily problematic, though relationships well-established prior to the distance were likely the strongest.
Being partnered does not shield a person from feelings of loneliness, Segrin adds. Instead, having close friends and family members appears to be more important.
“The mere presence of a relationship is not always something that is going to lead to you feeling satisfied and supported,” he explains.
Another curious conclusion: Above all, loneliness is a matter of perception.
“Loneliness is the discrepancy between your achieved and desired level of social contact, and that has important implications,” Segrin says. “The portrait of a lonely person is very difficult to paint because what is really important is what is in your head.”
So people can experience the same stressors—maybe the car breaks down, or a checking account overdraws, or maybe a relationship is not going well and someone just needs to vent—and have entirely different responses.
It is no wonder, then, that certain people with large social networks also express feelings of loneliness. When it comes to relationships, quality, not quantity, is the decisive factor, Passalacqua says.
“There are so many people we have in our day-to-day interactions,” she says. “But the absence of close family members and close friends is something that should be taken seriously. Sometimes we don’t realize how important these close relationships are to our health.”
In another study, that will be published in a future issue of Health Communication, Segrin found that lonely people did not enjoy leisure activities or get regenerate effects from sleep at a comparable level as others did. So when it came to taking a vacation, getting a good night’s sleep, or going for a swim, lonely people did not get as much of a recharge.
What both studies suggest is that people need not only to take better care of themselves, but learn to nurture relationships.
“We know that chronic stressors are very damaging to the human system,” Passalacqua says.
“Perceptions are all it takes, and when you experience stress, it has a physiological effect on the body,” she adds. “The mind has such a powerful effect on the body and, really, our perceptions are going to shape our world.
More news from the University of Arizona: http://uanews.org/
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13 Comments
Annette A. Bodo
… loneliness is in the mind…. solitude is in the heart
Ray S
People are lonely when they are not comfortable with themselves. They don’t respect who they are because they grew up not being respected. All the “virtual friendships’ of FB, Twitter, etc cannot fill the void where real relationships should be.
Nate
Whoa. I just moved to NYC and man its been a lonely year. Maybe people here are superficial? People tell me it takes a year or two to settle in. Great article, something to really think about and look out for. I fortunately have some long time friends living in the city. I’ll be sure to try and foster them as best I can.
> I just moved to NYC and man its been a lonely year. Maybe people here are superficial? People tell me it takes a year or two to settle in.
I lived in New York City (on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on 94th Street between West End and Riverside Avenues) between January 1997 and June 2004, and was constantly lonely there, too. I don’t think one or two years (or any number of years, unless somehow you get rich–most New Yorkers seem to care only about finance and theater) will help you to “settle down.” I used to work at Berlitz Language Center at Rockefeller Center, and there was actually a Berlitz travel guide for tourists that compared the main questions that people in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York want to know when they meet a stranger; _viz._:
Boston: “How much do you know?”
Philadelphia: “Who are your parents?”
New York: “How much are you worth?”
New York was also the only city that I know of served by Berlitz where it was impossible to find a person willing to provide both room and board (even for a fee). A room, yes, but board, no. Nobody had time to cook for a tourist stay-in.
Before moving to New York, I used to work in Branford, Connecticut, and one co-worker there once told me that although he had a girlfriend when previously living in New York, he never had any friends. He added that although it was possible to have a girlfriend there, it wasn’t possible to have a friend. I couldn’t understand what he meant until I actually lived there. After about two years, I understood what he had really meant: It isn’t usually feasible to have a relationship that isn’t based on money in New York unless one is either unusually lucky, or already knows somebody there. Romantic relationships usually have a money factor; non-romantic relationships usually don’t. New York City is mainly about money (and theater, if you happen to like theater).
At every job I worked at, there was no sense of a community. One co-worker told me that he didn’t make real friends at work, and that he just went to the bar if he wanted to find somebody.
Somebody (unfortunately, I have forgotten the reference) once compared New York City to a huge theater, where everyone is an actor.
When I first moved to New York City, I heard a tiny voice in my head that told me that I would be happier in Boston, because Boston is mainly about education, and I mainly like to study (I studied theoretical computer science in college), and am not interested in business or finance. I ignored the voice at the time, hoping to get used to New York City, but never did; now I sorely regret having heeded that voice. After about eight and a half years, I finally managed to find a way to move back to Tokyo, where I now feel much happier. Here co-workers often spontaneously gather together for lunch without any specific purpose; during my entire time in New York City, this never happened. I regret having lost eight and a half years of my life in New York City.
Of course, if you like money (and theater) more than anything else (I prefer education and anime), by all means, please continue to stay in New York City. After about ten years, you will become like one of the humans-turned-into-pigs-by-greed in Hayao Miyazaki’s anime film “Spirited Away” (2001), who don’t realize the change in nature until it is too late to turn back.
> now I sorely regret having heeded that voice.
Typo: I meant, “… now I sorely regret *not* having heeded that voice.
Ray S
Nate & Ben:
I lived in NYC 1960-1971 and worked there until 1999. In those 40 years, I never felt the least bit lonely.
You must have been running with the wrong crowd(s). Although they can be rather parochial at times, true NYers are among the least superficial people I know. And they don’t really give a damn about how much you’re worth. Perhaps the issue lies with you.
Ray S> You must have been running with the wrong crowd(s). Although they can be rather parochial at
Ray S> times, true NYers are among the least superficial people I know. And they don’t really give a damn
Ray S> about how much you’re worth. Perhaps the issue lies with you.
Not necessarily Nate and me personally, but perhaps our types, yes.
When I was working as ITD Coordinator for Berlitz Language Center at Rockefeller Center in New York City (between December 1999 and September 2001, when the WTC incident occurred), an Czech English/French teacher who was born in New York but who had lived for many years in Prague who was working with me also told me that she couldn’t stand New York City because she felt the people were too “cold.” I asked her where in the city, and she replied, “Everywhere.” She said that she didn’t feel this way in Prague, and went back to there after less than a year.
Another coworker from Southampton, Massachusetts, who was very laid-back, also didn’t like living in New York City because she felt that people there were too “aggressive.” She had a particular dislike of competitiveness in people.
Perhaps there are certain types of people who just don’t fit into New York. So perhaps the issue lies, not with us per se, but with our types.
In particular, I noticed that many people in New York City seemed to have a strong sense of personal space, and that people who didn’t share this sense often didn’t fit in. This idea also ties in with what I wrote earlier about the lack of a sense of community at many workplaces there. For example, when I was working there, people usually came to work separately, went to lunch separately, and went home separately. Occasionally people would gather together to discuss something specific, but this was not the norm. This is very different from in Tokyo, for example, where most people have lunch with the same group of people every day. I suspect that this is probably also different from in Prague and Southampton, which are both much smaller cities/towns than New York City. Not everybody in the world has a strong sense of personal space; before going to college, I definitely didn’t.
I keep adding friends, but the hole in my heart is big.. hahahahaha =)
Monica
The key point to remember is — if you want a friend, you need to be a friend. It takes a good deal of time and personal effort and taking the initiative to make friends. You have to work at it, as with all relationships, and it’s only after it’s well established that it feels effortless.
Benjamin, as for your statement about the main question people ask of strangers based on where they’re from, I like to think the question from most Chicagoans is, “How are you?”
Will
@Nate+Benjamin: Interesting stories.
In my experience, Meetup.com can help solve some of that.
There are a few good people in/near the city if you look.
I guess it depends on how bourgeois the crowd, but I always felt like the more sophisticated folks didn’t worry about it, because there you’re 1 of 2 things: A) a billionaire or B) everyone else.
Will> I guess it depends on how bourgeois the crowd, but I always felt like the more
Will> sophisticated folks didn’t worry about it, because there you’re 1 of 2 things: A)
Will> a billionaire or B) everyone else.
Well, that is exactly the cause of the problem: Materialism in friendships. The moment you create a dichotomy between the rich and the poor in friendships, you subscribe to the cause of loneliness for many people in New York City. That is exactly the reason that some people from less materialistic cities/towns, such as Prague and Southampton, feel uncomfortable in New York City. Not everybody is materialistic. There are many fascinating cities in the world where money doesn’t buy “friendship” (I put the word in double-quotes because friendship isn’t really about money, whatever some people in New York City think).
Back to the issue of personality types and loneliness, one thought that just occurred to me was that an additional factor could be the Myers-Briggs personality type. Specifically, I once did some research into the relation between personality types and loneliness, and discovered that of the sixteen Myers-Briggs personality types, there is one type that is especially prone to depression and loneliness: INFP’s (Introverted iNtuitive Feeler-Perceivers, also known as “Dreamers”). According to “cybette’s blog: INFP = ADD = Depression?” (see http://blog.cybette.com/archives/000089.html):
> From keirsey.com, it mentions that Healers (INFP’s) are found in only 1 percent of
> the general population, although, at times, their idealism leaves them feeling even
> more isolated from the rest of humanity. This is leading to my main point for this
> entry: the association between the INFP type and characteristics like loneliness,
> depression as well as ADD/ADHD.
I recently took the Myers-Briggs personality test, and was classified as an INFP. I used to enjoy writing English haiku in college, and was constantly depressed throughout my entire college years and afterwards because I felt extremely lonely and the environments in New Haven (the city where I went to college) and New York City did not fulfill my interests, especially in anime and Japanese RPG’s. Now I don’t feel lonely or depressed anymore because I live within easy commuting distance of Akihabara, where there are many similar people with almost identical interests, and because ANIMAX, a Japanese anime channel, is available here twenty-fours a day by cable. In New York City, I stuck out like a sore thumb.
If one is of a certain personality type which is sensitive to value conflicts and is in the wrong environment, it is possible that those factors alone can cause intense loneliness, such as what I experienced in studying computer science while wanting to write English haiku in college (I studied computer science because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find a job near Akihabara if I focused exclusively on English haiku, but actually disliked both mathematics and most programming (except for Scheme and Haskell), and was constantly looking for a missing link between poetry and computer science).
Refreshing to know I’ve been right about this all along. Always felt this way but now I can prove what I’ve always preached and believed with this evidence. :)