The Trouble With Loneliness And How It’s Slowly Killing You
By: Corey Mccomb
Tags: Pyschology, Human Behavior, Personal Growth, Self, Creativity

Armed with endless entertainment and on-demand dopamine machines, opting-out of in-person, human-to-human contact is more than optional — it’s addicting.

For millions of years, our earliest human ancestors lived in small tribes of around 50 people, enduring all aspects of life together. All actions, thoughts, and emotions were driven by a singular purpose: Do what’s best for the tribe. It wasn’t a question of morale, but a necessity for survival.

Then everything changed. The first agricultural revolution of 10,000 BC came around and tribes learned to farm. Small groups became large societies. First slowly, then suddenly, people accumulated “personal property” and existed as individuals — two concepts that had never existed before. Most evolutionary biologists agree that it takes at least 25,000 years before genetic adaptations appear in humans. And since it’s only been about 12,000 years since that first, big agricultural shift, humans today have hardly had enough time to update their hardwiring to fit the new world of optional isolation.

In his wonderful book, Tribe, Sabastian Junger details how this ancient shift has affected modern society:

“A person living in a modern city or a suburb can, for the first time in history, go through an entire day — or an entire life — mostly encountering complete strangers. They can be surrounded by others and yet feel deeply and dangerously alone. […] Although happiness is notoriously subjective and difficult to measure, mental illness is not. Numerous cross-culture studies have shown that modern society — despite its nearly miraculous advances in medicine, science, and technology — is afflicted with some of the highest rates of depression, schizophrenia, poor health, anxiety, and chronic loneliness in human history.”

Armed with endless entertainment and on-demand dopamine machines, opting-out of in-person, human-to-human contact is more than optional — it’s addicting. There’s even a joke among millennials that goes, “Getting older is just you and your friends each saying how busy you are and promising to hang out when things slow down, over and over, until you die.”

It takes effort to create and nurture relationships. And since our society celebrates putting our passion above all else, sacrificing social time for work is socially accepted. The good news is that we don’t actually need hours of coffee dates or dinner parties to scratch our evolutionary itch. Simple acts like holding the door open for a stranger, or making small talk with a cashier, can help combat the consequences of loneliness. It’s the little things, like saying, “Hello, how are you?” or just wearing a smile in public, that sends a signal to our brain that says, “Hey, I’m part of this human race.”

Like many others, I’ve often fantasized about that remote cabin in the woods. The one where I escape from it all, crank out deep work, and avoid the distractions of others. I held this belief, or “story,” close as I dug myself into a hole of disconnect. I pushed off hanging with others in order to write. Instead of spending an hour catching up with an old friend, I’d tell them I needed to “catch up” on my work. I didn’t yet understand that time with other humans was a vital part of doing great work, being creative, and maintaining a sense of flow. And while I still dream of that hidden cabin in the woods, I’ve learned that there’s a thin line between the power of solitude and the pitfalls of loneliness.

Loneliness — whether one actually feels lonely or not — is a subtle dagger. It attacks our body’s ability to self-regulate. And a perpetual lack of human connection can lead to self-soothing vices like drugs and overeating, or conditions like chronic fatigue. It’s true that these coping mechanisms are linked to an array of mental health issues, but they almost all stem from a deep and primal need to care for and be cared for by other human beings.

You can take all the personality tests, read all the horoscopes, and decide where you fall on the scale of introvert and extrovert, but there’s no denying millions of years of evolutionary hardwiring.