Photos of a chance meeting between a young man and an older woman at McDonald's recently went viral. Eric Harolson, sensing that Jan Jessup didn't want to eat alone, accepted her invitation to join her, leading to a long conversation about everything from car painting to loving thy neighbor. Contrast this with Gregory Bowers, accused of the mass shooting that took 11 lives at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Neighbors saw him as "a ghost" who rarely interacted with others. His Web photo showed him with three guns, which he described as his "family." Both stories illustrate the core argument of Senator Ben Sasse's new book, Them, a reflection on how loneliness is scarring the American landscape.
We are a social species, needing human connection. Newborn babies will cry if they hear another baby cry, but not at a recording of their own crying. Babies who lack comforting can develop anaclitic depression, whose symptoms may include fear, withdrawal, detachment and even severe physical, intellectual, and emotional damage.
As adults, research by behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman found that activities such as having sex, socializing after work and having dinner with friends were most likely to be associated with feeling happy, while solitary ones, such as commuting, were not. Lonely people are more likely to be depressed and, as Sasse notes, loneliness can reduce longevity more than heavy drinking and obesity. Men under 45 are more likely to die in a given year if they are bachelors, and people with weaker links to others have higher concentrations of fibrinogen, a biomarker for inflammation and cardiac risk.
In a recent study by Cigna, a health insurer, 54 percent of respondents said they always or sometimes feel lonely. Fifty-six percent sometimes or always feel that people around them "are not necessarily with them." As columnist David Brooks recently noted, "[P]eople, especially in the middle- and working-class slices of society, are less likely to volunteer in their community, less likely to go to church, less likely to know their neighbors, less likely to be married than they were at any time over the past several decades." Our need for human connection is, for too many, going wanting.
Sasse argues that economically failing communities destroy long-established patterns of rootedness. But even in wealthier areas, more people lead lives isolated from traditional institutions, associations, family and friends. Though the post-World War II "me" generation highlighted growing narcissism, the tendency of people to become isolated did not begin then. Psychologist Eric Fromm, writing in the midst of that war, noted that the tendency of people to become increasingly independent of old religious, cultural, and economic restraints left many psychologically adrift. The danger, he warned, was that we'd rather escape from freedom in submission and authoritarianism than be alone.
Being alone can be restorative. It can even propel us to seek better relationships. It's prolonged loneliness that is dangerous. For many, the danger is just to themselves. But others, Fromm warned, join groups anchored in fear and expressing anger. These people see themselves as "us" against "them," a destructive connectedness.
Some seek connection online. But that is not always a solution. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, was in an online forum, and Gregory Bowers relished his online presence.
Excessive online activity also comes with risks. Research by psychologist Jean Twenge shows that more time online and with social media may increase depression and suicide among adolescents. What happens, for example, if social media posts lead not to "likes" and retweets but to nothing or to cyber bullying? Such social ostracism literally "hurts." Neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger found the same brain regions activate when one is isolated from a group as when one is in physical pain.
What people need is not just "friends" or being part of a crowd. They need to feel cared about, which increases the flow of oxytocin, the "love" chemical that reduces blood pressure and decreases stress hormones. Many mass shooters have people in their lives, but not caring relationships. Everytown for Gun Safety notes that 57 percent of the mass shooters between 2009 - 2015 included a spouse, former spouse or other family member among the victims. The Cigna study found that forty percent of respondents said that their "relationships aren't meaningful."
We need individual actions, economic and social policies that support mutual caring, families and stronger communities. People need to cling less to their smart phones and more to each other. Governments need to balance the focus on economic growth and consumption, as Oren Cass argues in his new book, The Once and Future Worker, with a focus on building social capital. Print and online media should focus more on how individuals and communities are succeeding at this, because some are, and less on individuals and groups that are dividing us for their own benefit.
In the midst of our material plenty, there are too many depleted souls. Each of us starts out as an innocent baby, anxious to care and be cared for. So we need to learn how Eric Harolson and Jan Jessup managed to navigate toward a nurturing life and Gregory Bowers and Adam Lanza chose the path of taking life. Reaching out to others will not solve all such problems, but loneliness is much more likely to create them.
Photo Credit: Warren Wong on Unsplash
