Hiking alone deep in a forest and similar moments of intense solitude are not as likely to restore energy and improve social connectivity as less complete forms of loneliness, like reading in a cafe or listening to Spotify while commuting to work, suggests research published in the journal ‘PLOS ONE’.
These results are important because of the role that loneliness plays in the connectivity developmenta key factor in a person’s overall health.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention According to the U.S. CDC, strong social ties are linked to longer life expectancy, better mental health, and a lower risk of serious diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and dementia.
Morgan Quinn Ross, associate professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University, and Scott Campbell of Ohio State University, surveyed nearly 900 adults in the United States and found that activities that provide less complete forms of solitude, like playing a game on your phone or going to the movies alone, offer some advantages over a solitary car ride in the desert or writing in an isolated cabin.
“We learned that a less complete solitude “It’s more likely to restore energy and maintain a feeling of connection with others,” Ross explains. In a world where social interaction is almost always just a click away, we need to understand how to balance social interaction with different types of loneliness.”
Ross and Campbell examined the conditions under which an individual’s loneliness can be “overshadowed” by people and/or technology; Accessibility to others and engagement with media can overshadow the experience of loneliness by making time alone more social in nature, they note.
The researchers constructed a loneliness matrix that includes a basic level -without interaction with people- and a total level, which refers to inaccessibility to others and the absence of interaction with the media.
The matrix allowed them to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of loneliness, that is, whether experiencing it more fully maximizes restoration, while experiencing it less fully maximizes the relationship.
Ross points out that a widespread theory, Communicate Bond Belong, posits that social interaction can build rapport with others at the expense of social energy, and that solitude can restore social energy but at the cost of the relationship. Social energy describes a person’s capacity for social interaction and can be thought of as a battery that can be charged by completely, partially or exhausted.
“Our study suggests that loneliness is not the other side of social interaction –says Ross—. While more intense social interaction produces connection but depletes energy, more intense solitude depletes both energy and connection. “Solitude does not seem to function simply as a way to recover energy used in social interaction.”
The scientists They also found that loneliness was less detrimental to the well-being of individuals who thought it helped them regain energy and maintain connection, regardless of how much energy their social interactions cost them.
Interestingly, these findings hold true for both extroverts and introverts, says Ross, who adds that one suggestion based on the study that people could try is to try to seek solitude only when they are constructively motivated to do so.
“If you have a positive attitude towards loneliness, Because you use it to replenish your energy and you know that later you will be able to connect with people, so choosing solitude will probably make you feel better – he explains -. But if you choose solitude because of a negative attitude toward social interaction, because you don’t want to talk to people, it will probably make you feel worse.
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