Feeling alone isn't an intellectual mechanism but a physical one. Evolutionarily we are social animals, and to be a social animal doesn't mean just communicating information or staring at a 2D image, it means physical proximity and visceral presence. The problem with social media technology is that it fools you into thinking you are satisfying your evolutionary social needs when in fact you are not. You are accepting a cheap substitute that lacks most of the vital 'social nutrients' you require for your mental state to be healthily satisfied. Think of interacting on social media as the 'fast food' of socializing, it is expedient, tempting, efficient, and addictive, but if it makes up your entire diet it will destroy your health. And just like fast food it fills you up, so after partaking in it you lose the drive to pursue actual face to face social situations. So when people have so many friends they keep in touch with online regularly, why are they so lonely, so unfulfilled? Because it is the visceral that is true socializing, the sight, the smell, the touch, the physical reactions to your presence that are fed back to you real-time from your companions and then consequently yours back to them, the subtle body language cues that are impossible to really properly convey over a fuzzy and glitching Zoom call with intermittently garbled audio. Compare how you feel after a group video chat compared to an actual night out with friends - the difference is pretty clear. But when time is so tight, when it is so easy just to post things on Facebook or comment on things posted on Facebook, and then you don't feel you need to get together with that friend that lives 20 minutes away because you've already communicated everything to them they need to know. But the information exchange is not the nutritious part of a social interaction, it is the empty carbs, the pu-pu platter that leaves you hungry again in a half hour. This is why you need to keep checking your social media constantly - because the quick sugar rush of a new post or response to a post wears off faster and faster. So you feel like you have spent all day socializing, when in fact you really haven't at all. Certainly when people are truly unreachable physically because of distance, social media really helps keep a form of connection, but you cannot sustain the most meaningful and pertinent relationships in your life via these technological shortcuts. Long distance relationships are pretty much always doomed because of this, and no amount technological upgrades to our remote communication methods since the hand written and delivered letter can change this. You may be able to be able to maintain a casual friendship indefinitely online, but you can't do that with a serious, romantic, sole-mate relationship or stay best friends this way because the most important ingredients of maintaining these kinds of intimate relationships aren't available online; these are by definition offline only types relationships. The people that are in your physical sphere will eventually supplant the role of those we try to hang onto at a distance regardless of how strong the initial connection was. Best and good friends become old friends and acquaintances, and love affairs lose their luster, fizzle and die. So if you don't make the time and effort to create a real, meaningful, physical social sphere, all you are left with is a 'social media life' that fills you up but yet still leaves you starving an feeling hollow inside.
This is practically a newsletter unto itself! You make some excellent points and I agree with your assertions. Thanks for reading and taking the time to write your thoughts.
Not at all! I enjoyed reading what you wrote. I guess for me, it's not an either/or concept of intellectual versus physical "aloneness" or loneliness (different things to me) but the impact of a much different world we live in now compared to a time pre-social media (or simply internet) during which we just wouldn't have even considered the idea of digital relationships versus "real" ones. In other words, we just didn't think about it and there wasn't any other option. I am not sure I would have kept in touch with most people after my "in person" time was done for one reason or another (graduation, change of job, where I worked out, etc.). I just would have moved on and that would have been it. So now, we can know and see what others are doing and so we are faced with more choice and thus, more opportunity for comparison. My social interactions perhaps were richer back then but I probably didn't think about it one way or another. I totally agree with you that they were probably better (akin to the nutritious food you compared it to versus fast food) and that simply consuming social "fast food" ends up being very empty. No question in my mind. Honestly, you are probably one of a handful of people I have known as long as I have and actually still have a personal relationship with. I wonder how people younger (like our kids) view that concept. I really don't know. To them it may not be very significant or perhaps it is and they don't know it. Interesting concepts for sure. I really appreciate you keeping up with these pieces of writing. Makes me want to actually keep writing them.
Feeling alone isn't an intellectual mechanism but a physical one. Evolutionarily we are social animals, and to be a social animal doesn't mean just communicating information or staring at a 2D image, it means physical proximity and visceral presence. The problem with social media technology is that it fools you into thinking you are satisfying your evolutionary social needs when in fact you are not. You are accepting a cheap substitute that lacks most of the vital 'social nutrients' you require for your mental state to be healthily satisfied. Think of interacting on social media as the 'fast food' of socializing, it is expedient, tempting, efficient, and addictive, but if it makes up your entire diet it will destroy your health. And just like fast food it fills you up, so after partaking in it you lose the drive to pursue actual face to face social situations. So when people have so many friends they keep in touch with online regularly, why are they so lonely, so unfulfilled? Because it is the visceral that is true socializing, the sight, the smell, the touch, the physical reactions to your presence that are fed back to you real-time from your companions and then consequently yours back to them, the subtle body language cues that are impossible to really properly convey over a fuzzy and glitching Zoom call with intermittently garbled audio. Compare how you feel after a group video chat compared to an actual night out with friends - the difference is pretty clear. But when time is so tight, when it is so easy just to post things on Facebook or comment on things posted on Facebook, and then you don't feel you need to get together with that friend that lives 20 minutes away because you've already communicated everything to them they need to know. But the information exchange is not the nutritious part of a social interaction, it is the empty carbs, the pu-pu platter that leaves you hungry again in a half hour. This is why you need to keep checking your social media constantly - because the quick sugar rush of a new post or response to a post wears off faster and faster. So you feel like you have spent all day socializing, when in fact you really haven't at all. Certainly when people are truly unreachable physically because of distance, social media really helps keep a form of connection, but you cannot sustain the most meaningful and pertinent relationships in your life via these technological shortcuts. Long distance relationships are pretty much always doomed because of this, and no amount technological upgrades to our remote communication methods since the hand written and delivered letter can change this. You may be able to be able to maintain a casual friendship indefinitely online, but you can't do that with a serious, romantic, sole-mate relationship or stay best friends this way because the most important ingredients of maintaining these kinds of intimate relationships aren't available online; these are by definition offline only types relationships. The people that are in your physical sphere will eventually supplant the role of those we try to hang onto at a distance regardless of how strong the initial connection was. Best and good friends become old friends and acquaintances, and love affairs lose their luster, fizzle and die. So if you don't make the time and effort to create a real, meaningful, physical social sphere, all you are left with is a 'social media life' that fills you up but yet still leaves you starving an feeling hollow inside.
This is practically a newsletter unto itself! You make some excellent points and I agree with your assertions. Thanks for reading and taking the time to write your thoughts.
I really do enjoy your articles though. Between your stuff and Zach's URI articles I get some pretty regular reading in.
Yeah I got a little carried away with that one 😁
Not at all! I enjoyed reading what you wrote. I guess for me, it's not an either/or concept of intellectual versus physical "aloneness" or loneliness (different things to me) but the impact of a much different world we live in now compared to a time pre-social media (or simply internet) during which we just wouldn't have even considered the idea of digital relationships versus "real" ones. In other words, we just didn't think about it and there wasn't any other option. I am not sure I would have kept in touch with most people after my "in person" time was done for one reason or another (graduation, change of job, where I worked out, etc.). I just would have moved on and that would have been it. So now, we can know and see what others are doing and so we are faced with more choice and thus, more opportunity for comparison. My social interactions perhaps were richer back then but I probably didn't think about it one way or another. I totally agree with you that they were probably better (akin to the nutritious food you compared it to versus fast food) and that simply consuming social "fast food" ends up being very empty. No question in my mind. Honestly, you are probably one of a handful of people I have known as long as I have and actually still have a personal relationship with. I wonder how people younger (like our kids) view that concept. I really don't know. To them it may not be very significant or perhaps it is and they don't know it. Interesting concepts for sure. I really appreciate you keeping up with these pieces of writing. Makes me want to actually keep writing them.