ENGL 1102H Spring 2024 (Mitchell): Seek You Essay

Social isolation has serious repercussions for people and communities across the globe, yet knowledge about this phenomenon has remained rather limited - until now. The first multidisciplinary study to explore this issue, Social Isolation in Modern Society integrates relevant research traditions in the social sciences and brings together sociological theories of social networks and psychological theories of feelings of loneliness. Both traditions are embedded in research, with the results of a large-scale international study being used to describe the extent, nature and divergent manifestations of social isolation. With a new approach to social inequality, this empirically based study includes concrete policy recommendations, and presents a clear insight into personal, social and socio-economic causes and the consequences of social isolation.

Insight into our new world of loneliness that offers solace, hope, and solutions. Even before 2020, chronic loneliness was a private experience of profound anguish that had become a public health crisis. Since then it has reached new heights. Loneliness assumes many forms, from enduring physical isolation to feeling rejected because of difference, and it can have devastating consequences for our physical and mental health. As the founder of Project UnLonely, Jeremy Nobel unpacks our personal and national experiences of loneliness to discover its roots and to show how we can take steps to find comfort and connection.      Dr. Nobel brings together many voices, from pioneering researchers, to leaders in business, education, the arts, and healthcare, to lonely people of every age, background, and circumstance. He discovers that the pandemic isolated us in ways that were not only physical, and that, at its core, a true sense of loneliness results from a disconnection to the self. He clarifies how meaningful reconnection can be nourished and sustained. And he reveals that an important component of the healing process is engaging in creativity, a powerful opportunity he shows us can be accessed by all.    Supportive and clear-eyed, this is the book we will take into our new normal and rely on for years to come.

Loneliness is a feeling of sadness or distress about being by yourself or feeling disconnected from the world around you, which is felt more over a long period of time. It is even possible to feel lonely in a crowd. Social isolation, on the other hand, is being separated from other people and your environment, due to either personal decisions or circumstances. Chronic loneliness is on the rise in Australia; many of us, including seemingly connected young people, lack strong and meaningful relationships to enrich our lives and protect our physical and mental health and general wellbeing. According to a recent report on loneliness, one in four Australians reported feeling lonely each week. Experts warn of a “loneliness epidemic” that could become our next public health crisis.
What causes social isolation and loneliness and who experiences it? This book explores the extent and impacts of loneliness and isolation, and offers advice on how to encourage social connections so that you don’t have to go it alone.

This book presents an intricate, interdisciplinary evaluation of loneliness that examines the relation of consciousness to loneliness. It views loneliness from the inside as a universal human condition rather than attempting to explain it away as an aberration, a mental disorder, or a temporary state to be addressed by superficial therapy and psychiatric medication. Loneliness is much more than just feeling sad or isolated. It is the ultimate ground source of unhappiness--the underlying reality of all negative human behavior that manifests as anxiety, depression, envy, guilt, hostility, or shame. It underlies aggression, domestic violence, murder, PTSD, suicide, and other serious issues. This book explains why the drive to avoid loneliness and secure intimacy is the most powerful psychological need in all human beings; documents how human beings gravitate between two motivational poles: loneliness and intimacy; and advocates for an understanding of loneliness through the principles of idealism, rationalism, and insight. Readers will understand the underlying theory of consciousness that explains why people are lonely, thereby becoming better equipped to recognize sources of loneliness in themselves as well as others. Written by a licensed social worker and former mental health therapist, the book documents why whenever individuals or groups feel lonely, alienated, estranged, disenfranchised, or rejected, they will either withdraw within and shut down, or they will attack others with little thought of consequence to either themselves or others. Perhaps most importantly, the work identifies the antidotes to loneliness as achieving a sense of belonging, togetherness, and intimacy through empathic emotional attachments, which come from a mutual sharing of "lived experiences" such as feelings, meanings, and values; constant positive communication; and equal decision making.

The personal and societal effects of the unheralded epidemic of social isolation in America In our culture it's more socially acceptable to be depressed than to be lonely. Yet loneliness is the inevitable byproduct of our frenetic contemporary lifestyle. In this marvelously acute critique of how we live, psychiatrists Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz show how the American lifestyle leads to social isolation. With a work ethic that emphasizes productivity over personal relationships and a multiplying menu of electronic diversions and distractions, Americans are responding by isolating themselves from an overstimulating world. But even as people seek respite from public life, they are shocked to find themselves feeling left out. Research shows that when people feel socially excluded, their cognition deteriorates and they become self-destructive and hostile. These ideas have been neglected in the world of psychology and psychiatry, but a socially isolated core population has now grown too large to be ignored. Calling on their extensive clinical experience, new social surveys (including the 2004 General Social Survey and the Pew Internet and American Life Project), and recent research on the physiological and cognitive effects of social exclusion, Olds and Schwartz uncover the ripple effects of social isolation in areas as varied as physical health, children's emotional problems, substance abuse, violent crime--even global warming. They conclude that electronic connection is no substitute for face-to-face interaction.

Once we bowled in leagues, usually after work -- but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolizes a significant social change that Robert Putnam has identified in this brilliant volume, Bowling Alone, which The Economist hailed as "a prodigious achievement." Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures -- whether they be PTA, church, or political parties -- have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe. Like defining works from the past, such as The Lonely Crowd and The Affluent Society, and like the works of C. Wright Mills and Betty Friedan, Putnam's Bowling Alone has identified a central crisis at the heart of our society and suggests what we can do.