Could creating your own AI friendship circle be the answer to the loneliness epidemic, or are users at danger of being isolated further? Kevin Roose decided to find out for @nytimes, by creating a group of 18 friends, entirely from AI. Here's how he found it.
I contributed to a report for the WHO Behaviour and Cultural Insights Hub, so that's pretty cool. It's about how history (all sorts of times, contexts and considerations) can inform how we think about and address loneliness today, and is a super interesting read: https://bci-hub.org/documents/history-loneliness-what-we-know-so-far#history#loneliness
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"A unique combination of heavy riffs and emotions packed in a dark and deep creative context. We just call it Nordic Gothic."
I find it interesting that some people think loneliness is a personal condition rather than a societal one. I never saw that argument generally made, but maybe people blame themselves for their own sense of loneliness?
"So much of contemporary discussion about the impact of social and technological changes on people’s psychology – from the influence of social media on the wellbeing of the young to the effect of hyper-individualism on our sense of self – fetishises the psychology at the expense of social analysis. We look for loneliness inside our heads when its source lies all around us, in the destruction of collective life, the erosion of communal bonds, the ruin of civil society, the squeezing of public spaces. We could do with obsessing less about personality types than about the obsession with the psychological at the expense of the social."
"We look for loneliness inside our heads when its source lies all around us, in the destruction of collective life, the erosion of communal bonds, the ruin of civil society, the squeezing of public spaces"
Loneliness is as bad for one's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day according to researchers. A report has found that Australians aged 28-24 years old suffer from loneliness the most and over 70% of Australians have less than 60 minutes of face-to-face contact a day.
"When you're physically present with another person, the chemical, brain-to-brain interaction is much more effective and cannot be replicated by technology," says a neuro-science expert, Dr Fiona Kerr.
Socialising often costs money so people without money can become more socially isolated. This is something to be mindful of when organising to go out with friends and family or if you are a member of an organisation that puts on events.
Some thoughts to those inclined to take the word of 'respectable' public figures (who are actually authoritarians and even génocidaires), and to those who have grown cynical of all lying politicians:
There used to be a concept called 'leaving hostages to fortune', in which public figures learned to avoid making promises or offering falsehoods that were vulnerable to thwarting/exposure by future contingencies.
Under the assumption that having your lies exposed or rash promise invalidated would be potentially career-ending, it used to sometimes be reasonable to operate on an epistemic criterion of "embarrassment", where we could increase our level of trust in a statement made by a public figure if it (a) wasn't currently able to be confirmed but (b) it seemed obvious that they would get caught out for lying if it were not true. I.e. "They wouldn't lie about that, right?"
However, the information landscape has profoundly shifted in recent years. (Or has seemed to for some people. See below)
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In an age where social trust is deliberately poisoned by those who will profit (politically/financially) from a landscape dominated by suspicion, what is most needed are not more fact-checking pieces unpicking the latest bullshit from the sophistry of increasingly undisguised authoritarian cult leaders, but the nurturing of more direct interpersonal relationships in which the value of truth, trust and companionship can be experienced firsthand. Authoritarianism requires (and perpetuates) social atomisation. The epidemic of #loneliness exploding around the world (especially amongst young people) is both symptom and cause of the erosion of public life and the occlusion of any shared sense of a desirable future.
I said earlier that the information landscape has changed. At one level, it has. At another very important level, this change has primarily been in the experience of many of us in (so-called) western liberal democracies, who previously enjoyed the #privilege of feeling less routinely lied. Citizens of the majority world have for decades/lifetimes experienced a similar pattern of shamelessly manipulative falsehoods and consequence-free empty promises from leaders in the #ImperialCore.
Excellent article on loneliness, not just on the support and social aspect, but the problems with not feeling you have any control.
“Loneliness has always been explained as a deficit in the satisfaction of one’s communion or relational needs,” Ybarra says. “But in addition to communion needs, individuals also need agency, personal control and choice, and not meeting this need should also affect experienced loneliness.”
☝️ related to this article, I have been having a lot of side chats with folks re loneliness and with an aim to help people connect as well as create a sense of agency, I wondered about it now exists! [@lonelinesscorps ] group where people could reach out when they are lonely and chat (peer support), but also share resources and ideas for more local or niche specific projects (agency), start building the infrastructure to ameliorate the isolation. #loneliness
I have some asks re logistics...
can someone explain mastondon groups to me? How are they are set up, do they need to be monitored? I see some really effective ones going, but also some that don't take off.
Does anybody want to take this ball and run with it? I don't have the chuff to lead on this one, but can hopefully help connect the right pieces and generally uplift this.
Also, pls comment with any groups or tags any of you are finding useful when yer lonely, let's start by sharing some resources! #loneliness
@lonelinesscorps ]
we'll use this as a vehicle to help people connect both when they are feeling lonely (peer support) and as a place to share resources and projects for community building online or irl.
Plus need ~12 trunkies to help enliven the group and get the conversations rolling. Ping me if ya wanna help (especially if yer lonely). #loneliness#lonelinessCorps#mentalHealth
I'm trying to sign up for men's #cooking#lessons here in #Japan to placate my busy #Japanese wife. While she was away, I made this cheese omelette; beginner's luck! A #community center has me on a waiting list, or I could spill for more upscale lessons. It is astonishing and unJapanese that single-person #households are approaching 40%. #Single#men of all ages have a poor #diet, which exacerbates the #lifespan gap with #women. #Loneliness is also a #health hazard. Many men are #widowed, never #married, or their #wives#divorce them, often after the children become independent and the husband is useless around the house after a busy career. Single men, or married men interested in cooking or helping their wives, possibly fearing their wives' pent-up anger, can find #companionship as well as #survival#skills in cooking lessons. Men's classes start from zero; women #cook and #socialize.
A mountain of research has linked loneliness to an increased risk of dementia, depression, anxiety, heart disease, stroke and early death. The Board of Supervisors of San Mateo county, which includes part of Silicon Valley, passed a resolution on Tuesday that declared loneliness a public health crisis and pledged to explore...
Silicon Valley county becomes first in U.S. to declare loneliness a health emergency (www.nbcnews.com)
A mountain of research has linked loneliness to an increased risk of dementia, depression, anxiety, heart disease, stroke and early death. The Board of Supervisors of San Mateo county, which includes part of Silicon Valley, passed a resolution on Tuesday that declared loneliness a public health crisis and pledged to explore...