A survey of Finnish university students found that over half of them felt lonely and it was impacting on their lives.
The respondents said feelings of loneliness impacted managing daily activities (77%), mental health (64%) and fatigue (64%). Those participating in the survey also associated loneliness with concentration problems (52%) and skipping classes (38%).
What is more, "Forty-three percent said they felt that they could not change their situation".
Powerless.
Is that true?
For a long time now, I have been harping on about how the changing culture which young people defend so intensely as progressive, is progressing into isolation, anxiety, depression and loneliness. Yet, many still believe that we are on the right track, that because kids are growing up with technology from a young age, they have been able to evolve beyond the normal constraints and predispositions of human, to be empowered, not minimized.
The numbers tell a different story.
Isn't it funny how we have shifted into a world of data, relying on numbers, but as soon as those numbers don't corroborate our story, we go back to belief?
A recent report out of France which was commissioned to suggest guidelines for screens and social media, suggested things like virtually no screen time for under 6 (including educational content), very restricted for under 13, and a minimum age of 18 for use of mass social media. The study looked at how young brains weren't developing properly, which means there are developmental problems.
Brain damage.
Intellectual disability, social disability, physical disability, and all the other possible forms if disability out there. Yet, this isn't by accident or disease.
It is by design.
This digital world that us being peddled and lapped up, fought for, defended - isn't some natural phenomena, it is a business model. It is a set of products designed to generate profits with increasing efficiency, and there is no interest in promoting wellbeing, because healthy people consume less resources. There is a whole chain of consumptive needs to pay for when ill, and a lot of them are paid for by tax money.
Ever thought about that?
Most countries have social security systems to tend to the needs of the ill, which essentially means that people are forced to pay, they have no choice. A healthy person still pays for being sick, and the corporations can even overcharge for their products, because the government's don't have to worry about costs, as it isn't their money.
People don't seem to realize the scam in play here, as they demand more money from the governments. However, that money comes by taking debt, which is essentially borrowing from the future. What this does is force people to spend money that they don't have yet, while lining the pockets of today with what is effectively a higher value amount, because it is being brought forward from a place where it would have depreciated. And then, we get to pay interest on what was borrowed to cover the inflation, plus add the margin.
Do you see how loneliness fits into this?
The digital for profit model, is about dividing and conquering. And it does it in such an insidious way, because that journey to isolation feels so good, with a million little dopamine kicks, like bread crumbs that don't lead out of the forest, but deep into the witches house.
There have never been so many people on this earth.
There has never been so many ways to isolate on screens.
And there have never been so many lonely people.
Do the math.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
The idea was that before we were enjoying solitude, with a busy life, but now they are getting loneliness instead.
Solitude is building, loneliness is destroying. And they look the same from afar.
The mantra of "make space for yourself" seems to have been taken too far so all people have is, space for themselves.
We are social creatures, the space for ourselves is meant to be inner space, inside our mind screen.
By the way, did you start that inner space memory recreation technique? The one with the room? How is it going?
I haven't yet, though I have done something similar a long time ago for memory. My memory is okay though, it is just the automatic process that destroys my ability to create. Thought is exhausting.
This is not about memory, but more about focus and visualisation. Like a muscle, do it enough time and the thought and ability to create and visualise will become easier. At least this is how it works normally, i do not know about anyone who had a stroke or something similar doing it, so there is no precedent. But all these exercises are just to get good enough to start the lucid dreaming ones. In time. When you can visualize and maintain a whole building in your inner screen. Or street. He he! (I am a bit of a maniac in testing and adapting all kinds of techniques, any culture, any science, even if I do not have enough time to master them by now (50 years old, I know).
For example, did you know that there is a way to gain synesthesia, other than by accident? Of course, as every good thing that needs to rewire our brain pathways, takes years to get results. The idea is, that our brain can do incredible things, only that it takes time, a lot of time, to undue damage.
About children, is good to dedicate a day to one sense, like a game. One day be aware of all smells, sounds, or what you touch. Is quite educational, and extends the limits of our perception. Bit by bit.
Prior to the stroke, my visualization skills were up there with the best of them. Unfortunately, the ability to visualize lays somewhere in the dead bit of brain in my cerebellum. The amount of effort it takes to think now is quite intense, and it is whenever I am thinking, like a constant buzz of energy depleting me.
I like this. I might play some of these things with Smallsteps!
I should correct - I think it is my ability to automate visualization. Everything is manual and IU can do it with effort, but there is unlikely to ever be that automation again.
The best I can describe the energy it takes is something like, in your head work out what 137/4.7 = while doing your work tasks at the same time. And then once you get the answer, do 211/3.7= and so on and so forth until the end of the day. Then look at how productive you were at work :)
I see, as more like the fine-tuning of multi-tasking. But you know the example of the guy without a quarter of a brain, lost in an accident, still functioning normally, as years later the doctors said that the other parts of the brain got in and adapted to compensate for the missing one.
Made me think to the story from The Alchemist book about the meaning of life:
'Before Melchizedek leaves, he tells Santiago the story of a shopkeeper who sends his son to learn the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The boy finds the man in a beautiful castle in the desert. The wise man tells the boy to spend time looking around while balancing a spoonful of oil. When the boy returns, he says he didn’t pay attention to any of the castle’s splendor because he concentrated on the oil. The wise man sends him out again to see the castle, and the boy returns having seen the castle but having also spilled the oil. The wise man tells him he must admire the castle without forgetting the oil. The story reminds Santiago of a shepherd always needing to remember his flock.'
Meaning of life being to admire all the wonders without losing the oil from the spoon.
I can bet that it has increased after pandemic, but I can't prove :)
Loneliness has tripled in Finland since 2016 apparently.
Are they lonely or are they just bored? We find a lot of times people just can't handle being bored anymore. They are so used to going all the time or having a screen in front of them. Just being still throws them into a mental state of unease or despair.
There is the bored factor too, but I think that they are also lonely on top. There was a study a few months back of Finnish students and they also identified as bored and there was the recommendation to make learning more fun. Learning doesn't have to be fun to be learned - it needs to be compelling to learn.
Yeah, I feel like they are aiming at the wrong target there.
Who designed this world where screens are causing brain damage in order to sell healthcare products?
Supply, demand, convenience, profit seeking. It is the way business aligns. In the not too distant past, a company would have to offer something relatively useful in order to sell a product, now they have to offer something entertaining. Even schools have taken a "learning should be fun" approach and sticking kids on tablets, when that is not actually the best way for kids to learn. A few hundred thousand years of no fun learning, and suddenly that is no longer suitable in the last few decades.
I sure have! Thank you for writing about this problem so often. It is fixable, by getting our kids off screens. Covid forced them out of their most primary social spaces, back into their homes, or their dorm rooms, out of school and jobs. Yes, it is by design. They were taught to be afraid of social contact. We let that happen. We must not let it happen again.
It is interesting that people are still afraid of social contact, still isolating, still so scared of catching a cold, that they are willing to destroy their life.
Surreal. Those poor people have been terribly harmed somehow. I'm beginning to think viruses are not even a thing, that we never have anything to fear from others in terms of contagion, it's all phony and designed to divide us.
Food animals are being tested here in the US, and any that test positive, which are many, are being slaughtered as far as I can find out. Few of these animals are actually sick, but are being culled whenever the virus is "detected." Dogs and cats, too. Boy are they ramping up the fear on this one. What a handy tool birds are spreading fear - they can fly anywhere. The World Organization for Animal Health recommends that whole herds of almost anything be vaccinated. Here it comes. And first, they are coming for our animals, pets included. The Nazis did that.
I also think that people are being saturated with information and social interaction. Before the internet, people need to call one another or talk face to face to get updated with anything about their friends and family. Now, they find out about it from posts. So when they do meet up and talk, it just becomes superficial and small talk. There isn't much connection left. Conversing via messages doesn't have the same effect since they can't see the facial expression and body movement.
Not interaction, voyeurism. But, I get your point. There isn't much depth left from people who spend their time on social media. However, the people who are more analog, they still have some depth left and are often hungry for a decent talk.
The truth, Mr. Taraz, is that in the end, because of social networks, many people, in addition to loneliness, depression awaits them when they encounter reality.
The one that is not on the networks but that hits them daily and tells them that they lack and who they really are.
They should change the name of social networks to something like media distribution hubs.
Divide and conquer. I’ve never seen that tactic to fail. A three fold cord cannot be torn apart, so it gets separated.
I suppose we still have it good. There is very little hope for the next generation.
I am not sure it has ever failed. We have it good from our past, but now we get impacted by the generations that are a mess too.
The social media is giving so many of us the reason to be alone and these affects us so much, as there is no more bonds. Children do not bond with their parents and relationships are being unstable.
In the French study, they were looking at how parents don't bond with children, because they are on phones too.
Sometimes I used to feel my children may start their formal education when they were ten so that I could bond with them
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I don’t think we’re on the right track. So many young ones now die of depression or anything about loneliness all because we’re in the technology era and they’d rather stick to their phones than talk to someone
What a sad state of affairs we are living in that profits are more important than the health of society. Ultimately, dialing down consumption should be a good thing, but not for capitalism I guess.