That's a strange article. They seemed to have started with a conclusion and looked for supporting data.
They don't seem to have controlled for reduced physical activity. They even seem to claim obesity is a result of reduced social contact. That's a stretch.
That doesn't seem like the correct reading to me. The health consequences of isolation appears to have its own body of research. The article summarizes and cites these, but doesn't appear to be intended to engage with the question of what the health consequences of isolation are, since those are argued or established elsewhere.
So the question is how bad were lock downs for health, not if they were bad.
And anyway, reduced physical activity is one such consequence and it's not clear why you would control for it.
As an individual, your social isolation and your physical activity are both independently under your control. So it's useful to know their relative impacts on mental health.
Suppose it turned out that, when controlling for physical activity, isolation had no effect on health. Then, in the next pandemic, you should mostly focus on exercise. Or if isolation is more important, then you should focus on that.
This seems to be less a study of behavior than a hunt to justify a feeling.
Social isolation has been an increasing part of the culture since we started replacing human interaction with 'social' media. When combined with the short duration of most pandemic isolation it seems more like people are trying to conflate loneliness with some external force rather than accepting that it is a normal human state.
You don't think that the pandemic, the measures taken to mitigate it, the fiscal and monetary policies made in attempt to avert the disaster, the realized impact, and the hyper-political ultrapolarized interpretations of the goings-on, and the paranoia instilled at the social and individual level (and etc......) couldn't possibly manifest into the future?
This isn't an isolated thing, it had and continues to have runoff impacts. A lot of wild reactivity originated, you can see that in all the economic data. It's not a "short duration" it's borderline cataclysmic, maybe you're just too insulated to see it.
I don't think BLM protests or the January 6 capitol attack would have happened if people hadn't been cooped up with nothing to do but read their favorite brand of outrage news.
As a technology native, a quiet environment is the same feeling as chilling in the zone (if working on something interesting). Its not a shared experience for sure.
I enjoy golf the same way (chlling in the zone during a good workout, similar to a runners high).
I also happened to enjoy over 20,000 one-on-one interactions with work experience and technology, with the majority of it face-to-face.
Being "all people'd out (not tired of people, just not seeking empty calories for the sake of it)" is a 21st century perk.
The 1st world has always enjoyed "peace and quiet" for their own personal reasons :)
I agree. It also, it's too political to take one thing seriously on its own. After so many people have nailed their egos to the belief that social distancing and isolation, as well as mask wearing, etc. are very definitely good and that anyone violating those rules is very definitely bad, it's hard for them to accept that it might have been harmful. Similarly, for their opponents who were offended by those measures, it's hard not to go hunting for reasons why they were bad.
Humans have millions of years of evolution searing into our DNA the impulse to be social creatures. And it always struck me as actually anti-science to be very hush-hush or even outright ignorant of the profound negative consequences of social isolation. Even worse that the least vulnerable should be forced into social isolation.
The entire causal relationship of lockdowns and social isolation doesn't sit right with me, I'm sure there are anxious people that decided to spend more time isolated but my uncle couldn't do that after a few months, got covid and died. I didn't even attempt to isolate insofar friends had the same mindset and none of them isolated or reduced interactions exept bars were closed. So its not clear to me that people are capable of suvervising their own social interactions. Maybe threatening to 'reduce social interaction' had the opposite effect of creating scarcity which induced demand. This would have been stating the obvious if we're talking economics.
This is an extremely US-centric view while Nature is an international journal.
My country in Europe forced everyone to stay at home all the time for three months with a one hour allowance per day to go shopping in 5km radius and while that wasn't in place there was a 9pm curfew. Visit to hospitals and retirement homes were banned for months.
I think in this case it will get subsumed under the more robust HN consensus of "the worst thing about covid is the consequences of the mitigation measures."
Population density through out history has been far lower with far fewer people around and much more spread out. People didn't typically live in cities.
Some form of social isolation was the norm for most of human history. So I don't think you are doomed to grow crazy if you stay by yourself, we're just not used to it. No longer the norm.
Being left alone with a smartphone and "social" media apps however might cause a person to spiral.
I'm sorry, this is nonsense. Serfs worked fields in small groups in housheolds of 5-8 individuals[1] and communally feasted dozens of times per year not to mention attending religious services. Hunter gatherers spen(d)t hours a day just gossiping[2] and engaged in communal rituals[3].
We also know from studying prisoners that isolation breaks peoples' brains[4].
I believe you’re confusing meeting new people and isolation.
Living alone was extremely rare until recent history [1]. Not having freedom of movement, or not living in a city does not mean social isolation. Villages back in history used to celebrate holidays together, families were much larger, everyone knew everyone since birth etc…
I just woke up but don’t feel like pulling up the sources but I believe the exact opposite of your statement. Social isolation is a modern phenomenon that was extremely rare before in history. It was incredibly difficult to survive just by yourself.
The paper is discussing a hyper isolation that hasn’t often been seen historically. As stated, 1 in 10 Europeans didn’t see any friends or family outside of their household for an entire year.
I do agree with you that it’s ultimately apples and oranges to compare our current social state to our ancestors’.
For a long long time 9/10 of Europeans didn't leave their village for a multitude of reasons. If the village is small and remote enough that's functionally the same thing.
When you did leave you might not see your family and friends for years if you even managed to come back alive.
If you lived in a viking settlement or out in the wilderness of the Wild West or some secret monastery at the top of a mountain range in Tibet that's pretty damn isolated. Or a lighthouse. Or an island. 'etc.
Looking at population density at a global level, or at a national level, is going to be giving you misleading results. If your goal is to evaluate whether people in history lived close to other people, you need a very different metric: Population density of the neighborhood where the median person lives.
For instance, if you look at population density overall, Germany has a far higher population density than Spain. This is, however, because most of Spain is empty. Even when you look at rural areas, what you see is not American style homesteads, but people living in a relatively dense village, and traveling to their farm. In that environment, social isolation is very difficult: Just buying food and going to some kind of workplace leads to being very close to a whole lot more people than, say, your average American does.
So when we go back in time in most places, we might not see that much cross-settlement travel, but how dense are the settlements? How much can you avoid other human beings? Just like travel was dangerous, living in a place that was a long distance from your next neighbor was also dangerous: The best protection against attack was to have enough neighbors very close, as to make it really difficult to get away with attacking you. We have ruins of many settlements, going back well before writing, and it's normal to see places that might have housed a dozen or so families, all in screaming distance.
Therefore, I don't see how we can support that some form of relative social isolation was the norm everywhere. If anything, it's the modern American suburb, where in practice we don't need to exchange a word with the neighbors, and most retail transactions are impersonal, is what happens to be historically novel. The pandemic just made it more extreme.
I like this reply and agree with most of what is written.
> So when we go back in time in most places, we might not see that much cross-settlement travel, but how dense are the settlements?
Depending on when and where sometimes not very dense at all.
> How much can you avoid other human beings?
You don't need to avoid anyone but going days and weeks without speaking to people was not so inconceivable as it is now.
> If anything, it's the modern American suburb, where in practice we don't need to exchange a word with the neighbors, and most retail transactions are impersonal, is what happens to be historically novel.
That's the slightly different lament of not knowing your neighbors. The loss of togetherness and sense of community. The bad vibes. I agree with all that, you can feel more alone surrounded by an ocean of people than being part of a small tight knit group of people surrounded by an ocean. Conversely, mental health problems have been on the rise for a long time prior to the pandemic. No doubt it brought these issues to the forefront and didn't help things.
All I pointed out is that there is no shortage of precedent or examples of isolation and it does not necessarily imply that your mental health has to deteriorate.
Forced isolation or alienation from neighbors on the other hand is far more likely to be harmful. So is substituting actual social relationships with parasocial interactions
online and apps.
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They don't seem to have controlled for reduced physical activity. They even seem to claim obesity is a result of reduced social contact. That's a stretch.
So the question is how bad were lock downs for health, not if they were bad.
And anyway, reduced physical activity is one such consequence and it's not clear why you would control for it.
Suppose it turned out that, when controlling for physical activity, isolation had no effect on health. Then, in the next pandemic, you should mostly focus on exercise. Or if isolation is more important, then you should focus on that.
[sarc] Not sure what about that could cause anxiety or depression in anyone, they just needed to hang out more. [/sarc]
Social isolation has been an increasing part of the culture since we started replacing human interaction with 'social' media. When combined with the short duration of most pandemic isolation it seems more like people are trying to conflate loneliness with some external force rather than accepting that it is a normal human state.
This isn't an isolated thing, it had and continues to have runoff impacts. A lot of wild reactivity originated, you can see that in all the economic data. It's not a "short duration" it's borderline cataclysmic, maybe you're just too insulated to see it.
I enjoy golf the same way (chlling in the zone during a good workout, similar to a runners high).
I also happened to enjoy over 20,000 one-on-one interactions with work experience and technology, with the majority of it face-to-face.
Being "all people'd out (not tired of people, just not seeking empty calories for the sake of it)" is a 21st century perk.
The 1st world has always enjoyed "peace and quiet" for their own personal reasons :)
My country in Europe forced everyone to stay at home all the time for three months with a one hour allowance per day to go shopping in 5km radius and while that wasn't in place there was a 9pm curfew. Visit to hospitals and retirement homes were banned for months.
Dead Comment
Travel was difficult and dangerous. Frequently forbidden when not impractical (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement).
If you think lockdowns in say, China, are harsh:
Russian Serfs were only freed 1861. Less than a century after Joseph II decided to end feudalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_Patent_(1781).
Some form of social isolation was the norm for most of human history. So I don't think you are doomed to grow crazy if you stay by yourself, we're just not used to it. No longer the norm.
Being left alone with a smartphone and "social" media apps however might cause a person to spiral.
We also know from studying prisoners that isolation breaks peoples' brains[4].
[1] https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...
[2]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12052-010-0306-1
[3] https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97804294...
[4]https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.0084...
Living alone was extremely rare until recent history [1]. Not having freedom of movement, or not living in a city does not mean social isolation. Villages back in history used to celebrate holidays together, families were much larger, everyone knew everyone since birth etc…
I just woke up but don’t feel like pulling up the sources but I believe the exact opposite of your statement. Social isolation is a modern phenomenon that was extremely rare before in history. It was incredibly difficult to survive just by yourself.
[1] https://archive.org/details/goingsoloextraor00eric
I do agree with you that it’s ultimately apples and oranges to compare our current social state to our ancestors’.
When you did leave you might not see your family and friends for years if you even managed to come back alive.
If you lived in a viking settlement or out in the wilderness of the Wild West or some secret monastery at the top of a mountain range in Tibet that's pretty damn isolated. Or a lighthouse. Or an island. 'etc.
For instance, if you look at population density overall, Germany has a far higher population density than Spain. This is, however, because most of Spain is empty. Even when you look at rural areas, what you see is not American style homesteads, but people living in a relatively dense village, and traveling to their farm. In that environment, social isolation is very difficult: Just buying food and going to some kind of workplace leads to being very close to a whole lot more people than, say, your average American does.
So when we go back in time in most places, we might not see that much cross-settlement travel, but how dense are the settlements? How much can you avoid other human beings? Just like travel was dangerous, living in a place that was a long distance from your next neighbor was also dangerous: The best protection against attack was to have enough neighbors very close, as to make it really difficult to get away with attacking you. We have ruins of many settlements, going back well before writing, and it's normal to see places that might have housed a dozen or so families, all in screaming distance.
Therefore, I don't see how we can support that some form of relative social isolation was the norm everywhere. If anything, it's the modern American suburb, where in practice we don't need to exchange a word with the neighbors, and most retail transactions are impersonal, is what happens to be historically novel. The pandemic just made it more extreme.
> So when we go back in time in most places, we might not see that much cross-settlement travel, but how dense are the settlements?
Depending on when and where sometimes not very dense at all.
> How much can you avoid other human beings?
You don't need to avoid anyone but going days and weeks without speaking to people was not so inconceivable as it is now.
> If anything, it's the modern American suburb, where in practice we don't need to exchange a word with the neighbors, and most retail transactions are impersonal, is what happens to be historically novel.
That's the slightly different lament of not knowing your neighbors. The loss of togetherness and sense of community. The bad vibes. I agree with all that, you can feel more alone surrounded by an ocean of people than being part of a small tight knit group of people surrounded by an ocean. Conversely, mental health problems have been on the rise for a long time prior to the pandemic. No doubt it brought these issues to the forefront and didn't help things.
All I pointed out is that there is no shortage of precedent or examples of isolation and it does not necessarily imply that your mental health has to deteriorate.
Forced isolation or alienation from neighbors on the other hand is far more likely to be harmful. So is substituting actual social relationships with parasocial interactions online and apps.
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