social isolation

I Need To Get Out of the House More

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Abstract from the study Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health – Science 4 Jun 2026 Vol 392, Issue 6802 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec7671

How does remote work affect isolation and mental health? We drew on five nationally representative surveys of American workers (N = 588,322) conducted from 2011 to 2024, omitting the peak pandemic years of 2020–2021. Our difference-in-differences approach compared changes in mental health among people in remotable jobs—who experienced a large and persistent rise in remote work since COVID-19—to people in nonremotable jobs, where remote work increased far less. We found that remote work increases time spent alone, worsens mental well-being across multiple measures, and increases the use of mental health services and prescriptions. These effects were concentrated among individuals living alone. We estimate that the rise of remote work explains about a third of the increase in isolation and mental distress between 2011–2019 and 2022–2024.

Highlights from the NPR article People love working from home. But does it love them back? A new study says no – https://www.npr.org/2026/06/08/nx-s1-5848125/remote-work-mental-health-isolation

  • Workers in remotable jobs had experienced a 58% rise in hours spent alone compared to people in non-remotable jobs
  • These workers also saw a 72% rise in chances of spending their whole day with no human contact.
  • Remote workers aren’t making up for that lost social connection by socializing after work.
  • People in remote jobs also saw a rise in symptoms of emotional distress, evaluated with a standardized questionnaire about symptoms of anxiety and depression.
  • They also had more visits to mental health care providers and used more prescription psychiatric meds.
  • Remote workers who live alone saw the largest increase (83%) in chances of spending their days with no social contact.

I really need to get out of the house more.

READ THIS! (if you can)

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As Pepperdine University literature professor Jessica Hooten Wilson told Fortune in a recent interview, “it’s not even an inability to critically think. It’s an inability to read sentences.” Gen Z Arriving at College Unable to Read https://futurism.com/future-society/gen-z-literacy-reading

I no longer wonder why I still have a job.

Yikes.

Scary Charts 09.23.24 (another generational gap)

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54 percent of Gen Z participants polled for Statista’s Consumer Insights survey in the U.S. between July 2023 and June 2024 claim that owning a car is important to them, compared to 69 percent of baby boomers. This suggests that the perceived necessity of car ownership is not only influenced by the availability and quality of public transit but also by generation. Owning a Car Is Less Important To Younger Generations https://www.statista.com/chart/33097/importance-of-owning-a-car-for-us-residents-by-generation/

Let me think about this. Digital from birth, Covid-19 pandemic global shutdown, social media, shared ride businesses, grocery shopping done and delivered, prepared meal delivery, inflation, cost of cars both new and used, shit jobs that don’t pay much, cost of car insurance and maintenance, cost of gasoline, going Green, fear of accidents, fear of violence, self-fulfilling prophecy, coddled since birth, never learned to drive, never wanted to drive…

Did I miss anything?

Social isolation and Lower Brain Volume

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The people with the lowest amount of social contact had overall brain volume that was significantly lower than those with the most social contact. The total brain volume, or the sum of white and grey matter, as a percentage of the total intracranial volume, or the volume within the cranium, including the brain, meninges, and cerebrospinal fluid, was 67.3% in the lowest contact group compared to 67.8% in the highest contact group. They also had lower volumes in areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala that play a role in memory and are affected by dementia.

The study does not prove that social isolation causes brain shrinkage; it only shows an association.

Social isolation linked to lower brain volume — American Academy of Neurology. “Social isolation linked to lower brain volume.” ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230712165229.htm (accessed July 13, 2023).

Yikes!

Social Frailty

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Social frailty is a corollary to physical frailty, a set of vulnerabilities (including weakness, exhaustion, unintentional weight loss, slowness, and low physical activity) shown to increase the risk of falls, disability, hospitalization, poor surgical outcomes, admission to a nursing home, and earlier death in older adults.

For seniors who want to think about their own social vulnerability, consider this five-item index, developed by researchers in Japan.

(1) Do you go out less frequently now than last year?

(2) Do you sometimes visit your friends?

(3) Do you feel you are helpful to friends or family?

(4) Do you live alone?

(5) Do you talk to someone every day?

Being ‘Socially Frail’ Comes With Health Risks for Older Adults — https://khn.org/news/article/socially-frail-older-adults-health-risks/

I passed the quiz.

I Thought I Told You To Put That Phone Down!

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Compared with participants who used less than 120 minutes per day of social media, for example, young adults who used more than 300 minutes per day were 2.8 times as likely to become depressed within six months.The study, which will be published online Dec. 10 and is scheduled for the February 2021 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the first large, national study to show a link between social media use and depression over time.

University of Arkansas. “Increased social media use linked to developing depression.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201210074722.htm (accessed December 13, 2020).

Journal Reference

  1. Brian A. Primack, Ariel Shensa, Jaime E. Sidani, César G. Escobar-Viera, Michael J. Fine. Temporal Associations Between Social Media Use and Depression. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2020.09.014

A few more posts for your reading pleasure.

Living in The Matrix – More Isolation, Fear, and Tribalism

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Executive Summary

  • Our politics and culture are mired in fear and tribalism.
  • The algorithms tracking you on social media are triggered by your negative emotions and amplify the negativity.
  • Your digital tribe keeps consuming and feeding each other with the same ideology.
  • We regress further into tribalism and mistrust of those not in your tribe.
  • Higher social media use is linked with increased anxiety, stress and depression.
  • Short attention spans deactivate critical thinking skills (skills which are no longer being taught by the intellectual elites in our colleges and universities).

Those of us old enough to know what life was like before social media may remember how exciting Facebook was at its inception. Imagine, the ability to connect with old friends we had not seen for decades! Then, Facebook was a virtual dynamic conversation. This brilliant idea, to connect to others with shared experiences and interests, was strengthened with the advent of Twitter, Instagram and apps.

Things did not remain that simple. These platforms have morphed into Frankenstein’s monsters, filled with so-called friends we’ve never met, slanted news stories, celebrity gossip, self-aggrandizement and ads.

The Matrix is already here: Social media promised to connect us, but left us isolated, scared and tribal — https://theconversation.com/the-matrix-is-already-here-social-media-promised-to-connect-us-but-left-us-isolated-scared-and-tribal-148799

I’ve written about the dangers of social media many times:

More Social Media Use Linked to More Depression and Anxiety in Teens

Quit Social Media – Dr. Cal Newport

The Pleasures of Life without Social Media

The Potential Harm of Social Media

I’ve bulleted the highlights of the Matrix article but the entire article is well worth reading. What truth?

Social Isolation Transforms the Brain

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In mice.

Confirming and extending previous observations, the researchers showed that prolonged social isolation leads to a broad array of behavioral changes in mice. These include increased aggressiveness towards unfamiliar mice, persistent fear, and hypersensitivity to threatening stimuli. For example, when encountering a threatening stimulus, mice that have been socially isolated remain frozen in place long after the threat has passed, whereas normal mice stop freezing soon after the threat is removed. These effects are seen when mice are subjected to two weeks of social isolation, but not to short-term social isolation — 24 hours — suggesting that the observed changes in aggression and fear responses require chronic isolation.

Though the work was done in mice, it has potential implications for understanding how chronic stress affects humans.

Get out of the house.  Socialize with friends and family.  Leave the cell phone at home.

Social media is not social.  It’s a serious public health problem for the brainwashed masses with addictive behaviors.

Read the source article here.

Social isolation, loneliness could be greater threat to public health than obesity – ScienceDaily

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To illustrate the influence of social isolation and loneliness on the risk for premature mortality, Holt-Lunstad presented data from two meta-analyses. The first involved 148 studies, representing more than 300,000 participants, and found that greater social connection is associated with a 50 percent reduced risk of early death. The second study, involving 70 studies representing more than 3.4 million individuals primarily from North America but also from Europe, Asia and Australia, examined the role that social isolation, loneliness or living alone might have on mortality. Researchers found that all three had a significant and equal effect on the risk of premature death, one that was equal to or exceeded the effect of other well-accepted risk factors such as obesity.

Source: Social isolation, loneliness could be greater threat to public health than obesity — ScienceDaily

Get off your damn phone, get out of the house and go do something with your family and friends.