Social Media and Loneliness
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-05-14/social-media-and-loneliness
Online social media platforms have made Americans more connected with each other than ever: more than 40 percent of Americans now have a Facebook account. But new research shows that increasing digital engagement hasn’t changed the fact that Americans are lonelier than ever: a recent survey found that 35 percent of adults over forty-five are chronically lonely, compared to just 20 percent ten years ago. And one-quarter of Americans say they have no best friend to confide in. What increasing digital connections mean for the epidemic of loneliness.
Guests
Stephen Marche
author and columnist, The Atlantic and Esquire magazines
Sherry Turkle
professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author of "Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other" (2011)
Zeynep Tufekci
assistant professor, University of North Carolina; fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Program Highlights
While social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+ have grown, new research suggests Americans are lonelier than ever. A recent survey found that 35 percent of adults are chronically lonely, while 25 percent said they don’t have a best friend. Our panel discussed what a rise in social networking connections means for offline friendships.
‘A Tribe Of One’
Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described Americans as living “alone together.” “That is where we're together because we're always connected, but we're alone because we're kind of in a tribe of one,” Turkle said. She said it has become commonplace to see texting at funerals and emailing during faculty meetings. This leads people to identify less with their community because people unapologetically say their highest value is controlling where they put their attention.
Ambiguous Data
Turkle said the data is ambiguous about the relationship between social media and loneliness. She said some people use Facebook to make online friendships that transition to offline friendships. Meanwhile, others use it for validation. “That isn't nurturing, that isn't satisfying, and there's a lot of pressures when you put yourself on Facebook to present yourself as the self you want to be, as the ideal self, not particularly as who you are, but rather as who you want to be.” Her research shows that people experience FOMO, or fear of missing out, which causes them to live “a life of performance for that larger group.”
Social Media Decreases Loneliness
Many sociologists would say it’s an exaggeration to equate a rise in loneliness to an epidemic, said Zeynep Tufecki, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He said social media isn’t the only factor driving isolation, pointing at traffic and longer work hours. Instead, Tufecki sees social media as the antidote to television, which isolates us, saying people who are active on social media are less lonely than people who don’t use the tools. “I'm looking at national survey after national survey that shows that people who are active on social media actually have more face-to-face interaction as well.” Tufecki said the data show that, on Facebook, people interact intensely with a handful of close friends and interact weekly with a broader network, which reflects our pre-Facebook behavior. Stephen Marche, a columnist at The Atlantic, added, “It's people who already have strong social abilities and strong social networks who tend to flourish on Facebook.”
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
I am a twenty something who had xanga and myspace in high school, excitedly register for facebook when you could only do it with a college e-mail account, and now have a boyfriend of 1 year from an online dating site.
Personally I am hesitant to blame social media for our generation's gap in community. Facebook serves most closely as an archive tool for my old friends so I can know where they are and how to contact them in the event that I travel somewhere. Not a single friend from high school remains even in the state, so it's not like I can go back there and show up at someone's house. The exact same is true of my college friends.
Thus our social issues are two-fold. One is globalization. I have not lived in the same place, even in college, for more than two years. The broken connections and loss of friends are endless and I have people I know and adore everywhere -- lose a circle of friends enough and it gradually becomes more and more difficult to search for new ones. We do not have guaranteed jobs, homes, even places to rent, and even twice within one year my boyfriend and I, just 23 and 24, have had to discuss moving out of state (I rejected a direct commission to Naval Intelligence because of the thought of loneliness 4 yrs on a ship).
Second is the flourishing bar culture, the bastion of loneliness. As we increasingly lose a sense of local community due to globalization, our social skills wane, and we make up for it by being alone, together, on a dance floor or with alcohol. How do I make friends with another female at a bar without looking "creepy"? And there is no hope for talking to a guy unless I want a one night stand. Even my brother complains that he offends females when he explains that he is just trying to make friends with girls rather than hitting on them.
I would agree that social networking may make our friendships shallower, but our increasingly transient and rather anonymous lifestyle goes much deeper than that.
Wow. Written like a grad school paper, with just a whisper of arrogance.
There have been some good articles about facebook on NPR. And I remember coming across some research, somewhere, that suggests it is not helpful for introverts.
I am lonely. And miserable. But I don't blame Mark Zuckerberg. I blame myself. It's my fault, not some tool or software on the computer that pretends to loop me into "friends" circles. Hell, I have no best friends to confide in. Can't be honest with family. And thanks to this new anti-suicide software FB is introducing, and the annoying monitoring by family, I have to censor my status updates, or risk some embarrassing "intervention".
Has Facebook exacerbated the misery? Unequivocally yes. It has. Watching former peer groups succeed, or paint a picture of success and happiness (whether true or no) is cause for reflection, and comparison to my own life. I've deleted all friends who post non-stop pictures of them out at the bar drinking with happy friends, knowing it to be either a crass illusion, or a fantasy I'll never experience.
Lillian's (Lillian M) comments are spot on. I've lived in many countries and now find myself in a small town. ( I call it Humble 'name of the town'). We've allowed developers to decimate any chance of community in many parts of this country, with the lack of public spaces and a culture where monied interests force property and it's subjects behind gates and fences. I have to admit that I've only been back in the US for less than 2 years and that my frustration is probably due to having lived in Barcelona for 8 years. I made some good friends there, but like them, being able to walk around just made it a place where it was hard to feel lonely.
Community is important and maybe social media is filling that need. We know it's connecting people who are both near and far, and I'd like to see how it might help us create the sort of public spaces we want to inhabit.
Have we reached a point in history where we no longer possess our possessions, but our possessions have possessed us? It would seem so. My father, who was born in 1907, always believed that life was better in the past; when life was simpler, even if it was more physically-demanding. As I get older, I have come to believe that he was correct.
Loneliness may come from illness and disability, that prevent someone from participating in events and building relationships in face to face situations. Social media tools can be extremely helpful to build connections to reduce the extreme social isolation. For some, it may be the only option to reach out and meet others. The potential for enriching lives with connections through social media is a value, which has never been possible before.
If you take a quiz to determine how lonely you are, you are lonely.
The trouble with facebook interaction is that it can become random and trivial. It's based on who's there, on whose posts, on who gets seen. It takes up my time, and who knows, there could be something else going on that I simply didn't notice because I was busy focusing on some clever thread or comment. In that sense, I think Facebook preserves one of the most vicious aspects of RL society.
My experience runs counter to the declarations of the sociologist who was heavily invested in poll results. If you are on fb and you have too much bad news to share, "friends" will just filter you out. Last year my 12 year old had open heart surgery, my mom died, and my husband lost his job-our annys horribilis. Friends on fb-even relatives-just stopped interacting with me because I didn't have happy, shiny news, I surmise. No cruises, second homes, or trips abroad to chat about. I totally disconnected from fb and only one person-a cousin- followed up with me. After two months off, she left me a text message. :) You gotta love fantasy life!
I recently went on a job interview. When I arrived the people who were waiting broke into two groups. The older ones who had been in the business for some years and the ones just out of school. The older people broke into small talk and chat (Several of us knew each other) the younger crowd pulled out their phones and began texting other people.
Never before have I seen or experienced the generation gap in such a way
I enormously prefer online conversation to live. My interests are science, policy, politics, and religion. It is very difficult to find live people who want to talk about serious subjects, and tolerate disagreement, and are sufficiently informed to make the conversation meaningful and interesting.
While I recognize that there are some advantages to social media and technology, I find that more and more I will be having a intimate conversation with someone, really sharing who we are and our experiences and feelings, and suddenly, the other person's phone buzzes, they pick it p and read the text, and then says something like "Oh, my coworker just got a cat". And the mood is broken. It's getting harder and harder to connect deeply with people with the constant interruptions. So maybe the other person is more "connected", but the connections are often more superficial.
Our community lifestyle in the US has consistently been moving to one that is focused on the individual and not on the collective. How easy it is to slip through life every day without being noticed! Having lived for many years in small communities in developing countries, I often miss that collective sense of belonging - that knowledge that there are people who rely on you in their daily social lives (to laugh with, to help with chores such as cooking, to take care of you if you are sick or sad). Even the joy of sitting together and not speaking and just enjoying that partnership.
I have found that most people use texting as main form of communication. Can you please talk about this? I have found it to be very frustrating that people text when they should be calling.
I have found that most people use texting as main form of communication. Can you please talk about this? I have found it to be very frustrating that people text when they should be calling.
It seems that once real life begins after college, it's just so difficult to find new friends. Making friends isn't the issue, it's finding potential friends that's hard to do. If you try too hard, people think you're a stalker or worse yet, a socially inept loser.
I've always been a self titled hermit. I don't enjoy being alone but whenever I try to make a connection with a person it is always a distance. I don't understand but I have come to accept it.
I've been told I'm a hard person to get to know, I don't understand why - I think I'm very friendly and generous. This could a lot of that connection be phsycial? Body language or appearance?
Is there really anything new about this lonliness? Would someone comment on the relevance of "The Lonely Crowd" by David Riesman in the 50's or 60's.
At the beginning of the program, someone mentioned the survey that the number of people over the age of 45 who are lonely had dramatically increased. Zainab seems to be discussing the effect of social media and use of people younger than 45. I think these maybe two different issues. She keeps saying that the research shows that people active online are more active off line. I want to know the ages.
Also, you need to keep in mind the point that Lillian made about our mobile society. We are all becoming Third Culture Kids/Adults. Almost all of my FB friends are not located where I am. Many of them I have not seen in years. Because at the age of almost 50, I have only twice in my life lived a place longer than 5 years-- ages 9-18 in NJ and ages 40-49 in VA.
Online Social Networking has changed the way we raise our children. My daughter is always comparing herself to what her friends are doing, or supposedly doing with other friends, and then feeling insignificant because she is not posting pictures of doing things with friends. Although we have always known that as a teen friendships help to define who we are, in the new online world of social media it is in our face. You cannot escape what friends are doing and who is leaving you out!
In my opinion, this continues to ostracize the people on the "fringes" of the cliques which have always existed.
This weekend I listened to a very striking address by environmentalist Bill McKibben at Franklin Pierce University. He referred a downside to the tradition of American individualism, and asked students to reflect on their experience of close community in the college years and how most people leave college only to try to live very individual lives in which they work very very hard to live in relative isolation.
Watching any good cop movie or tv show, the witness is taken downtown to view the "FACEBOOK" to determine the suspect. Following this train of thought with there is no freedom in a "net, the worst bullies on social nets are parents bullying other's children, and above all - the computerization of social data gave us the WW II Holocaust. The number tattoo was the hollerith code from the punch card. Facebook is just another flawed construct from places like Harvard who created the framework for the economic mess we share with the world. Dropouts made the Internet possible, the graduates trashed it.
Miranda: your experience points out the truth about Facebook - it is part of the World Wide Web, which is part of the Internet, which is an extension of newspapers and so on. In other words, Facebook is way to "advertise". It is not a way to connect to real friends.
Posting to Facebook is like advertising in a newspaper. It is a way to make your information known to others. You "post" your comments.
Asking Facebook to fulfill your social needs is like asking a dog to do calculus.
As a 63 yr old black woman, widow, mother of 3 and grandmother of 4(9, 6, 4, 2) with 4 sisters and requisite nieces and nephews and greats, I have never been lonely a day in my life and most importantly, my mome who will turn 85 next month. My idea of a great time, is quiet, with my favorite program on TV and reading a book on my Nook Color. I have friends from high school days and they remain so. we have gone out, we text, we talk on the phone but it is not something I spend a lot of time doing. I was not a teen to talk on the phone. It never made sense to me, I saw you all day and now talk to you half the evening? NOT!!! I'm only on FB to keep in touch wil relatives and a couple of blogs. Not every day. Was not on it all weekend. As for television. My two daughters, one married, the other not, and my married daughters husband and four children all live with me. What we did last night? Text each other from different rooms about Game of Thrones. My baby sister and I will text MIldred Pierce is on. Mr. skeffington is coming on. Some cheesy old horror flick like War of the Colossal Man, is on. I have never understood that type of lonliness at all.
I started using facebook because my teenage kids were using it. I realized it is a great tool for me as a parent to have some insight into what goes on in the teen mind. I have often used something they posted as a conversation started when we were face to face. As my kids have grown, I have been able to reconnect with some of my old friends and family who no longer live near me. Recently my dad passed and one of my greatest supporters is a friend that I would not have contact with now except for fb. In today's busy world I would not even be as connected to my friends who live close by if I had no fb or something like it. If I need solitude, however, I simply do not log in. I understand the debate, but throughout the ages, we have evolved and adapted with our communication skills. Facebook and the like will be no different.
Jessica
I got rid of my Facebook account because I felt I was "living for Facebook" taking pictures that would look good on my page, going places that I felt pressured by peers I should go so I could post that I went. I was very controlling. I'm sure not everyone has this problem but I did. I think it was Theodore Roosevelt that said "comparison is the thief of joy" I am much happier without it and have more real relationships now. The issue of loneliness and health problems sounds very familiar after reading the book Learned Optimism and the host of health problems that can come from being a pessimist (depression)
One detail from Yvette Vickers' tragedy particularly stings--she had no children. The last time I was lonely was 1991 before I married my husband. We were young and wanted our children early. Twenty-one years later, I have no regrets that we've had a large family. I can't even remember what loneliness feels like. Sometimes, I joke with my sisters that we aspire to have a moment of loneliness.
I'm far more inclined to blame our cultural shift away from family--marriage and children and larger families--than facebook.
I am a 67 year old widower. I have been listening to this show, and took the online "loneliness" evaluation. I scored (typically) low - 17. I have felt that there are two different conversations going on throughout the hour: one about loneliness, and one about Facebook. I also have to say that I have never really understood the fbook phenomenon, even though I do have an account. I don't get the need to display that most users seem to have.
Thanks for your show.
Tim Raine
Cincinnati, OH
I am divorced and retired and live alone. Six years ago I moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains, far from my New England home. Two things keep me from being lonely:
1. FaceBook:
Although I am troubled by some of the privacy issues associated with FaceBook, I am closer now than ever to my large extended family -children, siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces etc than I have ever been in my life.
2. My Unitarian-Universalist Congregation:
I am not proselytizing but I want to say that since becoming a UU in 2003, I have found a diverse community of bright, caring, socially-concerned, (mostly) progressive people-- and, I don't have to leave my education in the doorway as some people are required to leave their shoes at the doorway of their temple.
ADDENDUM: my score on the loneliness quiz: 17
Corporate and GOP hate speech and media uses divide and conquer as a political weapon. This attitude has inundated our communities.
I taught for 20 years and I use Facebook to encourage my students as they enter college, married life or are becoming a parent, as well as when they are in need of someone to believe in them.