In a thoughtful article on The Conversation entitled The Loneliness Myth, the author makes mincemeat of the so-called loneliness epidemic, calling out the “loneliness-as-pathology” perspective as a clear rejection of what is simply, and crucially, a natural part of experiencing life as a human being, – that is engaging with solitude.
The author concludes the solution to loneliness “may well be found in learning to live alongside it, as opposed to denying its existence or seeking to eradicate it”.
In her book Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone, Netta Weinstein – an American academic at the University of Reading – stops short of dismissing the loneliness epidemic, rather focusing on telling the story of herself and her colleagues’ research into the phenomenon of solitude.
The book takes a fresh perspective on people’s positive experience of being alone, citing what they say about it, and exploring how the phenomenon creeps into all our lives as we age, whether we like to think about it or not. This interview with her was conducted by video call:
Tell us about your research area and how you got into it?
I’m a social psychologist and a clinical psychologist by training. Ironically, all my training was really about social interactions and relationships, and how they affect us. But more recently myself and a number of colleagues have become interested in the idea of solitude, and how it helps us form relationships with ourselves.
Generally speaking, researchers, as well the public at large, tend to conflate the idea and practice of solitude with loneliness, or think that there’s something pathological about being alone. Most people are stunned to find out that the average adult spends one third of their time alone, for example.
So what we are doing now is really trying to understand and embrace the idea that we can support and empower ourselves, and build a relationship with ourselves, using our time in solitude. Crucially, it’s not just about how other people support us, but how we can do that for ourselves when we have the space to do so.
Essentially, I think we tend to overlook solitude as a time to create opportunity – it is something of a blank slate. We call that solitude crafting.
Why did you write the book and why now?
Well, we now have a lot to write about. We conducted this major research project where we were really interested in understanding people’s stories. The stories were so fascinating, and got us asking questions where we felt we didn’t understand the nuances. So we’ve been able to compile a lot of insights, many of which came from evidence from the stories people tell about their own relationships with solitude.
We also heard accounts of experience of the Covid lockdowns. I think the way we were talking and thinking about solitude, at the time, and still today, was and is almost always negative. That is, solitude equals isolation, and the lockdown strategy was a real negative setback for people, forcibly undertaken in order to protect ourselves and society. But what we found, from many accounts, is that a lot of people really enjoyed that time, and used it as an opportunity.
So we think that the common narrative was, and is, unfair given the reality of that opportunity. That’s not to say there wasn’t real anguish and suffering too – lockdowns were difficult for many. But what we discovered is that there were at least two sides to people’s experience of that period.
How are research experiments in this space conducted?
The field of solitude is basically is brand new to psychology. As a science it is very young and it is also atypical, because a laboratory is not the place where we can really study it. You wont get a real sense of the benefits there.
So we conduct studies where we’ll ask people about time during their day when they were alone. We ask questions like what their most meaningful moment in solitude was that day, what was that experience like, how did they feel, and whether that was during a five minute period or an hour, for example.
We’ve asked people to journal and later read each activity they did during that day, and then talk about whether they were in solitude or not, and look at how wellbeing measures, or how specific moments contributed to wellbeing across the day.
Interestingly, we found that that approach allows us to not just look at how people are different from each other, but also how our own days are different from other days, revealing many sides to self.
When does solitude become loneliness and how can we differentiate between the two?
I really see these two phenomena as two unrelated states and ideas. I think loneliness is important, for sure. But the epidemic of loneliness? I wouldn’t necessarily say I am convinced by the evidence presented for that. Certainly there’s a lot of evidence that loneliness is difficult for us – and that many of us experience it – but I think loneliness has been a human condition for as long as we’ve been social creatures.
I think what we are trying to do is really understand the nature of solitude, as a separate construct from loneliness. We tend to conflate them in our minds. So when we think of solitude, the association is naturally to isolation or even punishment – like the idea of telling a child to go to their room – or as solitary confinement. Being alone in this sense is about being rejected by the group, and that has all kinds of negative impacts. There is basically a stigma around being alone.
But solitude is different, and is essentially a neutral condition, rather than negative, or even positive.
[ How technology created a ‘recipe for loneliness’Opens in new window ]
You write about how solitude simply happens to us throughout life, as we age. What do you mean by this?
Young adults, for example, spend quite a bit of time socialising, because developmentally that’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re trying to figure out who they are in a social context, independent of their parents. In young adulthood, or even middle adulthood, we tend to invest more time in a large number of generally shorter social interactions.
But we find that older adults really focus on a few quality social interactions, meaning more time is spent in solitude. They also generally experience less stress, and suffer life’s difficult emotions less. Now, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t worry about older adults being alone. Because if you’re alone, if you’ve lost your partner, for example, or you have mobility issues and can’t leave the house and see your friends, that’s a different form of solitude, and requires help.
So older adults who are isolated will still have a hard time, but we find that other elders experience life in a more balanced way. I think that we get more comfortable with ourselves, and one of the reasons that scientists think might be the reason is that, when we get older, we are less inclined to have lots of social interactions, and enjoy quiet time much more. There’s no shame in solitude.
[ Why is Ireland, the land of a thousand welcomes, the loneliest country in Europe?Opens in new window ]
Dr Conor Purcell writes about science, society and culture. He can be found on X @ConorPPurcell and some of his other articles at cppurcell.tumblr.com
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