Loneliness

Loneliness is an epidemic of the modern world [1] which manifests a specific risk factor for physical and mental health [2-4]. A meta-analysis including over 300,000 participants has shown that the mortality risk associated with loneliness is greater than that of obesity and is comparable to smoking and alcohol consumption [5]. Given its severity and prevalence, how do we prevent loneliness?

Some resources are directed to treating loneliness, but not much to its prevention. Studies of recent years focused on interventions with specific populations at risk of loneliness, but evidence from the health domain, as well as common sense, suggest that prevention may be, comparable to treatment, more effective and cost-effective. Rather than focusing on the individual's social relation themselves, existing tools for the quantification of loneliness focus on the symptoms of loneliness (e.g. "I feel isolated from others", "I lack companionship") [6]. While this approach has proven very useful, we believe that the prevention and management of loneliness require a different kind of tool, one that targets the root of loneliness and hence may point to a way for its resolution. Consider for example, the dire health coach which in an attempt to improve the fitness of her client, measures the sadness associated with being unfit and the restrictions imposed by not being able to run as fast as a set goal. Wouldn't it be more sensible to track the client's existing achievements and contrast them with desired health goals? In analogy, we believe that a more constructive and solution-promoting approach for the prevention and management of loneliness should quantify and allow the tracking of an individual's social connectedness in a way that reflects present connectedness status and allows for goal-setting and progress tracking.

We developed a novel measurement tool for the subjective Perception of one's own Social Connectedness (PSC). In addition to the development of the measurement tool, a prime goal was to assess the effects of the measurement itself. Revisiting the analogy of health management, consider two groups of unfit subjects. If one of the groups is mandated a periodic series of physical tests that provides them with an accurate measure of their health status and progress, wouldn't this group be better off in their motivation and achievements than their oblivious counterparts, even if only by the fact that they are forced to acknowledge their unfit state? With similar intuition, we tested how the assessment itself affects the feeling of loneliness and the willingness to act upon it.

51 subjects completed 3 consecutive questioners. The 34 subjects of the experimental group, first evaluated their own social connectedness [7] (SC_before^exp), then completed the PSC questionnaire and finally repeated the social connectedness assessment (SC_after ^exp). The remaining 17 subjects of the control group, similarly evaluated their own social connectedness (SC_before^cont), then completed a dummy questionnaire and finally repeated the social connectedness assessment (SC_after ^cont). We tested how reflecting one's social connected status, by completing the PSC, changes the perception of social connectedness by contrasting the absolute differences of the experimental and control group before and after the PSC and dummy task (|SC_before^exp- SC_after^exp| vs. |SC_before^cont – SC_after^cont|). We find a significant difference in the absolute differences between the two groups (p=0.048) such that PSC caused 59% of the subjects to perceive their social connectedness in a more positive way and 41% of participants in a more negative way. This difference in the subjective perception of social-connectedness between the experimental and control group suggests that the tool we developed to map an individual's social connectedness, the PSC, is both an effective tool for assessing an existing status of social connectedness as well as a potent catalyst for improving it.

[1] Cacioppo JT, Hughes ME, Waite LJ, Hawkley LC, Thisted RA. 2006. Loneliness as a specific risk factor for depressive symptoms: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Psychology and Aging 21 (1) pp. 140-51.

[2] Cacioppo JT, Hughes ME, Waite LJ, Hawkley LC, Thisted RA. 2006. Loneliness as a specific risk factor for depressive symptoms: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Psychology and Aging 21 (1) pp. 140-51.

[3] . Green BH, Copeland JR, Dewey ME, Shamra V, Saunders PA, Davidson IA, Sullivan C, McWilliam C. 1992. Risk factors for depression in elderly people: A prospective study. Acta Psychiatr Scand.86 (3) pp .213–7

[4] Hawkley LC, Thisted RA, Masi CM, Cacioppo JT. 2010. Loneliness predicts increased blood pressure: 5-year cross-lagged analyses in middle-aged and older adults. Psychology and Aging 25 (1) pp. 132-41

[5] . Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. 2015. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspect Psychol Sci. Mar 10(2): pp. 227-37

[6] Russell, Dan, Letitia Anne Peplau, and Mary Lund Ferguson. "Developing a measure of loneliness." Journal of personality assessment 42.3 (1978): 290-294.‏

[7] van Bel, Daniel T., et al. "Social connectedness: concept and measurement." Intelligent Environments 2 (2009): 67-74.‏