Loneliness is better for your health if it is not too intense, research shows

Walking alone deep in a forest and similar periods of intense solitude will not restore energy and improve social connectedness as quickly as less complete forms of solitude, such as reading in a cafe or listening to Spotify while commuting, according to research by Oregon State University. .

The findings are important because of loneliness’s role in building connectedness, a key factor in a person’s overall health picture. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strong social bonds are linked to longer lifespans, better mental health and a lower risk of serious diseases, including heart disease, stroke and dementia.

The study was published in PLOS One.

Morgan Quinn Ross, assistant professor of communications at the OSU College of Liberal Arts, and Scott Campbell of Ohio State University surveyed nearly 900 adults in the United States and found that activities that provide less complete forms of solitude, such as playing a game on your phone or going to the movies alone offer a number of advantages over a lonely drive through the desert or writing in a remote cabin.

“We have learned that less complete solitude is more likely to restore energy and maintain a sense of connection with others,” Ross said. “In a world where social interaction is almost always just a click away, we need to understand how to balance social interaction with different types of loneliness.”

Ross and Campbell examined conditions under which an individual’s loneliness could be ‘overshadowed’ by people and/or technology; Accessibility to others and engagement with media can cloud the loneliness experience by making time alone take on a more social character, they note.

The researchers built a matrix of loneliness that includes a basic level – no interaction with people – and a total level, which refers to being inaccessible to others and not interacting with media. The matrix allowed them to explore the interplay between loneliness; that is, does experiencing loneliness more fully maximize recovery, while experiencing it less fully maximize connectedness?

Ross notes that a widely accepted theory, Communicate Bond Belong, states that social interaction can build connection with others at the cost of social energy, and that solitude can restore social energy, but at the cost of connection. Social energy describes a person’s capacity for social interaction and can be thought of as a battery that can be fully charged, partially charged, or discharged.

“Our study suggests that loneliness is not, in fact, the downside of social interaction,” Ross said. “While more intense social interaction produces connection but depletes energy, more intense loneliness depletes both energy and connection. Loneliness does not appear to function simply as a way to reclaim the energy used in social interaction.”

The scientists also found that loneliness was less detrimental to the well-being of individuals who believed it helped them restore energy and maintain connection, no matter how much energy their social interactions cost them.

Interestingly, these findings generally apply to both extroverts and introverts, said Ross, who added that one suggestion based on the study that people might try is that they only try to seek solitude if they are constructively motivated to do so.

“If you have a positive attitude toward solitude — because you use it to restore energy and know you can connect with people later — then choosing solitude will probably make you feel better,” he said. “But if you choose loneliness because of a negative attitude toward social interaction — because you don’t want to talk to people — you’re likely to feel worse.”