18. Loneliness Part 1: YOU’RE CANCELED: The Loneliest Generation on the Planet, The Social Media Crisis, & What You Can Do About It

Did you know that there are risk factors for feeling lonely or that there are four different types of loneliness? Have you ever heard of missed connection loneliness? And did you know that loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes each day? If you've ever felt lonely, or if you're feeling lonely now, you're not alone. And I'm glad you're here. Because regardless if you have as many friends as William Scott, who holds the world record for the most Facebook friends, or if your only friend is a cat named Howard, this podcast is a must listen. In this three part series we're going to cover loneliness, urbanization, social media, the canceled phenomenon, and I'll smatter in some brain busting stuff, statistics and as always, you're going to walk away with an exclusive set of solutions from the ACT Method to Combat Loneliness Even Amidst a Worldwide Pandemic welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a Master's in Clinical Psychology and a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety Freedom Rebel. Research articles and polls out of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan have all come to a similar and quite worrisome conclusion. Loneliness is at an all time high and it's getting worse. There's a loneliness epidemic and if you're in the Millennial generation, you're in the loneliest generation on the planet and globe wide. Loneliness levels are getting worse. An article published in the New York Times in 2016 stated that since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who say they're lonely has doubled from 20% to 40%. According to a 2018 national survey by Cigna, loneliness levels have reached an all time high, with nearly half of the 20,000 US adults reporting that they sometimes or always feel alone. An additional study conducted by the Japanese government found that the number of people who are withdrawn from social contact has doubled in the past decade. Of those surveyed, we have identified the loneliest generation in the world. A survey of 55,000 people from around the world conducted by the BBC in 2018 found that loneliness is the highest among 16 to 24 year olds. And another study published by YouGov found that 30% of millennials say that they always or often feel lonely, while only 20% of Gen X report this and 15% of Baby Boomers report feeling lonely. Known as the social media generation, the Millennials are by and large the loneliest generation on the planet. In fact, 25% of millennials report that they have no acquaintances. And like we said, a staggering 22% of millennials say that they have no friends. Let's just pause on that for a second. 22% of millennials say that they have no friends. So the burning question is, why are we so lonely? In trying to determine why loneliness is skyrocketing, three key theories have emerged. The first is changes in our community infrastructure, urban planning, and cultural evolution. The second is social media and the Internet and their impact on culture, society, and the nature of relationships. And the third is the emerging cancel culture. Let's start with changes in our community infrastructure, urban planning, and cultural evolution. Communities are less connected and more isolated. There are many interesting proposals on why we are all so lonely, and one of the foremost is that cultural values have shifted from the traditional family focus to an economic mindset over the past decade. We have seen rapid decline in marriage rates, family sizes, and the number of children per household has reduced over the last decade, and less than half of the population is married. Explanations for this change point to what is referred to as the affordability crisis. According to a 2019 article published by Hilary Hoffer in Business Insider, the affordability crisis millennials are dealing with is impacting their mental health in a time when they lack social support. Upon viewing the economy from a cost of living paradigm, we find that one third of American households are classified as financially fragile. This results in people working more hours at more jobs in order to stay afloat, leaving very little time for getting married, having babies, going to church, sitting on the front porch, drinking lemonade, or volunteering at their local bake sale. While the last of these sounds like I'm speaking in jest, according to the University of Maryland's Do Good Institute, volunteer rates have declined and fewer people attend religious and other types of spiritual institutes. So let's talk about urban planning for a moment. Urban planning plays a role in promoting or combating loneliness. In addition to growing cities, increased house of living, housing shortages, stagnated wages, and life being busier, more frantic, and more isolated, we have a perfect storm. The juxtaposition between the relaxed, community centric world I grew up in and the big city paradigm that I went to medical school in was particularly apparent to me when I moved from the Midwest to Arizona for medical school. Picture Iowa in the 80s and 90s. Children ran around outside until street lights came on, indicating it was time to go home. Everyone knew everyone else's business, and if a community member was ailing, you can bet that a neighbor would be over in a jiffy with a pan of goulash or a bowl of chicken noodle soup. May Day was celebrated by leaving little treats on doorsteps. Front doors were rarely locked and adults sat on their porch swings and watched the changing of the seasons. Two decades later, when driving through Arizona, I found myself surrounded by neighborhoods built with concrete and stucco, with each individual house surrounded by a six foot concrete and stucco set of walls. And people pop in their Bluetooth earbuds, get in their cars, text while driving, go to work and then back in their cars and back home to their well protected forts to turn on the television and do it all again the next day and the next day. Part of this is simply due to the change in culture, and part of it is due to a dramatically different urban plan. Specific attributes of urban planning deterring people from interacting socially includes cities that are car centric, cities with urban sprawl, transient communities focused more on work instead of community, and large and extremely expensive cities all tend to be lonelier. Let's talk about the next topic. Social media and the Internet and their impact on culture, society and the nature of relationships. 31% of Americans say they find it difficult to make friends. Do you relate to this? I'm a 30 something child, free by choice, married woman, and when my husband and I moved to Michigan my I was looked at by many women in my community that were my age as though I was some sort of zoo creature. And let me tell you, meeting people has been no walk in the park. If women aren't busy with their own families and young children, they are already well established in friendships that extend back decades. They simply don't have the room or the bandwidth for more girlfriends. I've heard similar stories from my clients and other friends in other cities and and as we get older, making friends becomes more difficult. And so this is where social media can be beautiful and wonderful. After medical school, my classmates left Arizona Desert and they spread out across the country and some even to other countries. And thanks to the World Wide web, I'm able to see updates. I'm seeing their life, their ups, their downs, and their transformations through their camera screenshots. But as we all know, the Internet has a dark side. In her groundbreaking experimental study of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, Melissa Hunt, psychologist, and her team discovered that the more time spent on these social media platforms, the more depressed users are. In addition to this, studies have found that the more friends a person has on social media, the more lonely, depressed and anxious they will be. Additionally, many people's entire social lives are online and the fewer in person friends and the more online only friends a person has, the lonelier they will feel offline. Social contacts have been shown to effectively reduce the intensity of loneliness. A differentiating factor of the millennial generation is that they grew up with social media at their fingertips. Online relationships present an entirely unique social construct for the human psyche, particularly the developing brain of an adolescent. And by the way, we have a whole podcast on this, so check out our podcast channel. Before the Internet was developed in the 1980s, social interaction was more face to face, which has an entirely different feel. I was at an all inclusive resort for my honeymoon with my husband and we were out to dinner. Looking around at the restaurant, I sipped my wine and observed the patrons around me. Of particular interest was another young couple who I later learned were also on their honeymoon. What stuck out to me and my husband, however, was that they weren't speaking to each other, but rather their heads were angled downwards and their thumbs were scrolling through their phones. When did we unlearn how to have dinner? Unencumbered by the constant stream of curated stimulation going into our brains from a device, Suddenly we are no longer dependent on the direct feedback of our companions. In fact, if someone is annoying us, we simply swipe left, click, unfollow or block that person. Out of sight, out of mind. No need to stretch out of my comfort zone and look into this person's eyes and struggle to understand their side of the story. Instead, with a satisfying flurry of taps, swipes, and then, poof, they're gone. Cancelled in person. Conflict resolution skills have plummeted in the social media generations. I heard a galling story recently and I want to share that with you after this quick break. We all need relationships, and sometimes finding the right people is the hardest part. I get that, and I want you to know you're not alone. I've gone through seasons in my life where I felt really isolated, and creating an intentional community was a lifesaver. While in person, relationships boost oxytocin, reduce cortisol, and increase your life expectancy. Right now, in this culture and in this climate, we just can't do that. So an intentional community, even online, can be profoundly helpful. Did you know that we have a free and private community group? I created it with the heart of giving us all a place where we can be authentic, meet amazing warriors from around the world, and have a place to share life and support others. One of the things that sets this group apart is that as a member, you will have complimentary access to dedicated content. Founded in my training as a clinical counselor and a naturopathic doctor. To find the group, go to Facebook and type Anxiety Freedom One Week Challenge in the search bar. The Anxiety Freedom One Week Challenge is a welcome gift I created, which has 14 tips for anxiety freedom, including daily videos and a beautiful booklet. And it's all free. I can't wait to meet you and learn how I can support you better. Simply open up facebook.com and search for anxiety freedom or one week challenge I heard a galling story recently about a teenage boy who broke up with his girlfriend over text. Brokenhearted and with a penchant for revenge, she took a screenshot of his message to her, and with her own flavor of flair, she posted her side of the transaction all over social media alongside with the screenshots. What resulted was an unmitigated uproar and he got canceled. The Cancel culture, if you haven't heard of it, is a recent phenomenon that stems from the idea that a person can simply be canceled or blocked, boycotted and deleted. The idea has been cited as a strategy to silence the exchange of ideas, thoughts, opinions, perspectives, and even our First Amendment right, the freedom of speech. So we have a generation of socially isolated adolescent brains forming social media mobs and straight up canceling people whose perspectives are deemed offensive. Now, I'm not trying to justify breaking up with someone over text, but canceling him. This adds a layer to the dynamic of the difficult social structure we have found ourselves in. We have a generation of extremely lonely young adults who are seeing the curated highlight reel from their thousands of online friends and now who must carefully curate their opinions, posts and responses so as not to have their words filtered, disseminated and shared across the globe. When I was in high school, a kid in my class bullied me pretty severely. One particularly upsetting tactic was that he created a profile on a website using my name, my image, and he wrote awful content on my behalf. So so that any person who found and read my profile would believe that I had created that content and had said those horrible things. Thankfully, this was in the late 90s, and when I contacted the site it was removed quickly. But how would that go down now? Once something is on the Internet, it is captured and in an instant, in the hands of thousands, the effects of being canceled are devastating and the implications dire. And this is where we move on to the next section called Loneliness Is Harmful to your the Dire Implications of Loneliness. According to an article published in time altogether, about 36,000 millennials died deaths of despair in 2017, with fatal drug overdoses being the biggest driver. Loneliness is also incredibly dangerous for our physical health. So much that in 2018, the British government appointed a minister for loneliness, and researchers in the United States are working to develop a drug to counteract the effects of loneliness on the brain and body. According to a study published by Julianne Holt Lunstad, Ph.D. and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, the effects of loneliness are equivalent to the health risks from smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having an alcohol use disorder. Loneliness is associated with greater incidences of depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function, and impaired immunity. At every stage of life, loneliness is inflammatory. According to studies, people who are lonely have less immunity and more inflammation than people who do not feel lonely. The risk of dementia increases by 40% when the individual experiences loneliness. The risk of stroke or the development of coronary artery disease is increased by 30% in individuals who are lonely and regardless of race or socioeconomic status, experiencing social isolation increases the risk of premature death. Today we talked about the loneliness epidemic. We learned that the millennial generation is the loneliest generation in the world, with over 22% reporting that they always feel lonely. We have explored three dominant theories on why the number of people suffering from loneliness has doubled in the past decade. And we explored the paradox of how having more friends on social media puts you at a significantly greater risk of feeling lonely and depressed. When we return, you're going to meet the loneliest person to have ever lived. We're going to talk about the four types of loneliness, the five types of misconnection, and the three most powerful steps to combat loneliness. Hey everyone, thanks for listening. This has been Dr. Nicole Kane. If you love what you're hearing and are eager for more, please hit the subscribe button. It helps me know that what we're doing is valuable for you. If you want more free information on how to get your life back, check out my website@drnicolecane.com you can send questions, learn about consulting with me directly, and even preview our online courses. We also have a free free and private Facebook membership group. Simply go to Facebook and search for Anxiety Freedom One Week Challenge. We'd love to meet you and learn more about how to support you and getting your life back. And now for the disclaimer.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, a naturopathic doctor with a Master's in clinical psychology. While these opinions are based upon literature, her counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you're in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole Cain is so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. Stay in the conversation with Dr. Nicole Cain about writing the next chapter of your life so that it plays out just the way you want it. Explore your options for working with her at www.Dr.nicolecane.com. that's Dr. D R Nicole N I C O L E Caine C-A-I n.com when you're there, be sure to take advantage of the Free Anxiety Freedom One week challenge. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the GET your life Back podcast. Here's to your next chapter.