In a compelling interview between Brian Vaszily, author and founder of the popular personal growth website IntenseExperiences.com, and Dr. John Cacioppo, Director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, Dr. Cacioppo reveals how Facebook and other social media tend to make lonely people even lonelier.
In the Loneliness Help interview, available to view in full on IntenseExperiences.com, Cacioppo notes that “what the research suggests is that lonely individuals tend to use social networking sites in a way that puts distance between themselves and others, whereas non-lonely people tend to use social networking sites in a way that reduces the distance.”
He explains that sites like Facebook are a “safe haven” for lonely people, who can tend to feel unwanted in live social situations. But, Cacioppo notes, “that’s a little bit like being hungry and eating celery, in that it feels good for a moment, but it’s not actually nutritious, it’s not satisfying the underlying need.”
In effect, social media sites like Facebook are making a bad situation worse when it comes to loneliness. In the interview with Brian Vaszily, which is available to view in full at http://www.intenseexperiences.com, Cacioppo explains how and why quality face-to-face contact with other people is so essential — and how the extreme lack of it that is so prevalent today leads to high stress, chronic disease and even early death. Making matters worse when it comes to loneliness, according to Cacioppo, is that people tend to view it — and stigmatize it — as a personal weakness, when it is really just “a cue, like hunger, thirst and pain, to change our behaviors.”
In the interview with Vaszily, Cacioppo also provides a variety of insights on what people can do if they are lonely. He says that, “Feeling lonely makes people want to … eat others as they meet them. And if you just kind of think about it, that’s not a very pleasant position for other people to be in. You are not going to build a strong reciprocal relationship where both gain something from it if you are trying to eat people alive.” Instead of trying to consume others out of this deep need for live social connection, he recommends reaching out to help others, such as by doing community service, as a powerful first step for anyone feeling trapped by loneliness.
The complete interview between Dr. John Cacioppo and Brian Vaszily, in which Cacioppo also explains why lonely people are treated like bacteria and how loneliness leads to high stress, chronic disease and premature death, can be viewed now at http://www.intenseexperiences.com/loneliness-help.html.
IntenseExperiences.com is one of the web’s most popular personal growth and wellness websites providing original articles, videos, interviews, and more. Founder Brian Vaszily is a public speaker, life coach and the author of multiple books including Beyond Stone and Steel and the forthcoming The 9 Intense Experiences That Will Inevitably Change Your Life (Wiley Publishing, 2011.) For more information and to contact Brian Vaszily, visit the Contact Us area at IntenseExperiences.com.
