Loneliness is a universal human experience. It is the feeling of distress or discomfort that arises when we perceive a gap between our desires for social connection and our actual experiences of it. Recent research has found that lonely individuals may process the world differently than their less lonely peers. This difference in processing could exacerbate or even trigger their loneliness. In this article, we will discuss the findings of this research and its implications for understanding loneliness.
The Study
Elisa Baek, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern California-Dornsife, led the investigation when she was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA. She and her colleagues utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brains of college students as they watched a collection of 14 short videos during a 90-minute session. The videos included highlights from sporting events, clips from documentaries, and emotional depictions of human life, and 66 students participated. After undergoing the lengthy scans, they subsequently completed an extensive questionnaire intended to gauge how lonely they feel.
Baek and her co-authors then divided the students into “lonely” and “non-lonely” groups, determined by their scores from the survey. Students who had a loneliness score below the median were categorized as lonely, while those who scored above were considered non-lonely. The researchers then conducted a thorough statistical analysis in which each individual’s brain imaging results were compared to every other individual’s.
The Findings
The researchers found that the more lonely a person was, the more distinct their brain imaging results were compared to those of the other volunteers. The brains of less lonely people responded similarly to others’, suggesting that lonely individuals may process the world differently. Specifically, the researchers found:
- Non-lonely individuals were very similar to each other in their neural responses, whereas lonely individuals were remarkably dissimilar to each other and to their non-lonely peers.
- Lonely individuals had blunted brain responses in subcortical regions linked to the reward system.
- Lonely individuals may view the world in a way that is different from their peers. Being surrounded predominantly by people who view the world differently from oneself may be a risk factor for loneliness (even if one socializes regularly with them).
- Differences in preferences, expectations, and/or memories can shape how lonely individuals attend to and interpret stimuli.
- The unique brain processing observed in lonely individuals may be a cause or an effect of their feelings of disconnection.
Implications
The findings of this study have several implications for understanding loneliness:
- Loneliness is not just a social problem but a biological one as well. The brains of lonely individuals respond to video stimuli in unique ways dissimilar from their peers. This suggests that loneliness is not just a matter of lacking social connections but also of processing information differently.
- Being surrounded by people who view the world differently may be a risk factor for loneliness. This finding suggests that people tend to silo themselves within friend groups and communities which share their views, a near universal trend that plays out in our online lives as well, often in a more extreme manner.
- Loneliness could exacerbate or even trigger loneliness. Lonely individuals may view the world in a way that is different from their peers. This difference in processing could exacerbate or even trigger their loneliness.
- Social media may exacerbate loneliness. Media reports have drawn attention to surveys showing that up to 60% of Americans say they feel lonely on a regular basis. Social media has taken some blame here, with experts opining that regularly viewing others’ highly curated adventures can leave us feeling increasingly left out and lonely.
Conclusion
The study conducted by Baek and her co-authors sheds light on the potential differences in brain processing between lonely and non-lonely individuals. Their findings suggest that being surrounded predominantly by people who view the world differently from oneself may be a risk factor for loneliness. Additionally, the study raises an important question about whether the unique brain processing observed in lonely individuals is a cause or an effect of their feelings of disconnection. The study adds to the growing body of research on the effects of loneliness on the brain, highlighting the need for further research and solutions to address the complex issue of loneliness.