Our big cities are crowded but people are lonely. My grand parents lived in a small city of Pakistan and I have very clear memories of their social life. People did not used to get ready and make phone calls before visiting their friends. Infact they lived in a close knit social setup called “mohalla” where their houses were joined on the roofs and everyone knew each other. Their kids play together after school. The ladies can call and ask for help by just calling out loud to the next door neighbour. They had common walls!
No one dared to enter a house for stealing something knowing that every shout will be heard and responded quickly. This close contact is broken in this age of connectivity when every person in pakistan has at least one mobile phone!
Now in our big cities we dont know and get to meet our neighbours even after living in the neighborhood for years. Everyone is on the run and no one has time for things like face-to-face talking to each other. Even communication between family members is decreasing.
Read below and you will realize the importance of “human beings” around you!
The number of hours people spend interacting face-to-face has fallen dramatically since 1987 as electronic media use has risen
Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims.Emailing people rather than meeting up with them may have wide-ranging biological effects, said psychologist Dr Aric Sigman. This could increase the risk of problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia, Dr Sigman says in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology.
Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook allow people to keep in touch with friends over the web. They can swap pictures, play games and leave messages which explain how their day is going. But even though they are designed to bring people together, Dr Sigman said they were actually playing a significant role in people becoming more isolated.
Research suggested that the number of hours people spent speaking to others face-to-face had fallen dramatically since 1987 as the use of electronic media increased. Interacting ‘in person’ had effects on the body not seen when writing emails, Dr Sigman claimed. Levels of hormones such as the ‘cuddle chemical’ oxytocin, which promotes bonding, altered according to whether people were in close contact or not. ‘There does seem to be a difference between “real presence” and the virtual variety,’ Dr Sigman added.
Some genes, including ones involved with the immune system and responses to stress, acted differently according to how much social interaction a person had with others.
Dr Sigman added: ‘Social networking sites should allow us to embellish our social lives, but what we find is very different.
Increased isolation could alter the way genes work and upset immune
Surely there isn’t a single person who couldn’t have told Professor John Cacioppo what he took years to discover: loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking or obesity. In the Chicago University psychologist’s study, reported this week, he found that the loneliest people had blood pressure readings up to 30 points higher than those with the most active social lives, high levels of cortisol that reduced their immune system and they slept badly and felt exhausted during the day.
Loneliness even accelerates the pace of dementia. I think loneliness is second only to depression in the list of sensations you don’t want stalking your mind. It’s a hunger – not just for human contact and companionship, but for a verification of your self-identity.
The majority of letters I’ve had in my thirty-plus years as an agony aunt have been from lonely people – they don’t have a partner or feel incredibly lonely within a relationship. Most of us feel lonely at one point or another. For some it’s acute – a permanent feeling of isolation punctuated only occasionally by contact. For others, it pops in from time to time like an unwelcome guest, but goes after a brief visit. It’s not always easy to spot the lonely – a gregarious person with an apparently active social life is not immune to suffering feelings of isolation.
Courtesy: Daily mail
