Social Isolation - Background

Background

Social isolation is potentially both a cause and a symptom of emotional or psychological challenges. Two distinctive types, themselves harboring many subtypes, exist.

If social isolation in a particular person is lifelong, historical, patterned, unbroken, and chronic (i.e. from extremely young childhood all the way through full adulthood), it tends to perpetuate itself even if the person actually does not fundamentally desire to be alone, and sometimes even if the person also makes good-faith individual efforts to socialize.

If, on the other hand, social isolation has occurred as a life event rooted in feeling depressed, inadequate, or anxious, this is different from chronic lifelong alienation. Specific life episodes can lead us to self-isolate, and isolation can then increase the feelings of loneliness and depression, fear of other people, or even make a more negative self-image.

Social isolation is common among early adulthood. Some cases of this isolation can get extreme. Clear boundaries are more characterized when the ego part of the personality is fully developing. This personality component that Sigmund Freud proposed is defined as an idea of a person's self physically and mentally. Independence gives a sense of disconnection from others. During this time of development, a person may become more preoccupied with feelings and thoughts of their individuality that are not easy to share with other individuals. This can be a result from feelings of shame, guilt, or alienation during childhood experiences.

Whether new technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones exacerbate social isolation (of any origin) is a contested topic among sociologists. With the advent of online social networking communities, there are increasing options to do social activities that do not require real-world physical interaction. Chat rooms, message boards, and other types of communities are now meeting the need for those who would rather stay home alone, yet still develop communities of online friends. But those who oppose leading one's life primarily or exclusively online claim that virtual friends are not adequate substitutes for real-world friends, and research does suggest that individuals who substitute virtual friends for physical friends become even lonelier and more depressive than before.

Technology dependence is a problem in today's society. Not only can internet, phones, video game systems, etc. be an issue for interaction between beings but so can technology that is used for critical health issues. In a study conducted by Andrea Cockett, she focuses on children that are ventilator dependent and consequences that have been led by dependence upon technology. These technologies are keeping the children alive but also isolating them from what's beyond the hospital and home. Many parents agreed that home was the most appropriate place for their child to be cared for. However, children are being isolated from the outside world. This can lead to emotional burdens that enable a child to form a relationship with another being.

Social isolation can also have to do with mental disabilities. Individuals with learning impairments seem to have trouble with social interaction. Many professionals have always thought that social isolation that was experienced by a child with learning problems was an unintended consequence of the learning disability. They understood that the learning problem caused academic difficulties and that this caused rejection and isolation. They now recognize that these social problems that are being encountered by these children are actually the direct result of the learning disorder. The feeling of rejection makes a child unresponsive to an instruction. This is mostly common in a school environment where there are many peers surrounding.

Living alone can cause social isolation. According to a study that was conducted by Kimmo Herttua, Pekka Martikainen, Jussi Vahtera, and Mika Kivimäki, living alone can increase rates of being socially isolated and leading individuals to turn to alcoholic substances. Social isolation and living alone is increasingly common in other countries. This study focused mainly on alcohol mortality amongst people living alone in Finland. The researchers found that during a certain period of time about 2/3 of people that lived alone died from alcohol linked causes. It was not concluded that living alone is the main reason of alcoholic related mortality but it has increased the abuse of alcohol. Social isolation has contributed to the consequence of alcoholism which can cause more fatal consequences.

Grieving also contributes to social isolation. When losing a close one, it can cause difficulties with social interactions. For example, if an individual loses a spouse, they lose their social support. They now must find some other kind of support to help them through this fragile time. Studies have showed that widows that keep in contact with friends or relatives have better psychological health. A study conducted by Jung-Hwal Ha and Berit Ingersoll-Dayton concluded that widows that had a lot of social contact and interactions lead to fewer depressive symptoms. During a time of loss social isolation is not beneficial to an individual's mental health.

Although objective social isolation can affect perceived social isolation (loneliness), it is perceived isolation that is more closely related to the quality than quantity of social interactions. This is in part because loneliness is influenced by factors unrelated to objective isolation, including genetics, childhood environment, cultural norms, social needs, physical disabilities, and discrepancies between actual and desired relationships. Accordingly, perceived social isolation predicts various outcomes above and beyond what is predicted by objective isolation. Research by Cole and colleagues showed that perceived social isolation is associated with gene expression — specifically, the under-expression of genes bearing anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid response elements and over-expression of genes bearing response elements for pro-inflammatory NF-κB/Rel transcription factors. This finding is paralleled by decreased lymphocyte sensitivity to physiological regulation by the hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis in lonely individuals, which together with evidence of increased activity of the HPA axis, suggests the development of glucocorticoid resistance in chronically lonely individuals.

Throughout the past two decades social isolation has increased causing family interaction and communication to decrease. Individuals lack the feeling of being able to approach others in order to find comfort, seek advice or physically and emotionally network with.