Social Isolation – Causes, Impact, Coping Strategies, And A Personal Perspective

Social isolation is different to loneliness, which is an emotional state, and therefore subjective, that is felt by people who do not feel satisfied with the connections they have with others.

On the other hand, social isolation is an objective condition, where people have little to no interactions with others.

So, for example, you could be in a crowd of people, which means you are not socially isolated (because you are surrounded by others), but you might still feel lonely (because you have no connection with them).

You could also look at it as isolation being a possible precursor to loneliness. Obviously, not all people who are isolated become lonely, but because humans are almost hard-wired to be social, then it is a natural progression.

And needless to say, both of these conditions pose risks to our mental and physical health.

Statistics show that about one in five Americans who are 65 or older are socially isolated, and with 10,000 Americans per day turning 65, the problem is growing.

This article looks at a few causes of isolation, the harm it can cause, and what you can do if you do become isolated.

Causes Of Isolation

There are many causes, but some of the more common ones include:

• Abuse
• Age
• Being immobile (e.g. after breaking a leg)
• Bereavement
• Caring for somebody else
• Health issues (e.g. blindness, deafness, fibromyalgia, incontinence)
• Lack of access to transport (private or public)
• Mental health issues (e.g. agoraphobia, depression, eating disorders, substance abuse)
• Personal choice
• Retirement
• Technology addiction (e.g. chat rooms, online gambling, social media, video games, where you eschew real human interaction in favour of the virtual world)

Effects Of Chronic Isolation

In the short term (e.g. you’re recovering from an operation or illness), it is unlikely there will be any real harm caused, but when social isolation becomes a chronic condition, then there are serious risks.

1. Depression. A study conducted in Norway found that youths without close friends were more likely to display symptoms of depression.
2. Early Death. One study showed that people who are socially isolated increases your risk of an early death by 26%. What’s interesting is that this risk is still present even if you’re happy in your isolation (i.e. loneliness is not the cause)
3. Fear Of Others. It turns out that the more isolated you become, the more you will be afraid of other people.
4. Hallucinations. Yes, this is a weird one, but people who often spend long periods of time alone, such as Arctic explorers, lone sailors, and mountain climbers, have reported seeing “ghosts” and sensing presences.
5. High Blood Pressure. This is presumably related to the additional stress (see below).
6. Impaired Brain Development. Studies have shown that the structure of your brain is adversely affected by a lack of social relationships.
7. Loneliness. As I touched on above, social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, which carries it own specific set of risks too.
8. Low Self-Esteem. This is actually a two-way street – low self-esteem can also cause people to isolate themselves.
9. Lower Educational Achievement. This is one way in which isolated children can suffer later in life.
10. Poor Sleep. This is also a common symptom of mental health issues such as depression.
11. Stress. If you are involuntarily isolated, your stress levels can rise because your brain perceives your state of isolation as a threat, thus triggering your stress response system.
12. Suicide. Prolonged social isolation is a known precipitating factor for killing yourself.
13. Weakened Immune System. The effect of this is that you become more susceptible to illnesses such as the ‘flu.

It may sound alarmist, but two professors at Brigham Young University actually claimed that chronic social isolation is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, and more harmful than being obese.

Isolation Coping Strategies

Since social isolation is an objective issue (i.e. you can count the number of people you are in regular contact with, regardless of how you feel about the situation), then there are clearly things that you can do, depending on your circumstances, to remedy it:

1. Adopt a pet. Not only will a pet provide companionship (which is, admittedly, not the same as human contact, but it’s a good substitute), but if you take them out for a walk, there is a good chance you will encounter other people, including, of course, dog lovers.
2. Call somebody (e.g. a family member or friend you’ve lost touch with). This might be via telephone or technology such as Skype.
3. If you’re religious, start attending your local church or synagogue or temple.
4. Join a local club or interest group.
5. Register at a local college for evening classes.

Of course, some of the above may not be practical if you are housebound (e.g. for health reasons). You therefore need to find ways to encourage people to come visit you.

Options include:

• Asking your local church or charity if they know of people who volunteer to spend time with people who are alone.
• Hiring a professional (e.g. a nurse) to come and check in and look after you.
• Holding a pizza and movie night for friends.
• Hosting a book club meeting (or a get-together for whatever other group you might belong to).
• Hosting a dinner party.
• Inviting neighbours around for coffee.

A Personal Perspective

I want to talk a bit about my own experience with social isolation, because I have considerable experience of it now.

I used to live in England on a large housing estate (with only a few feet between the houses), work for a company where there were thousands of people in the office, and regularly attend hobby-related meetings.

And then I moved to the USA, in 2005, and lived and worked with my wife until late 2018.

Neither one of us were social animals, we had no neighbours to speak of (because we live on a 20-acre property 12 miles outside of the nearest town), and that suited us both fine.

We would venture out every few months to spend a whole day shopping, stocking up for as long as we could, to avoid having to go out again any sooner than we needed.

And then, in 2007, we decided to stay at home full-time, buying everything we needed online.

Oh, and we had dogs – anywhere from three to eight at once, all rescued from a local shelter who are only about five miles away.

The only person my wife saw was me, and the only people I saw were, for the most part, delivery people (e.g. from FedEx, UPS, and USPS), and the occasional tradesperson when we needed repairs done to the house.

So, we live and worked together 24 x 7, and for all intents and purposes, never spoke to anybody else.

We realized, of course, that this lifestyle was not for everybody (actually, not for most people), but it was what we wanted, and we were happy. We were all the company each other needed – with the dogs, of course.

Did we suffer as a result of this voluntary isolation?

Mentally and emotionally, I think I can speak for my wife here too, I believe the answer is no. If either one of us had felt that we needed more people in our lives, we would have said so. Neither of us had family (that either were alive or whom we cared about), and neither of us had that many friends either (my wife had moved here from Los Angeles, leaving behind any friends she might have had there, and all of my friends were back in England).

Physically, that’s harder to say. For myself, I don’t believe so. My main health issue was lack of sleep, but that was more to do with one of the businesses we ran for a while (where we offered 24-hour phone support).

For my wife, sleep (or lack thereof) too was an issue, and she led a very sedentary lifestyle.

Then, just before Christmas 2018, my life changed when my wife died suddenly and unexpectedly (of a suspected heart attack).

Was her death the result of isolation? I suspect not, but cannot, of course, be sure. She was overweight and sedentary, to be fair, and she had bizarre and severe dietary restrictions for other reasons, but I really don’t think the isolation per se was to blame.

So that leaves me, with three dogs, and the only people I see now is a friend who does some grocery shopping for me once a week, and the lady from the US Postal Service once or twice a week when she brings or collects packages.

Apart from the fact I miss my wife and the many varied conversations we had, I don’t feel any more or less isolated than before.

I am still happy, within the overall context of being widowed, of course, and my dogs are a great comfort to me. It would certainly be quiet and boring without them.

The only question that remains then, is whether my living alone like this (by choice, don’t forget) is good for me or not.

I get that isolation can cause physical and mental health issues, but here’s the thing. I am predominantly strongly introverted and socially awkward, so being among groups of people is, and always has been, difficult for me.

I think I have to balance the isolation against the stress that I would feel if I were to re-engage with the world at large.

At home, I can please myself, I get few visitors (and only ones I expect), I don’t have to worry about travelling anywhere or interacting with strangers, and if I really need to, I can get in touch with my friend who would drop everything to come and visit if that was necessary. It is, therefore, a largely stress-free life in many ways.

On the other hand, driving (since there is no public transport where I live), going to the store, etc. would be very stressful for me, and that wouldn’t be the good type of stress.

As I said, my lifestyle would not suit the vast majority of people, but as far as I can tell, it works well for me, as it did for my wife and me when she was alive.

On a final note, I think all of this stems from having a really good look at myself when I was going through the process of divorcing my first wife in 2005, and working out what was truly important to me (and what wasn’t), and defining the principles by which I wanted to live my remaining years – in other words, working how who I was.

And part of the results of that exercise was deciding that a solitary lifestyle was what I wanted. It didn’t happen by accident (metaphorically or literally), and I see no reason to change it at this stage.

Conclusion

This article didn’t exactly go in the direction I’d planned, but I hope you found it useful and interesting.

I think the key take-away is that social isolation is related to, but different than, loneliness – the former is an objective situation (i.e. you either are in contact with people on a regular basis, or you’re not), while the latter is an emotional state.

Some of the causes and side-effects may be similar, and even inter-linked, and some of the ways of dealing with these two issues may also be the same, but it’s important to establish what you are suffering from, so that you can devise the most appropriate way forward for you.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Online Social Isolation Assessment
2. Skype Credit