Is there a quiet isolation pandemic now?

This may seem an exaggeration, but there is an ongoing isolation pandemic. The current wave of loneliness, along with the decreasing number of family members; and even the growth of pet care businesses are signs of this problem.
As a parent and teacher, I see this growing problem among my sons’ peers and in my classrooms. While we seem to be growing more connected to things (internet, devices and services), we are disconnecting with people. This lack of personal connection is starting more at a younger age and deepening through generations with significant negative social impact on society and individuals.
To prevent future personal and societal problems, families, schools and workplaces need to encourage and foster personal connections through meaningful friendship.
Reading and understanding books becomes harder. Students with few friends or siblings will have issues with books from Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, or even the Wimpy Kid series; all focus on relationships. These books have been regularly used to teach the love of reading, building imagination and understanding society. The ability to get a deeper meaning or relate to the author’s message is lost. This deeper understanding becomes even harder with business text, which requires reading at different levels to apply concepts innovatively or address new conditions. Understanding how various people use words is an essential skill, ideally with foundations built when learning to talk at home.
The quality of friendships is vital in addressing social ills. More quality friends reduce the need for social media and the documented associated extremes. Physical interaction gives the same dopamine hit that social media provides but in better dosage and longer duration. By focusing on quality friends, depression and other social ills can be reduced as people share their feelings, grow, and interact in a positive manner. For students, having genuine friends helps with studying and learning from schoolwork.
There are more exchanges and explanations of ideas in a positive environment. Research supports that talking with others builds stronger relationships than text messages. Thus, for students, more trustworthy contacts help them develop as individuals. I see many university students struggle in class because they have few people they call friends. Students struggle with mental health problems because the structure that existed before and provided help is not there. Parents assume that students are connecting because of online interactions, but that cheap substitute for real friendship is not working.
More friends means less dependence on one person; hence, relationships are better. Young adults have fewer people to interact with, resulting in intense interactions. Thus, there are more strains or demands on fewer relationships. For example, if someone has one friend, they discuss ten items with their one friend, requiring much of that one friend’s time and energy. Therefore, the friend may start limiting interaction as the relationship requires a lot of energy and the person talking feels less fulfilled. Two unhappy people.
However, if someone has five friends, then they can discuss two items with each other; and so the friends are happy to interact more because the relationship requires less energy. Ironically, by having more friends, individuals develop better relationships. The principle applies even at the workplace because if someone can relate to a wider number of people in the office, they can get more done and contribute to better productivity.
Workplaces have always seen the need for friendship at work, though it may not be referred to as such. In offices, teamwork, openness, and psychological safety are terms that have similar meaning to authentic human interaction.
Work-from-home advocates prioritise interacting with people at home, whereas return-to-office advocates prioritise interacting with people in the office. However, generational problems and the lack of interpersonal experiences, real and perceived, highlight the difficulty of communicating various needs and desires by the individual. It comes as no surprise that communication is one of if not the most valuable skills for the workplace.
Companies have to spend time developing workers’ abilities in talking with each other because that particular skill may not have been fully developed at home or in school. Having real friends helps individuals and society by reducing loneliness and business inefficiencies caused by employees’ mental distractions. A sense of belonging starts with family interactions followed by schools and grows into society.
Mariano Miguel Carrera, PhD, is a lecturer at the International College at King Mongkut’s University of Technology, North Bangkok.