The social isolation experiment
I was watching the news last night, and it showed six men from different countries voluntarily signing up for months of social isolation. The goal of the experiment is to assess, in part, what happens to people when they’re cut off from social and community ties.
The experiment strikes me as a bit weird (not to mention insanely claustrophobic). I’ve talked to people who are leading lives of real isolation–and they aren’t taking part in any high-profile experiments. Isolation is simply what characterizes their lives — whether they like it or not.
Here’s a crazy idea: Why not take all the money that’s going into the MARS experiment, and put it into researching and building community ties? We already know a lot about social isolation, and we also know that a lot of people are leading wildly isolated lives. The experiment strikes me as socially-blind. There are already hundreds of thousands of people leading lives of involuntary isolation. Maybe we could start paying attention to this fact, and stop pretending that extreme social isolation is something that has to be “constructed” in an experimental setting.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 1:37 pm and is filed under the category Social Isolation.
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11 Responses to “The social isolation experiment”
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In random news, I am having one of those days where I want to go out on bogus errands in order to get out of my house. Trip to exchange a container of eye cream? Buy a yoga mat bag? Get a cappuccino?
Working in a public setting does help, but is horribly distracting.
I wouldn’t mind being alone for that long, but not inside a “bus-sized module”. For me, human companionship does not abate loneliness. I feel more alone around people than I do by myself.
Yes, I agree with your view Emily, I found the idea of the “experiment” to be claustraphobic and almost inhumane. I saw a great graffitti mural once and it said “it takes a community to raise a child” and I thought everyone needs to understand it takes a community to stay connected, needed and appreciated = connecting somehow. If I have to live like this for the next twenty years I have to find a way to cope with my needs. Elderly people who have suffered lonliness all of there lives will be going into desolation unless some sort of connection to community. Travelling around Toronto as as elderly person is not fun, the stairs are way too long, not enough working escalators or elevators, no where to get to washrooms, you can’t run for the bus. So elderly downtown people will become more isolated. I think we have a community problem that seems to be getting worse.
It seems that big corporations and governments are really bent on inhabiting the moon. Steven Hawking has said that we need to inhabit other planets in case we destroy our own habitat. I am sure I won’t be the first one on the rocket.
I like your idea of spending the money on researching and building community ties. My husband and I have looked into moving to a co-housing community to be able to have your own home, but share in meals etc. I believe that is what we are missing out on in todays world…real community living. Those times where we break bread together (hopefully without the cellphone rinking or the beeping of the “crackberries”) or sit and just talk while doing work such as knitting or shelling peas for a meal etc. Or am I trying to romantize a period of time long past…ha! But I have looked into those co-communities and they don’t have any opennings. So it must be working.
For me, loneliness began as shyness while young after repeatedly being labeled “reserved” by everyone my father could tell. He felt it his duty to notify all re my withdrawn and isolated manner. The truth is that he was extremely alone, quiet and spent 8-10 hours a day in his windowless basement office, telecommuting as a computer programmer.
Yes indeed, we easily create our own worlds of solitude and certainly don’t need to troubleshoot, via the MARS experiment, whether or how we would handle the insanity of being alone, or virtually so. The data exists.
I suspect that finding the types, such as David Blayne, who have the fortitude and mental capacity to handle such an experiment, would be the correct path … vs. finding those who merely pass basic personality tests and claim happily that they can handle the claustrophobic loneliness.
i’m reading your book and am so impressed with your perseverence towards self-awareness. it encourages me to pay closer attention to decipher what i’m actually experiencing and resist the urge to run away.
I totally agree with you Emily. When will we as a culture stop worshiping ourselves and start noticing each other and the communities in which we live?
Hi Emily
I agree, that social isolation is a concern, especially for those in the margins of wealthy societies, and that more needs to be done to build community ties. But I think that research into space exploration – and scientific endeavours in general – is at the foundation of why humans have always yearned for a different way. Or it may even be a yearning for understanding ourselves better.
I also think that those who have dared to be explorers have brought dignity, respect and value to loneliness and the role that it has played for individuals and entire societies. The pursuit of discovering something different and new to our understanding of the world has shown that there is courage and reward – as well as pain – amidst the often blurred boundaries of isolation, loneliness and solitude.
I could think of nothing worse than being trapped or isolated by an experiment like this. Who I am and what isolation means to me would see me run a mile from this. But I believe in exploring space, I believe in science finding new ways of understanding ourselves, and I believe that loneliness – a burden or challenge for many of us – can sometimes make us do brave things that benefit so many.
Look at what you and your book have done already
Thank you for sharing
Anita
That’s a great point, Emily. I’m sure you’re right: we already know a great deal about most of the effects – and causes – of isolation. So it’s crazy to spend money on anything that merely confirms most if not all of what we know. There’s so much talk about society, about respecting diversity and avoiding discimination; so much legislation designed to socially engineer results in these areas; yet they don’t seem to have achieved anything other than even more atomisation …
It’s more because.. society creates problems with mental health sufferers through isolating them, judging them, excluding them, removing them.
When they are pushed to the borders, people just drop off the edge. You can see that if you look – those with many social contacts get the best help, and those with none.. well they’re left to their own problems, and god help them if those problems devour them alive.