Technology, busyness, and human nature make loneliness natural. Art, belonging, and seeing the benefits of solitude make loneliness more bearable.

Marshall McLuhan used technology to describe our world quite poignantly. He used the phrase media (which became central to his theory of Media Ecology), but the summary is that the human journey is one of experiencing the world, sensing our limitations, and extending our capabilities. A cycle begins. We extend some part of the human experience, it obsolesces another part, and then it reverses. That’s technology, or, media.

A common example would be the security camera. It extends the eye, obsolesces the security guard, and can reverse when used as an invasion of privacy.

The overarching critique of technology by McLuhan is more far-reaching, however. All of this extension, obsolescence, and reversal are constantly changing how society exists. There is a chance, then, that as technology grows, so do society’s problems. Technology has been wondrously beneficial, but as McLuhan often wonders, at what expense?

One of the original sociologists — Emile Durkheim — asked a similar question. Durkheim lived in Western Europe during the height of the industrial revolution. Unprecedented technological growth had blossomed a world utterly unfathomable to previous epochs of history. Durkheim wondered if there was a downside. What he found was that every geographical area beset by industrialization saw an exponential spike in suicide. He wrote an entire book on those connections.

Here we are — with highways and high-speed internet, apparently infinite access to food, and phones that can take us to the other side of the world. We’ve been liberated from a dependency on the tribe with the utmost luxury, comfort, and convenience. I, for one, am not complaining. Yet, is there an expense?

McLuhan famously noted how the advent of literature and the printing press changed the way people relate. No longer was an individual bound to the geographic constraints of their heritage or the relational constraints of their family. They could transport to any place in the world and to any point in history if they had the right materials. Was the technology of writing and literacy good? I believe so. Did it eliminate other good things?

The noticeable difference was that the freedom of connection was meager in comparison to the depth of intimacy once known in human history. As human systems have grown, human connection has suffered. Our technology makes us feel less alone, but it exacerbates our loneliness.

We can impatiently satiate every desire, but we’re more alone than ever.

Three Reasons We’re Lonely

As I survey the landscape of modern loneliness, there appear to be multiple reasons for our inherent experience of being alone. The experience is not new. At some points in history, it was even applauded. But, certainly, the attention on this existential reality has grown immensely in the modern era and it may be one of the most common experiences of the general population that is the least talked about.

So, why are we lonely?
What are the causes?
And what do we do about it?

Reason 1 — Technology

This is too obvious of a remark; so much so that it is almost cliché. Yet, the reason technology causes loneliness may not be so obvious — and it goes back to McLuhan and Durkheim’s address on what technology does within society.

Technology mitigates proximity.

Every further extension of the human person creates more separation between other human persons.

While it is hard to disagree with the advantages that technologies have brought forth, happiness doesn’t mean good. Comfort, luxury, and convenience are certainly desirable, but it doesn’t make them ideal within the human experience. Unless you’re an Epicurean where pleasure is the ultimate good. Immanuel Kant would take issue, however — we can’t let desire determine our ethics.

This brings us back to McLuhan’s definition of technology and media — all media obsolesces something and all media reverses. Our various developments have extended the human presence but it has done so through wires, screens, and transportation infrastructure. What did this obsolesce? The same thing it tried to extend — the connection and necessity of people and their physical presence.

What critiques of technology propose are that the human person cannot be replaced. You may talk to people on social media or through wires or on a screen, but in the end, it’s just a screen.

One of the primary psychological needs of human relationships is proximity. A fundamental and, in my perspective, irreplaceable facet of connected existence is your actual presence. Like, in person. When the sole form of connection happens without that, we can have lots of contact with no connection. Hence, our world is fuller than ever, but it’s also lonelier.

Reason 2 — Time

A further appendage of technology is how we navigate a fuller world.

Time, as it goes, is a limited resource; at least for those of us under the constraints of mortality. The extent of your life must, therefore, fit within your limited time.

Our culture, however, is busy. It often seems as if one’s status is determined by a full calendar. Proclaiming that life is crazy actually appears to be a designation of authority and prestige. Within the constraints of time, have we tried to fill our daily lives with more than we can handle? Are we functioning at a scale that forces us to be in lots of places without actually being in any of them?

I’m not saying that this is a new predicament in human history. However, the trappings of civilization have come with increased opportunity. More places to go, more ways to get there, and, generally, much more to do. The extensions of the human person have extended the scope of our lives, as well.

In terms of loneliness, as scale increases, attention diminishes. This is because of the limits of time and energy. You cannot care for one thousand acres of land with the same care that you would with one acre. Driving down the road will reduce your visibility of detail much more than if you walked. You cannot walk as far, but you can see more of what you’re passing. Our increased and extended scale has diminished our presence. You can only care for what you know and you can only know what you can see.

So, we go lots of places and see lots of people and partake in lots of activities — and there is a chance that we are always somewhere but never fully anywhere. There is a difference between being busy and being connected and though technology has given us the opportunity to do more, we tend to be less.

In the absence of presence and connection, we may be surrounded, but we will continue to be surrounded by strangers.

Reason 3 — Human Nature

Venturing to a different avenue of cultural criticism, loneliness has become a stigma insinuating a negative moral adherence. A lonely person is either socially incompetent, lazy, or, at best, eccentric and, at worst, ailed by pathology.

In reality, however, it is another human constraint. You cannot be anyone else. You cannot inhabit the world from any other vantage point but your own. This is sometimes called psychological asymmetry and indicates that the human individual has physical, mental, and emotional barriers to fully knowing anyone else in the same way that we know ourselves. We are, therefore, left with experiencing the intensity of our full selves while only receiving partial (and, often, edited) versions of everyone else.

Human nature reveals that our finitude includes an inherent disconnection from every single person around us.

The typical response to this dissonance is to assume that we are the weird ones and, in fact, there is something wrong with us. We are destined to be misunderstood and we deserve our loneliness.

This can even happen with a strong foundation of emotional intelligence. You can have a high capacity of self-awareness and handle your intense internal complexity with maturity — but you still do not get to see the full version of anyone else. You can be comfortable in your own skin, but expressing that contentment typically receives the previously mentioned judgment of eccentricity or pathology. Often, however, we conclude that there are fewer and fewer people willing to venture into the complex reality of life. We neglect our awareness for fear of being weird or because we assume that others will not comprehend us.

We can, therefore, shut everyone out. Endure our complexity and the complexity of the world alone.

We can ignore the complexity; hide it, even. Fit in.

We can assume that we are the only ones venturing through this struggle.

Seriously, is the world full of people assuming that they are the weird ones?

Whatever option you consider, if this is simply human nature, it is also quite hopeless. There is no possible way to achieve full knowledge and full connection with another human being. We are, I suppose, destined to be lonely.

What responses are left?

Three Responses to Loneliness

Though we cannot eliminate the experience of loneliness, we can respond to it and mitigate its effects. Here are a couple of suggestions.

Response 1 — Art

Alain de Botton articulates a constructive approach to loneliness through an oft-neglected medium. Art is the outcome of people expressing the reality of the world by communicating what they believed they could not just come out and speak. They use notes or materials or pictures to say what otherwise may be seemingly inexpressible or even taboo. Commodity art is not typically included in this category. The kind of art that speaks to this existential crisis is not usually the art that is the most popular or highest selling.

Art, therefore, might be seen as humanity’s secret diary; accurate portrayals of the depths of strangers that are otherwise concealed. And these honest, darker, unedited stories of real humans give us an opportunity to realize that we are not so different. We aren’t the weird ones.

What happens when you see or hear or experience something that is the result of a person, in their desperation, trying to show the depth of their soul? Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings strike a resonant beauty — but is that because it comes from a dissonant life?

Soren Kierkegaard suggest this is true:

What is a poet? A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music… and people crowd about the poet and say to him: “Sing for us soon again”; that is as much to say: May new sufferings torment your soul.

Artists are those showing the world as it is because the world has cut them open with a knife.

This intimate, honest communication is often what is lacking in human existence. If this was normal, art wouldn’t be necessary. Alas, art can welcome us into what we often avoid and show us the familiar, normal world that we think was just us.

Response 2 — Belonging

The opposite of loneliness is love.

Love, in its ideal form, is a relationship where connection flourishes because people are secure enough to reveal the depths of their lives and hold the revelations of another. While this can be marriage, it can also be the interpersonal relationships of our lives or of a community. The intention is the key: belonging through vulnerability.

Connection happens when you go far enough into someone’s story that you find your own. This kind of love turns objects into fellow subjects and strangers into mirrors.

It is, however, both difficult and demanding. It requires something of us. Belonging necessitates shared history, proximity, permanence, and shared vision. The modern fancies of romanticism’s love or ambiguous community don’t adhere to such exigence. 99% of history lived in these circumstances and, in comparison to our modern luxury, comfort, and convenience, it was not always desirable. But as McLuhan and Durkheim hinted, with advancement has come an increase in loneliness. Previous epochs might not have had our ease, but the experience of consistency, ritual, dependence, and their lack of barriers allowed them to experience a level of intimacy that is now unprecedented. Our ancestors may have been unfortunate in thousands of ways, but they may have had the one thing we don’t and desperately desire: to belong.

From globalization and transience to how mass media constantly presents us with a version of normal that is void of our immediate context — we are surrounded by crowds and expectations that leave belonging in its effervescent wake.

Love, community, vulnerability, and belonging can put a dent, however, in loneliness’ machine.

Response 3 — Embrace the Benefits

We won’t ever eliminate the experience of loneliness so, as I’ve mentioned before, we ought to learn how to embrace it. Sure, you can pretend it isn’t there. You can try to avoid it and fill that void with endless escapes. Or, you can realize that maybe it can play a positive, constructive role in our lives.

First, we need to acknowledge that loneliness, in and of itself, has no moral value. It’s not a bad thing. It can be used positively or negatively. But this also requires seeing that loneliness is a normal part of human nature. Can you accept that? Can we be content that our own company is the most we will ever have? And further, can we learn to enjoy that company?

We are not that different from anyone else and we are all the only ones we will ever fully have.

But there is some value here.

Solitude is a means to rest.

Isolation provides boundaries.

Silence is a beautiful way to pay attention and see the depths of your soul.

Sometimes, we need to be alone.

Sometimes, we need to be honest about our smallness and strangeness; the often-hideous parts that cause us to avoid our own company may provide the kind of self-awareness that helps us take the next right step for the days to come.

When we start there, we start being alive.

And in being alive, loneliness may just be less lonely.