Being alone has its benefits — a psychologist flips the script on the ‘loneliness epidemic’ | Lifestyle News

Statistics present that we’re selecting to be solitary for extra of our waking hours than ever earlier than, tucked away at house relatively than mingling in public. Rising numbers of us are eating alone and travelling solo, and charges of residing alone have practically doubled previously 50 years.

These tendencies coincided with the surgeon common’s 2023 declaration of a loneliness epidemic, resulting in latest claims that the US resides in an “anti-social century.” Loneliness and isolation are certainly social issues that warrant severe consideration, particularly since continual states of loneliness are linked with poor outcomes equivalent to melancholy and a shortened lifespan.

However there may be one other facet to this story, one which deserves a better look. For some folks, the shift towards aloneness represents a want for what researchers name “optimistic solitude,” a state that’s related to well-being, not loneliness.

As a psychologist, I’ve spent the previous decade researching why folks wish to be alone – and spending a good period of time there myself – so I’m deeply accustomed to the fun of solitude.

My findings be part of a number of others which have documented a protracted record of advantages gained after we select to spend time by ourselves, starting from alternatives to recharge our batteries and expertise private progress to creating time to attach with our feelings and our creativity.

So it is sensible to me why folks stay alone as quickly as their monetary circumstances enable, and when requested why they like to dine solo, folks say merely, “I need extra me time.” It’s additionally why I’m not shocked {that a} 2024 nationwide survey discovered that 56 per cent of Individuals thought-about alone time important for his or her psychological well being. Or that Costco is now promoting “solitude sheds” the place for round USD 2,000 you should purchase your self some peace and quiet.

It’s clear there’s a want, and a market, for solitude proper now in American tradition. However why does this facet of the story usually get misplaced amid the warnings about social isolation? I believe it has to do with a collective anxiousness about being alone.

The stigma of solitude

This anxiousness stems largely from our tradition’s deficit view of solitude. In such a considering, the will to be alone is seen as unnatural and unhealthy, one thing to be pitied or feared relatively than valued or inspired.

This isn’t simply my very own commentary. A examine revealed in February 2025 discovered that US information headlines are 10 instances extra more likely to body being alone negatively than positively.

Any such bias shapes folks’s beliefs, with research displaying that adults and kids alike have clear judgments about when it’s – and importantly when it’s not – acceptable for his or her friends to be alone.

This is sensible on condition that American tradition holds up extraversion as the best – certainly as the idea for what’s regular. The hallmarks of extraversion embody being sociable and assertive, in addition to expressing extra optimistic feelings and in search of extra stimulation than the other persona – the extra reserved and risk-averse introverts.

Regardless that not all Individuals are extraverts, most of us have been conditioned to domesticate that trait, and people who do reap social {and professional} rewards. On this cultural milieu, preferring to be alone carries stigma.

However the want for solitude isn’t pathological, and it’s not only for introverts. Nor does it mechanically spell social isolation and a lonely life. In reality, the information doesn’t totally help present fears of a loneliness epidemic, one thing students and journalists have not too long ago acknowledged.

In different phrases, though Individuals are certainly spending extra time alone than earlier generations did, it’s not clear that we are literally getting lonelier. And regardless of our fears for the eldest members of our society, analysis exhibits that older adults are happier in solitude than the loneliness narrative would lead us to consider.

Social media disrupts our solitude

Nonetheless, solitude’s advantages don’t mechanically seem every time we take a break from the social world. They arrive after we are really alone – after we deliberately carve out the time and house to attach with ourselves – not after we are alone on our units.

My analysis has discovered that solitude’s optimistic results on well-being are far much less more likely to materialize if the vast majority of our alone time is spent gazing our screens, particularly after we’re passively scrolling social media.

That is the place I consider the collective anxiousness is properly positioned, particularly the concentrate on younger adults who’re more and more forgoing face-to-face social interplay in favour of a digital life – and who could face vital misery because of this.

Social media is by definition social. It’s within the identify. We can’t be really alone after we’re on it. What’s extra, it’s not the kind of nourishing “me time” I believe many individuals are eager for.

True solitude turns consideration inward. It’s a time to decelerate and replicate. A time to do as we please, to not please anybody else. A time to be emotionally out there to ourselves, relatively than to others. After we spend our solitude in these methods, the advantages accrue: We really feel rested and rejuvenated, we achieve readability and emotional stability, we really feel freer and extra related to ourselves.

But when we’re hooked on being busy, it may be arduous to decelerate. If we’re used to a display screen, it may be scary to look inside. And if we don’t have the abilities to validate being alone as a traditional and wholesome human want, then we waste our alone time feeling responsible, bizarre or egocentric.

The significance of reframing solitude

Individuals selecting to spend extra time alone is certainly a problem to the cultural script, and the stigmatization of solitude will be troublesome to alter.

However, a small however rising physique of analysis signifies that it’s attainable, and efficient, to reframe the way in which we take into consideration solitude.

For instance, viewing solitude as a useful expertise relatively than a lonely one has been proven to assist alleviate unfavourable emotions about being alone, even for the members who have been severely lonely.

Individuals who understand their time alone as “full” relatively than “empty” usually tend to expertise their alone time as significant, utilizing it for growth-oriented functions equivalent to self-reflection or non secular connection.

Even one thing so simple as a linguistic shift – changing “isolation” with “me time” – causes folks to view their alone time extra positively and certain impacts how their family and friends view it as properly.

It’s true that if we don’t have a group of shut relationships to return to after being alone, solitude can result in social isolation. Nevertheless it’s additionally true that an excessive amount of social interplay is taxing, and such overload negatively impacts the standard of {our relationships}.

The nation’s latest gravitational pull towards extra alone time could partially replicate a want for extra stability in a life that’s too busy, too scheduled and, sure, too social.

Simply as reference to others is important for our well-being, so is reference to ourselves.