Loneliness, that word in itself sounds hollow and very sad. It affects millions from all walks of life. Nobody is exempted from this feeling… even billionaires.
The retweets, likes, comments on your posts sometimes get you thinking “Look at that! Folks care about me. I have friends.” You’d think with the increase in social media activities among young people, loneliness will become extinct soon.
While in reality, it doesn’t translate to having healthy relationships with the people you care about.
Recently, BBC did a Loneliness Experiment – an online survey of 55,000 people from around the world. The participants were made up of young and older people and the result was very interesting.
Typically, when you think of a lonely person, you’d imagine a lonely person and the image of an older unmarried cat person who lives alone and hardly sees anyone comes to mind… but the survey results showed that the levels of loneliness were actually highest among 16 – 24 yr old, with 40% saying they often or very often feel lonely.
Human Sleep Science experts have proved that without sufficient sleep, we become a social turnoff, and loneliness soon kicks in, which ultimately leads to depression.
This actually makes sense, because less sleep would mean an irritable attitude which would keep people away from you.
Sound sleep is essential for social performance, cerebral functions, learning and attention, well-being, and all-around quality of life.
It’s hard enough that we spend lesser time around the people we care about as we grow older due to a crazy work-life balance. It’s even harder when we don’t properly spend the little time we get with them.
Reducing the times we spend on digital platforms would improve the quality of sleep we get daily. This will also improve our overall well-being.
Written for ID Africa
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