This is irresponsible reporting. The authors themselves have clarified that this is an _association_ study, whereas the above article claims that isolation is _causal_ to increased dementia risk.
From the authors:
> We agree with Dr. Kawada that no casual conclusion should be made in the present study, as it is an association study. We avoided using terms that imply causal inferences in the paper.
Or quite well correlated like flying kite with metal strings during a storm and getting hit by lighting.
After all we know that people are social animals, that we acquire language and reasoning abilities by interacting with others in childhood (and children that are prevented from doing that have developmental problems), and that forced isolation in adults (in prison, lost in some forrest, or whatever) also brings several psychological and mental problems, and can even be used as punishment and torture.
If "decreased cognitive function" was the cause, then it should have been there before (or at the very beginning) of the social isolation (to cause it).
Aside from these issues in the reporting, I think we would need to control for active reading, and for active remote interactions with other people, whether via pen, telephone, or video call. Also whether the social isolation is being caused by the dementia.
Not that this is an easy topic to study, but although the scientists are experts, at least the article seems to show some large holes in the reasoning.
This studied severely isolated people. If you're interacting with other humans at least once a month, you wouldn't qualify.
"Socially isolated as defined in this case is a person who lived alone, interacted with other people less frequently than once a month and engaged in social activities less frequently than once a week."
Silly question, but how do you interact with people less frequently than once a month, yet engage in social activity more than once a month? Do they mean in-person interactions vs e.g. phone calls?
Saying hi to a clerk means being in a public situation where you may not be talking to people, but you're definitely receiving lots of inputs about their behaviors and feelings (unless you are incapable of reading this).
I think being in a place with other people, such as a shop, is of greater significance that merely saying "hi" to a clerk.
I wonder if it's social interaction that human cognitive health is predicated upon, or just the ability to externalize one's thoughts along with a feedback mechanism. I've done a few lengthy stints of social isolation, and while real-time social skills invariably suffered, I was cognizant of this topic here and took steps to counteract it. The main tactic I used was writing long posts on forums and blogs. I conjectured externalizing/organizing thoughts was the core benefit from real-time, in-person social interaction. In fact, if you don't care about a decline in social skills, it seems this is a more efficient way of doing so and I'd go as far to say that my periods of isolation were of net benefit to me.
The only caveat I can think of now is that many of the outlets for such interaction online are perhaps less useful for such purposes at present, and perhaps even counterproductive. For example, I'd recommend doing so anonymously and without being nudged by karma/upvote systems; like starting an anonymous blog would be a safe bet.
If you're truly stuck in that scenario I'd agree. I'd add that physically writing helps [1] even more than typing, since you're slowing down the externalizing and writing was one of the first means of expression you mastered unconsciously at an early age. I personally spend enough time expressing myself into code/"the internet" that writing feels less formal and it gets me away from screen burn.
Even further, thinking about how God, family, and friends would describe your events or provide their input also provides some of that cognitive boost. Like imagine writing the same journal entry but from five different perspectives.
That said I really don't try to invite social isolation into my life for long. Talking to a friend for 20min is better than any VR, Zoom, journal, etc. Part of the reason is it's also an opportunity to give back to friends... Give encouragement, give your time, give energy, give perspective. You can only love others so much through a journal, and as one Jesus once said "it is more blessed to give than to receive"
Writing is quite different as compared to speaking. When you write, you have time to think, you can delete your last word, re-read, re-write every sentence, etc.
Writing also externalizes your thoughts, yes. But in a person to person interaction you need to basically "get out of your own head" and externalize your thoughts in real time. You also get to read the body language of the other person, feel the "vibes", etc.
I think person to person interactions, especially if they are important relationships (significant other, family, friends) is what makes us human and I am actively trying to mindfully cut back my screen time both in PC and Phone and just start interacting more. Quite difficult being an introvert and shy person but I think it's worth it.
I'm going to guess that your younger experiences involved some meaningful human connections. For me it seems like an early investment yields a greater tolerance for later isolation.
> I'd recommend doing so anonymously
I think a better way of getting this is to travel. You can be anonymous but still interact. You stay a week or a month, make some very light or light or even intimate connections, and then you move on.
It's still probably not as valuable as a quality fixed location scenario, but it's a much lower threat way.
Corollary, if we invent a true AI, then we might face a bug where, if left alone, it starts nooping and ruminating, and the presence of an outer world might actually be a necessary component of one’s intelligence. The frontier of that delimits one individual from another is then more fuzzy than just the skin delimitation…
I'd bet solid money it's both. Biology might be wired to reward us to share and communicate with others regardless of the intellectual outcome of the interaction. It's a primal need.
If you think about it from an evolutionary historical sense, some of the most congnitively intense tasks for early humans were and I'd argue still are, to interact with other humans.
I'm much more myself and think more clearly when I'm not dragged down by other people. I'm one of those that thrives in solitude. The pandemic really made this clear to me.
"Hell is other people" — because of how we are unable to escape the watchful gaze of everyone around us. "By there mere appearance of the Other," says Sartre in Being and Nothingness, "I am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as on an object, for it is as an object that I appear to the Other."
Solitude isn't for everybody. I've always been attracted to it. My favorite books as a kid were about being alone: Robinson Crusoe, The Other Side of the Mountain.
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
― William Gibson
I think people are creative and intelligent, it's just that there are three spheres of life: public, private and secret. The public sphere isn't that interesting because people censor themselves so they don't get judged. People in the public sphere end up playing roles they learned and think that is how one should be in public. Most also have boring private lives.
Where it gets interesting is in our secret lives. I know people have rich secret lives because of the drama shows that people love but don't talk about because they give life to our fantasies and imagination, so to say what you really like about them would be too revealing.
There a couple of movies that demonstrate what would happen if people spoke about what was really on their minds with each other. In Judy Berlin a solar eclipse occurs but doesn't go away. It just stays dark for days and days so people start reaching out to each other trying to understand what is happening and in the process start telling the truth. Why not, because it's the end of the world.
I experienced a great increase in metacognition watching my thoughts and feelings come and go of their own volition and by their own logic. I'm sure over 99% of the population doesn't know anything about metacognition so being around them is unlikely to enhance it.
Or we just hate the other employees who have 1-2 layers of mental structures to build to do their jobs, while ours are 3-5 and require more focus.
Almost everyone I have worked with in my long career has had some very redeeming qualities. But many of them just had no concept what was required mentally for me (and my kind) to do our jobs.
We're not specifically anti-social, but we do want people to STFU enough for us to do the hard work.
When I am on task I find others to be distracting, and that is my concentration problem, but it isn't an anti-social problem. I am not anti-social, I enjoy a certain amount of social interaction. I often prefer my lone time, more so.
Nit Alert: I wish people used 'unsocial' more often. Anti-social means one is hostile or disruptive to social engagement(s). It is thrown around way too often and has an entirely different context to just being 'less inclined to interact with others'.
People are a bit jade, because a study like this, plus the cost benefits can help push open office plans. On the other hand open offices have also been proven to be terrible for cognitive functions.
Both are at the extreme ends of what you should be expose to, and both are based in science. But the middle is expensive, and even then people react differently to the same environments.
It's 'climate-destroying commuting hell', rather than 'open plan office hell'.
Reducing those commuting emissions should be the top reason to make WFH permanent where possible. There may never be another opportunity as good as the pandemic for reducing commuting to this extent.
During the height of the pandemic, I had such intense brain fog I couldn't retain anything I read. I would read then reread a sentence without being able to comprehend it. I didn't realize until now that I had gone weeks without socializing with friends face to face. Since restrictions have been lifted I feel like myself again.
There are many possible factors, and they might interact. Social interaction might be a factor to some degree for some people. The stresses of a global pandemic that are not about social interaction might also contribute to some degree for some people. The fear of infection, the social conflicts and challenging of pre-pandemic social trust networks too, the uncertainty about the future of the world, the feeling of being trapped, the dissonance of sudden social reorganisation... all might be factors.
I say this partly because, yes, your experience might be consistent with this article and I am sorry that you had to go trough that. And secondly to recognise that you went through so many different, unusual, traumatic experiences - and so did everyone else - that it is impossible to tell whether any specific one was the singular cause.
Life was hard in so many new ways during the pandemic. for me the main lessons are that we all deserve to focus on self care a bit more, and that we should really try much much harder to avoid future predictable catastrophes.
Podcasts will make you not interacting with people, but listening to podcasts. Talking to people, especially strangers is what you need.
I have read a whitepaper which tells that most of 25+ y.o. people probably will never make new friends anymore. So I use to talk to random people in random situations as often as possible without annoying them. My rule of thumb is to get disappeared as fast as a discussion became even slightly boring for me or for them.
Just goto office everyday. Play games(foosball, pool, boardgames etc) with your coworkers. Go out for lunch. Go out for happy hours. You would make friends automatically.
Dementia and AD in its early stage cause social isolation, mainly due to fear (i.e. former acquaintances become literal strangers). This study just ended up affirming the consequent.
I try to counter this with long walks and regular weight lifting. This is all I can do. After number of tries to get to talking with people I realized I am just not that type.
Immortality is meaningless unless the world remains perpetually unsatisfactory: what would it mean to exist for an eternity unchallenged by what gives life meaning?
Fortunately we seem capable of narrowing our memory to "where we are now", so I have little doubt that infinite beings can keep ourselves entertained.
Even so, it would be nice to have a meta-scorecard for those in-between moments. I mean, I'd like to know if I ever cheated an entire country, became their great leader, and converted otherwise well-intentioned people into willfully-ignorant follower. As games go, that would be quite entertaining.
From the authors:
> We agree with Dr. Kawada that no casual conclusion should be made in the present study, as it is an association study. We avoided using terms that imply causal inferences in the paper.