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How loneliness reshapes the brain + Digital amnesia has been exaggerated

#1
C C Offline
How loneliness reshapes the brain
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-lonel...-20230228/

EXCERPT: . . . As the researchers described in 2019, in comparison to a control group, the socially isolated team lost volume in their prefrontal cortex — the region at the front of the brain, just behind the forehead, that is chiefly responsible for decision-making and problem-solving. They also had lower levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein that nurtures the development and survival of nerve cells in the brain. The reduction persisted for at least a month and a half after the team’s return from Antarctica.

It’s uncertain how much of this was due purely to the social isolation of the experience. But the results are consistent with evidence from more recent studies that chronic loneliness significantly alters the brain in ways that only worsen the problem.

Neuroscience suggests that loneliness doesn’t necessarily result from a lack of opportunity to meet others or a fear of social interactions. Instead, circuits in our brain and changes in our behavior can trap us in a catch-22 situation: While we desire connection with others, we view them as unreliable, judgmental and unfriendly. Consequently, we keep our distance, consciously or unconsciously spurning potential opportunities for connections.

Loneliness can be difficult to study empirically because it is entirely subjective... (MORE - missing details)


Digital amnesia has been exaggerated
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critic...xaggerated

KEY POINTS: The term “digital amnesia” was coined not by scientists but by a cybersecurity firm that sells solutions to help protect the information we store digitally. Experiments described in a seminal paper on the way in which we turn to technology to remember things for us have failed to show the same results in the hands of other scientists, although the experiments were not identical. The effect that our reliance on technology has on our memory is still not clear, as the scientific research on this question is still in its infancy.

INTRO: Do you know your best friend’s phone number? In the 1990s, I had my best friend’s phone number memorized, and I’m pretty sure I remembered it just now after thinking about it for a minute. But the phone numbers I use today? They don’t live in my head. They live on my phone.

The press loves to serve us alarming headlines about so-called digital amnesia and what our overreliance on computers and the Internet might be doing to our brain. A particularly egregious headline reads, “Remember how it felt to remember things?”, as if having a smartphone transformed all of us into Guy Pearce in the movie Memento, unable to form new memories.

When we cast aside the doom-mongering that warns of our devices making us dumber—or even worse, of technology giving us “digital dementia,” comparing Internet use with a head injury or the kind of cognitive decline seen in Alzheimer’s disease—we stumble upon two problems: a foundational study that doesn’t replicate very well and a scientific-sounding term coined by people who want to sell you something.

It's a reminder that, on important matters, it pays to read the primary literature... (MORE - details)
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:Loneliness can be difficult to study empirically because it is entirely subjective. Social isolation, a related condition, is different — it’s an objective measure of how few relationships a person has.

I live a pretty isolated existence, though it's one interspersed with thoughtful meaningful contact with online users and facebook "friends". I find such interactions more rewarding than actually physically being with someone. So I'm rarely lonely per se, except maybe during the holidays when everyone is off being with their families.
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