With technology connecting more Americans than ever before, why are we so lonely?

In an article appearing in The American Spectator, Janice Shaw-Crouse, senior fellow at Concerned Women for American’s Beverly LaHaye Institute says the latest studies show that an ever increasing number of Americans say they have no one with whom they can share confidences.

For instance, the National Science Foundation (NSF) reported in its General Social Survey (GSS) that sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona conducted 1,500 face-to-face interviews where one in four people confessed that they had no one with whom they could share the troubles and triumphs of life. When family members were taken out of the mix, almost half of the respondents said they had no one.

“Sadly, the researchers noted increases in ‘social isolation’ and ‘a very significant decrease in social connection to close friends and family’,” Shaw-Crouse writes.

According to the Census Bureau, people describing themselves as “unrelated individuals” – meaning they do not live in a “family group” has tripled over the last 40 years, increasing from six to 16 percent during that time. Of that number, 70 percent are living alone.

“It is no accident that the social interaction trend declined sharply in the mid-1960s when ‘doing your own thing’ became vogue and ‘sexual freedom’ separated the physical act of sex from the embrace of an emotional attachment and/or a romantic relationship,” Shaw-Crouse writes.

Instead of acknowledging family breakdown, some commentators blame the increase in social isolation on television. She cites the book, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam who looked at how only five percent of American households had a television in 1950 compared to 95 percent in 1970. Today, there’s a TV in every room.

But Putnam also believes the disintegration of the family is to blame, citing the fact that today’s family has 60 percent fewer family picnics and 40 percent fewer family dinners.

Other analysts say longer work days and commutes have isolated individuals with far fewer claiming to know a trust neighbor.

” . . .(W)ith the growth of two-career and single-parent families, people have lost connection with neighbors and have little time or energy for groups or volunteerism,” Shaw-Crouse says.

“With the growth in ‘bedroom communities’, there aren’t enough moms available for field trips and community service projects that depend upon volunteerism. One of the most frequent complaints of home-schooling moms is that they are the only adults in their neighborhoods during the daytime.”

How can this be happening in an era of instantaneous communication with cell phones, Instant Messaging and Skype. It just doesn’t make sense that people who are so connected could possibly be this lonely.

” . . . Sharing — the antidote to loneliness — is not the same thing as talking,” Shaw-Crouse points out.

“Chattering with another person can simply be a mask, a veil, a barrier, a poor substitute, and distraction from loneliness, similar to having the television on in the background to keep the house from seeming empty and barren, or to make it less obvious that the people inside are not interacting with each other.”

The problem is that we have lost the art of “sharing” – that special interaction we have when we share our lives with someone that we love and trust.

“Sharing flourishes when those who are interacting are driven by their higher nature to trust each other and have the capacity for affection and empathy,” Shaw-Crouse writes. “But trust requires mutual respect and caring, insight and understanding. Perhaps more importantly, trust — and thereby, sharing — involves the indispensable ingredient of vulnerability — a quality sadly lacking when excessive self-reliance and self-sufficiency rule the day.”

A spirit of independence can be a barrier to sharing, as can aloofness and the kind of pride that makes us want to be seen as a “winner” or someone who is “in control”, she writes. These are all qualities that isolate us from each other and prevent the kind of familial interdependence that prevents us from feeling alone and isolated.

She also blames the secular humanist view that “human existence is disconnected from any higher power and from responsibility for anyone other than ourselves”. Sure, this attitude brings us a certain amount of freedom, enabling us to make our own rules, but there’s a high price to pay for that freedom, Shaw-Crouse warns.

“Gone is human dignity. Gone is mankind’s special connection to the Author of beauty, truth, or goodness. Ultimately, we are ‘free,’ but autonomy is just another way of being alone. Autonomous individuals have no responsibility to others, just as others have no claim on them. There is no obligation to care about others’ troubles, or even to listen when someone intrudes into another’s priceless personal space in search of a sympathetic hearing of their concerns and difficulties.”

” . . . (T)he self-centeredness that results from a culture dominated by the values of radical individualism is not a pretty thing; it does not contribute to the maturing of individuals, the strengthening of family, the growth of friendship, or the development of communities. As a song, Toby Keith’s ‘I Wanna Talk About Me’ may be good for a laugh, but that attitude doesn’t work as a way of life.”

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