Do you like hiking alone? Isolate yourself for several hours away from everything and everyone to “recharge your batteries”? A recent study suggests that these forms of loneliness could ultimately be detrimental to your well-being. Other, less extreme ways of isolating yourself would be more likely to restore energy and strengthen social bonds. This study also challenges a commonly accepted theory describing the role of human communication in the relational functions of social interaction.
Ideally, social interaction and solitude should be balance, because enjoying the benefits of one prevents enjoying the other. In other words, they each involve a compromise. The theory “of communication, connection and belonging » (Communicate Bond Belong) is based on these compromises. She argues that social interaction can promote connection with others at the expense of social energy. This refers to a person's ability to interact with others. Like a battery, it can be full, partially charged, or empty.
Conversely, it assumes that solitude can restore social energy, but at the expense of the relationship. Researchers set out to test this trade-off and its implications for well-being. To do this, they considered different conditions in which loneliness is “attenuated” (in particular by technology or the presence of other people nearby).
A more or less isolation extreme
Recent research has suggested that there are many shades of loneliness – particularly since the advent of smartphones, which offer near-constant connectivity. It is therefore no longer just a question of physical isolation.
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