The loneliness pandemic

Since the dawn of time, nature remains the most consoling aspect for humankind. However, human cognitive and emotional processes are nurtured best in a social environment. Emotions rule every facet of our lives and along with a thinking mind make humankind the leading species of this planet.

In today’s hyper-connected world, we see the physical being rooted out by the digital. This ruthless extermination sees machines taking over from humans, be it a bank, office, grocery store or even a library; the joy of holding a book becoming a forlorn memory. As tech corporations rake in billions, we are bombarded with the benefits of digitization; hopelessly addicted, we do not fathom the costs.

In the online realm, a loneliness spewing echo chamber bereft of emotions, we frantically seek and find beliefs and behaviors that we fantasize. It now offers to alleviate its own induced loneliness by offering online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Amazon offers Alexa, a virtual soul mate. However, when one seeks a remedy about feeling lonely, Alexa’s response is: “talking to a friend, listening to music or taking a walk might help”; so much for the all-delivering contraption to a feel better world.

Stephen Hawking believed that Artificial Intelligence would one day surpass the human one enabling machines to reign over humans. Nick Bostrom is professor of Philosophy at Oxford University and founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. In his paper, ‘The vulnerable world hypothesis’, he argues: “What we haven’t extracted, so far, is a black ball, a technology that invariably or by default destroys the civilization that invents it; we have just been lucky”.

Bostrom goes on to delve into the greatest threat that can wipe out humankind. After years of research, he asserts in his best-selling ‘Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies’ that this threat is not a pandemic or nuclear-winter; it may well be the creation of a machine with intelligence far greater than our own. In an interview he elaborated: “hijacking political processes (by this super-intelligent contraption), subtly manipulating financial markets, biasing information flows or hacking (nuclear) weapon systems might bring about the extinction”.

Loneliness and its effects did not make it to the common lexicon until the 1800s. In a 1674 list of infrequently used words, naturalist John Ray described loneliness as “a place and people far from neighbors”. In 2018, the former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared an epidemic of loneliness. The same year, British PM Theresa May appointed Tracey Crouch as a ‘minister of loneliness’; studies find the British lonelier than ever before.

Australia, Canada, Germany and New Zealand are considering creating a similar position. Highly connected nations like the US, Korea and Japan too face the scourge with Japan appointing a minister of loneliness. Hikikomori – living in social isolation – has become all pervasive in Japan. The fallout saw 2153 suicides, 879 of them women, in October 2020 alone.

Numerous studies have found loneliness to be directly linked with dementia and heart disease. It also induces eating disorders and higher levels of Epinephrine, the stress hormone. Researchers have found that incessant connectivity interferes with the development of psychological traits essential to the positive development of children. It leads to behavioral disorders such as ADD and ADHD, and acts as a catalyst for bipolar disorder.

Immersed in this digital era, the young are being increasingly drawn into the vortex of addictive (what are dubbed) ‘social’ platforms. In doing so they are losing the ability to reflect and imagine, thus losing something innate to humanity. Isaac Asimov’s short story, ‘A feeling of power’, was about a future with humans unable to perform basic arithmetic so great is their dependence on computers. Today, search engines and gadgets are leading to brain atrophy. Our reading and writing has been reduced to abbreviated messages where a Shakespearian line is conveyed as ‘2b or x 2b’!

With everything in the frenzied digital world a mere click away, we have ceased to think. How can one contemplate and reflect if expected to update our plethora of social accounts around the clock? In Pakistan, 75 percent of our population are mobile phone users. These phones, our indispensable extremities, have also been dubbed as the crack cocaine of technology. They are, apart from a means to 24/7 connectivity and much else, a camera, gaming-device, music-player, cinema, GPS location provider along with our heart and pulse monitor; they now control the very rhythm of our lives.

Today, the greatest impetus towards gadgets is fear of isolation from the herd. FOMO (fear of missing out) has become a rampant malaise. Tech companies are trying to ‘humanize’ technology; they call it Emotion Artificial Intelligence. It measures facial expressions with algorithms that compute emotions. Leading brands are using it to analyze consumer response to their promotional material. This superficial analysis bypassing our emotion chambers, the heart and mind, is an epitome of this artificial world.

The distinction humankind had over other living beings was a life governed and modulated by love, care, empathy, intelligence and creativity. These were realized since millions of years as we lived in communities consisting of extended families and friends. These communities and relations are fast eroding as gadgets replace humans, emoticons portray emotions and our dependence on technology increases with each passing day.

Given the onslaught, how does one ensure technology remains a slave and not a master perpetually seeking dominion over humans and nature? The centuries’ old guiding principles of all sciences were achievements of seeking minds, not machines. These principles made it possible for us to attain the seemingly unthinkable.

A united world tries to counter Covid 19; the same world remains strangely indifferent to the ravages of a far greater threat – the loneliness pandemic. Descartes, regarded as the father of modern philosophy, defined human existence as: “I think; therefore I am.” A thinking mind and human bonds were the guiding lights of humanity. Despite the tech blitz trying to override hearts and minds, they shall remain so for all times to come.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

Email: miradnanaziz@gmail.com