[p2p-research] Loneliness May Be Contagious | Wired Science

[Paul D. Fernhout]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/loneliness-may-be-contagious/
"""
Staying socially connected may be just as important for public health as 
washing your hands and covering your cough. A new study suggests that 
feelings of loneliness can spread through social networks like the common 
cold. ...
   The results indicate that lonely people tend to move to the peripheries 
of social networks. But first, lonely people transmit their feeling of 
isolation to friends and neighbors.
   Feeling lonely doesn’t mean you have no connections, Cacioppo says. It 
only means those connections aren’t satisfying enough. Loneliness can start 
as a sense that the world is hostile, which then becomes a self-fulfilling 
prophecy.
   “Loneliness causes people to be alert for social threats,” Cacioppo says. 
“You engage in more self-protective behavior, which is paradoxically 
self-defeating.” Lonely people can become standoffish and eventually 
withdraw from their social networks, leaving their former friends less 
well-connected and more likely to mistrust the world themselves.
   Because loneliness is implicated in health problems from Alzheimer’s to 
heart disease, Cacioppo says, reconnecting to those who have fallen off the 
network may be vital for public health.
"""

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/