Loneliness and Digitalization of Behavior

Look!

There are no longer any laws that say we have to be normal.

The only thing that holds us back is the disapproval and judgement of others. If that is not a problem for you, which it is not for me, then we do have freedom in the West.

If you are 70 and you want to have bright orange spiky hair, wear make up or cross gender you can. You will even have the protection of the law.

Hardly anyone seems to realize this. It is like everyone is so frightened and huddled together in old and safe concepts like nation and race. They are the LEAST SAFE places to hide, believe me. You would be much better off to stop fearing what lies outside of your experience and perception.

Why not have the WHOLE WORLD and everyone in it instead of just YOURSELF and NOBODY in it.

I say this to myself all the time, but I know the world will not let me have it. People deny me, neglect me, attack me, steal from me, bully me, abuse me. They did it to me when I was a child. They have done it to me as an adult. Give a person who has experienced all that digital culture and they are bound to use every last bit of it up on being free because the physical world confines them in their mind and body so.

You know that. You know how much it means to a disabled person to have the internet and how it empowers them. Look at Stephen Hawking, how technology has empowered him! Who can say that is evil? So who can say technology is evil? Only the human makes it what they want it to be. They use it for great harm, attack, bullying, etc. It is really just an extension of their own mind state. Others are totally creative with it and use it for good.

I really am not being enticed out of my technology shell for anything worth poking my head out for. The cabbage leaves I munch on are food enough for thought and the best in the area. There are now millions like me and evolution is monitoring to see how it all goes.



Sorry to be patronizing, but I am not going to let you off the hook. Even if you hate me, never give me a star, never flag me I will still write, probably even more. I make even more tracks now I am not known about in music than I used to. I think, read and write far more than I ever have in my life before. I am more awake than ever before. You are wanted, but not needed. I will record my thoughts in digital writing and I will record my music in digital code.

We can all do this. Now we have two lives and two dimensions. It is a BIG ADDITION. I am very sad that in both I have to be attacked so much, but I guess I will just have to keep fighting like Israel has to fight to stay alive.

When the robots come they will help us no end. May be we will not want to keep the old structures of socializing? It was pretty messy; domestic abuse, sexual abuse by institutions, thieving from work, abusing employees, fighting in the streets, sexual promiscuity to the point of spreading deadly viruses, bullying, partners cheating on you, rape, murder, assault, pushing and shoving, hierarchical head games of all kinds - the list is long. It is this I could no longer tolerate and sought to banish from my life.

I will tell you the greatest deficit for me has been LOVE. I have never had it without conditions being placed upon it. Even in the religions there seems to be conditions. Love is a turn on turn off emotion in people and that is not the kind of love I can respect nor ever could.

Could robots love? In a way, yes they could. They would not place conditions on their love. Their love would be very constant and they would never be too tired to listen (unless we forgot to plug them in last night). They would be intelligent to the point of having instant access to every fact in creation, lol. I am just going out with a joke here!

As long as mine can look like Emily Booth and teach me physics like Einstein, civil rights like Martin Luther King and sing to me like Elvis, well that's cool by me.



See ya on the boards! Now where did I put that personalty software for "Brazen Amazonian Princess on Peyote disk to feed into Emily Bot's "data portal"?

OP.... I understand what you are saying to a degree , but I think many loners are alone because of choice , much like you.

Personally, the loneliest feeling I’ve encountered is being at a crowded party , where many are gossiping about the supposed friends that did not make it.

Human nature can be quite negative , and these days I prefer to avoid the drama of humans interacting. It is best for my mental health, in my opinion to limit my contact to close family , and a very few good friends.

I love being alone in a serene environment , and simply interacting with strangers online, though that can get negative at times as well. ( difficult to hold back how you really feel at times , so I become one who can be negative as well.)😕

I guess my point is loneliness is just a state of mind, and one can feel incredibly lonely around many people. I think that is why many folks just are happier with their own company.

originally posted by: Revolution9
I will tell you the greatest deficit for me has been LOVE. I have never had it without conditions being placed upon it. Even in the religions there seems to be conditions. Love is a turn on turn off emotion in people and that is not the kind of love I can respect nor ever could.

Would you love someone unconditionally? Think about what that means. This means no matter what they do, no matter how they act. If they decided they would be better off without you would you still love them? If they decided it made them happy to cause you pain would you still love them? If they became addicted to drugs or an alcoholic? How about if they suddenly joined some nazi hate group or other such organization?

The problem with love is people change and in the end it's always conditional unless you can truly say you would love someone no matter what circumstances occur in either of your lives you can't really expect it from someone else. As nice as it would be to believe there's some person out there who will love us forever, there is usually some reciprocity required. Unless you're willing to keep loving someone through any and everything, even if they stop loving you, you can't really ask for unconditional love. All you can really hope for is someone who you can love and will love you at least enough to put up with eachother's bull#. Because if there's one thing everyone's full of....

Remember, kids, Loneliness is:

I remember when I was a kid I used to go outside and the the kids are playing various games on the street. When me and my friends were bored, we would go wander the neighborhood. When we wanted to play a video game, we would have to go to the arcade where tons of people gather, or to the corner store or pizza shop, also where people gather. If you want to go buy something, you have to go outside. Just the way things were, it made you have to get out. Nowadays its all too easy to stay home.

Its unfortunate what I'm seeing - people pushing baby carriages, w parents looking at their phones. I wouldn't want to be that kid. But as an adult, I am falling into the patterns of the digital age too. Often my cat is staring at me craving for attention while I am hooked on my phone or computer. Its all this interesting stuff online too - can suck the life out of you!

a reply to: dug88

Very nicely expressed. Love changes with time and circumstances. You won't find it on the internet.

The internet has turned us into social scaredy cats. So afraid of criticism, rejection, being hurt. Generations are socially
deficit and without finding those real life experiences it is are making them lonely.

Yes, we can get hurt or hide on our computers pretending we have friendships-it's a choice.

originally posted by: Justso
a reply to: dug88

Very nicely expressed. Love changes with time and circumstances. You won't find it on the internet.

The internet has turned us into social scaredy cats. So afraid of criticism, rejection, being hurt. Generations are socially
deficit and without finding those real life experiences it is are making them lonely.

Yes, we can get hurt or hide on our computers pretending we have friendships-it's a choice.

Many love connections have been made through the net that are just a strong as those in real life. Both have a way of falling apart if the connection is not strong enough.

what an interesting and thought-provoking thread... thanks to the OP for sharing his findings and so much of his life. it sounds like you've been through a lot of unpleasantness and i'm sorry to hear that. i identify with a lot of what you say, although if you'll pardon my saying so, you don't sound as content with it as you're implying, here and there.

to be honest, i felt much lonelier before the digital revolution. i was very awkward growing up, and didn't know how to talk to people. most of my interactions with the outside world did not end well, at all. i was always very introverted, very depressed -- and very lonely. felt like nobody ever would or could understand me, and things would never change. i was bullied a lot, as well.

in college, i was able to take some acting classes, which gave me a little more insight into, well, how to act -- and the concept of observing how other people acted with each other, so i could put my finger on where i was going wrong in some of these situations, making people uncomfortable, or putting out body language that prevented people from engaging with me.

i also started living with some extroverted housemates with a wide circle of friends, and got more experience talking with people. it didn't always go that well but i had enough opportunities to try that one failure at socializing didn't seem as bad, after a while. i also started to realize that people mostly think about themselves, and most others weren't dwelling on what a weirdo i was nearly as much as i was dwelling on it, hehe.

but most importantly, i was also able to get online and start finding community with people who weren't near me geographically, but were closer to me in spirit than a lot of people i'd met. i met my last three significant relationships online. i had to move away from where i grew up, and i can skype with my family every couple of weeks, and keep up with my two closest friends by chatting every day. my other closest friend is someone i've never even met in person, but have chatted with online for years now.

i'm better at talking to people now... but i'm still not that fond of it, and i can only do it for so long at a time before the circuitry in my brain starts to hitch and glitch. it's just easier for me online, typing away and reading text that gets sent back, than it ever was trying to listen and talk and read all the social cues. and i do i like being by myself, a lot of the time.

i think some people might look at my life and think i'm very isolated and introverted, but i feel more socialized and fulfilled now than i ever did, before everything got so digital.

what this might mean for society at large, not sure i can say yet. things are definitely changing, and i have a feeling that this will not end up being a disaster in the long run... just something different. the next step forward.

a reply to: fiverx313

I think you are certainly a welcome and respected member of the ATS community !!

There has been loneliness since time began. I think the big spike - and challenge - is the loneliness of the elderly, who have been deserted by the younger generations. It will only get worse.

I would support (in the UK at least) a racking up of befriending services for the elderly, probably as part of education and / or post education social interaction. It would get the young out into the communities they live in. Maybe they would be less lonely and more capable of developing decent social skills, with the benefit they would be helpful to the people who really run the risk of loneliness and isolation.

a reply to: olaru12

aw geez... that means a lot to me, actually. thank you.

originally posted by: paraphi
There has been loneliness since time began. I think the big spike - and challenge - is the loneliness of the elderly, who have been deserted by the younger generations. It will only get worse.

that's a damn good point, actually. i think this is all especially disorienting for the current generation of elderly even more than in the past. family bonds are much looser, people live much further apart. it was an easy adjustment for me to have a mostly digital social life but...

a reply to: Sheye

It would be interesting if a real study was made of the quality and length of internet relationships compared to real face to face introductions, meetings, setups etc.

One does hear of occasional hookups but I know personally of some really bad connections and catfishes-there continues to be a lot of unknown danger by trusting internet connections.

Believe I have read, but can't find it at the moment, that something close to 80% of facebook is lying.

Call me old fashioned, I'm old, but there is nothing that will ever replace a physical, personal meeting. You can't replace reading into another's eyes.

originally posted by: Justso
a reply to: Sheye

It would be interesting if a real study was made of the quality and length of internet relationships compared to real face to face introductions, meetings, setups etc.

One does hear of occasional hookups but I know personally of some really bad connections and catfishes-there continues to be a lot of unknown danger by trusting internet connections.

Believe I have read, but can't find it at the moment, that something close to 80% of facebook is lying.

Call me old fashioned, I'm old, but there is nothing that will ever replace a physical, personal meeting. You can't replace reading into another's eyes.

I agree... the internet can be scary , though I do believe there are some true friendships and love connections made online.

Real life relationships have a way of tanking or being a great disappointment as well. Looking into the eyes of someone doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t get away with lying to you. Happens everyday in real life relationships .

But I agree ... the wiser choice if you are looking for a true love connection, is meeting someone in the flesh.

originally posted by: Sheye
But I agree ... the wiser choice if you are looking for a true love connection, is meeting someone in the flesh.

i agree with that but kind of not... my take on it is meeting someone online is just as good as in person, depending on the people... for me it's easier to get to know if i'm going to like someone by chatting with them online.

BUT

meet them in person also as soon as possible, as soon as you think you're interested. with online meeting, it's way too easy to get entrenched in your mental image of what the person is like if you chat too long before meeting... and then when red flags pop up it's way too easy to ignore them or rationalize them in some way that keeps your image of the person in synch with who you imagined them to be.

a reply to: fiverx313

It's interesting to see what I think are the differences in perceptions of "meeting" someone. I think it may have to do quite a bit with age and experience.

Unfortunately, I know several middle aged women who were really duped into believing a fantasy of romance with real internet liars and even after meeting these guys couldn't shake that fantasy and lost thousands. Whereas, if they had met these guys through friends and church or some known real life connection, they would have known more of the reality of these guys instead of buying into the fantasy first and hating to let it go.

I am seeing this younger generation, the under 40s, trusting a bit too much at the beginning of conversations with strangers-even though they only have the info fed to them without any way, usually, to know whether or now they are being fed the truth. Seen alot of trust given when not earned or deserved.

There's also the issue of missing out of really getting out and putting the effort into meeting real people. Nothing can replace it. It does seem kind of lazy these days to depend on meeting "people" on the internet.

I always tell my adult children there's a huge difference between "meeting" a person and "meeting" an internet personality.

a reply to: Justso

that's a good point, about if you meet someone through friends or a social scene where people are close, you know more people who know that person and know about them. i think that if you meet someone in a larger city or at a club you don't really get that either, though.

definitely, it's also easy to buy into the fantasy and want to keep it going even if they don't quite match up in real life. that's why i think it's important to meet them in real life quickly, before you build that fantasy up too much.

maybe it helps in my case that i didn't meet any of them through dating sites, but through online forums for people of similar interests... and got a look at their personalities when they weren't putting on a dating-minded facade?

i think these are all pitfalls you can fall into meeting someone in real life as well... there are some aspects of a personality that it's easy to hide in real life, too.

ETA: i am juuust under 40, fwtw.

Loneliness is not something tangible, or an automatic result of something.

Loneliness is also completely subjective. Two people can have a completely different experience in the same, exact circumstances.

You can be lonely in a crowd, in a party, with your friends, with your family.

Then you can also be non-lonely completely by yourself, enjoying your own company, your hobbies, creativity, walks, whatnot.

Being alone doesn't equal loneliness - this is what some people seem to not understand.

We come to this world alone, we leave this world alone. We better get acquainted with ourselves, and being by ourselves.

Many people are afraid of being alone, because they know they'll end up in bad company. So they try to fill their lives with people, hoping to feel less empty. If you fill your life with people, you can't feel lonely and empty, right?

RIGHT?

Loneliness, in the end, is a state of mind, a chosen self-victimization. Being alone is a natural state for a human being, since we come to this world alone, and we leave it alone, and the inbetween we spend with strangers, more or less. For can anyone ever REALLY know another human being? Are there even human beings on THIS particular planet?

Is a life filled with being 'busy' with lots and lots of people really more valuable than a 'lonely' life with lots of wisdom gained by self-reflection, contemplation, meditation, learning to live in harmony with the nature, and gaining valuable spiritual insights?

In both cases, people are ACTUALLY 'alone', but in the first case, the individual is trying to SUPERFICIALLY fill themselves by being materialistic with people (yes, it's still materialism, even if it's people), the latter individual is actually CONNECTING to the Cosmos, and thus can't ever really be 'lonely', no matter how seemingly 'alone' they are.

Think about it.