Loneliness Caused by Technology, What Your Cell Phone Usage May Tell You About Your Mental Health

3 Steps to Reduce Loneliness

?Our Family History and Habits - growing up in a detached family, physically living together yet emotionally separated living separate lives. These habits may carry over into adulthood or as a result of a bad relationship or marriage. You may discover, a difficult relationship, a troubled life may have shaped your personality. Step 1, identify, acknowledge and make a decision to make a change. Anchor your decision by sharing your new goal with someone, even if its a professional. At minimum, go tell someone what you're thinking about this particular issue to begin a discussion.

Our Overall Mental Health - Have you had a propensity for loneliness, mood swings, personality disorders, feeling uncomfortable in social settings, feelings of guilt, anxiety and depression. Do you have a propensity to be a loner. Step 2, set a goal to alter aspects of your personality that create unhappiness, being alone and unhappy. Realize all of us were designed to be social beings. Tell someone about this burden and incrementally reverse course. Start a discussion, share with someone what you're thinking about this particular issue.

Our Relationship With Technology - Is there a downside to technology as some Silicon Valley gurus are claiming? As a trend, top Silicon Valley executives are removing technology from their homes referencing physiologic and structural brain changes to their children similar to the brain changes of those with substance abuse and compulsive eating disorders. Their decisions in part may also be based on cultural, religious leaning and a penchant to support existing data by injecting culture and religion. Is technology such as your smart phone, ipad, lap top, your social media activity replacing literal face2face interaction with people during each day. This is a big one! Technology can be both the cause of loneliness as well as the result of loneliness. Those of us who may be experiencing personality deficits may use technology as a crutch. Ouch! However, temporarily, if that is the case, as a means to an end, certainly use technology as a crutch until you obtain emotional help.

According to Baylor University research data, people who check their phones constantly, may be attempting to improve a negative mood. Also a study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, explores a correlation between phone addiction and personality, suggesting excessive technology usage may be linked to emotional instability. The study suggests those who overuse technology are already prone to moodiness, loneliness and personality disorders. Constant checking of your phone could be a symptom of depression or feeling insecure. Step 3, ascertain if your relationship to technology is within normal use or out of control. If it is out of control attempt to be honest with yourself about why you overuse your smart phone for example and be honest about what social stimuli the technology is replacing that should be obtained from face2face interactions.

A person prone to depression is more likely to use their smartphone to seek out social interactions or evade their negative thoughts. An anxious person might be driven to check their social media feeds, and someone experiencing increased stress is more likely to check their smartphone as a distraction. Loneliness may cause us to seek more social media interaction as a substitute to replace face2face interactions but ironically creating even more loneliness. Using excessive social media activity to numb feelings of loneliness may be digging the hole deeper created by loneliness.We must break this cycle! A study of 135 San Francisco State University students found that the heaviest smartphone users were the most depressed, anxious and lonely. Pre-frontal lobe development that allows comprehensive reasoning in defense of depression is not complete until age 25 and in fewer cases until age 30. There is a caveat to the overuse of technology for those living in a remote geographical area away from close friends or family. In this situation technology can bring you comfort until the context changes.

Final Thoughts - Our use of technology, our relationship to technology may be the alarm bell we need to do something about how we're feeling inside. We have to find the fortitude to get up and to go get help..live a happier life. Our problem may be larger than the overuse of our smart phone. Use your smart phone to schedule several face2face interactions and transition away from technology dependency to feeling emotionally and spiritually secure with supportive face2face social interactions.

Being lonely is not a good state of mental health for both the young and old. Loneliness as a state of mental health may shorten lives. Loneliness strikes both white collar and blue collar working classes. For the G.I., Builder and Baby Boomer generational cohorts lack of community brings loneliness. For Older and Younger millennials, and Generation X, over use of technology such as smart phones, ipads and lap tops brings mood changes, personality changes and yes loneliness, when there is very little face2face interaction. Remember healthy community and love heals all, contributes to a person's life span and quality of life.

Definitions of Generational Cohorts

G.I Generation: born 1914 - 1927 - they are disciplined, respect law and order and they like consistency, they dislike change, have fixed views on gender, like command and control management style in leaders. Among this group were the sub-group known as the Lost Generation coined by Gertrude Stein who with her fellow cohorts Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and T.S. Eliot were disillusioned with post W.W.1 society and never settled into main stream society.

Builders or the Silent Generation: born 1928 - 1945 - They highly value security, comfort, familiar activities and environments. They possess the best work and education opportunities because of the post-war economic boom.

Baby Boomers: born 1946 - 1964 - This cohort group is the largest population of any generation. When younger they were open-minded and rebellious but evolved into being conservative in their 30’s and 40’s. Status and social standing are important to this cohort. They are optimistic, ambitious, very loyal and possess an 'employment is for life' attitude. Are “workaholics.”

Generation X: born 1965 - 1979 - Saw both parents working, sent to daycare, saw parents divorce, “latchkey kids”. Well-educated having secondary and tertiary qualifications resourceful, individualistic, self reliant with low trust of authority. Contrary to Baby Boomers not interested in employment for life. When at work focused on relationships, outcomes, their rights and skills. Will leave a job if they are unhappy.

Generation Y: born 1980 - 1994 also known as Older Millennials - Millennials are very good with technology comfortable in diverse ethnic groups. Similar to GI Generation in the areas of optimism, confidence, sociable, strong morals and like civic duty. They aren't loyal to any specific brand. They expect a professional workplace demand flexibility and will change employers for promotional opportunities more frequently than Gen Xers.

Generation Z: born 1995 - 2009 - also known as the Younger Millennials - Cannot conceive life without the internet, computers and mobile phones. Communication is mainly through online communities and social media such as Google, My Space, Twitter and Face Book rather than face to face relationships. Ability to belong to huge social media communities without knowing anyone personally. Public speaking not their preference. An easy method to memorize the millennial generations is to remember the series x,y,z together with generations y and z being the older and younger millennials respectively.

Generation Alpha: born 2010 - 2025 - sociologists exhausted the Latin terms and have switched to the Greek alphabet. Will begin school earlier and study longer, prone to being materialistic and techno-centric.Sociologists started over with the greek alphabet after reaching generation Z in order to clearly identify the new generational cohort groups. 

For additional resources, books and publications see the following:

BARNES AND NOBLE - PAPERBACK AND NOOK AMAZON - PAPERBACK AND KINDLE EBOOK POWELL'S BOOKS - PAPERBACK AND EBOOKS ANDERSON'S BOOKSHOP - PAPERBACK