topic:the age of loneliness is killing us

Hello, everyone. Here is the second topic, loneliness. You have to open the linkage "http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-loneliness-killing-us" , and finish reading the passage, and then provide your analytical and innovative opinion. Thank you. Fighting.

Loneliness is a very unpleasant feeling and it not only makes us unhappy, but also it contributes to mental health problems such as depression, stress and anxiety.
As we all know, China has stepped into a stage of aging society gradually, in face of increasing lonely old people in China, I suggest they can get help from below solutions. The first solution is getting psychological help. The old and lonely people can visit doctors regularly to help them overcome this depressed feeling. The second solution is the government should organize some social activities for old people in every community. It will help them meet and communicate with other people to get out of this feeling. The third solution is encouraging their children to visit their parents frequently.
For the young generation, more and more rely on internet social networking media on their spare time which cause another type of loneliness. The internet, TV and mobile devices decline personal face to face interaction with others, even with their own family members. And excessive use these media could also create many health related problems. So they should be encouraged to get out of home and take part in many other social activities to communicate with the real world and reduce the risk of other diseases.

Current phenomenon:
1. Not only Europe but also Asia people are getting more and lonelier in everyday life. With the emergence of communication media, Wechat, Youtube,Qzone, etc, we are focusing mainly on individual express, but not interaction between people.
2. Every time you take the subway, you can see everybody is looking at his/her cell phone. Even though friends join in the party or dinner, everybody is looking at their cell phone whenever there is a chance.
3. Our daily work is also isolating us from contacting with others, stay in the same friend circle, not willing to meeting strangers or listening to others.
4. The big majority of unmarried people also offer the evidence that we are prefer what we can get but not what we can give.
5. Money driven life style has robbed us of the freedom, time, relationships, we spent less time on our family as well as looking after parents and children.
We really have to consider if this is really what we want.
Just as professor Ali said, money can’t make you happy, on the contrary, it makes you much unhappier. There is a level, below which you feel unhappy due to the poverty, above which you feel unhappy due to the abundant wealth you can’t gain.
Then what should we do to kill the loneliness?
1. Set up a rule to yourself or your family, no cell phone after work is allowed, no social media, such as TV, IPAD is allowed to cost you more than an hour every day, live communication is needed in the family or with friends; Once you are used to express yourself and listen to others in real life, you will take it for granted that the cell phone is not in your hand;
2. A lot of labors are pouring into Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenzhen for the higher salary and more opportunities. The government should stand out to interfere with this situation, attract the industrial companies to open up in second or third line cities, leveling the labors in different cities, slow down the work pace, strengthen the relationship between people but not break them due to the competition;
3. The government should also consider reducing the score gap of entering the same university between students from different cities. The students don’t have the opportunity to choose where she/he born, but the area protection is really serious which causes everybody to squeeze heads into Beijing and Shanghai.
4. If the government really interferes with the policies, level the population in different cities, there will be no need so many labors getting away from their home, couldn’t see their children until the end of the year, and couldn’t take care of their parents with full energy.
The reason we are becoming more lonelier is that we don’t have family or friends around who can tell the truth or won’t judge you by your mistakes. We choose internet or media to express ourselves to keep us safe. We fold the emotions inside in order to be “normal”. The only way to kill loneliness is to spend more time with your family, realize your value in society, take good care of your children and parents. At same time have a bunch of good friends around you.

Internet teconoly development and social media uprise are like paradox in terms of people communication. Technology are supposed to help people to improve communication and interaction more easily and frequently between each other. However, now people are more likely to talk to their iphones, ipad. Even they have more than hundreds of friends across the global in their wechat, facebook, wechat, they still fell lonely. It's a good question for all of us to think about what we did to put ourselves in such dilemma.

Health including physical health and mental health. Modern medical research found that  mental illnesslikely lead to  physical illness mental. Loneliness causes  anxiety and dissatisfaction, then cause tension and stress.  According to the stressful event, the body's way to respond to stress is by sympathetic nervous system activation which results in the fight-or-flight response.Stress is the body’s reaction to any stimuli that disturbs its equilibrium. When the equilibrium of various hormones is altered the effect of these changes can be detrimental to the immune system.Much research has shown a negative effect stress has on the immune system, mostly through studies where participants were subjected to a variety of viruses. An increase in score on the stress index correlated with greater severity of cold symptoms.
We should take these things to aviod loneliness for health；
First, pay attention to loneliness, aviod loneliness. We should identify what is loneliness and try to aviod loneliness. Second, talk to people face to face.Reduce the time of using mobile phone and tablets, increase the time of talking to people face to face.

Loneliness is prevalent social problem in modern society. More developed is the society, more loneliness people will suffer. The modern life is driving us to face fierce competition. In order to cope with the pace of social development and keep the same position or move forward on our career, we have to keep running. With time passing, we even forget the target for why we start. We spend most of time on working and biz-trip, we have less time to stay with family members and visit friends. Although we live with parents and good friend in Shanghai, but maybe we only visit parents once a month, for friend, the situation is even worse, just talking by mobile or chatting by Wechat, which really isolate us from our intimates. But if you go to visit those isolated and developing areas, you will find people living there are suffering less loneliness. Most of people in those areas are happy and satisfied for their life no matter whether they are rich or poor. Why? Less competition, slow and simple life contributes to their happiness. They have more time to stay with their family member to enjoy family happiness. They also have more time to visit friends to share life experience. So don’t be so greedy, life is quite fair, if you gain more here, then maybe you will lose more there. Keep balance on your life is one way to avoid loneliness.

Joanna(Zhang Xiaojing) wrote:Current phenomenon:
1. Not only Europe but also Asia people are getting more and lonelier in everyday life. With the emergence of communication media, Wechat, Youtube,Qzone, etc, we are focusing mainly on individual express, but not interaction between people.
2. Every time you take the subway, you can see everybody is looking at his/her cell phone. Even though friends join in the party or dinner, everybody is looking at their cell phone whenever there is a chance.
3. Our daily work is also isolating us from contacting with others, stay in the same friend circle, not willing to meeting strangers or listening to others.
4. The big majority of unmarried people also offer the evidence that we are prefer what we can get but not what we can give.
5. Money driven life style has robbed us of the freedom, time, relationships, we spent less time on our family as well as looking after parents and children.
We really have to consider if this is really what we want.
Just as professor Ali said, money can’t make you happy, on the contrary, it makes you much unhappier. There is a level, below which you feel unhappy due to the poverty, above which you feel unhappy due to the abundant wealth you can’t gain.
Then what should we do to kill the loneliness?
1. Set up a rule to yourself or your family, no cell phone after work is allowed, no social media, such as TV, IPAD is allowed to cost you more than an hour every day, live communication is needed in the family or with friends; Once you are used to express yourself and listen to others in real life, you will take it for granted that the cell phone is not in your hand;
2. A lot of labors are pouring into Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenzhen for the higher salary and more opportunities. The government should stand out to interfere with this situation, attract the industrial companies to open up in second or third line cities, leveling the labors in different cities, slow down the work pace, strengthen the relationship between people but not break them due to the competition;
3. The government should also consider reducing the score gap of entering the same university between students from different cities. The students don’t have the opportunity to choose where she/he born, but the area protection is really serious which causes everybody to squeeze heads into Beijing and Shanghai.
4. If the government really interferes with the policies, level the population in different cities, there will be no need so many labors getting away from their home, couldn’t see their children until the end of the year, and couldn’t take care of their parents with full energy.
The reason we are becoming more lonelier is that we don’t have family or friends around who can tell the truth or won’t judge you by your mistakes. We choose internet or media to express ourselves to keep us safe. We fold the emotions inside in order to be “normal”. The only way to kill loneliness is to spend more time with your family, realize your value in society, take good care of your children and parents. At same time have a bunch of good friends around you.

I agree with you, some people have to work far away from their hometown. And the most important reason is there are very few chances for them to have work in their hometown. And they have to work to make money for food , clothes and medicines and so on. Government should do something to increase the work in second or third line cities, give them more chance to work near their hometown. Government also should to promote young people to communicate more with their parents.

By Liang Yan
There are two kinds of loneliness. One is physically lonely without accompanies, and the other is that surrounded by people, but still feel lonely. Most people in current society are the latter. In china, major reasons that caused pervasive feeling of loneliness are as following.
1) We are broken up by modern technologies in the smart information era.
There is a joke that “The most remote distance in the world is that we are face to face, but you are playing with your mobile phone”. New technologies enable us to interface with others in the visual world at anytime, anywhere. People tend to communicate with each other by messages, pictures and signals, and are reluctant to talk face to face and express themselves in public.
2) Aspiration for wealth and fame drive us exhausted.
We seem get lost during the fast economic development period, and our souls cannot catch up with our bodies. Under the high rate of inflation and incredible increase of apartment price, the only standard to evaluate one person is the wealth and fame. Young men are urged to make money since graduation, and young women are told to get married with men with apartments and money. Love becomes luxury. We are empty and exhausted, and lonely.
3) Lack of integrity between people.
Lack of integrity stops us to get close to each other. One of the most famous cases is “Pengyu case” happened in Nanjing, which caused a heated discussion “If you see an injured man or woman, would you lend a hand to him or her?” Many people chose “no” after the case. “Guo Meimei case” was another famous one that caused us to question the integrity of Red Cross. The failed response of Red Cross discourages our donations. We have become increasingly indifferent to others by one such a case and another.
4) Others
There are also other reasons. Under “Only Child” policy, we have no brothers and sisters, fewer relatives. Urbanization policy moved us from villages with close neighborhood to “Steel forest” with heavy anti-theft doors, etc.
How to “break the cycle and come together again”?
1) Shake off the reliance on the technologies, and go out to physical world and contact with people face to face.
2) Find out our interior interests outside of wealth and fame, and pursue for them.
3) The government and the social media should erect a healthy value, and encourage people to trust each other and help each other. We should reopen our hearts to others, and learn to share things with others, and take a thanks-giving attitude.
4) Spend more time with our families than on businesses.
Certain amount of loneliness is acceptable, but too much loneliness will kill people. We should be conscious of that and help ourselves and others to get out of it.

we always say the world is becoming smaller in this time, thanks for the convinient traffic ways and the great mobile/internet communication, it seems that we can go anyplace in one day and connect with any people you are interested in. Something we ignore is if we have eye contact, if we have hand shake or hug with each other, if we are really recognized by anyone else, not just a name or a picture, but the deep mental world inside you.
More recognized with others, you will be more happier, wealth is not the key element here, just as i said, people need to recognize your deep mental world, and it is has nothing to with how much money you have, but link with your value, your contribution to the surroundings, your mind set to the world and your feedback to these people.
we live in this planet and we never give up to find the other planet in the universe which can talk to us.
Loneliness will kill you, maybe not physically, but mentaly.

In my opinion, it depends on the attitude you think of loneliness. There are two kinds of loneliness, one is active loneliness and the other one passive loneliness. In optimistic thinking, everyone needs the loneliness which is a free time for yourself; but in passive thinking, it is harmful to people’s life.
For active loneliness, it makes people think rationally which can sort things in order. Meanwhile, the brain needs to be cleaned for their useless memory to accept the new information.
However, for the negative sides, loneliness destroys the immune system of people which could Increase pressure and weaken people’s psychogenesis. This may make people easy to give up and finally be unsatisfied with life.
The root causes:
　　The modern social life style can be the root cause of loneliness. 1. People use internet to communicate but not face-to-face communication. 2. People become more and more independent, burden of work make people have less and less friends or time to communicate 3.development of teches and convenient of life tools make people more independently resolve problems, and make people stay away from goups. Ex. Mobile phone .

The funny thing is i'm still young, i'm live with my parents, my baby, of course with my wife. i'm out of this group of the people. but perhaps for another 20 or 30 years, what will happen? i don't know. that's a serious problem for now and younger generation. i think the reason are mainly come from the below aspects: first of all, the biggest issue is the internet, internet change a lot, particularly change the style of people life;secondly, more competitive between different people, i think caused by the accelerating process of industrialization. most of the people difficult find the right job, and even the people have job, more and more people get free of the job, have more free time, because of industrialization. in the end,, i do believe if the loneliness age is coming, the human will conquer this problem, as the human also on the way for human evolution.
f loneliness

The ecomonice development and society environment enhance this loneliness, big work pressure let many of people just focus on work and work, lack enough communication with friends and neighbours, bring loneliness problem. Also many entertainment tools,like TV , smart phone, development restrict people's relationship because these are very conveniet for our talking and feeling, but be worse at interation of people ,loneliness become big social problem. Suggest government can take build up some platform by creative thinking to break this barrier, hold many social activities.

Alienation- that's the word I am looking for, if asked to describe the consequence of the age of loneliness. In this fast-paced period, people are so busy and eager to catch up with each other, that the core values of human beings as a whole are collapsing. It's not just what the article said "a war of every man against every man", it's even a war between every man and himself. He has to conform to the money-driven and material-oriented social tide and give in to the self-booboisie.

Or even more tragically, he doesn't need to fight with the 'inner him' at all. The age of loneliness finally put all of us into slavery.

As the passage indicated :"We were social creatures from the start, mammalian bees, who depended entirely on each other."; “We are shaped, to a greater extent than almost any other species, by contact with others”. The digital ages overwhelmed nowadays’ young generation, and seems we fail to escape from the network of connection with our mobile phone, tablets and similar digital devices like iPhone, iPad and etc. But it comes to tragedy that we only make connection with each other through these digital devices instead of face to face communication and interaction. The close relationship between each other had gone away gradually. Couples are less likely to express and exchange their thoughts, emotions and feeling together, kids and parents spend less time together to enjoy happy hours and family life. And we should re-consider the relationship with different people in the society, even though it is full of conflict and argument.

I do think it's a good article ,which reflects a profound social problems of whole world to us. Why do people feel lonely more and more while now the technology develops so fast ? Why are people unhappy even if the living standard rises and morden civilization evolves faster than the any times before, also with more diversified entertainment activities? Maybe only we can find the answers by ourselves when we are alone. We are lost, lost in information explosion ages, lost in competing with peers around you, lost in fame and wealth seeking... People don't understand what's the core value of life and what kind of feelings we should have for ourselves and others.
If you are feeling loneliness, it just tells that you are lack of love and being loved. As my understanding, the most beautiful feeling of human being is "love", which includes parents' love, friends' love, couples' love and so on... Let's return to the simple living mode and listen to the deep voice from the bottom of your heart, find the inner peace by yourself, share your time with your beloved. I'm sure that you have been away from the loneliness anyhow...

It's really a strange scene that more and more kinds of communication channels have been created by the development of technology, while the rate of people communication by face to face is declining but the numble of people feeling lonely is increasing.
Generally speaking, communication by internet or by mobile indeed helped us to kown each other conveniently. However,man is a gregarious animal and he need to realize each other's emotion,not just by the medias.

I personally am an optimist of nature of mankind and trend of society, therefore cannot be convinced that this matter can really "kill" us.
Yes, I would admit the fact that the new technology is shrinking the world on one hand but gradually tearing traditional social network apart, but creating more distance between people on the other. However, any true free-market-prevails believer cannot escape a question: if it really hurts, why do more and more people are so busy indulging themselves into the cyber-ocean, which is almost an undeniable fact?
My personal opinion is, it is only the force of natural selection, the inevitable road that the human history would lead, and a very important moment where we can take a breath and learn something before next era with a mere side effect no more than a common cold on an ordinary healthy guy that lasts for a couple of days for several reasons. Let me explain myself a bit more.

Before making any statement, I'd like to share a bit of how history makes progress in my eyes. I believe that the collective will of human race which is a part of the mother nature, works in a similar way, as Darwin's natural selection points out: thrive the good and reap the junk. Though different cultures have different names like destiny, fate, karma, will of the god and baoying, etc. But we all seem to agree that history moves in a certain pattern, and despite the diversity we have in the universe, sometimes a concept or a trend seems inevitable, just like the emerge of self-consciousness, desire of freedom, gradual elimination of racism and sexism.

With the above point of view, my first argument is that instead of a form of "suffering", the loneliness in internet era is actually chosen by us with delight. Needless to say, the spawn of a generation of great internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba etc, can strongly reflect people’s affection towards new way of social connection. But you may still wonder: how could something tearing our traditional face-to-face connection gradually down, and making us flush in front of real people be beneficial in any way? Well it actually serves its good purpose in providing us more individual space during our link with other people – freedom. As we no longer have to fear as we used to for potential overreaction, thus we will be able to state our opinions meanwhile the society can hear more diverse voices.

Furthermore, such loneliness is not only a product of consumption temporarily, but a critical training for mankind to survive the next. Because as we all know, no matter how hard we are trying to emphasize the importance of environmental protection, the practice always bow in front of a bad economy and the truth is we can’t and are not meant to stay on this planet for all eternity. And as far as I’m concerned, given the reports shown by environmentalists and the development of space traveling technology, I guess the era of human beings setting out to seek viable living habitants out of solar system is not beyond imagination anymore, leading to an even unapproachable distance between many people. Therefore, I believe during that time, the sense of loneliness we are talking about now can be a necessary startup showing how we can appreciate it instead of suffering from it.

Also, the breaking down of old social network is inevitable and not that bad. Since traditional social mechanism plays an important practical function which is to raise production efficiency through cooperation, which won’t play as important role in the future. That is partly where I believe the tide of loneliness is from, a common shift of people’s interaction method when the productivity rises to a new level, just like freedom was a rather fresh concept dating back to 1400AD when emperors and kings throughout the world are controlling general public’s options and destiny with restraining orders on so many aspects in life.

Last but not least, I do assume that we will find our way to a new social way in this era sooner or later, to replace the vacancy left by the dying of old system, eliminating those unpleasant feelings.

As far as I know, loneliness is not only a product of consumption temporarily, but a critical training for mankind to survive the next. Because as we all know, no matter how hard we are trying to emphasize the importance of environmental protection, the practice always bow in front of a bad economy and the truth is we can’t and are not meant to stay on this planet for all eternity.

If we stop using Facebook, Wechat, etc instead of face to face communication, will we be more happier and not lonely?

The cause of loneliness is the shortage of social communication. With the development of social communication tools, people are not willing to talk face to face because they feel more relaxed in the shadow. This is making people more and more isolated and finally go to death. Stay away from the electronics devices and walk out, and you will find the world is beautiful and feel happy.

In my opinion, the ability of handling with loneliness is very important and necessary and it is also a big lesson everyone needs to learn throughout the whole life.

Look in the mirror, do you know the person in front of you? Do you know how to communicate with him/her? Do you know how to get along with him/her? Don’t always avoid yourself , be brave, be mature.


There is a fact that no one can break: we came alone to this beautiful world, and we will leave alone from this beautiful world, too. That’s not passive attitude of life. On the contrary, it helps us to understand the true meaning of our life and makes us much more stronger.

Today, the vast majority of people are advocating this is a connection unimpeded world, distance is the elimination of technology and networks. Maybe they overlooked a little physical distance macro is being cross, but the psychological distance between the microscopic also being widened, individuals increasingly intense loneliness. People rely on to get a sense of satisfaction from the presence of social media and other virtual entertainment, and this is just an electronic synthesizer pictures and edit text without expression brought a brief paralysis.
Loneliness is because we give up the opportunity to communicate with the real world. People are always trying to find intelligent life in the quickest and most convenient way. It really is a smart choice? There are many things that can not get through fast and convenient way. In fact, most valuable things in particular. For example, graduates like to turn to fellow teachers, alumni recommended industry, company, job. Recommended really for yourself? Why do not you go find and experience what you like to do?
Loneliness is because we give up the opportunity to experience and feelings seriously.Gradually, we will lose the ability to be moved. Excessive concern the pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, forgetting the essence of life is experience, whether these experiences will make us happy or sad.For example, people always sigh in the online picture beautiful blue sky and the stars, and perhaps you, like me, you rarely see in Beijing or Shanghai beautiful sky, why not go somewhere else to see it? Or are you really look up at the sky in your city do?
So, I think the following points help to avoid the age of loneliness:
1. Direct to get close to nature, to the outdoors, do some sports
2. Direct communication with family and friends, participate in activities together
3. The limited use of networks, social media, do not let them replace the life itself
4. Multi-along with some self-reflection time to do when things are more focused
5. observe the details of life, learn to appreciate. Some more changes and adventure, enjoy the wonderful unknown

I 've read an article saying "the areas of brain that deal with social isolation are the same areas that process physical pain". That's why we always quote "broken heart" to describe an horrible and unbearalbe memory. We need to realize that loneliness is not the fact, but just the feeling derived from a triggered momery or the self-focused and self-indulgence tendency. It will arise spontaneously even when we are in a crowd of freinds. What we can do is just accept it without over-reacting and try to free ourselves from it.
We can deal with the emotional habits of loneliness through active communication and interaction with friends and families. We can also pay more attention to the feelings of others rather than ourselves.
Do you ever feel a bit lonelier and more time-cosuming when you walk down the street to your home all by yourself but find it become more delighted and less time-cosuming when you are together with somebody else? That's the power of active communication and not fosucing on yourself.

Loneliness has been a big topic today and we all hear or sense people around us feel lonely. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people begin to worry about belonging as soon as the survival is not a problem. We get the sense of belonging from the love and affection from others or being accepted into a group because we, as human being, is born to depend on the group rather than our own. Even though, with the fast development of our society, we seem to have stronger control of our lives that we can live freely and independently.
The world is getting smaller because of technology but the distance between human is getting farther. A ‘hi’ can be said without being articulated. Ironically, the idea of connecting people is secretly deteriorating this problem. Take a look at the ‘hit’ of internet industry, a huge part of them have got a lot to do with ‘connecting’ such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, all those social media is kind of anti-social as it pins people at home (or 1 inch away from the phone) and ‘social’ with themselves.
We all fear the sense of loneliness but a lot of us would result to the online prescription rather than mingling in an actual social activity. I don’t see the fatal loneliness problem will ease up in next 10 years.

I have a opposite opinion since i think sometimes loneliness can calm your soul and make you deeply think about the life. I am not saying loneliness is good, the key point is how to deal with the loneliness, how to think about it. Sometimes you will not feel alone even you are alone because your spirit is strong and your mind is active. Overcome loneliness then nothing to fear.