Catching loneliness from the lonely

It's a medical paradox. People who feel lonely can spread the emotion to others - much like a virus. After poring over data collected from nearly 5,000 people, the researchers concluded that loneliness is more than just a personal feeling, it's an infectious mental condition. This was a statistical rather than medical study, so it doesn't explain how the contagion happens. But what it did find was that the friends of a person describing themselves as lonely were 52% more likely to become lonely themselves, and that their friends were at an increased risk too, even if they didn't know the lonely person.

這是一種醫學上的悖論。感到孤單的人能夠把這樣得心情傳染給別人─就像病毒一樣。在收集了將近五千人的資料後，研究人員發現孤單不僅僅是一種個人感覺，還是一種具影響力的心理狀態。對醫學上的結果而言，統計資料尤其表達出這樣的結論，因此這些資料並未解釋為何這種接觸性傳染會產生。然而也的確發現，與自言孤單的人為友的人之中，有52%的人也變得寂寞，而他們其他的朋友也處在一個被傳染寂寞的高風險狀況之中，就算他們不知道源頭的孤單之人。


The study's authors suggest this may be down to the way lonely people behave. A tendency to be wary or mistrustful of others can make their loneliness a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it may drive friends away. This much may seem obvious, but the study also hints that this behaviour can rub off on other people, painting a rather bleak picture of lonely people driving each other into ever greater isolation. Its advice to the lonely - surround yourself with a network of friends, as long as they're not lonely too.

這項研究的作者建議，這也許可歸因為孤單者所表現出的行為。對於他人傾向出表達戒慎恐懼不信任將導致他們的寂寞自我預言成真，並且更將朋友推離。這似乎是不言可喻的，但研究中也暗示了這樣的行為也影響了其他人，寂寞者所言繪出的荒涼之感更將周圍之人帶入更大的孤立之中。建議孤單的你快加入朋友網絡，直到他人也不再孤單時吧。



Jack Izzard, BBC News