Netta Weinstein, Heather Hansen and Thuy-vy T. Nguyen (Cambridge University Press)
In recent years, many of us have come to relate differently to the time we spend alone. The globally imposed lockdowns in response to the covid-19 pandemic abruptly curtailed many people鈥檚 social networks and sources of support. Some struggled and jumped to restart their social lives as soon as restrictions were lifted. But others found they flourished in solitude and never returned to their pre-pandemic levels of socialising.
The sudden shift and range of individual responses highlight something that has long puzzled researchers. Humans not only rely on each other for survival but also take pleasure from social connections. So why do some flail on their own while others thrive?
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This is the question posed in Solitude: The science and power of being alone by Netta Weinstein, Heather Hansen and Thuy-vy T. Nguyen. Here, they explore questions about, as well as the benefits and challenges of, the hours we spend alone, which account for about a third of an adult鈥檚 waking life on average.
Even before the pandemic, the hours people spent alone had been steadily increasing for years, with many already working remotely and living alone. These trends have often been reported as evidence of a crisis of connection, but, as the authors point out, some choose this way of living. In fact, individuals have always sought solitude, ranging from anchorites (religious people who withdrew from the world) to explorers setting out on lone expeditions. Yet today, we may write off that impulse as some sort of pathology.
Clearly it is crucial to distinguish between solitude and loneliness, say the authors. The two may coexist, but they aren鈥檛 the same, they write, arguing that the 鈥渟olo self鈥� isn鈥檛 just compatible with the 鈥渟ocial self鈥� but complementary to it, enabling us to relax, recharge and regulate our emotions. So, from admittedly scant research, Solitude pieces together a picture of what goes on in our brains and bodies when we are by ourselves.
The dearth of data and the book鈥檚 subtitle, flagging up the 鈥減ower of being alone鈥�, could have placed it among the softer pop psychology titles, which aim to 鈥渞eclaim鈥� a stigmatised subject. Refreshingly, however, Solitude falls squarely on the side of science, its investigation given heft by the authors鈥� credentials.
Weinstein, who is the director of the European Research Council-funded project Alone but Resilient, studies motivation and well-being, whereas Nguyen, who is the principal investigator at the Solitude Lab at Durham University, UK, focuses on the physiology of aloneness and loneliness. With Hansen lending her skills as a science communicator and author, their investigation is grounded, credible and highly readable.
Solitude does well to question the popular narrative of time alone as 鈥渟omething to avoid or endure鈥�. In fact, write the authors, it is highly individual, 鈥渁s empty or full, as certain or uncertain, as we choose to make it鈥�.
That the book provokes more questions than it answers underlines the lack of research and our consequent, flawed understandings of loneliness. But perhaps the most surprising finding is that there appears to be no correlation between spending and enjoying time alone and the personality trait we label introversion. Being introverted tends to be seen as a bad thing, the mark of a loner or someone who is 鈥渁ntisocial鈥�, write the authors, but even people who don鈥檛 display that personality trait may enjoy spending or choose to spend time by themselves.
With loneliness stemming not from time spent alone but from a sense that social connections are lacking, argue the authors, there is even further emphasis on the need to treat aloneness and loneliness separately. Solitude, it seems, may play an important regulatory role, supporting us as we try to know ourselves separately from our social roles and relationships. It is, say the authors, a new approach to understanding well-being: one not so heavily weighted in favour of our social selves.
True to their scientific cred, Solitude鈥榮 authors are circumspect about 鈥渢he power鈥� of solitude. But their first foray into exploring this fundamental experience suggests there will be much more to say.
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