Humans evolved for cooperation, not long term physical isolation.

Digital connection cannot fully replace embodied social contact.

Chronic isolation strains health, trust, and social stability.

Polar bears thrive in solitary lifestyles. They travel across large expanses of snow and ice, hunt quietly, and only come together when mating or rearing young. As solitary hunters, polar bears are well-suited to a life alone because they do not rely on the cooperation of others for survival. They have a highly dispersed and limited food supply; thus, the presence of another polar bear is more likely to be viewed as a competitor than a helper. While polar bears thrive alone, humans are social beings, and our need for social interaction is biologically ingrained in our evolution and physiology (Dunbar, 2009; Wilson, 2012).

Some species are solitary because it works for them. Others are social because they have to be. Survival mathematics is incorporated into animal behavior to enhance survival. Whether animals occur singly or in groups is affected by the availability of food, predators, how they reproduce, and competition for limited resources. Tiger hunting is generally performed by solitary hunters and provides limited benefit from sharing. On the other hand, wolves hunt cooperatively because the prey they pursue is both difficult and dangerous for individual wolves to kill without help. Meerkats have sentinels guarding over the colony to help protect the greater number of eyes, resulting in additional protection for the survival of the entire group. None of these strategies is a matter of moral choice; rather, they are based on species survival (Wilson, 2012).

Humans Sit Firmly On the Social Side of That Divide

Humans were not designed to be fast, strong, and well-armed. We came into existence because we were able to work. Our ancestors survived as a group by sharing food, protecting each other's children, issuing warnings of danger, and sharing knowledge. Language itself is a tool for social interaction. It appears to allow humans to coordinate their behavior more effectively than working on their own (Dunbar, 2009). A single human being cut off from their group could not survive alone. They would die. The way we have survived has influenced our brains. We are hardwired to look at faces, monitor connections, feel pain when lonely, and feel secure when we belong (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009; Dunbar, 2009). Social connection is something we prefer because it's part of how we function as human beings. Throughout most of history, solitude was not common and frequently not desired. In previous times, humans generally lived in close proximity and worked with others, relying heavily on face-to-face interactions on a daily basis. Even when there were conflicts, those interactions would still occur in person. The communities we developed were often messy, demanding, and tiring, but constant.

That Is Changing Fast

Working from home has disconnected us. Where people used to watch TV shows together, now everyone has their own screen and watches it in the privacy of their home. Friendships now exist in either threads of conversations or voice communications. And, in some cases, people have gone days without ever being in the same room with someone who is not a member of their household. For some, this is the ultimate freedom; for others, it feels extremely unnatural. The problem is not the available technology. The tools we use for communication are neutral. It is how we are using the tools to eliminate the social friction that we evolved to require (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009).

Video games can be social; however, they lack the visuals, touch, smell, and other forms of physical presence needed to accurately be considered as social entertainment. Text messaging allows you to stay connected with people, but removes some of the most important aspects of human communication: tone, timing, and other small signals used to establish trust. Remote working may provide an increased level of productivity and efficiency, but it removes all of the informal interactions that contribute to creating weak ties (i.e., connections between people) that provide resiliency for communities (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010).

The replacement of informal connections with more efficient tools of communication has unique consequences over time. Our brains do not recognize these forms of electronic communication as sufficient forms of social interaction. This is why we see increasing loneliness in our society, even though we see increasing levels of online communication (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Also, we see increasing levels of anxiety and depression rising with societal levels of connectivity. Many feel socially drained and empty when they are connected; this is not a failure on their part, it is a failure of biology to evolve with the pace of technology (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010).

We Are Trying to Live Like Polar Bears with Primate Brains

Solitary species are built for independence. Humans are built for interdependence. When we remove regular, embodied social contact, we stress systems that evolved to expect it. Immune function weakens. Elevated levels of stress hormones lead to erosion of trust, making cooperation much more difficult; therefore, the difficulty of cooperating makes feeling safe in physical isolation feel like a better option. This is a self-perpetuating cycle (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009).

This trend does not bode well for us. While physical isolation allows us to fragment easily, as there are no shared spaces or norms, it also increases the speed and intensity of disagreements between us due to our lack of frequent, low-stakes interaction. And, without a community, we either retreat internally or pursue membership based on an abstract type of identity, one that gives us a sense of belonging without any obligation. However, this does not mean that we need to give up on remote work or our digital social lives. Rather, we need to stop treating either as a replacement for being physically together (Wilson, 2012).

Both remote and digital social lives serve as an adjunct to physically gathering together. Neither can serve as the foundational element of agency. In order to achieve a state of thriving as individuals, we must design a way of living that reflects who we all are as human beings. One way to do this is to provide us with meaningful reasons to physically gather together, rather than simply creating excuses for remaining in isolation. Additionally, we must value the importance of togetherness through shared routines, local spaces, and personal collaboration, even when such experiences may be less efficient and entail some level of friction, while understanding that each of us as humans will experience some level of friction in our relationships with each other. Polar bears can walk alone across the ice and be fine. We cannot. We never could.

Cacioppo, J. T., & Hawkley, L. C. (2009). Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(10), 447–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.005

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2009). The social brain hypothesis and its implications for social evolution. Annals of Human Biology, 36(5), 562–572. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014460902960289

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of Earth. Liveright Publishing.

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