UAE residents face loneliness as remote work reduces offline connections
According to statistics, each fourth person all over the planet struggles with a sense of isolation. It is a modern epidemiological disease that is more an influence upon the society than smoking, TB or depression and is responsible for plenty of the health concerns and lowered life expectancy. “It is not two years since I lost my wife and I have been on the south end of the happiness index. Says Tarek, a 60s aged man and a former chef currently living in Dubai.” Words will never truly justify the depth of loneliness unless one has experienced it firsthand. I do that sometimes – tell people I want to buy them coffee to tempt them to spend more time with me. It facilitates social interaction. Sometimes, even that doesn’t help.”
Host of the podcast ‘On The Mind’ at Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr Daniel Knoepflmacher defines loneliness as an unpleasant emotional response when the amount of social connections one has is objectively or subjectively below the required level.
Even the UAE is seeing a rise in the number of lonely people.
An emerging global problem
Clinical psychologist at HRIC in Dubai, Dr Thoraiyah Kanafani helps improve our understanding of the reasons behind this growing trend of people being lonelier than ever. “There are many reasons,” she says, “namely, isolating from people, not having meaningful relationships, moving to a new place, the bereavement, or technology and over-dependence on social networks.”
This is an issue since it also poses a health risk especially stress, which is worsened by loneliness. “This can translate into greater instances of suicide, depression, addiction, and anxiety (additional statistics from the American Psychological Association) or greater incidence of hypertension, heart disease obese population, memory failure and shorter lifespan.”
Even closer and within a decade’s flight from the US and Japan, the UAE is not free from the worry of people being increasingly lonely – expatriates being at the highest risk. “As this attitude towards the UAE is common among expats and thus it is not easy to build healthy and lasting relationships. This factor is also very exacerbated by working from home. It is not a gender bias and can occur with both genders. It is not even industry specific.”
Doctor Thoraiya advises less involvement with the online sphere and more with the environment.
“Engaging in social activities like participating in different groups, clubs, or classes within the community, accepting and embracing the fact that feeling lonely is one of the feelings, and learning how to be content in one’s self is important,” she states. “Even more, do not be bashful when it comes to talking to strangers and even making friends with new people.”
A Circle of Life
To UAE resident Sumi Augustine, the feeling of loneliness struck as she was becoming a single mother after losing her job around the same time. “I had family to help me but the fact that so many negative events were happening to me at once drove me into a very dark place, depression due to loneliness. The hardest part was dealing with all the legal aspects of becoming a single parent.
It was not easy to be looked down on by other people. At one point, however, I came to the conclusion that it is counterproductive to keep on complaining about being miserable, and I took steps to connect with people. It did work out positively. I managed to find employment as well. I think that if you are still doing nothing the feeling of loneliness will set in very fast. It is best to be active and redirect your thoughts to what is important for you in the future,” she says. “With activity, there are thoughts, and that is how the best version of yourself is.”
Coming from the perspective of Bushra Khan, a holistic psychotherapist at Wellth, Dubai, loneliness can be experienced in several aspects including, emotions, behaviors and how one feels physically. “It is worth noting that loneliness is a short term as well as a long term. In some cases, a person may experience it as a short phase that comes after some triggering event, while other people may experience it as chronic and part of their everyday living.”
According to Khan, identifying oneself as lonely usually begins by being aware of one’s feelings and practices. “Try to examine your feelings (Do you get a feeling of isolation? Do you sense constant hopelessness to an extent of either saving or emptying a glass or vase?) or your behavioral patterns made through socializing (Are particular surgeries avoided? Have you felt the sense of connecting with family or people in general more challenging than before?) or examine your emotional and physical body (Changes of levels of energy, food and sleep? Extreme worries? Or distress? Anxiety more than usual.) These are important signs and admitting them is necessary. Loneliness is a part of life, and it is something that can be dealt with through care and effort.”
Alone or lonely?
Dr Alexandre Machado, a clinical neuropsychologist at Medcare UAE, explains that one of the primary objectives is to draw a line between being by oneself and being isolated.
The first is a selection and is a good one, while the other is an option of negative nature that may result in a number of clinical problems, the most common being depression and anxiety. With that in mind, the first thing to do is to understand the difference between being alone and being lonely.”
Because superficial and virtual exchanges are now possible in social media, a time will come when these will also take over the remaining real and deeper link, which can be depressingly fulfilled. People are getting more and more lonely and have little to no real relationships, opines Machado. “To quote the philosopher Martin Heidegger, life in a technologically conceived world may ‘throw’ individuals into existence without giving them a chance to live meaningfully leading to living a lonely life.”
He continues, “This ongoing trend of physical relationships being replaced by virtual communication is likely to create a gap in trust and intimacy and one will find it difficult to have normal interactions with people.” “Whereas most people will be in the company of other people on the internet, it is, however, possible for someone to still feel so isolated in the emotion in question in any of the ways described.”
Help seeking behaviour is one of the common issues that seeks to relieve loneliness from where effective relationships are built among friends, family members and the society at large. Purposeful socialization and maintenance of social networks indisputably reduces the levels of loneliness experienced. “And for sure engaged in the course of taking care of mental health, there are ways which can help as consequently self-love and gratitude practice.”
Alain de Botton, a philosopher, claims that gratitude practice will help a person orient towards the better side of his or her relationships and feel more connected. When it comes to meeting people, she adds, starting a new hobby, helping out, or attending community gatherings are also ways to meet more people, which helps build the critical social networks that can be effective against loneliness,” says Dr Machado.
“According to Dr. Pik Ki Ho, assistant professor of psychology at Heriot-Watt University Dubai, 114 studies including a total of 18512 participants and conducted over three decades have concluded that loneliness is detrimental as far as both physical and mental health aspects are concerned." “People socially isolate themselves as a result which leads to a number of unhealthy habits and behaviors such as lack of physical activity, binge drinking and smoking, which then causes even more serious medical problems.”
According to her, loneliness occurs when a person’s desire for interpersonal relationships exceeds the actual realization of such relationships. “It comes about in different forms. When people are lonely, their thinking turns negative in a cycle of emotions about how isolated and disconnected they feel. Some emotional reactions or feelings often experience among lonely people include sadness, anxiety, worthlessness, hopelessness and low levels of self-esteem.”
“Equally no previous studies of the issue in this region have been done so it was interesting to find out in my case study of loneliness among students of UAE university of who scores lonelness scale on male or female students. Female students scored high in the loneliness scale than the male students.”
“However, this phenomenon was not evident in the general population. Married older adults, however, did not report such levels of loneliness, while their unmarried counterparts did. Changes in life situations have also been associated with heightened sense of loneliness,” says Dr Ho.
“The UAE is home to a host of expats and foreign students who are away from their base and families,” she explains. “It’s true that in a city with such an active expatriate population, acquaintances come easily, however, these acquaintances can be very short lived and are not necessarily developed into proper friendships,” says Dr Ho explaining that this is real and concerning problem which requires awareness.
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