Mental Health Awareness Month #unlockloneliness with Dr. Emily Dowdell, Psy.D. Alumna

0:00You know, how our relationship to technology, the COVID nineteen pandemic, and psychological theory can help us understand why it seems like, we're more lonely than we ever have been. And importantly, also, we'll conclude with our Catholic faith, and that'll give us hope and some real strategies to unlock loneliness to go with the hashtag that we have for this campaign. So I've got some, learning objectives for you guys tonight. I hope that by the end of this presentation you'll have a good handle on what loneliness is, how common it has become, and I hope you'll understand that there is evidence of a connection between social media use and increased loneliness. We'll also look at what the Catholic Christian meta model of the human person and teachings of Saint John Paul the second have to say about loneliness.

0:47And lastly, I hope you'll walk away from this presentation with things that you can do in your everyday life to combat loneliness and foster deeper communion within your relationships. So what is loneliness? How does loneliness develop? The, the office of the US surgeon general recently launched an awareness campaign to bring attention to the harm of loneliness and isolation in 2023. They define loneliness as a subjective, distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections, where inadequate refers to the discrepancy between an individual's preferred and actual experience. And according to the surgeon general report, whether someone experiences loneliness is dependent on multiple factors, the structure of their lives, the function of their relationships, and the quality of their interactions.

1:44So these three factors interact and explain how loneliness can take many different forms. For example, a person, may have be in a family of five siblings, but if the relationships are not emotionally supportive, they may have few one on one interactions or not really feel close to those people. And that person might feel lonely even though they have all of those people around them all the time. In a similar vein, let's say that it's the youngest of five siblings and all four have left the home. Right? That youngest child is gonna start to feel lonely because everyone has left, not because the quality of the relationships wasn't good or that they had those in their relationship, but right now, the structure of the family system is a bit different and actually facilitates that loneliness.

2:27So perhaps the relationship quality is fantastic, but that structure or that current situation, would have it that they have few interactions and that can cause some loneliness. But yeah. So it really just depends on these three different factors. Right? You have the structure of the the relationships, the function of them, and then the quality of those relationships. And those three things can kind of inter intersect to create different forms of loneliness. That's how loneliness can develop in different ways. It's important to know that loneliness is not the same as isolation. Some individuals are socially isolated that is that they're separated from their community or separated from relationships or just living alone or isolated in a sense.

3:08That's by their circumstances but they may not actually feel lonely. While other people might in that situation. So loneliness has to more to do with the perception and expectation of social connection. So loneliness is more than just being alone. It's the perceived gap between the social connection we want and what we actually have. And you can be surrounded by people, and feel lonely. And there's a reason I'm kind of drilling this point in and I had kind of two slides there to just emphasize that because I think that's a big piece of what we're gonna talk about when we talk about how social media influences loneliness. But I also want to talk about the importance of physical touch and attachment.

3:53Some of you who are psychologically minded or might know about psychology psychological theory might be, thinking okay is she gonna talk about attachment theory because that's a pretty important one that has to do with our relationships and I definitely am. So those of you that are unfamiliar I'm gonna give a brief overview of attachment theory here. Starting with touch. Touch serves both physical and emotional functions. That's really important. In the early nineteenth century there were infants that were in institutions or in orphanages and they were dying. Babies under one most of them one hundred percent was the statistic were dying because of lack of touch. And it had to do with it. They believed at the time that it was safer for the infant if they kept them in their crib and didn't contact them very much you know to prevent the spread of disease.

4:44But the lack of touch actually caused them to fail to thrive. And so somebody took notice of this after World War I and started studying to see what was going on in these orphanages and institutions. And once they introduced physical touch because they noticed that there was another orphanage in Germany, where the babies were given to a particular nurse who held them often and they would kind of come back. And so they realized that the physical touch was such a huge component so they started to track that and and confirm that that was the case. There was a man Henry Chapin, I think that's how you pronounce his name it's c h a p I n. He published his findings after studying this phenomena and drew the attention to the need for contact for survival and this is sort of the birthplace of attachment theory.

5:32Then you have Harry Harlow who demonstrated that through the study of rhesus monkeys that if they were presented with a wire monkey, right, a wire mother, which is pictured on the the left on the picture there, with food, so the bottle was actually hooked up to that place where you see the little hole in it, versus a terry cloth mother, with a face that looked like a monkey and a and a terry cloth soft surface. They would actually gravitate towards the terry cloth mother even though there was no food. So this sort of highlights how that warmth and that physical contact, is really primal for survival. And so that's kind of where attachment theory started. And then John Bowlby, is kind of the main, researcher who started looking at, you know, mother, mothers, mother child relationships, mother infant relationships.

6:24And he started studying these more in-depth to understand, what happens, in the relationships. What happens when they go wrong and why is it so important for that bond. So he he kinda came up with the idea and Mary Ainsworth picked up what he was working on as well and refined it some more. And that basically what they came down to is that we're all very much hardwired for connection and for relationship. That connection starts to develop in infancy. Moms were studying more than dads but dads are important too. When babies feel that sense of security in their relationships with their parents, they trust that their parents will be there for them when they need them and that is huge to survival.

7:05As they grow older, they feel safe in the world and are more likely to have healthy peer relationships and a balanced view of the self. And how this relates to loneliness is someone who has that secure base or that secure, connection to their parents is less likely to feel lonely, because they can kind of think of those people in their mind who they know that they're connected to even when they're not present. So Mary Ainsworth studied how these early experiences are formed and they paved the way for examining how these early experiences, in infancy and early childhood actually develop attachment styles. I'm gonna talk a little more about that. I really like this illustration. This is the circle of security and this is a parent attending to a child's needs.

7:46So the parent is acting as both a secure base and a safe haven. The secure base is basically the parent just being there, steady presence, so the child can kind of run off and explore. Right? So if you imagine like a kid in a playroom and mom's just sitting there, kid's get to run off, play with all different kinds of toys. If something falls over and scares them, they'll look back to mom. Right? And mom's at secure base, they'll check-in and be like, am I okay? Yeah. I'm okay. Mom's okay. I'm okay. We're good. Right? And then people keep exploring. So that's that idea of the secure base and then if something happens right like the toy falls over and the toddler gets alarmed they need mom and dad to welcome them back if they get scared or if they're you know distressed or something like that and that's where the parent becomes a safe haven.

8:29Right? So both secure base and safe haven. And I just like how this diagram simplifies the process, and talks about how, you know, the kid really needs mom and dad to protect them, to comfort them, delight in them, and help them organize how they're feeling. You know, and and delight in them and enjoy them and watch them explore and all of that fun time. So when mom and dad are good at that, you know, then it creates a sense of security in the world. I can go off, I can explore. Right? Like, I can go different places and know that I'll be okay. So when that doesn't work out, sometimes we can develop different responses, depending on what goes on with mom and dad and those initial experiences.

9:09Right? If mom and dad didn't welcome our return, if we were scared or didn't support our exploration or just, like, wasn't attentive or wasn't responsive in the way that we needed, it can shape how we think about relationships, especially in adulthood. So a secure person in the top left there is gonna be confident, safe, you know, have good boundaries, be able to say no, and also be able to receive no without feeling rejected or without feeling like they're rejecting the other person. Right? They don't necessarily feel like they have to be constantly available or constantly say yes to other people. You know, they can set a healthy and appropriate boundaries. And they're also gonna be, responsive, right, to other people and their needs.

9:51So then we kind of shift around the circle and it's based on, avoidance and anxiety. So once we introduce some anxiety into the picture, then we start to see a fear of rejection, people might be more clingy, they can kind of idealize, and they can be insecure and think a lot about their relationships and worry about the status of their relationships. Disorganized is the one where the caregiver is often the source of, insecurity or fear. So if the caregiver was either abusive or very neglectful, not responsive at all or like overwhelmed by fear themselves, right? So now like mom is kinda compromised is not gonna be a source of safety. If I'm scared and she's scared, what are we gonna do? Right?

10:36So that usually results in, sort of a confused response from the person. They don't really know how to respond to relationships. They're kind of both fearful and anxious, at the same time. And that can look like they their their behavior kind of shifts a lot. They might be highly emotional. You can see sort of like some push pull dynamics or like being hot and cold in relationships like I want you close but actually that's really scary. And that's what you see in people who've been really deeply traumatized. And that we call the disorganized attachment. The avoidant is one who tries to pretend that they don't have any of those needs in the first place. So they tend to shut down, any kind of attachment related longings or needs and they might, like, kinda get their needs met sideways through like achievements or I'm just gonna prove that I'm the best and I don't need anyone.

11:25Kind of withdrawing from relationships, dismissive of emotion, distant, and might not be responsive to other people in need. So that's kind of a summary of how those different attachment styles develop, and what they develop into, I should say. And secure is is the healthy option. Right? Where the person feels confident, comfortable, safe, able to be themselves, doesn't worry too much about relationships. And, again, if someone is distant, they can tolerate that. If they're distant, like, you know, they can kinda navigate, a relationship and and aim to communicate and really foster connection. So I'd like to talk about the role of attachment in identity stability. Children and adolescents really, really crave belonging.

12:12So, you know, if if mom and dad are good, things are gonna probably go in a positive direction still. Right? Because the thing about that's interesting about attachment is it is malleable. So it's like if mom and dad are really scary and abusive or something like that and and the, kiddo, you know, ends up having disorganized attachment or trauma responses or something of that sort. If they have some positive peer experiences, right, that can kind of shift things around because we're always adapting this model that we have in our mind of how relationships go based on new data and new experiences. So ideally we would have, you know, parents that help us with our security. We're mostly secure.

12:51Then we have really good friends that also help us feel like, hey, we belong in this world. We're doing great. Like, people like us. We like them. It's a mutual experience of goodness. Right? So, and then that creates higher self esteem, better quality of relationships overall. And then, you know, that's great for identity formation. And lower rates of depression or anxiety because the person feels a sense of confidence, security, comfort in themselves and things like that. When we start off with either difficulty at home or encounter bullying or rejection from peers, then that can kind of change things especially in adolescence because the peer relationships become really important. As they venture from mom and dad, they're going out into the world to say, okay, I know mom and dad love me.

13:31Let's say that's all secure and good. Now, like, can I go out in the world and be one among the many? Right? Can I fit into the bigger group? And if there's peer rejection there, that can result in lower self esteem, higher rates of depression and anxiety, and also even some, like, body image, concerns or insecurity about the sense of self. So this attachment stuff really kind of folds right into identity formation. Adolescents, that's what they're doing. They're trying to explore who they are and start to feel comfortable, you know, being being themselves, figuring out who they are. Like, who am I even? What does it mean to be myself? And so outside relationships kinda serve as this, like, feedback loop that help us like, hey.

14:13If I try this out, how do people respond? Right? I'm looking for that response from people, and that's really important. Alright. I'm gonna switch gears here and just kinda touch on the pandemic. So, yeah, a lot happened with the pandemic. It affected a lot of people. The situation led to a decrease in in person interactions and an increase in social interaction through technology, but also increased social isolation, and loneliness. People were disconnected in a lot of different ways. Protocols in place require people to wear masks, which obviously, like, it's hard to read facial expressions and figure out what's going on when you can't see someone's face. You know practice social distancing so even when you go somewhere you're like 10 feet apart.

14:57And obviously some of these practices were more intense in different places depending on where you were geographically. But, I was on the East Coast at the time in The United States and it was pretty pretty intense. Like, everything was closed. People in Rhode Island, they were turning cars away from out of state. Like, it was very, very intense there. And I know different states in The United States. I know we've got lots of international people too, so it's it's kinda like different protocols in place all over the place, but it was just a very scary time and it elevated a lot of people's anxiety in general. And now we're also kind of more isolated and separated. And now we're using technology more to interact, which in some ways was good, right, because at least we could connect that way.

15:38And seeing someone's face on a screen is better than not seeing them at all. So that's, you know, that was something. But yeah, a lot of people experienced increased levels of anxiety and fear related to what was going on and also how to manage the stress. There also came some, like, confusion around social things like, okay, if we're having a social event and the state's allowing it and we can actually gather with more than 10 people and I just got a cold, can I go? Like, I don't know. Or is, like, is this COVID or is this just, like, the allergies? Like, I don't know. And so it created a lot more anxiety about how to even interact socially and people started worrying about what people are gonna think.

16:18Are people gonna reject me for not doing the things that other people are doing? So it created a whole bunch of stuff, that people got really kind of freaked out about. So there were many questions that we continue to ask ourselves even now about how to interact with others around matters of sickness or large gatherings. Sometimes people still have questions about what's the right protocol for these sort of things. But the important thing to note about the pandemic is that it increased how much we used Internet based communication, and we did see a rise in loneliness and, isolation, basically, pandemic on. This slide is a little fuzzy and I apologize for the poor quality. I just pulled it from a research article so I I couldn't make it any better than it is so I apologize for that.

17:03But, I think it's a cool visual from a study of, basically how technology assisted communication changes in the brain, in how we communicate. So I put there you can see in person interactions versus technology, interactions. And they the way that they color coded it is the darker color, is when there's multiple connections made in the brain whereas the lighter color is like one connection. And then they differentiated the colors based on the location of the brain. So the blue is the frontal lobe, the the pink is the temporal lobe, and then the yellow is kind of this midbrain. But you can see with in person interactions, there's a lot more activity all around the brain and this is between two people that are interacting.

17:46So these are two different brains like of people talking to each other. Okay? And so you you can see like the per maybe the person talk I don't know which one's the person talking versus the one receiving. I have a feeling it's the brain on the left is the one talking. That would be my guess. But there's a lot of information obviously being exchanged and a lot happening in the brain when we're in person. I'm not a neuropsychologist. I know enough about neuropsychology to be dangerous. But not enough to actually speak about it with any authority, but I think it's really cool. Because obviously a lot of how we interact is monitored and controlled by this organ that we have in our bodies, the brain.

18:25And different parts of the brain do different things. Like the frontal lobe kind of organizes information, the temporal does some other stuff too. So you think the occipital lobe is involved too. There's all kinds of stuff going on in the brain. But when we're in person there's these things called mirror neurons also that are activated when we are connected. We're like taking in body language data and we're like matching matching each other without even realizing creating this like physical synchrony which is super cool. And some of that is happening completely out of conscious awareness but the brain is doing these things, right? Now if you look at the other diagram, it's not as busy, it's not as active.

19:02You know, you and I are not in the same room right now, so I'm I'm not matching you. I'm not I can't even see you guys. So I don't know what your facial expressions are. You know, I can see Michelle, which is great. But yeah. So but but my brain can't grab onto as much when I'm on Zoom or using FaceTime. So I it's just it's a different process, and it's a different way of connecting. So we can just see that there's more going on and and more connection happening, when we're in person. So there was a study also that I found on attachment insecurity and loneliness, which I thought was important. So in the wake of the pandemic, researchers have been attempting to examine the notable rise in global levels of distress, loneliness, and mental health concerns and their connection to the pandemic.

19:50Research has examined several factors that predict who is more likely to experience elevated depression, anxiety, and poor well-being due to the pandemic And one of these variables is adult attachment style. So what I was just talking about before, which describes the way people think, feel, and behave in their close relationships and those are, you know, as I mentioned, developed based on experiences with caregivers early on. And that's becomes like this internal working model of what I can expect from relationships that does adapt and shift if you have new experiences, which is good. But they have to be usually repeated experiences. But the primary purpose of forming these relationships and these bonds, these attachments that we do is to maintain proximity to our caregivers and to basically survive.

20:34Like we want to be in groups because we tend to do better, in groups survival way of thinking if you think evolutionarily. So the authors of this study, found that those in high attachment anxiety, experienced higher depression and anxiety, than those in low attachment anxiety. And the evidence suggests that insecure attachment especially attachment anxiety more so than, than the dismissive or or, avoidance style. Maybe a predictor of poor mental health, especially during the pandemic. The study that found that feelings of loneliness was a mediating factor, So that basically if someone had attachment avoidance, then they were more likely to feel lonely. And if they also felt lonely and attachment avoidance, then they were more likely to be distressed.

21:20So that kind of increased the emotional distress rate. But if you had an insecure attachment you're already more likely to feel lonely. And that's because if you're not securely attached you're looking for feedback from other people, you're analyzing your relationships, you're questioning whether you're dismissive or not you know, you're still kind of questioning, you know, are people gonna be there when I need them? Because that's what insecurity in your attachment kinda makes you ask. Another thing I wanted to touch on too is, I I appreciate this theory of suicide, because it's it's really important and it has to do with how relationships, you know, factor in to whether or not someone is gonna complete suicide.

22:03So Thomas Joiner, wrote a book, why people die by suicide. I think he had a relative. I can't remember who the relative was in his family, but he had someone in his family that was significant to him that had committed suicide. He didn't understand why. And he didn't understand the connection of, like, the different types of people, that will complete suicide because there didn't seem to him to be a very clear external connection. So he decided to investigate and what he came down to were three factors. I don't know why I went ahead sorry. Three factors which is thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness and capacity for self harm. Now what he discovered was if people felt like a burden and they also felt like they didn't belong, then they're gonna probably have some passive suicidal thoughts.

22:50Think like maybe it would be better if I didn't exist or I don't really belong here, so why do I even bother? Things like that. And then if you add a capacity for self harm, so so if people start cutting themselves or hurting themselves in some way, they're whittling away at their self preservation. And as they increase the capacity to harm themselves, that increases their risk of suicide. So he actually created for clinicians, like, a a way to evaluate the risk level. Because, you know, in my practice, I see a lot of people who have suicidal thoughts and you gotta kinda have a way of figuring out like, okay, is this person gonna act on them or is this something that they're just contemplating as a way out or just a thought that's entering their mind as a coping strategy but they don't actually wanna act on it?

23:34There's a lot of other ways that we assess for that too. But this is a helpful helpful way of thinking about it, because a lot of times that there are interpersonal roots to why the person is even having those thoughts in the first place. If they feel like a burden and if they feel like they don't belong. So loneliness, you know, especially chronic loneliness, feeds into both of these beliefs that I'm a burden and that I don't belong. Alright. So I'm gonna start to talk a little bit more about technology. What happens when there's a disconnect between what we see online and what we experience in real life? You can see why I emphasized at the beginning that point. Right? That there's a gap between what we want and what we have.

24:18Right? And so what happens when we have that experience, we see this stuff going on online, and then what we experience in real life is very different. Could exposure to unrealistic expectations of social connection possibly increase that perceived gap between the kinds of friendships we want and the ones that we have? So fear of missing out is a thing, FOMO. It's a unique term introduced in 2004, that describes a phenomenon observed on social networking sites. FOMO includes two different processes. First, the perception of missing out. Right? I feel like I missed out on something. Followed with a compulsive behavior to maintain the social connection and keep track of what I might be missing out on.

25:01So I keep scrolling and I keep looking at what I might be missing out on. I wanna see more pictures. What's going on? What are they doing? I I wanna be involved. So there's this fear of missing out on something and you don't wanna miss what you're missing out on. So then you continue to see what you're missing out on. FOMO is associated with a range of negative emotions due to it being considered a problematic attachment to social media. So through social media there is continuous awareness of what an individual may be missing. Social media creates distorted perceptions of edited lives of others. This sort of round the clock availability of information about what other people are doing, is is not exactly healthy.

25:39And so these communications around the clock may lead to feeling lonely, and inadequate, through the way it highlights others activities and popularity, things people are doing that I wasn't invited to or being excluded. And females in particular are a little bit more sensitive to these things. They typically engage in social media to figure out, you know, what people like and and try to make themselves likable. And they also end up doing a lot of comparison. You know, am I as pretty as that girl? How come that girl has so many friends? Or does that guy like that girl? Well, why not I don't look like her? You know, things like that. So that stimulates feelings of inadequacy, missing out, which can also potentially lead to loneliness.

26:25And so I've also included just a little graphic here that says fifty six percent of people get anxious when they miss an important event or status update on social media. Alright. If you're interested in learning about technology and its relationship to people and people's relationship to technology, I highly highly recommend reading Sherry Turkle. She has been doing research on this topic since the nineteen eighties. She has been very curious about man and machine since computers were like these giant boxes or even whole rooms. I don't know. But she's been doing research on this for a really long time and it's cool to see her perspective. She wrote this book Alone Together in 2012. It may have actually been written earlier and she might have published like an update.

27:13But when I listened to it it was kind of funny because it's a little bit dated now. She talks about the Furby and and things of that sort and it's kind of funny that way. But a lot of the concepts are, like like, they could not be more relevant. You know, just the way that she talks about how people are kinda deferring their connection to people through machines because it feels safer to talk to an object than it does a person. Right? I would much rather, you know, text a pizza order than have to call and actually talk to the guy. Right? Like and and there's generations where this is is growing and increasing. Like, people don't wanna make phone calls. They don't wanna actually talk to anybody.

27:47They just wanna punch it into the machine and not have to interact with people. And there's this social anxiety that comes from being face to face with someone, and performing well and, like, you know, engaging and things that they would rather avoid. And if it's like, if I can just punch it into a machine and get what I want, like, do I have to interact with a person? Because that's gonna come with all this extra stuff that I don't wanna do or that makes me nervous or I don't feel like it. So, yeah, Sherry Turkle's been exploring this, you know, phenomenon for a long time. So she's written a series of books, about this feedback loop that occurs between man and machine as they develop together.

28:23In Alone Together, Turkel explores how technology particularly social media, and robots, she she talked a lot about you know for a reason how kids interacted with robots which was pretty interesting. And digital communication is reshaping human relationships by fostering this paradox. It connects us while also making us feel more isolated. So in it she writes, these days, insecure in our relationships and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time. She argues that we as we increasingly turn to devices for companionship and validation, we risk diminishing our capacity for empathy and meaningful face to face interactions.

29:07So these are two other books that, authors that I really appreciate. Jean Twenge has done a lot of research on social media trends. She is a psychologist that looks at generational differences, and how different generations interact, you know, and and patterns that she can observe across generations. And she's noticed some pretty stark and and surprising trends, with newer generations that interact with technology. And then Jonathan Haidt has done a lot and lot a lot of research on, social media and its impact on development. What's really nice about Jonathan Haidt and his research team is that he's actually, made, his research open to the public. So there's this Google Doc that's just open, to anyone that wants to access it with all of the research articles.

29:53And it's like 400 pages of research articles, summarizing, you know, the the people that have looked into this and found that there is a causal relationship between technology use, and social problems and mental health concerns especially among adolescents. So the data that they've collected, you know, strongly suggest that social media and poor mental health may have a causal relationship, and I'm gonna actually show you some of the, charts from some of those articles. Yeah. So I'm gonna be summarizing that extensive literature for you, but these are two of their books that have a lot to do with the topics that we're talking about today. So the research on social media use and loneliness generally reflects three perspectives.

30:37The first perspective, suggests that loneliness positively predicts excessive social media use. So if you're lonely, you're gonna use social media more. The second suggests that problematic social media use increases loneliness. So if you use social media a lot, you're gonna feel more lonely. The third indicates that there's a bidirectional relationship and actually confirms the first two. And research has supported each of each of these. So there's research that supports that social media increases loneliness. There's research that supports that loneliness increases social media use. And now there's research that supports that they actually influence each other. So what that means is individuals feeling lonely are more inclined to use social media as a means of escaping their loneliness or to mitigate social anxiety that they experience in real life social situations.

31:24And that immediate feedback that they obtained during their time on social media, may temporarily alleviate some of those feelings. But it leads them to engage further in social media and then they start to have that fear of missing out. They start to see people doing things together and they wish they could be involved. And so that kind of escalates and creates this, you know, snowball effect basically. And so when they're spending more and more time on social media and less and less time interacting, this robs them of the opportunities to actually develop social skills, right? And accessible social relationships, right? If I'm talking to people in other countries all the time, no offense to you guys in other countries, it's wonderful to be able to connect this way.

32:07But if I'm if I'm mainly cultivating that as my main source of social support, then I can't actually meet them for coffee or go somewhere for a walk in the park. We're not gonna have those opportunities for face to face conversations. So you can see how this sort of increases again that perceived gap between, what I experienced maybe online versus what I experienced in real life. When I look around, if I close the laptop, there's no one here. Right? And and that's just that that's sad because we want to be in each other's presence. Alright. So I'm gonna look at teen mental health in particular, and social media addiction. So this is from a Pew study. It's about three years old, but it talks about, the changing landscape of social media and this is just a like a survey of the sites that that teenagers use.

32:59And I sort of stacked it from the bottom up to be the most popular to kinda go with the graph. But YouTube is pretty much the big winner. And then TikTok and Instagram are pretty high up there and then Snapchat. And then it kinda drops down below, as we go. And that's been changing, you know, basically in 2014, 71% used Facebook and now it's more like 32%. But YouTube has stayed pretty high. So this is a survey of high school students and they were asked whether they agree or mostly agree with the statements, I often feel left out of things and a lot of times I feel lonely. You can see the rates begin to climb after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Here you can see also trends in adolescent behavior spending less time with their friends, with a significant drop after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007.

33:54So this is rates of depression, among both sexes. Heavy users of digital media were often twice as likely, as low users to be low in well-being or have mental health issues, including risk factors for suicide. And so these graphs, basically show you the percentage of people that have, depressive symptoms, and it goes higher, when they start using more, screen time. So with girls, it starts to kinda go up around two hours a day, five hours a day. And with boys, it's a bit lower globally, but once you start to go over two hours a day, whoops, sorry. My scrolly wheel, I guess, controls the slides. Then you can start to see that increase. And this is also, depression and social media use and divided by males and females.

34:48Females are the solid line and males are the dated line. This study examines specific technology based behavior of social comparison and interpersonal feedback, seeking that may interact with offline individual characteristics to predict depressive symptoms among adolescents. So adolescents reported on levels of depressive symptoms at baseline and one year later on depressive symptoms and their frequency of technology use. So basically excessive reassurance seeking and technology based social comparison and feedback seeking was associated with depressive symptoms. And the association was particularly strong among females low in popularity. So again, that seeking of feedback, right, is very, very important and central, in adolescence because we're trying to figure out, you know, who I am.

35:37So it's like, do I look good in this? I try this on, see if my peers like it, then okay. Yeah. Cool. Like, this is good. And that's kind of what teenagers are doing. Like they're trying on different things, different roles, you know, different hairstyles, like literally different appearances, trying to figure out who they are and they're looking for feedback. And so now they're looking for likes, shares, comments online, and they're, like, addicted to it. Like, do not get enough likes? Do people really like me? And it's kinda how they're trying to figure out who they are in this online world. Okay. So I wanna ask the question, how does a Catholic philosophical vision of the human person contribute to our understanding of loneliness?

36:20And these are kind of the main resources that I would turn to. Of course, the one all the way at the left is a special, special place in my heart since it was in development while I was at the Institute for Psychological Sciences. We had, like, paper manuscript copies before it was printed, which is the Catholic Christian metamodel of the human person. Then we have John Paul the second's Theology of the Body. I'm at Rowwoods, so that's pretty significant to us here. And I like the catechism. I hope you do too. If you're Catholic, it's a great resource. So not to get too philosophical, but having someone like Saint Thomas Aquinas inform your understanding of the person helps fight against heresies of personhood that we are seeing in our culture.

36:59Aquinas viewed the person, the wholeness of a person, the unity of all the parts as a person's essence. What makes them a human being? It's the different pieces working together, not one without the other, that forms a cohesive whole. So we call that integration. It's a very important factor. So right now, we have a bit of a hodgepodge of philosophies informing what it means to be a human being in our culture. You'll encounter some who see the idea of a holistic sense of self as a natural obvious assumption. However, others do not and will strive to elevate a part of the self over the whole. This happens all the time. For example, people who stake their entire identity on their appearance, their status, their skill, you know, and would feel threatened, their very existence threatened if one aspect is taken away.

37:46I believe social media has contributed to this very much, because if people are viewing people in terms of various data points, this has started started to inform the way our society is currently structured. So kids growing up in an environment online where they have to think about themselves through the lens of a profile we'll think of who they are in terms of their likes, their interests, their appearance, their sex, their gender, their beliefs. They start breaking up the person into all these different little pieces. And if you're at all familiar with gender theory, they have this thing called the genderbread person or the gender unicorn that supports the theory and it's literally like everything about the person's sexuality broken up into these little tiny parts, rather than, you know, it being a whole thing.

38:28So this mentality focuses on attributes of the person as the defining traits of what makes them who they are. While these aspects do indeed come together to form a person, they are not meant to be the source of being itself. Elevating parts over the whole necessarily leads to disintegration, hence Thomas Aquinas' wide eyes. Carving up of the person and a type of compartmentalization leads to to a fractured sense of self which increases mental illness. Right? Because it's we're not whole. We're not together. We're starting to come apart into all these different pieces. And I think even just the way that we use the Internet kind of can make us go in all these different directions too. So I like this graphic, because you have all these different websites where you might go to connect with people or things you do like I've got a YouTube for this, I go over here for that and it sort of splits up your activity too.

39:18So in Genesis, God says it's not good for man to be alone. We are created for communion. The catechism tells us that human beings are made in the image of the trinity, a perfect community of love. Connection isn't optional. It's essential to who we are. In Catholic teaching, we are members of the body of Christ. Each of us is unique, needed, and connected to something larger than ourselves. And our vocation is to love and to serve. That gives us purpose and belonging. So this is where I get to share with you what I love about being a clinician at Real Woods. Doctor. Andrew Surdigan wrote a series of articles to make John Paul two's, Theology of the Body more accessible. If you're interested, they are on our website, www.rw, can I do it?

40:05Rwpsych.org. Yeah. And, he he summarizes that beautifully and just makes a lot of what John Paul the second had to say in the huge book much more accessible and readable. So I'm gonna actually take an excerpt, from his summary of John Paul the second's concept of original solitude here. We all desire to know who and what we are. As we search to answer these questions, we discover that our bodies bear an essential difference from the rest of creation. We are alone in the sense that in all of the physical world, the human body is the only one that reveals a person. John Paul the second writes that through original solitude, we discover that our unique relationship with God is what defines us at the core of our being and identity.

40:50Before all else, we are sons and daughters of God who called us into existence out of nothing and holds us in being through the constant attentive gift of his love. By giving us bodies, God has shown us we are uniquely called to give ourselves as God has gives himself out of love for the other. This act of self gift is essential to our being. In the creation story, God stated that it is not good for man to be alone and creates Eve to facilitate a relationship of mutual reciprocity that would reflect God's relationship to man. So what can we do? The answer starts with each of us. We need to make intentional efforts to connect and to see and reach out to people who we know who are lonely. First, it's good to practice digital discernment.

41:38Ask, is my phone helping or hurting my relationship? If someone's sitting here in front of me and I have a phone in front of my face, is then a good way to interact and connect with someone? Try putting phones away at meals, scheduling phone free time daily. I hope, fingers crossed, I have kids. The oldest one is only six right now. I don't know if I will change my mind in twelve years, but no. My hope is that I I won't give my kid a phone until they're at least in tenth grade. You know, if if I have to give them, like, a dumb phone just to text or something, fine. But, like, I don't I don't want my kids on social media because it's not really healthy for their development. But anyways, scheduling phone free time, making sure you're not always on screens all the time, choosing FaceTime or real FaceTime, moving for coffee, making an effort to go out and get get together with your friends.

42:27Technology should serve connection, not replace it. Right? Like, it's great that we can do this, for instance. This is awesome. But But it would be even more cool if like we were actually in a place together. Right? And I can see all of you and you come up and talk to me afterwards. That would be really great. But still, you know, this is this is good. This is better than not at all. So I'm happy to be here and doing this. But yeah. So it's good to just be discerning about when we use digital, devices and when we connect, digitally. And if we can connect in person, try to do that. Second, living out radical hospitality. Right? Invite people over for coffee. Say yes to a group, event. You know, sit with the new person at mass or school.

43:10Sometimes people aren't ignoring you. They're just waiting to be noticed. So reaching out to other people, if you see someone that looks lost or you see someone that's like not quite a part of the group like invite them in, you know. Just try to be welcoming. Be that person, you know, that encourages people to connect. And we wanna build consistent community. We don't need more followers or people like liking stuff online. Like it's better if we had friends, you know, join or start a small group, eat dinner with the same people, invite people over for dinner, go to mass together. Like loneliness isn't solved by one big event. It's healed through regular, authentic, small encounters. Right? So smiling at the grocery store is a great example.

43:50Right? Connecting with people when you see them in person. In my own personal struggles because I have felt lonely, you know, my, you know, upbringing, I had some injuries and attachment and had to work through it. And thankfully, at Franciscan, I made some really wonderful friends that helped me a lot in my journey there. I have a wonderful husband that I thank so much every day for loving me, and helps me feel very very secure. But one of the things that also helped me in times when I didn't have those active relationships and I did feel lonely is I turned to my faith. And I thought about the communion of saints. And I just thought about all the people, that are in the body of Christ that also believe in this with me.

44:34And I just imagined like what if they actually could, like, see me or be part of my life or know that I'm, you know, doing this thing right now or and and it's just I received so much encouragement from imagining that. And so it just, like, makes you feel like something so much bigger than yourself, and it helps kind of fight back those temptations to feel lonely when you know that you're connected to something more. Okay. So now I'm just gonna open it up for questions if anyone has any. And, also, also, these are just the references at the bottom. And if anybody wants to email me for anything, I put my email address there, and just, you know, my information that I work at. I hope this presentation has been informative to all of you.

45:19I appreciate valuable, doctor Dodell. I guess I feel like we get free counseling in in these kinds of webinars, but there are several really good, questions. And so I'll answer those verbally and have you expound on them. Doctor Ruth Hannah says, how can you counsel the parents about the dangers of the child spending long periods of time online? What are some of the answers to that? That is a great question. It is. Yeah. It, it depends so much, I think, on the individual situation, obviously, the age of the kiddo, and and what's going on in their peer groups and things like that. But, yeah, I I would kinda ask, the parents, first of all, like, are there ways that they could facilitate in person meetings or, like, invite the friends over, you know, have their kids come over for a game night and put all their phones in a basket, and sit down and play a board game together.

46:17You know something along those lines. Just ideas of ways to get kids to interact without phones I think is huge. There have been a lot of phone free movements in schools, that have been doing really well, because they're starting to see, the students actually like interact, look at each other in the face, play games, like, what? Whereas before they would all sit silently on their phones while they were at lunch in the cafeteria, like, that's kind of crazy to think. I was a nineties kid. We didn't have cell phones in school, so we all were just, like, super loud and crazy in the cafeteria. And it's like wild to me to think of like all these kids just sitting on their phone, like completely not engaging with each other.

46:53But yeah, some of those phone free, studies have been really cool, because they've been showing, like, once you take the technology out of the back like, out of the room, they will figure out how to connect with each other, which is good. So it depends on the kid's age, and, you know, the parents and what they're what they've done so far. It's hard to just give, like, a blanket answer to that. But there are, some really great books. And if you want to share your email with me, I can send those to you because I don't have them off the top of my head right now, but, I can certainly give you a list of books that are really great for that. The same individual asked a question that I've always wanted to know the answer to, having become a mother late in life.

47:37Are there any studies that study if there are any differences in a child's emotional and psychological development if they were breastfed versus bottle fed? That's an excellent question. From what I understand, there's not, like, a humongous significant difference, but it also depends largely. Now I'm not quoting any particular studies but this is just from what I've come across. I can't remember the specific studies but but I do know that a lot of it has to do with how involved the mother is at feeding time. So if mom is feeding with a bottle is she looking in the child's eyes? Is there touch going on while that's happening? Yeah. So that would be a big piece that's hard to parse apart. So you can't really just, like, extract bottle fed from breastfed and say that there's gonna be a huge difference because contact is a piece of it too.

48:34So if the mom is, like, gazing at the child and touching them and holding them. Now I know that breastfed babies, like, there's an advantage with, you know, the antibodies and things like that from the mother. So that contributes and obviously the attachment bond too. But I think from what I've from what I've heard and what I've read, there's not a significant difference, and as long as there's contact and a visible touch in during that process. Okay. And we have another question, which is also a very good question. As a parent, would you suggest that we not allow a child to have their own cell phone or laptop until a certain age, 12 to 16, for instance, or limit a computer to school work, maybe just using a parent's computer?

49:20Would you limit the time they spend on their technology? All great quest Yes. So the studies interestingly have what we call this j shaped phenomenon. And so, basically, like, this there's a Goldilocks effect, so there's a sweet spot. So if kids use, like, technology for about an hour a day, half an hour to an hour a day, they'll be okay. If they're using it for more than two hours a day, we start to see problems. And if they don't use it at all, we start to see problems. And that's because they won't be able to connect at all with their peers. Now that doesn't necessarily mean social media per se like I wouldn't go giving your kid an Instagram account or anything like that but you know they've got to be able to engage a little bit in the culture to be able to connect with the things that their other you know their peers are talking about and be able to find common interests.

50:08So, yeah, I would kind of keep it, like, similar to what people might do for, like, media content. You know, you don't really want a kid watching more than two hours a day of television if, like, maybe if they watch a movie. Right? Like, that would kind of be a good good benchmark. But if they don't watch anything at all ever, then they're gonna be kinda out of the loop and a little over sheltered and kinda confused and not be able to connect. So yeah. I would say it's got to be balanced. And that also kind of factors into like what else are they doing. You know, obviously they've got schoolwork, if they've got sports, if they've got you know activities. And making sure that the activities that they have, you know, involve other people is always good too.

50:53But yeah. And as far as cell phones go, I mean, I wouldn't want wanna give my child an Internet capable device, until person this is me personally you know there's lots of different people with different perspectives and people do different things and I'm not judging anybody that does anything differently. This is just me personally. I I would want to wait until at least ninth grade just to and then I would wanna kinda like teach them a lot about the Internet because the Internet is dangerous in some ways for kids. They don't know who they're talking to. They don't know how to navigate. And you know they might know better than you how to get to different things or turn things off and get around filters and all of that.

51:34But there's a lot of things that they can stumble into. I mean, pornography is only three clicks away. So, you know, that's something to kinda be mindful of, especially if you're concerned about that. Yeah. So I I wouldn't want my kid just loose on the Internet, you know, just like I wouldn't drop them off in the city. Like, I wouldn't just drop them off in a city and walk away. Like, that's kinda how I feel about the Internet. So it's it's gonna be sort of monitored, you know, shorter stints online doing, you know, interesting things, maybe, you know, guided, pretty structured. I feel really blessed because my husband actually he's a tech guy, and he, created this, like, DNS router thing. I'm so bad at knowing what these things are.

52:22But it basically, like, routes our traffic, our web traffic through this his, like, custom filtration system so that a lot of things, like, don't even get into our house. And and things like that are really valuable. I I also have, like, a ton of resources on that too, so I can always pass them to Michelle, and she might be able to send those out to everybody, just, you know, for safeguarding kids on the Internet. I have a whole handout on that, which also has Some very nice compliments up here in addition to the questions, and I concur. You know, it's a very difficult topic, and we've been so blessed to, during May, which is National Mental Health Month, have three incredible presentations.

53:04And this has been so good, Emily. I think it touches a lot of people in a lot of ways. And what I will do is I this will be recorded. Unfortunately, I didn't hit the record button when I introduced, Emily, but it's obviously, you're introduced when you signed up. But it is so delightful to see individuals that have never talked to Divine Mercy or people who are graduates get on here and answer answer these kinds, ask these kinds of questions. So we really appreciate your gift of time. Unless somebody else had any additional questions, we'll let you go on to a wonderful celebration of, tomorrow and having an extra day off. And, Emily, I can't thank you enough for your kindness. One of my graduates right here in Kentucky has just said we appreciate her time and she's wonderful.

53:53These were all great points. Nancy said the same thing. Thank you as well done. So it's nice to know that when you spend time preparing one of these. There is one more question. It says, thank you for let's see. Thank you for your presentation. How do we approach friends who are isolating and don't take up your invitations to engage? I have a friend who struggles with addiction and social anxiety, and I try to check-in with her once or every other week via text. Sometimes I just send her a fun picture with no expectation for conversation. I try to keep an open hand on this and pray for her, but also figuring let's see. Who's the next part of this? I'm figuring how to pray for her, but also how to invite hospitality without pushing her over.

54:54Tech seems like a gentle way to engage. That's, you know, that's an interesting concept and an interesting predicament. Yeah. I I think what you're doing sounds really great, actually. Just like connecting in the way that she knows how right now. Right? So it seems like she might be socially anxious, avoiding too much contact. So she might be borrowing into her phone as a way to avoid that anxiety. Right? And so, you know, reaching out there it's where she can be reached. So continuing just to let her know that you care for her, sending her those, you know, pictures with no expectations sounds like a great strategy. And I would just continue to invite her to things even just like a low key, like, hey.

55:34Do you wanna go for a walk? Where there's not gonna be a lot of people around to go go to a park or something. You know, they might find that person might find like a busy coffee shop or something overwhelming if they have social anxiety. So, or even, you know, just inviting them over your house on a day when it's quiet, you you know, something like that. But continuing to reach out to you that way sounds reasonable. Yeah. Any other questions? Such great you know, people asking great questions, and it it just tells you that this is so valuable because the thoughts are definitely out there. The concerns are definitely out there, and Emily certainly answered all of them very well. So what I will do, I will offer up they edited a little bit, but I know that we have I think you've sent us the slides.

56:29Right, Emily? Or you can send them to me? Can. Yeah. Okay. Send them to me, and then we will go ahead, and those individuals, actually can send them all because these are valuable pieces of information to have and review. And I'll send also that, list of resources that I have for parent to get technology. There will be a few tabs for that that book those that book list. So I'll kinda make a list and, remind you on those. You don't have to do it tomorrow. It's a holiday. Oh, I I can do it right now. After we get off, I'll send it to you. Yeah. Well, thanks again, everyone. It was a great Sunday afternoon to spend time with you, and I hope you all are getting together with family and friends.

57:07And thanks again for all your great questions. And thank you, doctor Dowdau. So good to you. Uh-huh. Good night, everyone.