[ad_1]
The crown period has united us around a large and visible common task: keeping infection at bay. At the same time, the pandemic has created a greater distance between us. Many older people have become more isolated. Young people say they miss friends and social contact. Many of us do work at home. We continue to experience that something important is lost when people are not together, also at work.
Some say they experience being more alone. Others who feel lonely. Is there a difference?
Being alone is part of life. Most of us are from time to time. Loneliness is deeper. It’s about experiencing a lack of desired contact with others. That is also part of life. Lacking friends, missing others, being excluded or not being part of a community is something that many people experience throughout their lives. That doesn’t make it less painful or more acceptable. It just makes him human. Where few are reluctant to say they live or are very lonely, loneliness for many is still associated with shame, like a disease that others fortunately do not see. Just think for yourself. When was the last time you heard someone say: I am alone?
Now we write and talk more about loneliness than in a long time. It’s good. The latest shot in the arm is the book “The Century of Solitude”, written by British economics professor Noreena Hertz. It describes a crisis of loneliness and brings to light a wealth of statistics that support the claim. Dagens critic Næringsliv calls the book “essential reading for the age in which we live,” but still ends with a sigh of resignation; he “wonders” if the message “extends to those who decide.”
For what can those who “decide” really do with challenges like loneliness?
My answer is: quite a bit.
In individual life, family, neighbors and acquaintances are the most important to help people they know from loneliness. For me, as a Social Democrat, it is essential that there is also a shared responsibility. Loneliness is not a disease, but loneliness and isolation can make you sick. We can do a lot to create a society in which fewer people feel alone. We cannot legislate that everyone should have a friend at school. There is no budget line for neighbors that line up with each other. There is still much that society in general can and must do.
I want to start school. In debates, politicians who care about environmental contacts, school health services, school meals, and anti-bullying measures are often labeled “soft” and little concerned with learning. But the lack of friends or exclusion from school destroys the joie de vivre and the desire to learn in young people. It cannot be called welfare or apprentice. Well-being and learning are intertwined. Let’s remember that for the next school debate.
Volunteering is another important clue. Many NGOs do an important job of including more people in the community. They have visiting or activity friends that connect people who are exposed to loneliness. Young people visit the elderly. Retirees volunteer to help with homework for young people or learn Norwegian for asylum seekers. When I worked for the Red Cross, it was said that “the best medicine you can give someone else is someone else.” There is a lot of truth in that. Broadband sports are also important to combat loneliness, and we should be concerned that the era of the crown could lead to young people, in particular, dropping out of school.
Loneliness should also receive more attention in the care of the elderly. Four out of ten people over 80 say they have felt lonely in the last two weeks. Better day care for people with dementia is an extended hand from the community to the elderly who need both social contact and medical help. The right to help out to see friends once a week, as has been introduced in the municipality of Oslo, is another example.
Noreena Hertz places a crucial emphasis on working life. Little excludes more than being out of work. Many people with disabilities experience a profound lack of a work community to belong to. And if each man becomes his own employer in the so-called platform economy, an important community, the union, is quickly lost for many people.
So we could continue, from one area to another in society. Hillary Clinton once wrote a book about growing up with a nice title: “It Takes a Town.” The same can be said of the fight against loneliness. It requires co-responsibility, it requires joint efforts, now more than in a long time.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases via a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content can only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms, see here.
