¿Estamos ante una pandemia de soledad?

0:06 I' m Roberto Pombo. Welcome to my questions. An average rush program sponsored by KFAM family compensation box. Last year, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a public health problem. Social isolation and the decline of the population are just some of the reasons that have led us to this point. What are the effects of loneliness, how much do the Internet and social networks have to do with it? For this chapter we spoke with the writer Adolfo Sablé, Oscar Robayu, professor at the Universidad del Rosario, Carolina Piñeros, executive director of Red Papaz, with Santiago Amador, director of ib O Laboratorio de Innovación Pública in Bogotá and with psychologist Marcela Betancourt. I am Roberto Pombo and it is chapter eighty- nine of my questions welcome for some reason I still do not understand. My tiktok algorithm led me to a series of videos about the possibility of a dog or a cat eating the owner' s corpse. If I could find out. I had to investigate the veracity of the so terrifying claim. Turns out there' s not enough evidence that that happens or has happened systematically. No one has kept track of their follow- up of the frequency or probability that pets would feed on their deceased owners. I only found a study by a French team of researchers led by Tomás Colar at the University

1:40 of Lin that examined a sample large enough sixty- three cases to arrive at some conclusions about the general pattern of how a pet could consume its deceased owner to be quieter. However, there was one detail that remained spinning in my mind to die alone with no more companionship than that of a pet. I recalled a report of the year two thousand and fifteen that was published in the New York Times. George Beld' s Lonely Death Begins by counting the day the police found George Bell' s body after a week of death. His neighbors called the police because of the smell of his apartment. However, there was no one to call to tell him the news of his death or to whom to leave his inheritance, which was not much. I thought George Bell ' s story was terrible until I found a more recent one, The neighbors of a building in southern London reported a bad smell and worm infection from the apartment of Sheila Silon, a fifty- eight year old secretary. In October of two thousand and twenty, 14 months later, the police were finally asked to conduct a welfare check, but a police mistake led to her being informed that Sheila had been seen alive and in good condition. That was not true, but it meant closing the case about complaints of bad smell was nothing but others. Sixteen months later, in February of two thousand twenty- two, Shilla' s lifeless body was found in her apartment. I mean, it

3:13 ' s been two and a half years without anyone showing up looking for the secretary. The only close relative I had was a half brother with whom I had no relationship. These two terrifying and sad news seem exceptional, but the data point to the increasing number of deaths in solitude. In a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Theodor Stream ser Loui, pathologist and one of the authors of the article, estimates that between 8, 000 and 9, 000 people were found in an advanced state of decomposition. In two thousand twenty- two, the theory seems plausible. In two thousand twenty- one, thirty percent of all households in Britain were made up of one person, compared with seventeen percent in one thousand nine hundred and seventy- one. According to the authors of the study, the increase in people found dead from unknown causes suggests a wider erosion of social support networks, both formal and informal. In Japan, for example, it is estimated that about sixty - eight thousand people aged sixty- five or older die a year alone without a home, without anyone noticing it. According to data collected by the National Police Agency, between January and March of this year alone, twenty- one thousand seven hundred and sixteen people suffered solitary deaths In the United States, it has also begun to become a trend. Although no federal agency keeps a record of the number of unclaimed bodies, data suggest that between two and four percent

4:44 of the people who die each year in the country are not withdrawn, representing up to one hundred and forty- eight thousand people annually in South Korea. The figures are similar. Over the past five years, this country has seen a marked increase in the number of people dying alone, from 2, 400 twelve in 2, 117 to 3, 300 seventy- eight in 2, 222. It is well known that the human being is a social being. That' s what we realized in isolation from the 19- year- old pandemic, but the data show how this trend is reversed. We' re meant to be lonely. After giving the question to the writer Adolfo Sableme perhaps the question, not to say the human being is no longer sociable, but lonely, but the human being is a being of needs. In ancient times there was no Internet or the facilities that exist now, because obviously it was necessary to snooze to feed, to defend oneself from the invaders, to build a bridge, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But now, since all these issues are solved and technology doesn' t allow us to almost stand up for ourselves and need to be in physical contact with other people, because that'

6:15 s what you' re going through that' s no longer necessary, because our needs, at least the vital ones, don' t need someone more physical to satisfy them. Current global estimates from the World Health Organization suggest that one in four older adults experiences social isolation and between five and fifteen percent of adolescents experience loneliness. According to WHO, social isolation and loneliness not only harm individuals, but also have a negative impact on entire communities and societies. Research shows that a country' s security, prosperity, and effective governance depend to a large extent on the quality of social connections within its neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. For all this only a few months ago. In November of two thousand twenty- three, that organization declared loneliness a global health priority and created a new commission on social connection for him. Dr. Bibeck Murthey Co, chairman of that committee and Director General of Health of the United States.

7:27 Abrocomillas. For too long, loneliness has existed behind the invisible and undervalued shadows, driving mental and physical illnesses mount quotation marks. There is ample evidence that persistent loneliness is associated with higher rates of heart disease, pressure obesity, anxiety, and dementia. Loneliness, though invisible and silent, is as harmful to our health as smoking obesity or exposure to contaminated air, factors known to reduce the hope of s video. The Argentine neuroscientist facundo manes compares loneliness with a warning signal that reminds us of the importance of human connections. The constant sense of loneliness increases the likelihood of illness and it has been discovered that it can raise the risk of premature death by up to thirty percent. This risk includes heart problems, strokes, and dementia, and although it is thought to be an exclusive issue for seniors, loneliness and social disconnection affect people of all ages.

8:33 The article The pain of loneliness and social isolation of Nature magazine addresses the profound physical and psychological repercussions that loneliness and social isolation can have on individuals of any age. In Spain, for example, a study of forty db done by the newspaper El País concluded that children under the age of twenty- five feel more alone than those over the age of sixty- five. Looking at how many people have felt very alone or quite alone in the last year, they found that almost thirty- seven percent are young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty- four, followed by those between the ages of twenty- five and thirty- four years with thirty- two comma nine percent and those between the ages of thirty- five and forty- four with twenty- eight comma eight percent. And, according to the study, the overall state of social connections made by GALUP and Meta, twenty- five percent of young people aged fifteen to eighteen interviewed in one hundred forty- two countries reported feeling very alone or quite alone. The figure increases in the 19- to 29- year- old group, where 27 per cent of respondents show considerable loneliness.

9:45 And to end this perorata a final figure. One in three adults is afraid to be alone. We are facing a pandemic of loneliness. He' s looking for psychologist Marcela Betancourt to help me answer, and this she said yes, if we' re facing a pandemic of loneliness, what happens is that loneliness encompasses different levels, because it' s one thing to be alone and another to be lonely. Notice that many times we are surrounded by many people and feel lonely and sometimes alone and do not feel alone. There are several variables that have led people to be more alone as the m is recognized the boom of the digital age, it was care in which we live for work and responsibilities, even working at home, has separated us from others and this generates consequences on our mental health, especially on the levels of anxiety of people and everything that comes from there. But at the other level it is to feel alone, there are also variables. The ideal of success, the excess of expectations and the pressures we perceive also increases our feeling alone. And in that respect, the truth is that the first person to leave is me, when I don' t know how to listen to myself, when I don ' t know how to like myself, when I regulate what they will say and not for what I would like. All this has influenced us not to know how to be our own companion. We don' t know how to go with each other. What we do is we compare and demand, and that' s a much more overwhelming level of loneliness, but that we can take care of when we just stop and listen to what I want what I

11:20 need from me, why we go from being a social species to feeling or being alone in the middle of the crowd. As most problems are complex and have several edges. He recalls the recent controversy and 27 schools in Bogotá that banned the use of cell phones. If you do not know the news, the Union of International Colleges of Bogotá or a coli that brings together 27 private schools in the city, restricted the use of devices such as phones and smart watches and tablets in their auras. The reason they expressed is that they are concerned about auro quotes the significant impact that mobile devices, including mobile phones, smart watches and other personal use devices, are having on our students closing quotes.

12:07 According to this group of schools, these devices have serious effects on the mental health of minors. So, everything points out that yes, but under certain circumstances, social media may not be the most effective way to reduce feelings and social isolation. Better. Quite the contrary, although its name seems to indicate that we establish social relationships, there is multiple evidence that they generate isolation, anxiety and depression. Think for a moment. In the following, social networks are made for us to use frequently, as well as cigarettes are made to be consumed, even if there is a cancer risk warning in their packages.

12:48 That is why they are designed to create addiction and we are facing new generations for which the use of social networks is part of their day- to - day in which, in the face of any moment of loneliness, either in the bathroom waiting for the mus or while eating a sandwich. The first reaction is to pull out your cell phone, to open Instagram, tiktok or x. According to statist data, the use of social media or social media activity has risen markedly. In two thousand twenty- one more than four zero million people used social networks worldwide and it is projected that this figure will grow to almost six zero million. By the year two thousand and twenty- seven, a group of researchers from South Korea surveyed three hundred people between nineteen and thirty- nine years of age to better understand the relationship between the use of social networks to seek connection in order to avoid social isolation. Researchers found that the use of social networks only increased subjective well- being through increased connectivity, but not through reduced social isolation. This is because social media doesn' t solve our feelings of loneliness. The scientific evidence of the effect of the use of s r srdes sociales in isolation is extensive. There are many studies on this and I will not fill them in with data, but I do want to quote one of the findings of a group of Chinese psychologists. When people participate in extensive and long- term use of social media, they can involuntarily replace real- world interactions with virtual relationships, increasing their perception of social isolation.

14:22 As a result this aggravates their feelings of loneliness. The company and permanent connection feeling that smartphones and social networks give us are nothing more than an illusion. Social researchers and psychologists Jonathan Hate and Jim Twinch call this phenomenon the smartphone trap, because it is precisely the social consequences of using smartphones and social networks that have caused a remarkable and documented increase in the sense of loneliness among American teenagers. From two thousand twelve years in which most Americans began to have a smar to verify the hypothesis. Heite Panch and her colleagues discussed the answers to questions about the school loneliness of more than one million 15- and 16- year- olds from 37 countries in the program for international student assessment, that is, the famous PISA tests. But it' s not as simple as banning cell phones in classrooms that we' re going to avoid loneliness and isolation.

15:24 Social networks are not going to disappear, let alone the Internet. Oscar Robayo is a professor at the Universidad del Rosario and author of a study on the excessive use of smartphones and applications and impulsive behaviors. I looked for him to ask him it is possible to continue using social networks without that means isolating them or feeling alone. This answered me. Recent studies indicate that the use of social networks does not have the same effect on all people. Specifically, it has been found that those users who consider social media as a productivity tool and therefore lead them to have a plan and a content creation strategy perceive these digital platforms as an ally to become known and grow in followers, views and other metrics of these networks. However, these types of users who create content and have a clear objective correspond to a very small percentage of the total number of users of social networks. What happens to the remaining majority of users is something different. These are the millions of users who have a much more passive role in consuming the content created by the first group of users mentioned earlier and which is associated with significant harmful effects, especially on women, both adolescents and young adults. Social comparison leads these young users to have an impact on their self- esteem, self- image or body image, sleep problems or decreased academic and work performance, social isolation and feelings of loneliness and even depression.

16:59 What we are seeing then is that we can use them without becoming isolated, as social media is a tool and depends on how you define your own relationship with them. If you see them as a space where you can achieve clear goals, where you have control over them, it seems that their effect can be even positive. If you feel that you don' t have control over the time you spend on them and feel lonely and frustrated. I present to you that there are ways to redefine your relationship with social networks. Social networks and the Internet are not the only ones to blame for the problem of loneliness facing humanity. Nor is it something that has begun in the twenty- first century. It has been a long process that has led us to where we are, and part of that process and isolation has been the result of the way in which humanity has built the cities in which we live. Let' s start with basic housing size. Already in one chapter we talked about the tendency for apartment houses in more than one room to disappear. It seems that the builders opted for either alone or build separate buildings, studios and 30- square- meter monoenvironments that they now call Coliving. As Jennifer Kent, a doctor at the University of Sydney, explains, living in small apartments can increase loneliness for some people. This is because the reduced space limits their ability to invite people to dinner. Others living in poorly maintained housing report similar experiences.

18:25 In Colombia alone, the number of people living alone has increased markedly. While in two thousand five the percentage of single- person families was only eleven percent, in two thousand eighteen, the year of the last census, it rose to eighteen commas six percent. That is, that two comma sixty- four million people live alone the cities built around private transport, instead of public transport, bicycles or pedestrians have also done their part. According to Dr Kent, we are more likely to interact in some way with those around us on the street or on public transport than when we are locked in the privacy of a car, something similar happens to environments that should be designed to be protected from crime, traffic and pollution, allowing us to explore our neighborhoods easily on foot.

19:15 But those same problems. The insecurity of pollution trafficking, especially in Latin American cities, has made it very difficult to get out on the street and trust each other. The disappearance of public spaces such as parks, libraries, etcetera. He' s got his share of responsibility. However, it is not just about building more parks. An article in Bloomberg magazine reflects on this. Creating spaces where interactions can occur involves more than just installing a new park. Building a city to combat social isolation involves a series of subtle strategies and intentional design decisions. For example, in two thousand and sixteen Westpan Beach officials, Florida wanted to discover why the city' s promenade had so few visits before, despite its rows of palm trees and an enviable view of Lake Board lagoon. For this they hired a team of researchers and consultants, including the urban planning firm Happy Cityes. When researchers sent volunteers to walk through space with sensors, they found high levels of stress. According to Husam Elogda, managing director of Happy Cities, they found that passersby felt that way because they did not feel welcome. According to the perfect testimonies and places, but there is not much to do. There' s vegetation, but no shade, there ' s a novelty, but it doesn' t work. I see this thinking about our cities in Colombia and I wonder how we can design cities that are more friendly and help combat isolation. This told me Santiago Amador, director

20:48 of ib O Laboratorio de Innovación Pública de Bogotá. I believe that loneliness, like many other things, is a systemic issue, that is, caused by many variables, both personal and intimate, as well as the context of the public, that the strong thing is that they mix in different ways in each person. There are causes of loneliness that are very personal and that ur paranal politics cannot directly control, such as social anxiety, structural classism or family ruptures. But there are things the city can do to fight loneliness. We can design and intend common spaces, public space or cultural and sporting offerings, to create new ways to be together and to create strong ties. And the key is to put people at the center of the design process of all those elements and to mix public space with group activity. Both at the same time.

21:33 None alone can welcome people- centred design rather than vehicles. For example, Bogotá today has examples of these new ways of being together, such as the centers of happiness that Peñalosa was thought to be or the masses of care that Claudia thought and that have something in common and that is that they were designed from the needs of people. We also have to generate parts of the city where people can walk to their destination and there are on the way spaces and quality offer that is a kind of oases to be together. It must also strengthen the social fabric with literatures that in the United States have been very good in built and are the famous community centers or be of your well- being. I think it' s time to take more advantage of that public space generated by the last administrations and mix them with the intended quality activities to create social links and rags to loneliness. There are other reasons why social isolation and loneliness have increased and, of course, poverty and social destruction are one of them. The study, in fact, for forty of b for the newspaper the country that if you do a few minutes, also found that loneliness, as well as other aspects of health, such as diet, is closely linked to the economic situation. There are notable differences in the percentage of loneliness experienced in the last year between different groups, thirty- three per cent of unemployed people feel alone, which is ten comma nine per cent higher than those in employment and eighteen comma five percentage points higher than retirees. Among students, 27 comma four percent is lonely and in the case of workers, working conditions have

23:04 an impact. Thirty- eight comas three percent of those working at unusual times are affected by unwanted loneliness. This situation, coupled with a shortage of economic resources, prevents them from organizing leisure activities with others. In fact, eighteen comma nine percent of those surveyed have as reason for loneliness the lack of financial resources to participate in social activities the most popular motive. A BBC special on excluded children concludes that, in particular, children and young people may be socially excluded when they do not have the financial means to participate in activities with friends.

23:47 This can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. And, on the other hand, even if you don' t believe it, machismo and the loss of what we know as soft skills has also affected the ability to social ties. Dr Naiobi Way is a professor of psychology at the University of New York. She is director of the Human Connection Science Laboratory. She has studied loneliness for more than thirty years and in this time has been able to find that over time more importance has been given to economic and professional success than the ability to make friends and create strong relationships and bonds with others. In this case, hard skills, which are specific skills that are included in the resume and acquired through academic and work life, are given provisibility over soft skills, such as communication, empathy or listening ability. In this sense, Dr Wai reflects that we are putting aside those skills that we naturally have as humans to focus on competing in an increasingly hostile world of work and economics. According to Dr Way, this is especially a problem in young men, who find it difficult to maintain meaningful and profound relationships with their peers, because the established model of masculinity, male norms, and male expectations make close friendships something effeminate or gay rather than simply a human issue. So, as young people grow up

25:17 and enter adulthood, they begin to feel overwhelmed by the expectation that, somehow they have to be independent, they cannot depend on others, they have to be completely autonomous that somehow, the desire for intimacy with other kids is problematic in a culture that is hypermasculin. How we can make new generations less lonely and create more meaningful relationships. I asked Carolina Piñeros, director of Red Papaz, and this he told me to mitigate the pandemic of loneliness that the World Health Organization is talking about. It is essential to work on the development of socio- emotional competencies for the mental health care of children and adolescents. These skills are knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage the social and emotional aspects of our lives and thus successfully solve the different challenges and tasks of the day to day. These can be organized into five categories, self- knowledge, self- management, social awareness, skills to relate and responsible decision - making. Some key strategies for caregivers are to devote quality time, strengthen dual- track communication, have positive parenting patterns, with clear limits, according to the age of the child, recognize and validate their emotions and teach them how to pass through them. Teach by example. It is also essential that

26:55 mothers, fathers and caregivers take care of our own mental health with acceptance, full consciousness and defictifying our values and acting in accordance with them and having regard to ourselves. Loneliness in a hyperconnected world looks like an oxymoron, but it ' s not. We are social beings and require companionship and dialogue, as well as need to eat and sleep to live. Perhaps you now know how to raise your cellular gaze and establish more human relationships or recover those we felt lost or distant. Perhaps it is more necessary than as a society, to rethink our relationships that we meet again, to stop thinking that we all know about our friends and family through their social media publications. It is also time for Governments to pay attention to a mental health problem, which is as important as physical health, and there are more channels of help than a 20- minute psychological scientum each month. And if you know of someone that this omo feels alone, I don' t doubt to understand the sea to offer companionship.

28:02 I hope that this chapter will raise awareness of this serious problem that we are in time to address. I am Roberto Pomo and this was chapter eighty - nine of my questions. See you in the next chapter starting From now on, this chapter of my questions is available on all podcast platforms. This episode was made possible by Kafan. Family compensation box. Dirección Roberto Pombo, Producción General, juan Abel Gutiérrez, Asesor editorial, Daniel San Pedro Espina, scripts juan Abel Gutiérrez and Johnny Rodríguez. Field production Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán. Post- production of audio Carlos Bernar