[AEON] Solitude has become a topic of fascination in modern Western societies because we believe it is a lost art — often craved, yet so seldom found. It might seem as if we ought to walk away from society completely to find peaceful moments for ourselves. Yet there is a quote I really like from the book Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World (2017) by the Canadian journalist Michael Harris:I don’t want to run away from the world — I want to rediscover myself within it. I want to know what happens if we again take doses of solitude from inside our crowded days, along our crowded streets.
Steadily, slowly, research interest in solitude has been increasing. Note, solitude — time alone — is not synonymous with loneliness, which is a subjective sense of unwanted social isolation that’s known to be harmful to mental and physical health. In contrast, in recent years, many observational studies have documented a correlation between greater wellbeing and a healthy motivation for solitude — that is, seeing solitude as something enjoyable and valuable. But, by itself, this doesn’t prove that seeking solitude is beneficial. In science, to make such a causal statement, we’d need to isolate ’solitude’ as the only variable, while holding other alternative explanations constant. That’s a difficult challenge. In daily life, we spend time alone while also doing other things, such as working, grocery shopping, commuting, taking a walk, learning a hobby or reading a book. Arguably, with so many variations in the ways that people spend time alone, it is difficult to make a definitive statement that it is solitude per se that enhances our wellbeing.
By conducting experimental studies — in which volunteers spent time in controlled conditions in solitude or with others — a team of researchers, led by the clinical psychologist Netta Weinstein, now at the University of Reading, and me, overcame the shortcomings of the correlational research, shedding light on what solitude is really good for.