Imagine yourself like the fictional Robinson Crusoe, dropped on an island . . . alone . . . for the rest of your life. Food, shelter, and comfort are yours—but there is not a single fellow human around, no way to connect with loved ones, no story but your own. Do you savor the stress-free serenity?

Surely not. We are what the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle called the social animal. Cut off from friends or family—alone in prison or in a new school or in a foreign land—most people feel keenly their lost connections with important others. Although some people are more social than others, this deep need to belong seems a key human motivation (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (2012) understands this need, noting that Facebook “was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected.” And connect we do.

Social bonds boosted our ancestors’ chances of survival. These bonds motivated caregivers to keep children close, protecting them from threats (Esposito et al., 2013). As adults, those who formed attachments were more likely to reproduce and co-nurture their offspring to maturity. To be “wretched” literally means, in its Middle English origin (wrecched), to be without kin nearby.

Survival also was supported by cooperation. In solo combat, our ancestors were not the toughest predators. But as hunters, they learned that eight hands were better than two. As food gatherers, they gained protection from their enemies by traveling in groups. Those who felt a need to belong survived and reproduced most successfully, and their genes now rule.

People in every society on Earth belong to groups (and, as Chapter 11 explains, prefer and favor “us” over “them”). With the need to belong satisfied by close, supportive relationships, we feel included, accepted, and loved, and our self-esteem rides high. Indeed, self-esteem is a measure of how valued and accepted we feel (Leary, 2012). When our need for relatedness is satisfied in balance with two other basic psychological needs—autonomy (a sense of personal control) and competence—the result is a deep sense of well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2002, 2009; Milyavskaya et al., 2009). To feel free, capable, and connected is to enjoy a good life.

Is it surprising, then, that so much of our social behavior aims to increase our feelings of belonging? To win friendship and avoid rejection, we generally conform to group standards. We monitor our behavior, hoping to make a good impression. We spend billions on clothes, cosmetics, and diet and fitness aids—all motivated by our search for love and acceptance.

Thrown together in groups at school, at work, on a hiking trip, we behave like magnets, moving closer, forming bonds. Parting, we feel distress. We promise to call, to write, to come back for reunions. By drawing a sharp circle around “us,” the need to belong feeds both deep attachments and menacing threats. Out of our need to define a “we” come loving families, faithful friendships, and team spirit, but also teen gangs, ethnic rivalries, and fanatic nationalism.

Even when bad relationships break, people suffer. In one 16-nation survey, and in repeated U.S. surveys, separated and divorced people have been half as likely as married people to say they were “very happy” (Inglehart, 1990; NORC, 2007). Divorce also predicts earlier mortality. In an analysis of 755,000 divorces in 11 different countries, divorce was associated with dying earlier (Sbarra et al., 2011). After such separations, loneliness and anger—and sometimes even a strange desire to be near the former partner—linger (Spielmann et al., 2015). For those in abusive relationships, the fear of being alone sometimes seems worse than the certainty of emotional or physical pain.

Children who move through a series of foster homes also know the fear of being alone. After repeated breaks in budding attachments, children may have difficulty forming deep attachments (Oishi & Schimmack, 2010). The evidence is clearest at the extremes—children who grow up in institutions without a sense of belonging to anyone, or who are locked away at home and severely neglected. As we saw in Chapter 3, most become pathetic creatures, withdrawn, frightened, even speechless.

No matter how secure our early years were, we all experience anxiety, loneliness, jealousy, or guilt when something threatens or dissolves our social ties. Many of life’s best moments occur when close relationships begin: making a new friend, falling in love, having a baby. And many of life’s worst moments happen when close relationships end (Jaremka et al., 2011). At such times, we may feel life is empty, pointless, and we may overeat to fill that emptiness (Yang et al., 2016). For those moving alone to new places, the stress and loneliness can be depressing. After years of placing individual refugee and immigrant families in isolated communities, U.S. agencies today encourage chain migration (Pipher, 2002). The second Syrian refugee family settling in a town generally has an easier adjustment than the first.

Sometimes our need to belong is denied. Can you recall a time when you felt excluded or ignored or shunned? Perhaps you were unfriended or ignored online. Or perhaps others gave you the silent treatment, avoided you, looked away, mocked you, or shut you out in some other way.

This is ostracism—social exclusion (Williams, 2007, 2009). Worldwide, humans use many forms of ostracism—exile, imprisonment, solitary confinement—to punish, and therefore control, social behavior. For children, even a brief time-out in isolation can be punishing. Among prisoners, half of all suicides occur among those experiencing the extreme exclusion of solitary confinement (Goode, 2012).

Being shunned threatens our need to belong (Vanhalst et al., 2015; Wirth et al., 2010). Lea, a lifelong victim of the silent treatment by her mother and grandmother, described the effect. “It’s the meanest thing you can do to someone, especially if you know they can’t fight back. I never should have been born.” Like Lea, people often respond to ostracism with efforts to restore their acceptance, depressed moods, and then withdrawal. Prisoner William Blake (2013) has spent more than a quarter-century in solitary confinement. “I cannot fathom how dying any death could be harder and more terrible than living through all that I have been forced to endure,” he observed. To many, social exclusion is a sentence worse than death.

Rejected and powerless, people may seek new friends. Or they may turn nasty, as did college students made to feel rejected in one series of experiments (Gaertner et al., 2008; Twenge et al., 2001, 2007). Some students were told that a personality test they had taken showed that they were “the type likely to end up alone later in life.” Others heard that people they had met didn’t want them in a group that was forming. Still others heard good news. These lucky people would have “rewarding relationships throughout life,” or “everyone chose you as someone they’d like to work with.” How did students react after being told they weren’t wanted or would end up alone? They were much more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviors and to underperform on aptitude tests. When later interacting with those who had excluded them, they also were more likely to act in mean or aggressive ways (blasting people with noise, for example). “If intelligent, well-adjusted, successful . . . students can turn aggressive in response to a small laboratory experience of social exclusion,” noted the research team, “it is disturbing to imagine the aggressive tendencies that might arise from . . . chronic exclusion from desired groups in actual social life.” (At the end of the experiments, the study was fully explained and the debriefed participants left feeling reassured.)

Ostracism is a real pain. Brain scans show increased activity in areas that also activate in response to physical pain (Lieberman & Eisenberger, 2015; Rotge et al., 2015). That helps explain another surprising finding. The pain reliever acetaminophen (as in Tylenol), taken to relieve physical pain, also lessens social pain (DeWall et al., 2010). Psychologically, we seem to experience social pain with the same emotional unpleasantness that marks physical pain. And across cultures, we use the same words (for example, hurt, crushed) for social pain and physical pain (MacDonald & Leary, 2005).

The opposite of ostracism—feelings of love—activate brain areas associated with rewards and satisfaction. Loved ones activate a brain region that dampens feelings of physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2011). In one experiment, university students felt markedly less pain when looking at their beloved’s picture, rather than at someone else’s photo (Younger et al., 2010).

The bottom line: Social isolation and rejection foster depressed moods or emotional numbness, and they can trigger aggression (Bernstein & Claypool, 2012; Gerber & Wheeler, 2009). They can put us at risk for mental decline and ill health (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). But love is a natural painkiller. When feelings of acceptance and connection build, so do self-esteem, positive feelings, and the desire to help rather than hurt others (Buckley & Leary, 2001).

As social creatures, we live for connection. Researcher George Vaillant (2013) was asked what he had learned from studying 238 Harvard University men from the 1930s to the end of their lives. He replied, “Happiness is love.” A South African Zulu saying captures the idea: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu—“a person is a person through other persons.”

Mobile Networks and Social Media

Look around and see humans connecting: talking, tweeting, texting, posting, chatting, social gaming, e-mailing. The changes in how we connect have been fast and vast.

The Net Result: Social Effects of Social Networking

By connecting like-minded people, the Internet serves as a social amplifier. In times of social crisis or personal stress, it provides information and supportive connections. For better or for worse, it enables people to compare their lives with others (Verduyn et al., 2015). The Internet also functions as a matchmaker. (I [ND] can attest to this. I met my wife online.) As electronic communication has become a basic part of life, researchers have explored how it has affected our relationships.

HAVE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES MADE US MORE, OR LESS, SOCIALLY ISOLATED? Lonely people have tended to spend greater-than-average time online (Bonetti et al., 2010; Stepanikova et al., 2010). But the Internet also offers opportunities for new social networks. (I [DM] am now connected to other hearing-technology advocates worldwide.) Social networking is also mostly strengthening our connections with the variety of people we already know (DiSalvo, 2010; Ugander et al., 2012; Valkenburg & Peter, 2009). If your social networking helps you connect with friends, stay in touch with extended family, or find support when facing challenges, then you are not alone (Rainie et al., 2011). So social networks connect us. But they can also, as you’ve surely noticed, become gigantic time- and attention-sucking distractions. The net result may be an imbalance between face-to-face and online social connection.

DOES ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION STIMULATE HEALTHY SELF-DISCLOSURE? Self-disclosure is sharing ourselves—our joys, worries, and weaknesses—with others. As we will see in Chapter 10, confiding in others can be a healthy way of coping with day-to-day challenges. When communicating electronically rather than face-to-face, we often are less focused on others’ reactions. We are less self-conscious and thus less inhibited. Sometimes this is taken to an extreme, as when teens send photos of themselves they later regret, bullies hound a victim, or hate groups post messages promoting bigotry or crimes. More often, however, the increased self-disclosure serves to deepen friendships (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009).

DOES SOCIAL NETWORKING PROMOTE NARCISSISM? Narcissism is self-esteem gone wild. Narcissistic people are self-important, self-focused, and self-promoting. Personality tests may assess narcissism with items such as “I like to be the center of attention.” People with high narcissism test scores are especially active on social networking sites. They collect more superficial “friends.” They post more staged, glamorous selfies. They retaliate more to negative comments. And, not surprisingly, they seem more narcissistic to strangers viewing their pages (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Weiser, 2015).

For narcissists, social networking sites are more than a gathering place; they are a feeding trough. In one study, college students were randomly assigned either to edit and explain their online profiles for 15 minutes, or to use that time to study and explain a Google Maps routing (Freeman & Twenge, 2010). After completing their tasks, all were tested. Who then scored higher on a narcissism measure? Those who had spent the time focused on themselves.

Maintaining Balance and Focus

It will come as no surprise that excessive online socializing and gaming have been associated with lower grades (Chen & Fu, 2008; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). In one U.S. survey, 47 percent of the heaviest users of the Internet and other media were receiving mostly C grades or lower, as were just 23 percent of the lightest users (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010).

In today’s world, each of us is challenged to maintain a healthy balance between our real-world and online time. Experts offer some practical suggestions:

As psychologist Steven Pinker (2010a) said, “The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life.”