Amy Muise

Thank you, David.

So the thing here is that many, let's say we all know that many advice is encouraged, let's say you should go out, you should expand your social networks or join more activities.

But I think for older people particularly, it's not always feasible, okay?

So if you're a widow, you don't have your wife to bring you to some social circumstances, your mobility may be limited, let's say, cause or access barriers, those things can be heavy for older people.

So,

The thing here is that factors that limit social networks can also hinder participation in those activities.

And previous research mostly say that, okay, they just want to identify relationships between factors and loneliness without thinking, let's say, looking into actually how many network connections they already have.

So what we're trying to hear, what I'm trying to do here today is that it's not

Totally, let's say that those social activities are not important, but we are more thinking about, you know, for those already bounded with smaller networks, what they can do to, let's say, feel a bit better.

Yeah, indeed.

So the only limitation here is that we are not identifying what exactly they're reading.

But the theoretical driver behind this is that reading is a more immersive experience.

So let's say reading a novel, there are characters in it, there's a storyline in it.

So it's more immersive and cognitive engaging.

And we also tried to examine other activities such as doing a word or puzzle game, and those things didn't turn out useful or a significant buffer against small network and loneliness.

So I think it's more about the story and engagement or immersiveness as it related to inner reading process that is making a difference.

I think so.

I think that's part of it.

So although we will need more, let's say, time-used diary study to confirm this, but intuitively my first reaction here is that you're not following other people's schedule.

so for example if you feel lonely like you cannot fall asleep at night you like say it's all by yourself it's hard to give a friend a phone call or something like that right it's not always feasible but if you have an ongoing novel a book to finish you can kill some time and make yourself a little bit better and it's not merely a distraction yeah but it's more flexible