Netta Weinstein

And that's because they're spending a lot more of their time caring for somebody else in a

very intensive social interaction.

And so I think each of us can think about the function that solitude is playing.

And for some people, that's going to mean that they want a lot more solitude time in their lives.

And for other people means that actually, you know, maybe what they have is about right, or maybe they could use even less time alone and finding really quality social interactions is the key to well-being.

You know, if we think about the kind of ideal day that has the right balance of social and solitude time where we have quality moments in both, we're only now beginning to learn about what that means for us.

What we're seeing so far is that

You know, on those days, those are days where people feel calmer, where they might have more of what we term autonomy, which means they can be themselves, have a sense that they can do the things that interest them and that they value and they have a sense of choice around their activities.

And potentially that kind of balance can lead to a sense of satisfaction in our days and in our lives, right?

But the science of solitude is so young still, and we're learning so much more about what the implications are of having not enough solitude time or how we can find that balance and what the potential benefits of having that balance could be.

It's definitely interesting how we're sort of wired to see these images.

And often when we close our eyes and we think about somebody alone, we'll tend to think about the person who's isolated and lonely.

Or we might think about that kind of strange person who lives on their own, never sees anybody.

Or that kid in the playground who's sitting under a tree reading rather than playing with their friends.

We tend to think about solitude in this negative way.

And we're kind of wired to have these types of images because the way that we talk about solitude, both historically and currently, is very conflated with this idea of loneliness.

And what we find in research is not a lot of evidence that people who spend more time alone

at least in kind of more general populations that they are loners.

So there isn't this kind of accumulation of I'm more lonely on the whole because I've spent multiple weeks alone.

There aren't any hard and fast rules for spending too much time or too little time alone.