Choosing The Sugar Over The Sustenance

Why you are lonely and why social media cannot help you

A common critique of modern society is that we are atomized individuals spending too much time doom scrolling on smartphones and binge-watching television shows. We are less likely to have close friends and less likely to be involved in our local communities.

We are lonely.

The theories from a 19th-century sociologist can help us understand why we are so lonely and how social media may be making it harder for us to connect. 

Photo of a woman using a smartphone

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) argued groups could be of two types. Primary groups are usually small collections of people. They are enduring, often lasting over a person’s lifetime. And they serve emotional needs, providing their members with a sense of belonging and security. Meanwhile, secondary groups are larger, time-limited, and suit practical needs. People work together because they can do something as a group they cannot do alone. 

Historically, the primary groups in a person’s life have been their family or people from a neighborhood or school. Meanwhile, secondary groups are like a sports team you join for a season, working together on a project at one’s job, or volunteering for a local political party for the duration of a campaign.

Cooley's theories on primary and secondary groups explain how we manage this lonesome world.

Choosing the sugar over the sustenance

Many of us lack the primary groups that meet our emotional needs. But because we don't have that language of group membership offered by Cooley, we don’t fully realize it.

People imagine our loneliness as a function of not being in a relationship with a significant other. We invest a lot of time in finding "the one." Conversely, we are in a relationship, still feel lonely, and imagine it is because our partner isn't our "soul mate."

For some of us, we might see that feeling of loneliness as stemming from an internal deficiency. We interpret our inner cravings through a frame of anxiety and depression, the solution of which requires medication.

To be sure, for many people the diagnosis is indeed developing an intimate relationship. People may also be dealing with hormonal imbalances, the remedy of which, at least in the short term, would be medication. 

But there has got to be more happening here. The rise is too sharp, too quick. Former CDC surgeon general Vivek Murthy proclaimed we are in a "loneliness epidemic." This was before the pandemic, by the way, in 2017. 

We need to be embedded in primary groups that meet our essential emotional needs. We try and use social media platforms (like this one) to meet those needs. Unfortunately, the kinds of groups developed on social media will almost always be secondary groups, and they cannot meet those emotional needs. 

Think about how a family is constructed. You don’t choose them. You may share a broad culture, but their personalities, interests, and life stages are different. What binds you together is love and obligation. You may argue with that homophobic uncle as you pass him the stuffing during Thanksgiving, but you know he has your back in a pinch, and you feel secure. You love them for who they are - not what they do or how they help you accomplish a task. This is what a primary group does.

Now consider a group of people you have connected with on a social media platform. You likely connected over commonalities in politics or lifestyle. You choose them for a clear, instrumental reason. Let’s bash the Leftists. Let’s share resources about how to be the best doms we can be. Let’s talk about cats.

But if you decide you are no longer a cat person but a dog person, you may be asked to find another group. Rarely do the connections on social media turn into enduring relationships that extend beyond the group's initial purpose. It is hard to make a secondary group into a primary one.   

There is a feeling of happiness there, sure. But I liken it to sugar - the conversations in those groups give you a rush, but without proper sustenance, you will crash. 

Social media is so easy to access - just download it. It is so easy to approximate a relationship - just “follow” them, and hope they “follow” you. And so when we get those feelings of loneliness, we have a decision. We can go outside and chat with our neighbor or pick up the phone and reconnect with a family member. Another option is downloading the latest app or going into a new chatroom. Many of us are choosing the latter, thinking it will fulfill us. 

We are choosing the sugar instead of the sustenance. 

And it is making us sick.