by Kate Murphy
These individuals are far too numerous to list, and indeed, many of them do not wish to be identified. But every conversation was consequential and influenced what I wrote. Moreover, as I replayed recorded interviews and recalled people’s voices while reading over my notes, I was always in good company even on my loneliest days writing. This book is, in many ways, my gift in return.
I also want to recognize the many developmental, behavioral, social, and neuroscience researchers whose work I cited. I am grateful to those who graciously sent me full text copies of their studies and patiently answered my questions. And I’m further indebted to those researchers who have made their papers open access and readily available online.
Similarly, I’m grateful to Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, which proved invaluable when I was trying to track down an obscure book or text. These two nonprofit and volunteer-supported initiatives have made millions of digitized books and texts available without charge to researchers, scholars, and the just plain curious. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my local Houston Public Library and Rice University’s Fondren Library as well as the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas at Austin. I made extravagant use of their collections and their quiet.
Special thanks to my agent, Bridget Matzie, for her impeccable timing, and to the rest of the team at Aevitas Creative Management for representing me so well, particularly Esmond Harmsworth for his wise counsel and Chelsey Heller for her international expertise.
My admiration and appreciation also go to Ghada Asfour, who tackled the tedium of fact-checking every word of this book with gusto and good humor. Likewise, I salute Ben Murphy for his intelligent and intuitive indexing and Elizabeth Catalano for managing the behind-the-scenes machinations of turning what was a very long, unformatted text file into an actual, physical book.
Enormous gratitude to my U.S. publisher, Celadon Books, a new but already distinguished imprint that cares about and for its authors. My editor, Ryan Doherty, has been unfailingly supportive and ready with an encouraging or reassuring story. “Do you want to hear a story?” Well, yes.
Of course, this book would not be possible were it not for the privilege of working for several esteemed publications, most notably the many years I’ve contributed to The New York Times. I’m grateful to my editors there, former and current, including Trish Hall, Scott Veale, Honor Jones, Michael Mason, Patrick Farrell, Roberta Zeff, Jim Kerstetter, and Alexandra Jacobs. They let me loose on countless assignments, giving me what is essentially a license to listen.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
No man ever listened “Meeting President and Mrs. Coolidge,” America’s Story from America’s Library, Library of Congress, http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/keller/aa_keller_coolidge_1.html.
given men one tongue Crossley Hastings Crossley and Crossley Hastings, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, with the Hymns of Cleanthes (Urbana, IL: Project Gutenberg, 2006), 256, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/871.
1: THE LOST ART OF LISTENING
for a short column Kate Murphy, “Oliver Sacks,” New York Times, July 16, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/17download.html.
inability to recognize faces Oliver Sacks, “Face-Blind,” New Yorker, August 30, 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/face-blind.
increases the risk of death Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Laytong, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316; Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, Tyler Harris, and David Stephenson, “Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10, no. 2 (2015): 227–237, https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352; Amy Novotney, “Social Isolation: It Could Kill You,” Monitor on Psychology, 50, no. 5, (May 2019), https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation.
I am lonely “i am lonely will anyone speak to me,” Lounge, July 14, 2004, https://www.loungeforums.com/on-topic/i-am-lonely-will-anyone-speak-to-me-2420; Oliver Burkeman, “Anybody There?,” Guardian, August 29, 2005, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2005/aug/30/g2.onlinesupplement; Robert Andrews, “Misery Loves (Cyber) Company,” Wired, June, 30, 2005, https://www.wired.com/2005/06/misery-loves-cyber-company; Tori Tefler, “‘I Am Lonely, Will Anyone Speak to Me’: Inside the Saddest Thread on the Internet, Ten Years Later,” Salon, November 20, 2014, https://www.salon.com/2014/11/19/i_am_lonely_will_anyone_speak_to_me_inside_the_saddest_thread_on_the_internet_ten_years_later/.
survey of twenty thousand Americans “New Cigna Study Reveals Loneliness at Epidemic Levels in America,” Newsroom, Cigna Corporation, May 1, 2018, https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2018/new-cigna-study-reveals-loneliness-at-epidemic-levels-in-america.
Compare that to the 1980s Vivek Murthy, “The Loneliness Epidemic,” Harvard Business Review, October 12, 2017, https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/09/work-and-the-loneliness-epidemic.
a thirty-year high “Vital Signs: Trends in State Suicide Rates—United States, 1999–2016 and Circumstances Contributing to Suicide—27 States, 2015,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 8, 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6722a1.htm?s_cid=mm6722a1_w; Sabrina Tavernise, “U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High,” New York Times, April 22, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html.
American life expectancy is now declining “Life Expectancy,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 26, 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_05.pdf; Anne Case and Angus Deaton, “Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/casetextsp17bpea.pdf.
often associated with loneliness Ariel Stravynski and Richard Boyer, “Loneliness in Relation to Suicide Ideation and Parasuicide: A Population-Wide Study,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 31, no. 1 (2001): 32–40; Rachel Wurzman, “How isolation fuels opioid addiction,” TEDxMidAtlantic, October 29, 2018, https://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_wurzman_how_isolation_fuels_opioid_addiction/transcript?language=en; Andrew Solomon, “Suicide, a Crime of Loneliness,” New Yorker, August 14, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/suicide-crime-loneliness.
The World Health Organization reports “Suicide: Key Facts,” World Health Organization, August 24, 2018, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide; “Prevention of Suicidal Behaviours: A Task for All,” World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/background/en/.
appoint a “minister of loneliness” Ceylan Yeginsu, “U.K. Appoints a Minster for Loneliness,” New York Times, January 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/europe/uk-britain-loneliness.html.
2017 government commissioned report “Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness,” Age UK, https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/reports-and-briefings/active-communities/rb_dec17_jocox_commission_finalreport.pdf.
pretend to be lonely people’s friends Family Romance, http://family-romance.com/; Roc Morin, “How to Hire Fake Friends and Family,” Atlantic, November 7, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/; Elif Batuman, “Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry,” New Yorker, April 30, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry.
Loneliness does not discriminate “New Cigna Study Reveals Loneliness at Epidemic Levels in America,” Cigna Corporation, May 1, 2018; 2018 CIGNA U.S. Loneliness Index, https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8294451-cigna-us-loneliness-survey/docs/IndexReport_1524069371598-173525450.pdf.
doubled since 2008 Gregory Plemmons, Matthew Hall, Stephanie Doupnik, James Gay, Charlotte Brown, Whitney Browning, Robert Casey et al. “Hospitalization for Suicide Ideation or Attempt: 2008–2015,” Pediatrics 141, no. 6 (2018
): e20172426, https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-2426.
Much has been written Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?,” Atlantic, September 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/; Jean Twenge and Heejung Park, “The Decline in Adult Activities Among US Adolescents, 1976–2016,” Child Development 90, no. 2 (2019): 638–654, https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12930; Jess Williams, “Are My Generation Really as Boring as Everyone Says?,” New Statesman America, September 19, 2014, https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2014/09/kids-are-alright-0; Stephanie Hanes, “Becoming an Adult: Why More Adolescents Now Say ‘Don’t Rush Me,’” Christian Science Monitor, January 14, 2019, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2019/0114/Becoming-an-adult-Why-more-adolescents-now-say-Don-t-rush-me; Tara Bahrampour, “Why Are Today’s Teens Putting Off Sex, Driving, Dating and Drinking?,” Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2017, https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/parenting/ct-teens-not-drinking-20170919-story.html.
habitually play video games Niko Männikkö, Heidi Ruotsalainen, Jouko Miettunen, Halley M. Pontes, and Maria Kääriäinen, “Problematic Gaming Behaviour and Health-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Health Psychology, December 1, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105317740414.
compilations on YouTube “Sorkinisms—A Supercut,” YouTube video, 7:21, posted by Kevin T. Porter, June 25, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78RzZr3IwI.
profoundly lonely and depressed people “The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table,” Vimeo video, 55:48, directed by Aviva Slesin, written by Peter Foges and Mary Jo Kaplan, aired September 28, 1987, on PBS, https://vimeo.com/100320182.
three suicide attempts Carol Kort, A to Z of American Women Writers (New York: Facts on File, 2007), 245.
beset with self-loathing Richard Meryman, Mank: The Wit, World, and Life of Herman Mankiewicz (New York: Morrow, 1978), 97.
Dorothy Parker said Aubrey Malone, Writing Under the Influence: Alcohol and the Works of 13 American Authors (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017), 46–47.
John Bercow told the BBC “Female MPs Shunning PMQs, Says John Bercow,” BBC, April 17, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27062577.
popping up on their caller ID Dan Cassino, “How Today’s Political Polling Works,” Harvard Business Review, August 1, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/08/how-todays-political-polling-works.
fake or bot accounts Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel J. X. Dance, Richard Harris, and Mark Hansen, “The Follower Factory,” New York Times, January 27, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html; “A ‘Dirty and Open Secret’: Can Social Media Curb Fake Followers?,” Knowledge@Wharton podcast, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, February 2, 2018, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/twitter-and-the-bots/.
do not belong to real people Janet Burns, “How Many Social Media Users Are Real People?,” Gizmodo, June 4, 2018, https://gizmodo.com/how-many-social-media-users-are-real-people-1826447042; Onur Varol, Emilio Ferrara, Clayton A. Davis, Filippo Menczer, and Alessandro Flammini, “Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization,” International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), March 27, 2017, https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.03107; Chengcheng Shao, Pik-Mai Hui, Lei Wang, Xinwen Jiang, Alessandro Flammini, Filippo Menczer, and Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, “Anatomy of an Online Misinformation Network,” PLOS One 13, no. 4 (2018): e0196087, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196087.
study showed 20 percent of tweets Alessandro Bessi and Emilio Ferrara, “Social Bots Distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Online Discussion,” First Monday 21, no. 11 (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i11.7090.
Audits of the Twitter accounts Shea Bennet, “67% of Taylor Swift’s Twitter Followers are Bots, Says Study: An Audit of the Most Popular Musical Artists on Twitter Suggests They’re Mostly Followed by Non-Human Profiles,” Adweek, February 4, 2015, https://www.adweek.com/digital/twitter-bots-problem/; “The World’s Biggest Music Stars: Who’s Faking It on Twitter?,” Music Business Worldwide, January 31, 2015, https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/katy-perry-justin-bieber-and-lady-gaga-whos-faking-it-on-twitter/.
The 1 percent rule Trevor van Mierlo, “The 1% Rule in Four Digital Health Social Networks: An Observational Study,” Journal of Medical Internet Research 16, no. 2 (2014), https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2966; Bradley Carron-Arthura, John A. Cunningham, and Kathleen M. Griffith, “Describing the Distribution of Engagement in an Internet Support Group by Post Frequency: A Comparison of the 90-9-1 Principle and Zipf’s Law,” Internet Interventions 1, no. 4 (2014): 165–168, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2014.09.003; Ling Jiang, Kristijan Mirkovski, Jeffrey D. Wall, Christian Wagner, and Paul Benjamin Lowry, “Proposing the Core Contributor Withdrawal Theory (CCWT) to Understand Core Contributor Withdrawal from Online Peer-Production Communities,” Internet Research 28, no. 4 (2018): 988–1028, https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0215.
the silent are the vast majority Bora Zivkovic, “Commenting Threads: Good, Bad, or Not At All,” A Blog Around the Clock (blog), Scientific American, January 28, 2013, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/commenting-threads-good-bad-or-not-at-all/; Nate Cohn and Kevin Quealy, “The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate,” New York Times, April 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/08/upshot/democratic-electorate-twitter-real-life.html.
New Yorker cartoon where Tom Toro, “Behold, as I Guide Our Conversation to My Narrow Area of Expertise,” New Yorker, March 2, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20667.
2: THAT SYNCING FEELING: THE NEUROSCIENCE OF LISTENING
gave himself a “personal challenge” Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page, posted January 3, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103385178272401.
entourage of up to eight aides Reid J. Epstein and Deepa Seetharaman, “Mark Zuckerberg Hits the Road to Meet Regular Folks—With a Few Conditions,” Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-zuckerberg-hits-the-road-to-meet-regular-folkswith-a-few-conditions-1499873098.
what makes someone a bad listener Lynn Cooper and Trey Buchanan, “Taking Aim at Good Targets: Inter-Rater Agreement of Listening Competency,” International Journal of Listening 17, no. 1 (2003): 88–114, https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2003.10499057.
alert to the human voice Pascal Belin, Shirley Fecteau, and Catherine Bedard, “Thinking the Voice: Neural Correlates of Voice Perception,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8, no. 3 (2004): 129–135, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.008; May Gratier and Gisèle Apter-Danon, “The Improvised Musicality of Belonging: Repetition and Variation in Mother-Infant Vocal Interaction,” in Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship, ed. Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Trevarthen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 301–327; Ana Fló, Perrine Brusini, Francesco Macagno, Marina Nespor, Jacques Mehler, and Alissa L. Ferry, “Newborns Are Sensitive to Multiple Cues for Word Segmentation in Continuous Speech,” Developmental Science (2019): e12802, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12802.
just sixteen weeks’ gestation Viola Marx and Emese Nagy, “Fetal Behavioural Responses to Maternal Voice and Touch,” PLOS One 10, no. 6 (2015): eO129118, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129118; “Fetal Development: The 2nd Trimester,” Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/in-depth/fetal-development/art-20046151.
distinguish between language and other sounds Eino Partanen, Teija Kujala, Risto Näätänen, Auli Liitola, Anke Sambeth, and Minna Huotilainen, “Learning-Induced Neural Plasticity of Speech Processing Before Birth,” PNAS 110, no. 7 (2013), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302159110.
startled by an angry outburst J. P. Lecanuet, C. Granier-Deferre, and M. C. Busnel, “Fetal Cardiac and Motor Responses to Octave-Band Noises as a Function of Central Frequency, Intensity and Heart Rate
Variability,” Early Human Development 18, no. 2–3 (1988): 81–93, https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-3782(88)90045-X.
senses of touch and hearing James Hallenbeck, Palliative Care Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 220.
ability to empathize and affiliate Anouk P. Netten, Carolien Rieffe, Stephanie C. P. M. Theunissen, Wim Soede, Evelien Dirks, Jeroen J. Briaire, and Johan H. M. Frijns, “Low Empathy in Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Pre)Adolescents Compared to Normal Hearing Controls,” PLOS One 10, no. 4 (2015): e0124102, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124102.
much worse misfortune Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 191.
Hasson looked at fMRI scans A. Zadbood, J. Chen, Y. C. Leong, K. A. Norman, and U. Hasson, “How We Transmit Memories to Other Brains: Constructing Shared Neural Representations Via Communication,” Cerebral Cortex 27, no. 10 (2017): 4988–5000, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx202.
A subsequent study Carolyn Parkinson, Adam M. Kleinbaum, and Thalia Wheatley, “Similar Neural Responses Predict Friendship,” Nature Communications 9, no. 332 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02722-7.
the synchrony that developed Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017).
waiting for it Ibid., 238.
sharing a mind Ibid., 182.
emphasizes this more than attachment theory Inge Bretheron, “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth,” Developmental Psychology 28, no. 5 (1992): 759–775, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.28.5.759; Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters, and Sally N. Wall, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation (New York: Psychology Press, 2015); John Bowlby, A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development (New York: Basic Books, 1988); Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper, Bert Powell, and Christine M. Benton, Raising a Secure Child: How Circle of Security Parenting Can Help You Nurture Your Child’s Attachment, Emotional Resilience, and Freedom to Explore (New York: Guilford Press, 2017); Howard Steele and Miriam Steele, Handbook of Attachment-Based Interventions (New York: Guilford Press, 2017); Jude Cassidy, Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications, 3rd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2018); Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—And Keep—Love (New York: Tarcher Perigee, 2011).