Izolarea socială

Over time, the human species evolved much faster than any other existing species. This favored the creation of social structures since the beginning of time. Groups of apes had about 50 members while groups of people were formed by up to 200 individuals. People survived because they have created early communication methods. This helped storage and transmit information about the discovery amongst members of the groups and later helped learn from other groups. Without socialization we wouldn’t have been able to get to where we are today. Socialization is a key factor in the evolution of the human species.

The most important defining factor of the human species is symbolic language. Humans are beings that want to socialize constantly. The quality of being a human can be represented by the ability to communicate and adapt to the social network. If a child develops language a little bit different, distorted or fails to develop social skills, then his or her future is jeopardized. That is, if there are problems with developing language or communication during their growth, the child is at greater risk of social isolation and then his survival will be constantly jeopardized.

People who are socially isolated can suffer in two ways. They are not aware of how they are affected by their isolation and are satisfied on the condition that they are satisfied, and the second way is that they think that isolation is so great of a problem that they become fixed on the idea that they must escape. These completely different attitudes to isolation arise depending on the type of person, egosyntonic or egodystonic. In the case of egosyntonics, their personality adapts to isolation. That is, if isolation is natural and is not forced and the person does not feel well when he interacts with others, then he prefers to remain isolated. On the other hand, the egodystonics have a personality that makes use of socialization, so this person believes that isolation has a negative impact on him and constantly tries to socialize with others in order to acquire social skills (American Psychiatry Association, 2013).

Introverts, anxious or depressive people need socialization more than they think even if for a shorter time than the extroverts, because they feel drained of energy when they are being surrounded by people for too long. They end up evading people and this can make their condition worse. Extroverts take their energy from other people. The people that have this type of personality cannot live without socialization, either virtual or face to face. If they stay in their homes, isolated from friends, they can end up having depressive episodes.

Nowadays, teenagers are familiar with phones, computers, the Internet, etc. and communication between them with these devices is extremely easy. The more time they spend in the virtual world, the more they isolate themselves. This type of isolation has recently been discovered and has been spread by the rapid development of technology. If we think for a few seconds how many times we chose to write a message to someone instead of calling, we will see how much we try to shorten everything we do and how these new methods of communication are pushing us toward isolation.

These new communication methods also have a positive impact on the world. Without online communication on special platforms we would not have been able to continue our activities: Whether teaching, or continuing our work from home or even talking to friends during these isolation periods.

The egosyntonic isolation is very interesting. From the point of view of a normal person it is unreasonable for a sociable being, a human, to regard isolation as a positive thing. The isolation of this type is real and is due to the separation of two worlds by the egosyntonic person. So, the isolated person separates the real world from its subjective mental world, so both worlds lose meaning. The internal world of this person has more meaning and is the preferred one. That's why the person in question chooses to stand alone with no interest in the real world, the outside world. We can say they live in their own mind. They distort reality to their own liking. This phenomenon occurs in people who dream with their eyes open and it appears in people who have a psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia aswell.

If an isolated person tries to escape this state, then they are in egosyntonic. In this case, we classify them in two types. One is in isolation because of the external environment. This is a person who does not want to be isolated but is needed to and/or forced. The second type is isolated for his own reasons. This type of person is not forced into isolation and isolation is caused by external factors.

An example of isolation due to external factors is those isolated by bullies or those driven out of a community. Bullies are a big problem amongst teenagers. This phenomenon has arisen because many people deliberately isolate others. Because the victim of an aggressor is always isolated from others, it ends up having emotional trauma and even going into depression.