Living solo: why more and more people are choosing solitude as a lifestyle. Life solo

18.08.2019

Why are more and more people choosing loneliness as a lifestyle? Does solitude free you from obligations? How do single people change society itself? What does loneliness mean today and why is living alone no longer a shame? Let's get acquainted with the book “Life Solo. New social reality» New York University Ph.D. Eric Kleinenberg and understand the unique realities of the 21st century.

Just 50 years ago, choosing to live alone was associated with something marginal and unnatural. Almost from birth, everyone received the message that living alone is not only strange and condemned, but also dangerous. Exaggeratedly, this idea appeared in the dystopian film “The Lobster” (2015), according to the plot of which singles were prosecuted by the law, and everyone who wanted, but did not find a mate, was turned into an animal and released into the forest.

Indeed, just 100 years ago, the inability to get married was considered a real grief, and tens of thousands of years before that, punishment in the form of expulsion from the community was often perceived as a measure much more terrible than the death penalty.

Today, an increasing number of people deliberately go on a free voyage - they refuse marriage, live and even travel alone. For example, in 1950, only 22% of Americans lived alone, but today more than 50% of US citizens choose to live alone.

How can one explain the rapid abolition of a set of traditions and rules previously revered throughout the world? Kleinenberg argues that at least four factors have contributed to the transformation of modern society: the emancipation of women, social networks, changing urban spaces, and increased life expectancy.

Indeed, for the first time in history, modern realities are such that each individual is a full-fledged cog in the economy, which is why a huge number of offers for bachelors have appeared on the housing market. Women's emancipation allows you to make a decision about marriage and having children without threatening your future, and an increase in life expectancy leads to the fact that one of the spouses inevitably outlives the other and is not always ready to connect their life with a new person.

Thus, loneliness today takes on a completely different meaning than it did 50 or 60 years ago. Now the right to live solo is a deeply personal and completely adequate decision, which is resorted to by millions of people on the planet.

However, despite the fact that physically living in solitude has become accessible, many stereotypes still hover around singles. You need to understand that today living solo does not mean complete isolation. Thanks to the Internet and the ability to work from home, singles are immersed in active social life. In fact, research shows that most single people have more fulfilling lives than their married counterparts. First of all, this is due to the fact that new image life is a choice in favor of healthy egoism, that is, time intended for oneself.

“The masses of people decided to undertake this social experiment because, in their view, such a life corresponds to the key values of modernity - individual freedom, personal control and the desire for self-realization, that is, values that are important and dear to many people. adolescence. Living alone gives us the opportunity to do what we want, when we want it and on the terms we set.”

This position, common today, conflicts with the traditional model of behavior. At the same time, it is known that those who get married or have children just because “it’s the right thing to do,” without unnecessary reflection, often condemn those who choose a life “without obligations,” regardless of their personal level of happiness. Meanwhile, sociological observations show:

“...people who have never been married are not only no less happy than those who are married, but they also feel much happier and less lonely than those who are divorced or have lost their spouse.... All those who are divorced or separated from your spouse will confirm that there is no life more lonely than living with someone you don’t love.”

Friends and relatives of single people are often worried and want to quickly find their soul mate, get an office job, or see their loved ones more often. In fact, those singles for whom solitude is a personal choice are not outsiders and do not suffer. From a psychological point of view, someone who is not bored with himself is a complete person, not prone to destructive codependency. Kleinenberg notes:

“In fact, the increase in the number of people living alone has nothing to do with whether Americans feel lonely or not. There is a wealth of publicly available research that shows that feelings of loneliness depend on the quality, not the quantity, of social contacts. What’s important here is not the fact that a person lives alone, what’s important is whether he feels lonely.”

In addition, it is quite obvious that today we are forced to rotate in a frantic flow of information. Messages and notifications on social networks are mixed with phone calls and news on TV, turning our everyday lives into an information grinder. Perhaps the conscious appeal to solitude is also associated with the desire to take a break from external noise.

Recent research cited in Kleinenberg's work suggests that most modern singles lead active social lives. Many of them have jobs, friends and lovers, and some even get married. What does loneliness have to do with it? The new social reality allows you to simultaneously have some kind of relationship and take care of yourself on your territory. Thus, married couples who need personal space prefer to live separately, meeting, for example, on Sundays.

This approach to relationships often causes misunderstanding and even condemnation - changing patterned behavior rarely causes acceptance by the majority. Also, many accuse single people of self-centeredness, high self-esteem and indifferent attitude towards people. You need to understand that most often such attacks arise from those who lead a less intense social life, have big amount free time and susceptible to psychological dependence. Modern singles are ready to support social contacts However, they are strict in their choice of friends. Their external isolation (the desire to live alone) does not mean that they do not need people, or that they do not know how to love. In addition, those who choose to live solo understand that the number of friends and acquaintances does not guarantee inner comfort.

Also, many people believe that single people do not face problems because they are deprived of any obligations, which is also not true. Solo living as a lifestyle is a completely new phenomenon, the scale of which the world was not prepared for. This is why single people face many problems today. Some employers are not ready to hire an unmarried person, suspecting him of irresponsibility. In this case, single individuals are forced to fight against stereotypes. Travel enthusiasts note that the price of a tour or hotel room per person is significantly higher than the cost of a vacation for couples or companies. That is why today entire societies have emerged to protect the rights of single people. It is obvious that it will soon be possible to develop a business whose target audience will be single people.

Now, despite the global growth of single-person households, conscious loneliness causes misunderstanding and accusations of infantilism. However, psychologists and psychiatrists note that the ability to live alone is required quality, which many cannot learn in their entire lives. It is known that everyone needs to be alone from time to time in order to understand their place in the reality around them. Moreover, a high percentage of singles can afford to spend a large number of time for self-realization. It is no coincidence that most often this lifestyle is chosen by representatives of the so-called creative class.

Eric Kleinenberg published his research just two years ago. In it, he declares a “massive social experiment” in which the whole world is participating. Interestingly, today, 24 months later, the phenomenon of living solo has become much more commonplace, which means that soon we will be able to talk not only about an experiment, but also about a truly new social reality.

Just 50 years ago, choosing to live alone was associated with something marginal and unnatural. Almost from birth, everyone received the message that living alone is not only strange and condemned, but also dangerous. Exaggeratedly, this idea appeared in the dystopian film “ Lobster"(2015), according to the plot of which singles were persecuted by law, and everyone who wanted, but did not find a mate, was turned into an animal and released into the forest.

However, despite the fact that physically living in solitude has become accessible, many stereotypes still hover around singles. You need to understand that today living solo does not mean complete isolation. Thanks to the Internet and the ability to work from home, singles are immersed in an active social life. In fact, research shows that most single people have more fulfilling lives than their married counterparts. First of all, this is due to the fact that the new lifestyle is a choice in favor of healthy selfishness, that is, time intended for oneself.

“Mass of people decided to undertake this social experiment because, in their view, such a life corresponds to the key values of modernity - individual freedom, personal control and the desire for self-realization, that is, values that are important and dear to many from adolescence. Living alone gives us the opportunity to do what we want, when we want it and on the terms we set.”

“...people who have never been married are not only no less happy than those who are married, but they also feel much happier and less lonely than those who are divorced or have lost their spouse.... All Those who have divorced or separated from their spouse will attest that there is no lonelier life than living with someone you don't love."

“In fact, the increase in the number of people living alone has nothing to do with whether Americans feel lonely or not. There is a wealth of publicly available research that shows that feelings of loneliness depend on the quality, not the quantity, of social contacts. What’s important here is not the fact that a person lives alone, what’s important is whether he feels lonely.”

In addition, it is quite obvious that today we are forced to rotate in a frantic flow of information. Messages and notifications on social networks mix with phone calls and news on TV, turning our everyday lives into an information grinder. Perhaps the conscious appeal to solitude is also associated with the desire to take a break from external noise.

This approach to relationships often causes misunderstanding and even condemnation - changing patterned behavior rarely causes acceptance by the majority. Also, many accuse single people of self-centeredness, high self-esteem and indifferent attitude towards people. You need to understand that most often such attacks arise from those who lead a less busy social life, have more free time and are susceptible to psychological dependence. Modern singles are ready to maintain social contacts, but they are strict in choosing friends. Their external isolation (the desire to live alone) does not mean that they do not need people, or that they do not know how to love. In addition, those who choose to live solo understand that the number of friends and acquaintances does not guarantee inner comfort.

Now, despite the global growth of single-person households, conscious loneliness causes misunderstanding and accusations of infantilism. However, psychologists and psychiatrists note that the ability to live alone is a necessary quality that many cannot learn in their entire lives. It is known that everyone needs to be alone from time to time in order to understand their place in the reality around them. Moreover, a high percentage of singles can afford to spend a large amount of time on self-realization. It is no coincidence that most often this lifestyle is chosen by representatives of the so-called creative class.

Editor Leyla Mamedova

Project Manager A. Polovnikova

Corrector E. Smetannikova

Computer layout M. Potashkin

Cover illustration GettyImages/Fotobank

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet or corporate networks, for private or public use without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Introduction

At first Old Testament it is described how God created the world day after day - heaven and earth, water, light, day and night, a variety of living creatures. And God saw that all his creations were good. However, having created Adam, God remarked: “It is bad when a person is alone” - and created Eve.

Over time, the ban on living alone migrates from theology to philosophy and literature. In his treatise “Politics”, Aristotle drew the following conclusion: “...man by nature is a political being, and the one who, by virtue of his nature, and not due to random circumstances, lives outside the state is either a being underdeveloped in a moral sense, or a superman...” The Greek poet Theocritus declared: “Man will always need man,” and the staunch Stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius gave following definition: “People are social animals.”

However, this property does not at all distinguish humans from other animals. (Aristotle, alas, was only half right.) Animals prefer to live alone only under certain circumstances, for example, when there is a lack of food. Under normal conditions, most animal species survive better in groups. In a collective life goes on struggle for position and status, conflicts and even violent clashes arise from time to time. However, advantages such as protection from predators, opportunities for communal hunting, improved reproductive conditions, and others greatly outweigh the disadvantages of living in a group. Even orangutans, which are widely known to prefer a solitary lifestyle, live with their mother for the first seven to eight years after birth. According to Duke University primatologist Karel van Schaik, orangutans living in the food-rich swampy jungles of Sumatra are as “social and sociable” as their chimpanzee relatives.

Orangutans are far from the only representatives of the animal world about which people have not entirely correct ideas. It turns out that hermit crabs are also very sociable - they cannot exist alone and survive best in a population of up to a hundred individuals. One pet store's instructions recommend "keep at least two of each species in the aquarium." The reason is very simple: loneliness for the hermit crab is fraught with stress and illness. The bodies of lonely crabs literally refuse to serve their owners, which can result in the animal losing a leg or a claw.

In all historical eras, rulers were well aware of how detrimental the state of isolation was for people. In ancient times, exile was considered the worst thing after death penalty punishment. (Note that there were also those who put the link in first place.) In late XVIII V. and throughout the 19th century. The role of solitary confinement in the prison system noticeably increased. English jurist William Paley noted that solitary confinement “increases the fear of punishment” and therefore becomes a deterrent to crime. Today, approximately 25,000 prisoners in the United States are held in supermax prisons. One famous psychologist emphasized that in such prisons “prisoners live in such total and inhumane ... isolation that has never existed before.” Both critics and supporters of solitary confinement as a punishment use the same words to describe it - “death alive.”

But the most striking evidence of people’s desire to live in a team is, of course, the creation of a family. Throughout human history, in all cultures, it is the family, and not the individual, that forms the basis of social and economic life. This state of affairs is explained by a number of reasons. According to evolutionary biologists, members of early human communities enjoyed communal living competitive advantages in matters of ensuring safety, obtaining food and the possibility of reproduction. Experts in the field social sciences Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler argue that as a result of the process natural selection people have a genetic predisposition to create close social connections.

In 1949, an anthropologist from Yale University George Murdoch has compiled a survey of almost 250 "representative cultures" of the most different corners planets and various historical eras. In this review, he noted, in particular: “The nuclear family is a universal form of unification of people and represents the basic basis on which more complex family forms are built. The family is a highly functional and distinct group that is found in all societies known to us. I could not find any exceptions to this rule."

Since then, some scholars have tried to refute Murdoch's argument, citing certain forms of organization of life and everyday life (for example, kibbutz), which do not fall into the classification of the nuclear family. The argument of Murdoch's opponents has always boiled down to the presence of alternative groups that are larger than an ordinary family. This scientific debate is not over, but both sides can agree on one thing: at all times and throughout the planet, man organized his life so as to be not alone, but with his own kind.

However, today the situation has changed.

Over the past half century, humanity has embarked on a unique social experiment. For the first time in history, a significant number of the planet's inhabitants different ages, adhering to a variety of political views, began to live alone. Until recently, most people tied the knot early with the firm intention of not leaving until their death. In the event of the early death of one of the partners, the second quickly entered into a new marriage; if the partner died in old age, then the survivor was reunited with his family. Nowadays it is common to get married much later than our ancestors did. According to the results of studies conducted Research Center Pew Research Center average age entry into first marriage “has risen to the highest level and has increased by five years over the past half century.” Sometimes marriage is followed by divorce, after which a person remains single for years, or even decades. A widower or widow who survives a spouse does everything possible to avoid living with other relatives, in particular with their own children. In other words, a person throughout his life prefers to alternate living conditions: alone, together, together, alone.

New York sociologist on why living alone in modern society- normal and pleasant.

Miloslav Chemodanov February 11, 2014
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Eric Kleinenberg

"Life Solo"

M.: “Alpina non-fiction”

Funny story: over the last couple of weeks, several books have been published in Russian about how good it is to be single. The greatest stir was caused by Minsk sociologist Anna Shadrina, who in her book “Unmarried: Sex, Love and Family Outside of Marriage” investigated how the institution of marriage in post-Soviet space ruined himself (she explained her position clearly in The Village). What’s interesting is this: although Shadrina wrote a completely scientific book with statistics, there are still people who are ready to see it as an insult to traditional values or who begin to look for those to blame: are it women themselves, unscrupulous egoists, who provoke their loneliness.

New York sociologist Eric Kleinenberg does not ask questions of guilt. For him, “solo life” is a new reality big cities, an objective social revolution: “For the first time in history, a significant number of the planet’s inhabitants of a wide range of ages, holding a wide range of political views, began to live alone.” Kleinenberg deliberately uses the word “singleton” rather than “lonely.” His loners do not necessarily suffer from loneliness. They have friends, parents, sexual partners, colleagues and social networks. Actually, this is what the revolution consists of: previously, in order not to be alone, you definitely had to live with someone. Now living together is not at all necessary to feel involved in the world. This does not mean that the idea itself does not cause resistance in America, where a thousand books have been published about the popularity of loneliness, and about nine hundred of them try to convince the reader that it is human nature to live in society.

All more people want to live alone simply because they like it

“Americans,” Kleinenberg comments, “like to unite rather than divide.” He explains the increase in the number of singles by the growth of individualism. The “cult of the individual,” predicted by Durkheim, forces us today to care primarily about our own happiness. This is the only way to get out modern world healthy competition. AND economic reasons are not considered the only ones here: do not forget about social networks, increasing life expectancy and adapting to life modern man a city where at any time of the day or night you can order food to your home, go to a nearby bar or cafe to socialize with others like you, or relieve stress at the gym.

The book's English subtitle describes the result of all these changes as "surprising appeal of living alone." In other words, more and more people want to live alone simply because they like it. The question of whether single people are becoming a threat to the traditional family is not a question for Kleinenberg: it is, frankly, a very stupid question.

Living alone is cool, no doubt about it. In addition, there is always a cafe where you will be entertained, and social network where they will like you

Of course, it cannot be said that for the comfortable existence of this new social group all conditions have been created - unless you are a hipster in Williamsburg, of course. We need more apartments so that a single person can afford to buy a home and feel comfortable there. We need new ones social guarantees so that women who are not ready to get married, but hear the ticking of the biological clock, decide to have children. We finally need new nursing homes - the most heartfelt chapter in Kleinenberg's book is dedicated to them. Perhaps the needs of lonely American elderly people will not immediately become close to the Russian reader, but he should also think: if even in America there is not a single affordable nursing home that the sociologist Kleinenberg is ready to consider at least acceptable for life, what will happen to all of us who give half the salary for a not very nice one-room apartment not in the most best area Moscow?

The attractiveness of living alone has nothing to do with the desire or reluctance of individuals to tie the knot. By the way, even the fact that we begin the conversation about singles by justifying civil relationships or their absence at all speaks more than anything else about how traditionalist patterns are inherent in our society. Wherein rough tongue The numbers tell us that any developed society consists of isolated individuals, and the further into progress, the greater the isolation. So we will all be there sooner or later. And we will face problems for which, it seems, we are not at all ready yet. Living alone is cool, no doubt about it. In addition, there will always be a cafe where you will be entertained, and a social network where they will like you. But the hymn to the lonely life of the young in Kleinenberg’s book ends so inexorably with terrible pictures from nursing homes and the lonely life of old people that little by little you start thinking about marriage.

Text: Elizaveta Birger