The social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have made it easy for us to have friendship, even with those who are very far from us and we can share and express our thoughts and communicate with them whenever we want to.
However, at one fell swoop, our over-indulgence with these social media networks has resulted in a situation in which we have thousands of friends and followers on the Internet but in real life, we don’t know even our neighbors properly. Agree?
What’s even worse is that the young generation is not giving proper time to their elders due to busy schedule and as per a research, one of the reasons for the death of old people is the lack of proper companionship.
Yes, you read it right! According to a research conducted at the University of California, a large role is played by loneliness when it comes to decline of a human being more than the old age. Shocking, isn’t it?
The research was done on 1600 adults, the average age of the group was 71 and it was found that the people who were lonely have high mortality rates. Nearly 23% lonely candidates lost their lives just within six years after the research began against 14% of those who had good support system and companionship.
A senior geriatric social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital, Barbara Moscowitz, describes the importance of camaraderie in the last years of a person’s life,
“The need we’ve had our entire lives — people who know us, value us, who bring us joy — that never goes away.”
As the age of a person increases, the social circle gets reduced as friends/colleagues get retired, ill or pass away. Rosemary Blieszner, who is a professor of human development at Virginia Tech, said that elder people give more importance to friendships and relationships in comparison to the younger generations. Rosemary said,
“They’re pretty tolerant of friends’ imperfections and idiosyncrasies, more than young adults. You bring a lot more experience to your friendships when you’re older. You know what’s worth fighting about and not worth fighting about.”
So it is important for the younger generation to be close to their elders and help them in socializing which will not only keep them happy but also increase their lives and who doesn’t need presence of elders at home?
