"A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships." ~ Desmond Tutu
We are currently living in a historic time in humanities time here on earth. Humanity has gone through this before: the black plague in 1347, Spanish influenza in 1918 and countless cases of smallpox and SARS around the world. Yet again our backs are against the wall due to an invisible force that grew exponentially before we could even prepare for it. However, humanity with its back to the wall is fighting back without even fighting at all. Social isolation has been a practice to prevent spreading of disease ever since humanity has existed. An evolutionary approach to stigmatization suggests that “avoidance of the disease” contributes to some instances of social exclusion (Park, 2012). Park and his study on social avoidance shows that humans have a biological and evolutionary response to maintain a distance when prior knowledge of physical or non-physical abnormalities are known about others. So if we go by that knowledge, humanity has fared on the right track to stabilizing this pandemic. Yet it brings the question to mind, if humans are a social species then how will social isolation have an effect on the sense of community we have?
Roelof Hortulanus, , Anja Machielse and Ludwien Meeuwesen took the topic of social isolation into question in 2006 with their book Social isolation in Modern Society. It was their psychological analysis of the concept of social isolation that they view that certain life events can increase or decrease an individual's social network. These events can either be positive or negative such as marriage or death, yet the main thing that can differentiate the two is how an individual perceives it. Obviously these two examples are on different sides of the spectrum which is why context is important to truly understand the environment in which an individual perceives the event. If we take this insight and focus it towards an unforeseen disease outbreak can have drastic levels of stress reactions depending on the individual. What is universal from all these reactions is the fact that humans tend to find coping strategies to deal with a stressful situation. The way an individual copes as Hortulanus and colleagues suggest reverts back to an individual’s social network. A person that is actively participating within the community will have a much larger support system compared to one who is not as active. With that it would make sense that negative life events would be easier to mitigate by having a pool of social support, but what happens when one is completely confined to one's home?
Technology has done an amazing job in the past centuries to connect the world more than it has ever been in the past. However, humanity as a species have also used physical forms of sociality along with the technological forms of sociality. But can humanity completely move to one form of sociality with completely abandoning the other? Mckeown et. al, 2008 explains that the meaning of community has drastically gotten more complex as time has gone by. They explain that each community as communities within itself, for the sake of a term we can say “sub-communities”.These sub-communities are where one begins to identify with their social network (your family, friends, coworkers, etc.). Mckeown et. al. explains that “Successful health promotion and disease prevention efforts must be designed with a thorough knowledge of the community in which they are to be used.” When our concept of community and sociality come into question, we must guide communication towards how we can pass adversity as collective instead of distancing oneself from society. With social distancing there can be a fine line which an individual stays connected within their communities or when one completely isolates. As one begins to feel more and more isolated, they indicate a significant decrease in their health (Hortulanus, Machielse and Meeuwesen, 2006). Uncertainty can cause a sense of stress for many of us, yet we have to remember that we are part of the greater human race. A sense of community can prevent us from slipping down a slippery slope of isolation and loneliness.
