The loneliness trap

Adults ages 18 to 22 are the loneliest people in the United States today, according to a study released earlier this summer.

Using an industry standard loneliness scale, researchers with the health service company Cigna surveyed more than 20,000 American adults about their subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation. On a scale of 20 to 80, with a score of 43 and above designated as officially lonely, the study found most Americans are lonely, and the youngest are the loneliest.

Adults in Generation Z (ages 18 to 22) scored 48.3 overall, with millennials (ages 23 to 37) at 45.3, Generation Xers (ages 38 to 51) at 45.1, and baby boomers (ages 52 to 71) at 42.4. Adults age 72 and older ranked the least lonely with a score of 38.6.

Loneliness is not just a psychological problem, according to the study, which cited research that found it has the same effect on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Put simply, the study’s youngest respondents were more disconnected, isolated, and in poorer overall health than the nation’s elderly—those naturally facing decreasing health and mobility, the loss of family and friends, and death.

The study’s authors said their research found no correlation between social media use and loneliness for Generation Z. The difference in loneliness between those who reported never using social media to those who called themselves very heavy users was less than 2 points.

But one factor Cigna did not address could play into the results: pornography use.

New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show teens are having less sex than ever before, but they also are consuming more porn than ever. By the time they turn 14, 2 in 3 boys in the United States have viewed porn in the last year, according to Fight the New Drug, an anti-porn advocacy organization. And while men still use pornography more than women, the gender gap is closing.

Recent research shows a close and painful relationship between pornography and loneliness, especially for young people, according to Mark Butler, a professor at Brigham Young University. Butler and his colleagues found loneliness and pornography usage increase in tandem to one another in a self-fueling cycle.

“If loneliness can lead to pornography use, and pornography use may bring about or intensify loneliness, these circular linkages may create a vicious cycle, pulling the user even further from health-promoting relationship connections,” he wrote in an article for the Institute for Family Studies.

Butler hypothesized the root of the problem is a deviation from design—God’s design, though he doesn’t name God.

“The human sexual system is carefully designed to support both conception and bonding,” Butler wrote. He added that sexual pleasure is designed—both physically and chemically—to create attachment, and when pornography triggers that biological system, the user has a false relationship experience that provides short-lived relief from loneliness. But when it’s over, the experience “may only end up excavating a deeper loneliness,” trapping users in an “addictive void,” Butler noted.

He contends pornography use in young people poses a public health risk, a statement that rings true given the increasing amount of young people who say they are lonely.

Preferential death certificates

Rhode Island now requires death certificates record a person’s gender preference instead of biological sex. Prior to the change, signed into law by Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, late last month, officials determined gender based on the deceased person’s birth certificate or anatomical evidence. Now, officials can use a variety of sources: a driver’s license, family testimony, or court documentation of a gender change.

Supporters argued the bill preserves “respect in death.” Richard J. Rosendall, past president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C., testified in support of the measure, quoting transgender activists who argued burying someone who identified as a woman in men’s clothing was “on the level of defiling a corpse.”

But surgeon Christine Toevs called the new law “a hideously bad idea.” Death certificates provide information for a host of agencies that study mortality data, Toevs told me. Those agencies then direct funding, craft prevention policies, and shape health policy. She pointed out that many diseases are genetically driven. For example, men have a higher risk of heart disease, even after surgical gender changes.

“We already have trouble trusting statistics,” Toevs said. “Do we really want to intentionally alter them?”

California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia already have passed similar bills. —Anna Johansen

A sobering statistic

About 1 in 4 adolescent girls admit to deliberately harming themselves, compared to about 1 in 10 boys, according to a new study.

The research, led by sociologist Martin Monto at the University of Portland in Oregon, focused on self-harm without the intent of committing suicide, such as cutting or burning.

Unlike previous studies, this one did not rely on data gathered by clinical or hospital incidents. Instead, researchers used representative data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a study of almost 65,000 public high school students in 11 states.

In nine out of the 11 states, girls reported self-harm at twice the rate of boys. Native American, Hispanic, and white students were at a higher risk than Asian or African-American students, and 14-year-olds were the highest-risk age group. Girls who reported self-harm were more likely also to report experiencing sexual assault, online bullying, or identifying as LGBT. Boys who harmed themselves were more likely to report alcohol and drug use.

The CDC only recently included questions about self-harm on surveys, so it is unclear whether the number represents a significant increase from previous generations. —Harvest Prude

WHO on gender

The World Health Organization has removed “gender incongruence” as a mental disorder from its updated diagnostic manual. Health officials around the world, including those in the United States, rely on the WHO International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD) in diagnosing their patients. WHO officials moved the entry on gender incongruence from the mental health disorders chapter to a newly created chapter on sexual health, arguing scientific evidence clearly shows it is not a mental disorder despite staggering rates of depression and suicide among transgender individuals and evidence that most children with gender dysphoria, when not encouraged to change sexes, come to embrace their biological sex.

The updated ICD-11 will be presented to the World Health Assembly next year and will become effective in 2022. It is unclear if the change will have any affect on the ongoing debate about U.S. military policy on transgender troops. —K.C.

Alexa or Alex?

As artificial intelligence becomes a mainstay in many homes, a group of business leaders is pushing for more gender-ambiguous virtual assistants. The top four in-home virtual assistants in the United States—Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Assistant—were all originally females. That’s too many women at America’s beck and call, according to Equal AI.

Companies argued the decision to make assistants female had nothing to do with gender roles, according to NPR. Research shows people just like the sound of a female voice. —K.C.