I'm talking about a very small sample size here, but still.

The celebs in the test. I'm not sure I could say anything meaningful about Bieber other than he's a pop star from Canada. Similar for Kardashian - Instagram influencer with lots of cosmetic surgery and makeup. Is the test expecting me to know other details beyond the completely inane and superficial?

It would be even worse if they tested on athletes. I haven't watched any of the big US sports in decades. NFL, NBA, MLB - no clue. I guess I could answer a few questions about World Tour cyclists, but that's not likely to be on a test outside of Belgium or Italy.

There's a reason emotional security is 3rd on the Maslow Hierarchy, after food and physical security

This is assuming they have anyone close enough to even call them an in-group

I think there has been an over-emphasis on individuality and a strong resistance to conformity that has been instilled in a lot of people, which has led to a lot of those people cutting ties with anyone that has even minor disagreements with them

They are forever in search of their perfect friend group that doesn't exist, made up of only people who agree with them about every single thing

It's important to remember that "linked to" does not mean "causes"

You are saying "we should blame the drug abuse and not the loneliness" but "linked to" doesn't imply blame at all already

Certainly, if I took away your friends and family I would expect your health to decline.

Also yes, if there's a consensus on something, thinking different to said consensus would be unusual because it's not the usual. There are no value judgements in this article, so really interpreting this in any other way other than the literal sense makes you come off as defensive.

More to the article itself, I wonder which comes first, the unusual thoughts, or the loneliness?

e.g. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...

I was tired of BRAT though about 2 weeks after release because I listened to the teasers so much… then it blew up and even attached itself to VP Harris…

I grew up on 90’s and early 2000’s college radio, and am now a Doom/psychedelic rock kind of guy, and spend a good amount of time and money curating what I love.

I am disconnected from pop culture. It has repeatedly failed to deliver what I enjoy, and typically comes bundled with advertisements so I have no reason to pay attention to it.

I recognize 8/10 as well, but like you, can't name actual songs from most.

Same would have been true if I was tested in the mid-90s (HS and college). Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys - I know the names, but can't think of the names of songs. I'd test better on alt/grunge rock of the era - STP, Nirvana, REM, etc.

And I don't think I'm particularly lonely - I happily married, have a few office friends, and see normal friends regularly. I'm not as social as I was in my 20s, but I assume that's normal.

Just listened to Brat from Charli XCX and yeah, not missing much.

I feel that when it comes to Music, being in sync with pop music is more of a generation thing.

On the other hand, I wouldn't describe myself as lonely... I'm not super social (I've worked remotely for 13 years because I don't particularly like working in an office) but I do meet up with friends 2 times a week (used to be more but with a kid at home, there's less time).

Just disconnected with pop culture. I only know 6 of the names on that list and can only name Brain Damage by Eminem off the top of my head. I don't know what Taylor Swift sounds like though I have probably heard a few of her songs in my day to day without noticing. Just don't worry about it and do what makes you happy.

One theory from Japan, that I still remember and think is most likely, is that the democratization of entertainment since the 80s and especially from the 90s onwards with the invention of the internet has eliminated the very concept of pop culture.

Back in ye olde days a person's choices for entertainment were fairly limited, basically a small regional selection. People in the same locale ended up consuming the same entertainment and thus gravitated towards forming similar tastes and directing their fervor on that small selection of entertainment.

Entire generations identify with icons of their time like Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman, Elvis Presley, and so on. Entire generations sang "the song of their people" so to speak.

Today, though? Everyone can access any entertainment they want from anytime anywhere. The entertainment consumed by one person is very likely completely different from that consumed by a person right next to him; entertainment has been democratized. There is no longer a "song of our people" because everyone has a "song of me", there are no longer generational icons because everyone has their own icon.

The intense political push from the Left to make any form of social cohesion and loyalty undesirable also hasn't helped. The dismantling and removal of tradition, religion, and nationalism/patriotism from society means there can't be a "song of the people" from outside of entertainment either.

So no, I don't think you're disconnected with today's culture. Rather, today's culture doesn't value social cohesion and unity as much as it does freedom and power. Everyone has their own icon and song, everyone is their own generation.

I know there's a tendency to dismiss groupthink as negative and wrong and bad, and for huge amounts of people that's true, but for small social groups it's often a sign that you've all become familiar with each other, experienced the same things and are just similar in general, and in terms of selecting for safety, these are all markers of who you will likely feel safest with.

there's a hypothesis that singing and instrument usage like drums came about as a way for a community to show cohesiveness and immediately find out who strangers are. By the time you've learned their songs you're not a stranger anymore, but if you can't sing or talk like they do, you're very likely a stranger to be wary of. Makes a lot of societal evolutionary sense.

edit: Ok, I've read through the paper, and still have no idea. Apparently the responses to questions were compared as semantic vectors using cosine similarity in Google’s Universal Sentence Encoder space. Or something lol.

That seems reasonable. Lonliness is a subjective phenomenon. There are people who don't interact as much as other people but feel content about it and aren't lonely. There are people who are desperate for interaction and get a lot but who are never satisfied. I can't imagine any other way to measure this than by asking.

> Or perhaps people who are less lonely are generally more knowledgeable/well-informed about these individuals.

I'd go as far as saying, people who are less lonely are more interested in those individuals in the first place. Celebrities are social objects. There's nothing inherently interesting in life or personality of any specific celebrity - what makes them interesting is that other people know about them too, so discussing them is a way to bond with others, have fun, etc. Lonely people do less of that, so they have less of a motivation to care about celebrities in the first place.

I was also a clinical psychologist for a few years, and could say more on this, but some other time.

Jewish humor, gay humor, autistic humor… they’re all more similar than they are different. You learn, from atypical experience, to see everything one degree off and you have a story that people will listen to and eventually they might even like you. You see things three degrees off and you shut up so no one else knows. You get six degrees off and even you don’t know, but everyone else does.

For a lot people this lack of a feedback loop started as children. In the worst cases, where there's child hood abuse and neglect, any seeking out of positive feedbacks either goes unheard or punished

The feedback loop reinforces itself in the short-term because being lonely and staying in the "hell you know" is better than dealing with the social failure, which might "prove" you don't belong in society and it will never change

Breaking the negative feedback loop is the hardest thing to do especially being born into it

It's a bit why there's common advice (that I'm ambivalent on) in "if you're lonely, get a dog". Not just for the social factor, but because dogs are an almost universally loved pet and instant icebreaker for other pet owners or pet lovers. that first step to socialization is harder than ever.

if you watch an obscure show or movie or read a rare book, most people will be eager to share it with their friends, and their friends will be eager to learn about it. It's not the preferences or experiences that make you lonely, it's whether you trust your friends enough to share them.

truly, nothing is more fun than finding a cool movie and then showing your pals, who then also love it. That's the best!

I think they are trying to learn more about it to see if there is something that can be done in cases where there are negative outcomes. Not where someone is alone and happy.

- Outer circle: the weather, dead relatives (yes, dead relatives!) and "expensive vs cheap" but without actual figures.

- Middle circle: what to eat, where to travel.

- Inner intimacy circle (people who are okay sharing a bed): money with actual figures. But you may not discuss the salary.

Celebrities don't show up in any of the circles, because one needs a measure of lightheartedness and humor to deal with that topic and use it on gossip about somebody else... which is a combination not everybody can or want to manage...not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but it is what it is.