The lack of human contact

Depression seems to be one an increasing mental disease in our modern society. People are cut of from emotional input, as they spend more and more time in front of a screen instead of in direct human contact with each other. I myself find it at times really stupid that I would spend so much time on message boards or social network sites, instead of calling my friends and going for a drink. Anyway what I try to say is that we tend to forget how much time we spend in indirect social interaction, compared to the direct way. Recently I did an experiment (if you can call it that), in which I reduced the time I use sites like Facebook or software like MSN and ICQ to an hour a day. Of course I never sat around and only used these sites, but I will work, read or watch stuff in the meantime, but then your concentration really suffers and most of the time you spend even more time doing these different activities than you normally would. Still, the amount of newly found free time and especially productive time I gained was astonishing. So my tip to fight loneliness and frustration (especially if you don’t get any work done, because you waste time idling around the internet) would be to simply get out more. Be it going for a walk or calling your friends to have a drink or watch a movie, direct social contact will often make you feel better (even if it doesn’t immediately cure your feelings of depression).

I’m still not sure if I should like the following article or not. There are some interesting ideas in there, but maybe the “4 easy ways to treat depression” method oversimplifies the issue a bit. Anyways have a look yourselves and tell me what you think on the topic of depression.

The Effect of Old Age

In the past decades modern medicine has made unbelievable advances and if you lead a relatively healthy life (that means no smoking and no excessive drinking and binge eating) and are not a victim of a freak accident, you will probably grow very old. After having worked almost their whole life, you would expect people to be happy to retire and use all their new won free time to do all the things they missed out on for the past years. I know several people above the age of 70 and something that tends to strike me, is their belief that they are constantly ill and will die soon. Of course after a certain age the human body is prone to sickness, but even if the doctors ensure a clean bill of health they are convinced that something is wrong with them. I don’t want to insinuate that every person over 70 is a hypochondriac but sadly it often seems that way. It must be frustrating to outlive your friends and close relatives and it might even awaken a feeling of despair or depression.
When I talk about these old people I don’t mean any disrespect. For example I used to have the utmost respect for my grandfather but his constant obsession with his own mortality has it made very difficult to talk to him in the last few years. He has always been a very healthy person (except for his minor heart attack a few years back which he survived without any medical consequences) and I have always found it astonishing how he was still able to chop wood or work in his workshop at the age of over 80. But during the last few years he has been convinced that he will die soon and has given up. He doesn’t care about anything important anymore, ignores his family (two daughters and 4 grandchildren) and waits to be taken by Death. It is very painful to witness the decline of a loved one and it even makes me angry. He is now 86 years old and even managed to get his driver’s licence renewed last year. Unfortunately after Christmas he became so obsessed with the idea that something is wrong with him and so he had to go to a hospital and since then he has not been able to leave even though the doctors say he is fine. He is so convinced that he is dying that they cannot release him (he needs a lot of care now since he has given up and does not want to leave the bed) and it has also been impossible to place him at a retirement home (even though he bought himself a place in a care facility just for such a case). Not that his family wants him out of the way. It is just impossible to give him the care he need at home.
Well I am drifting of my point. My grandfather has always been a person who wanted to be on top of things. He read several newspapers every day, was politically invested and had strong opinions about the world and current events (who could blame him after having witnessed a war himself). This obsession (I really can’t think of another word here) has ruined what could have been a very healthy and productive retirement for him. He even started to write down his memories of the war but gave up because it was too painful. I always wanted to record his experiences so that the horrible events of the World War II would not be forgotten. It is sad to see that nothing is of any joy to him anymore. Worst of all is his apparent anger at the world, which he displays in anger fits he hurls at his visitors. It makes it very difficult for his children to visit him because he usually treats them like servants and strangers (even though he is not senile).
I hope I myself will be able to enjoy the rest of my life and use all the time I have been given to the fullest. I would really love to hear from some of my readers here. What are your opinions on this topic? Do you agree with me? Or do you think I am being too harsh with him? Please feel free to comment.