“Protracted loneliness causes you to shut down socially, and to be more suspicious of any social contact,” Hari writes. “You become hypervigilant. You start to be more likely to take offense where none was intended, and to be afraid of strangers. You start to be afraid of the very thing you need most.” This sounds like a pretty good summary of American politics today—and so, yes, polarization is a product of social isolation, too.
