For two weeks, 138 adults in the United States were followed by researchers, who wanted to understand how people's views on loneliness impact their own experience of being alone.

They found that people with negative views about being alone felt "significantly lonelier" after spending time alone.

In contrast, those with a positive outlook felt less lonely.

On another front, the same researchers, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, analyzed 144 articles and reports on being alone published between 2020 and 2022 in the 10 largest-circulation daily newspapers in the United States.

According to the researchers, headlines were 10 times more likely to describe being alone negatively than positively, and negative headlines "were almost twice as frequent as neutral ones."

With this and other evidence, collected using a variety of methodologies, psychologists at the University of Michigan argue in a recently published study that social beliefs about loneliness , perpetuated by the media, can end up exacerbating the negative feeling of being alone.

Furthermore, common sense about loneliness ends up confusing being alone with feeling lonely.

The study was published in February in the scientific journal Nature Communications .

"It's important to make it very clear what loneliness is, and I don't think the media and public health campaigns do this adequately," the study's lead author, Micaela Rodriguez, told BBC News Brasil.

"Loneliness is a subjective experience, a feeling. It is possible to feel lonely even when you are around other people. It is not the same as being physically alone."

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Rodriguez stresses that the purpose of the research is not to suggest that we should spend more time alone, nor that the media should encourage people to be alone.

"There is no doubt that social connection is important," says the researcher.

"We know that, in general, the more people interact with others, the better off they are."

However, the psychologist says that rather than focusing on the message that being alone is bad, the focus could be on the benefits of connecting with others and also helping people develop a more positive relationship with time spent alone, recognising the potential benefits.

"[Spending] time alone can help you manage negative emotions, restore yourself, reflect on your life, think creatively, come up with new ideas, and simply connect with yourself, your goals, and what you want," Rodriguez says.

"When people view their alone time as time for themselves, they feel much better than if they view it as isolation."

Psychologist Ethan Kross, also author of the research, highlights more benefits of these moments.

"If you see being alone as a source of rejuvenation, restoration and creativity, for example, you may be very happy to be alone and [may] not feel lonely," the researcher tells BBC News Brasil.

Read the full article on BBC News Brazil.